A woman becomes pregnant through in vitro fertilization by her son-in-law so her infertile daughter will have a child to raise. Is this arrangement the epitome of mother love, a perversion of family structure, or a rational solution to a medical dilemma? At the end of the twentieth century, this kind of ethical uncertainty is found everywhere. Morality USA charts our confusion, untangling conflicting traditions and exploring our culture’s moral ambiguity.

Ellen G. Friedman and Corinne Squire look at a diverse range of subjects-the law and issues of “justice,” O. J. Simpson, family relationships, political correctness, “lite” culture, New Age spirituality, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Tawana Brawley, TV talk shows, the Million Man March, and Promise Keepers. Morality USA traces our ethical confusion to rapid social change and events that have acted as moral breaks with the past. The Holocaust, the Kennedy and King assassinations, the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 60s, feminist and gay rights campaigns, Watergate, and the Hill-Thomas hearings have progressively eroded confidence in moral universals. Stripped of grand moral narratives, people are left with mere cost-benefit analyses of their ethical options or with only a personal sense of right and wrong, a privatized moral order.

Morality USA asserts that moral diversity cannot, and should not, be suppressed. It calls for recognition of the multiplicity of moral structures that exist in the United States and argues that we need to think about morality as local, contingent, and revisable, a product of argument and compromise, not as a self-evident truth or the self-interest of the powerful.

Controversial, comprehensive, engaging, and timely, Morality USA defines the moral zeitgeist in ways that will spark debate and contemplation across the political and social spectrum.

$26.00 paper ISBN 978-0-8166-2749-3
312 pages, 23 b&w plates, 5 7/8 x 9, 1998