Cruelty and Conversations about Us: Close-Up Philosophy for Humans

By Maggie Schein

This book takes the disturbing yet necessary subject of cruelty as an opportunity to interrogate humanity without pretense. It experiments with how we understand this mercurial aspect of our lives, by which we are simultaneously defiled, denied, and yet defined as human.

Structured in three main interlocking conversations, the book engages the reader in dialogues that explore intrapersonal and psychological aspects of human development and flourishing, focusing on many that are often thought not to be morally relevant but are, in fact, critical to our experience and comprehension of our conflicted moral selves, e.g., timing, attitude, perceptual capacities, neurodivergence, intuition, ensemble improvisation, story-telling, presentness, self-awareness, authenticity, and psychological dependence on certainty.

Building on the author's previously published work, this book re-orients the discussion towards more practical questions of a humanistic nature. It is an exercise in unconventional experimental philosophy, challenging orthodox paradigms and interweaving diverse sources such as philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, ethology, literature, animation, magic, music, and comedy. It demands introspection and dialogue, and maps transformative relationships between practice, experience, and theory.

Cruelty and Conversations about Us is essential reading for all scholars, researchers and advanced students of moral philosophy and philosophy of the self. It is also ideal for everyone who has to contend with cruelty and is curious about what the intersection of humanity and inhumanity reveals about us.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 303230900X
• ISBN13: 9783032309006
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan