Two shocking examples of projecting the moral bad are presented in this chapter: Hitler’s and Putin’s worldviews. The deeper commonalities in the social identities they propagated are analyzed: dehumanization, purification, internal unity/external division, and enemy image construction. This leads to some practical implications: recognizing the existence of moral multiplicity instead of moral dualism, avoiding the identification of people on the basis of one category only, replacing social categories by personalized I-positions, broadening one’s moral circle beyond one’s favorite ingroup, intergroup contact, promoting a superordinate identity, developing an overarching meta-position, and creating access to the moral middle ground.

The worldviews of Jean Genet, Marquis de Sade, and Anton LaVey are presented in this chapter. All of them accuse society of being morally hypocritical. Empirical research vis-à-vis hypocrisy in the psychology of morality is discussed. A moral-pluralistic approach is proposed in which different moral positions are prominent and can come into conflict with each other. In this context, Max Weber’s “ethic of responsibility” is discussed as relevant to political leadership. Then, the monopositionality of utopian visions, such as fascism, communism, religions, and neoliberalism, are criticized as being focused on one ideal end-position that does not allow counter-positions or alternative points of view As practical implications of this chapter, I offer three guidelines for dealing with hypocrisy: the role of self-awareness, perspective-taking, and the stimulation of moral multiplicity.

In this Introduction, a summary of the whole book is provided. The main concepts are defined and the main historical figures, such as Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin, Marquis de Sade, Jane Addams, Andrew Carnegie, and Oscar Schindler, are mentioned.

Some phenomena demonstrating that moral good and bad can form productive coalitions on a moral middle ground are presented in this chapter: healthy selfishness, Machiavellianism, the case of Oskar Schindler, black humor, grey hat hackers, transgressive art, the combination of the pure and impure in the tradition of Émile Durkheim, and the repositioning of the “wrong” other-in-the-self. Three practical implications are outlined: a guideline to evaluating transgressive art beyond one’s first emotional response and the existence of grey areas in the abortion discussion and in the #MeToo debate.

A multilevel conception of identity is proposed in this chapter, with individual, social, human, and ecological levels. Emphasis is placed on the nature of the relationships among the different identity positions, with a focus on dialogical flexibility and the distinction between consonant and dissonant dialogues. The risk of over-positioning is analyzed, indicating the one-sided exaggeration of one of the identities, and attention is devoted to the “level confusion” resulting from a lack of distinction between the different levels. An elaborate discussion of the concept of conscience is presented. From a neurological perspective, evidence shows that the natural inclination of bonding and caring puts limitations on our circle of moral regard. Finally, the worldviews of two historical icons, Jane Addams and Andrew Carnegie, are compared in order to demonstrate the value of promoter positions.

This chapter introduces young Black changemaking. Black youth face racism at interpersonal, cultural, and institutional levels. Young Black changemakers take civic actions to resist racism. Our work brings a fresh, contemporary look at young Black changemaking that is drawn from youth’s own voices and relevant to the current times. The research study is set in Los Angeles, a city with a long history of anti-Black racism and resistance, and coincided with summer 2020, a time of racialized police violence and uprising. Sociopolitical development theory is an important foundation for understanding young Black changemaking. We end the chapter with the 10 main ideas found in the book.

In this chapter, we presented Black youth’s reflections on summer 2020 and the powerful protest movement for Black lives that reverberated about the globe. Young Black changemakers saw summer 2020 as a watershed moment in which real changes toward racial justice were happening. Summer 2020 connected Black youth’s personal experiences of racism to a historic movement for racial justice, continuing a legacy of fighting for racial justice. Alongside profound joy, inspiration, and hope, Black youth experienced sadness, frustration, numbness, anger, and fear. We captured these youth’s feelings while they were living through this momentous time, and they were still in the midst of processing the moment, their feelings, and their role in the movement. Summer 2020 activated agency, critical knowledge, and action for some, and for others, the movement advanced and solidified their purposeful commitments to racial justice for now and into the future.