This thought-provoking book explores in some depth the relationship between creativity and ethics. This is achieved by bringing together the work of an impressive number of distinguished authors from these two fields of study. The book aims to explore the effect of creativity on people and on their fundamental values, what constitutes good and evil, right and wrong, and how creativity might disrupt these beliefs – not necessarily with negative consequences.
Following an introduction on the ‘Crossroads of Creativity and Ethics’ by Seana Moran, the rest of the book is divided into four sections. The first explores the ‘Moral Mental Mechanisms Involved in Creativity’ and their development, the second examines the reasons for creativity leading to positive and/or negative impacts. This is followed by a treatment on the role played by ethics in supporting or thwarting creativity. The final section comprises a useful concluding commentary and overview of the book.
Readers from many different disciplines will find both interesting and relevant material in this book. It is not a quick read and I suspect that most people will, as I did, explore first the chapters most relevant to their own area of work, but will then be tempted by other intriguing topics. This book certainly serves as a useful resource and the editors are to be applauded for addressing the collision between creativity and ethics from a wide range of different perspectives each focusing on one or more different areas of work.
