from my Book Critique Column
By Helen Borel
(The following critique of Born to be Good was commissioned in 2009 by the
FOUNDATION CENTER, the “go-to” place for all information about charitable
organizations. A version of it was published in the PHILANTHROPY NEWS
DIGEST on August 19, 2009.)
Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life by Dacher Keltner
was published by W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, 2009.
According to those knowledgeable about such matters, human tendencies leaning toward the
“Greater Good” may well be innate rather than simply learned, may well be as prominent
and endogenous as, what researchers and intellectuals other than Dr. Dacher Keltner – a
psychology professor and researcher at the University of California’s Berkeley campus –
have believed from as far back as social scientists have been investigating human emotions
and human interconnections.
The self-concern, even selfishness (not the healthy narcissism of a self-caring, self-confident
individual) that have, heretofore, been highlighted and elevated by thinkers and investigators
of human emotions and thought processes, now appear to have a viable, equally powerful
competitor, according to Dr. Keltner’s research and conclusions noted in Born to Be Good:
The Science of a Meaningful Life. It’s called EMPATHY! That ultra-human capacity
to feel “with” others. And “for” others. And the related positive feelings and facial ex-
pressions, tones of voice, and manners of touch that generate generosity. Not only of spirit,
but of sharing one’s joy with others and, it follows, sharing one’s possessions with others.
Largesse, apparently, is natural. Not merely for the aggrandizement of Self.Not simply for
the inhabitants of one’s family group. Thus, demonstrated in this compact yet comprehensive
polished diamond of a positive adventure into human kindness, is the distilled essence of this
book, that the Urge to Share, to give, is inborn. And, now that Dr. Keltner has exposed
this scientific finding, this truth, what fund-givers and grant-hopefuls do with this information
can be groundbreaking.
Because, not only is there generosity in giving, there is generosity in receiving – then
turning around what one has received and becoming a giver too, not necessarily in funds but
in fundamental services to others.
This is exciting knowledge for the nonprofit community. For grantors and grant-seekers alike,
Born to Be Good points out the core, the very heart, of what makes charitable foundations
and their founders tick. And what the book embodies for nonprofit givers, donors, grantors
is that the physiologic and neurologic morality every individual is born with, embedded
in each of our living cells, that motivates nonprofit grant-seekers of funds for community
works and individual grant-seekers of funds for projects that, ‘though a small piece of
artistic work, or an incipient medical investigation or experiment, or a new journalistic path,
can now be thought of and recognized also as an ethical empathic expression of something
motivated by and created for the “Greater Good”.
Written for the intelligent reader in an appealing, generally conversational tone, Born to Be
Good is richly visual in images, both photographed and illustrated, that amply complement its
pictorial language. Dr. Keltner’s profound and wide-ranging scientific expertise and his inclusion
of diverse researchers’ contributions to his study of INNATE HUMAN GOODNESS, packs
a powerful punch for the dignity of man. Because he involves colleagues and other varied
resources, calling upon them to verify and enrich his treatise, the reader can be assured that this
particular author is not a lone voice crying out in the wilderness of past pessimism about the
once-perceived, and overly-generalized, parsimoniousness of human nature.
This book is eminently recommended for its incisive and insightful recognition of what Born to
Be Good’s Chapter 4 elaborates on: “Survival of the Kindest.” In it, Dr. Keltner points
out that Charles Darwin, in his book Descent of Man, “...Darwin argued that the social
instincts – instincts toward sympathy, play, belonging in groups, caring for offspring, recipro-
cating acts of generosity, and worrying about the regard of others – are part of human nature.”
Almost every inch of this book is worthwhile for the implicit minute intricacies explored by
Dr. Keltner, as well as for its vast overview of everyday facets of human nature. Significantly
also, for its inclusion of the mysterious complexities of neuroscience – that budding
neonate, that exciting “new baby” of current scientific eminence which is demonstra-
ting cerebral plasticity in both the physiology of neurotransmitters (the brain’s
chemical messengers) and cerebral anatomy itself. Therein may lie some of the secrets
of what makes us feel so good to give, what makes us care so much about the feel-
ings of others and about what happens to others – the very essence of what gives
purpose to our years and, therefore, meaning to our lives.
All interwoven to evolve a tapestry of the naturalness of giving and receiving, the natural
resources of leading a “meaningful life,” of being truly human. The happy fact that we frail
homo erecti can now give ourselves permission to love ourselves better, now that we have
Dr. Keltner’s assurances that we're congenitally nicer, innately compassionate – that we
are not the blindly self-absorbed gimme-gimme acolytes of the gods of affluence, of gems
and opulence, of naked insubstantialness mired in materialism. We are, as Dr. Keltner
broadcasts in this impressive work, “Born to be Good!”
(c) Copyright 2009, 2015 Helen Borel. All rights reserved.
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