Here is a rare light on the most troubling—and least understood—aspect of our existence. In Why Can't We be Good?, the widely respected philosopher Jacob Needleman identifies the crisis that therapists and social philosophers fail to see: As individuals, we know what is good—yet we remain mysteriously helpless to live by the ethical, moral, and religious ideas that are bequeathed to us, and that are intended to guide us in living authentic lives.

Uncompromising yet hopeful, Needleman provides examples, and even exercises, that can begin to show us the largeness of this problem—the problem of our inability to be good—and the precious early steps toward struggling with it.