The righteous mind — Jonathan Haidt — Recommend with salt
The book in a nutshell is captured by the subheading "why good people are divided by politics and religion". The book can be roughly divided into thirds. The first half of the book is about the origins of morality. Where did it come from? Haidt touches on some philosophical works and debates and ultimately concludes that morality provides evolutionary advantages, and it supersedes reason. He uses an elephant and a rider analogy, morality, roughly equated to emotion, is the elephant. He also uses a president and press secretary metaphor, which I found helpful, reason's primary function is to rationalize the conclusions of the subconscious. I'm not sure this story fully explains morality. I think it could explain some of it, and it provides some satisfying guidance but tas far as I can tell it does not obviate the need for extra-human deliberate construction of morality. Second, he outlines what morality is and isn't. He rejects utilitarianism and deontology as to