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And there is a single capacity, as I have argued, at the heart of almost every quality we think of as moral. That is appreciation, the ability to know and value other people, including those different from ourselves in background and perspective. Appreciation not only breaks destructive impulses, this quality is a foundation of the social and emotional skills that comprise the art of treating people well every day, the shadings of decency and respect—the instinct to know how and when to praise and criticize, when to assert oneself and when to listen, how to help without patronizing. Deep knowing and valuing also motivates, even at times compels, moral action. In Huck’s refusal to hand over the slave Jim in Huckleberry Finn, in flouting the entrenched standards of his time and surrendering to what he sees as a moral weakness in himself, we witness the moral strength of appreciation.
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Richard Weissbourd (The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development)