This original and illuminating study uses the tools of social psychology and analytic philosophy to examine familiar emotions and behavior patterns and the pressures they exert on personal relationships and social conditions. Topics range from flirtation and gossip to the Holocaust. "Provocative.... Social psychologists would benefit from reading [this] book, not just for its stimulating ideas but also for a method -- that of analytical philosophy -- that is worth appreciating." --Contemporary Psychology.

An updated and extended second edition supporting the findings of its well-known predecessor which claimed that courts employ common-sense notions of causation in determining legal responsibility.