This chapter considers ethical prototypes, which give needed specificity to the very general ethical orientations defined by principles and parameters. In ethical decision and behavior, we are concerned with sequences of actions and the motivations guiding these actions. In other words, we are concerned with stories. In this chapter, I argue that the prototypes at issue in specifying our ethical orientations are, most importantly, the universal story structures that I have sought to isolate in earlier works – heroic, romantic, sacrificial, family separation, seduction, revenge, and criminal investigation. These narrative structures are inseparable from human emotion systems. Indeed, story universals are shaped by emotion–motivation systems (along with some general patterns in emotion intensification); those systems (and patterns) account for their universality. In addition, these story genres are of crucial importance for the way we think about and respond to various worldly concerns, such as politics. The third chapter extends these arguments to ethics.

Though months have passed since the Trump administration ruthlessly enacted a “zero tolerance” family separation policy at the US–Mexico border, punitive deterrence policies remain the dominant governmental response to humanitarian emergencies. These policies violate longstanding constitutional values and institutional norms as well as national and international legal obligations to non-citizens. This chapter outlines these obligations; details the inhumane, futile, and violative policies deployed by the Trump administration to block or otherwise deter the entry of humanitarian migrant children and families; and proposes several alternatives to achieve a more equitable, effective, efficient, and law-abiding immigration policy. Key recommendations include increasing regional economic and civic collaboration; reinstituting supervised family release and legal representation to families and unaccompanied children; establishing special immigration policies that prioritize credible and well-regulated refugee status reviews particularly for children and families fleeing violence and persecution; expanding refugee resettlement programs at the federal, state, and local level; and subsidizing scholarship programs for at-risk children and adolescents. Reforms that protect the health and human rights of non-citizens not only advance equity, but also benefit the economic, social, and political interests of United States.

Chapter 8 investigates the effects of group empathy on attitudes regarding a variety of policy changes that took place after Trump’s election. We examine how group empathy affects support for the Trump administration’s border wall and family separation policies, as well as its attempts to end the Obama-era DACA program. We also revisit Trump’s travel and immigration ban on several Muslim countries after he turned his controversial campaign promise into government policy via executive order. We further explore how group empathy influences opinions about some other group-related political issues such as hurricane relief for Puerto Rico, misappropriation of Native American names, symbols, and imagery in sports, as well as removal of Confederate statues and monuments. Finally, we examine the relationship between group empathy and support for contemporary social movements, namely Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and LGBTQ rights. In all these tests, we find that group empathy is a powerful determinant of public reactions to the Trump administration’s policies above and beyond partisanship, ideology, and many other predispositions including racial resentment, even for issues concerning non-racial/ethnic marginalized outgroups.

This chapter plunges into lived local realities of the Korean War. It examines the sovereignty politics of the warring parties and their local consequences – especially, dislocation from home and separation of families. It also highlights the ways in which local communities resisted the politics of civil war and their zero-sum logic.