Can the individual and society be both moral and imaginative? In Western society the moral person tends to be regarded as either simple and naive or narrow and bigoted. In contrast, the imaginative person is looked on as someone not bound by the customs of the group and therefore likely to be fanciful and out of touch with reality.

Yi-Fu Tuan, J. K. Wright and Vilas Professor emeritus of geography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is the recipient of numerous honors and the author of fifteen books including his autobiography Who Am I? also published by the University of Wisconsin Press. The UW Press publishes several other books by Tuan, including Morality and Imagination, and The Good Life.