This text investigates the troubled control of social behaviour in the United States. This is owing, the text argues, to a lack of moral standards to guide the citizens. Aspects of moral education including crime rates and immoral acts are included in the discussion.

Since World War II the regulation of conduct in the United States has become problematic. This condition has been recognized by ordinary citizens in the soaring crime rates, illegitimate births, neglect of the public good and increase in special and individual interests, preference for fame, fortune and power, gross immoral acts by public figures, and fascination of the media and the audience with spectacles of evil. The troubled control of social behavior in the nation is suggested by the fact that our society has no commonly accepted set of standards that can guide our actions. Heslep penetrates the bazaar of competing normative principles that Americans subscribe to in search of those logical and feasible standards of behavior that will conquer our nation's moral crisis. He then constructs an idea of character education for Americans, applying it to recent policy recommendations and to cases of individuals with moral education needs.