After adopting two children in need, a couple continue adding to their family until they are the proud parents of 20. Another family founds a leper colony in India, putting themselves at risk. A woman believes that if she doesn't contribute most of her income to medical research, she is responsible for the deaths that result. What does it mean to devote yourself to helping others? Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their intimate stories, while also seeking answers to the question: Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her perceptive accounts, MacFarquhar also threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture.