Book Review: Most Good, Least Harm

Tonight, I finished reading the book “Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life” by Zoe Weil. My friend and mentor, Joanne, recommended this book to me at the beginning of the year after reading in our annual New Year’s letter that I had “…read a lot about simple living, environmental issues, local eating, etc.” However, at that time it was not yet published, so I saved it to my amazon cart and forgot about it. Over the weekend, I needed some good reading materials, and my dear husband offered to run over to Barnes & Noble to get me a book. So I dug through my “Save for Later” amazon list and found this book.

Zoe Weil is a “humane educator” and runs the Institute for Humane Education. The premise of the book is really to educate the reader about ways to practice “MOGO,” or “Most Good.” Weil describes this in her introduction as follows:

“…when we do the most good and the least harm through our daily choices, our acts of citizenship, our communities, our work, our volunteerism, and our interactions, we create inner and outer peace.”

Although all the sections of this book are valuable and interesting, the sections that spoke to me most fervently are the following:

Products

It is key to understand the origin of products, the cost of getting the product from the manufacturer to your doorstep, and what will happen to a product when you’re done with it.

• Were animals or humans hurt during the manufacturing of the product?
• How much fossil fuel was used to transport the product to you?
• Can it be recycled or will it sit in a landfill for 1,000 years?

As product managers, we need to always think about the environmental impact of our products. This starts with the materials for the product, the manufacturing of the product, and the transportation of the product. For those of us who are technology product managers, we may strive to make our product as efficient as possible to reduce consumption of electricity.

Work

You spend a lot of your time working. The only way to have inner peace is to do meaningful work that aligns with your values. Weil suggests that the reader write down the values that are important to him/her. This will help determine if your current work is meaningful to you. She also points out that if you are skilled at making money, you should use that money for good by contributing to charitable organizations that do good work for the community and the world. It is encouraging to think that one person can make a difference.

In Sum

This book nicely ties together the principles of sustainability, animal welfare, environmentalism, simple living, and activism. It doesn’t go very deep into any one topic, but provides a full section of resources for further inquiry. However, it does provide an excellent framework for someone to evaluate what they consider to be most important for a most good world, including an action plan for implementing a MOGO lifestyle.