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This chapter proposes as a necessary condition of the justice of states’ immigration policies that just immigration policies may not avoidably harm social groups that are already unjustly disadvantaged. The purpose of this chapter is to systematically explicate this principle, the Priority of Disadvantage Principle. It argues, first, following Young and Cudd, that social groups are collections of individuals whose opportunities are similarly conditioned by social institutions. Second, this chapter defines social group disadvantage in terms of Sen and Nussbaum’s concept capabilities, defending the view that social groups are disadvantaged if their members’ capabilities are less expansive than those of the corollary privileged group. It maintains, third, that all nonvoluntary social group disadvantage is, by its nature, unjust, and that voluntary social group disadvantage is unjust when individuals have a moral right of voluntary participation in the group. Finally, this chapter argues that an immigration policy harms a social group when there is an alternative to that policy under which the average capabilities of the group’s members would be more expansive. This harm is avoidable if the less-harmful alternative would not harm a group that is more disadvantaged.

Lee and Harris argue that people's overall positions on free will depend less on arguments and more on social rewards, so members of a coherent social group will end up holding similar positions on free will and moral responsibility that conflict with positions held just as strongly by members of other social groups. They apply this point to academic disputes among scholars trained in different disciplines, especially philosophy, law, neuroscience, and psychology. Social psychologists Chapman and Cunningham largely agree and provide further support from accounts of complex decisionmaking, including moral decisionmaking. In contrast, Vargas, a philosopher, doubts that academic debates can be understood completely in terms of social “groupishness.” Lee and Harris reply by suggesting that many of the points made counter to their argument actually support their position.

The six chapter presents a thought experiment that examines why flexible social cognition may have been evolutionarily preserved. It introduces the human capacity for deception as a possible situational factor that promoted flexible social cognition related to human migratory patterns during the ancestral past. It examines the interplay between the self and social groups, before revisiting the thought experiment set in modern society instead of human’s ancestral past. It then explores deception, intention, and complex mental life as situational factors that would affect the outcome of the thought experiment in this modern context.

Substantive collectivism is the idea that we live, not as 'individuals', but as a member of social groups, and that many of our actions are done together with others in organisations and social institutions, such as schools and businesses. Social groups are distinguished by a common identity, a network of relationships between people and a capacity for collective action. The relationships are clearest in discussions of formal organisations, but the same principles extend to informal groups, such as families, neighbourhoods and communities.

The first chapter states that flexible social cognition—having the ability to engage and not engage in mental state inferences with others—perhaps explains why people are capable of pro and anti-social behaviour. It introduces a classical equation for social behaviour, before suggesting an edit that equation that accounts for social cognition. It then suggests a metaphor to explain how social cognition might be engaged based on the social context. Next, it defines the key terms for the argument surrounding flexible social cognition: flexible and mental state inference as the most fundamental form of social cognition. It reconciles differences in the use of various psychological jargon for various types of social cognition, then defines social groups, explaining their importance to the general theory.

Methodological collectivism looks for explanations and patterns of behaviour not in the actions of individuals, but in the actions of groups - including classes, ethnic groups and societies taken as a whole. It extends beyond groups, however, to categories or blocs of people, treating them as if they can be understood in collective terms. This is the characteristic approach of sociology, but it also has an important pragmatic purpose in the development of public policy.

Moral collectivism is the idea that social groups can be moral agents; that they have rights and responsibilities, that groups as well as individuals can take moral action, that the morality of their actions can sensibly be assessed in those terms, and that moral responsibility cannot simply be reduced to the actions of individuals within them. This position is not opposed to individualism; it is complementary.

This chapter describes the how World of Warcraft provides some of the benefits of religious affiliation: a public forum for group formation and ethical reflection that might otherwise be the purview of religious institutions. While a number of scholars have recently commented on the importance of social groups in video gaming, this chapter goes beyond such claims to discuss how virtual worlds can operate as religious, or quasi-religious, societies. By providing social grouping mechanisms and encouraging ethical reflection, World of Warcraft takes on two of the dimensions of the sacred. Thanks to the associational possibilities inherent in World of Warcraft play, the game enables the making of meaning in individuals’ lives; by forming communities and immersing themselves in questions of morality and ethics at both explicit and implicit levels, gamers draw on the game as a quasi-religious resource, as virtually sacred.

Chapters 7 discuss the social dynamics of the court society. It is shown how relations at court were structured by the Greek moral complex of philia (ritualised friendship) and xenia (guest-friendship). Ritual, protocol, and the practice of ritualized gift-exchange structured social relations, as well as the developing system of court titles that hierarchized later Hellenistic court societies. Throughout their existence, the Hellenistic courts remained in essence face-to-face societies. This part also contains a section on royal patronage of the arts and sciences, which is understood as part and parcel of the social fabric of the court, court poets like Theokritos and Kallimachos being philoi competing with one another for favour and prestige.

This chapter focuses on the various types of teahouse patron and those who made a living in and associated with the teahouse, especially migrant workers. With the post-Mao reforms and weakening of state control, teahouses could exist in a relatively more open social environment, serving all levels and all kinds of customers across the social spectrum regardless of outward status, class, gender, and age; in particular they became the domain of the retired and elderly. Furthermore, as local markets strengthened and management practices improved, people once again began to earn a living in teahouses.