The sanctity of human life now hinges on the zip codes in which we live.

At stake are services offered through the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which has fielded more than 13 million calls, texts and chats from across the U.S. and its territories since its inception.

Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in ...