This is becoming a common theme in critique of "self-help." See also the charge against the mindfulness movement that it neglects the allegedly important ethica

This is becoming a common theme in critique of "self-help." See also the charge against the mindfulness movement that it neglects the allegedly important ethical principles of the religious context of its origins. I think the reason these critiques don't really work is that they aim at symptomatic expressions and look past the difficult cultural problems at the root... which is kind of ironic, it seems to me. Alisdair MacIntyre's After Virtue, the 1981 "revival" of virtue ethics, is quite relevant. He starts by asking why discussions of ethics today end up as mere clashing subjective claim-making and position-taking, and he traces that back to the "failure of the Enlightenment project of justifying morality." Then he goes on to advocate an Aristotelian view of virtue as excellence in the context of life narratives within traditions and societies. So the fact that people don't seek out ethical advice to personal problems might itself be a symptom of deeper cultural changes. For an anecdotal example, I never have an obligation to report to a boss by 10AM, because I work for companies that don't have such structures. I have a hunch that most people who tend to read self-help books about habits work in such unstructured situations.