Once we accept violence as an adaptation, it makes sense that its expression is calibrated to the environment. The same individual will behave differently if he comes of age in Detroit, Mich., versus Windsor, Ontario; in New York in the 1980s versus ...
Having kids has proven to be this amazing - for me, this amazing source of ideas of anecdotes, of examples, I can test my own kids without human subject permission, so they pilot - I pilot my ideas on them. And so it is a tremendous advantage to have...
Empathy has some unfortunate features - it is parochial, narrow-minded, and innumerate. We're often at our best when we're smart enough not to rely on it.
Our best hope for the future is not to get people to think of all humanity as family - that's impossible. It lies, instead, in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don't empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the...
On many issues, empathy can pull us in the wrong direction. The outrage that comes from adopting the perspective of a victim can drive an appetite for retribution.
The genetic you and the neural you aren't alternatives to the conscious you. They are its foundations.
Strong moral arguments exist for why we should often try to ignore stereotypes or override them. But we shouldn't assume they represent some irrational quirk of the unconscious mind. In fact, they're largely the consequence of the mind's attempt to m...
Most of us know nothing about constitutional law, so it's hardly surprising that we take sides in the Obamacare debate the way we root for the Red Sox or the Yankees. Loyalty to the team is what matters.
We can imagine our bodies being destroyed, our brains ceasing to function, our bones turning to dust, but it is harder - some would say impossible - to imagine the end of our very existence.
The real problem with natural selection is that it makes no intuitive sense. It is like quantum physics; we may intellectually grasp it, but it will never feel right to us.
I think what a lot of fiction is, is the imagining of the worst so as to prepare ourselves.
Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others.
A sympathetic parent might see the spark of consciousness in a baby's large eyes and eagerly accept the popular claim that babies are wonderful learners, but it is hard to avoid the impression that they begin as ignorant as bread loaves.
We are naturally moral beings, but our environments can enhance - or, sadly, degrade - this innate moral sense.
The enjoyment we get from something is powerfully influenced by what we think that thing really is. This is true for intellectual pleasures, such as the appreciation of paintings and stories, and it is true as well for pleasures that seem simpler and...
We benefit, intellectually and personally, from the interplay between different selves, from the balance between long-term contemplation and short-term impulse. We should be wary about tipping the scales too far. The community of selves shouldn't be ...
Families survive the Terrible Twos because toddlers aren't strong enough to kill with their hands and aren't capable of using lethal weapons. A 2-year-old with the physical capacities of an adult would be terrifying.
Morality is often seen as an innovation, like agriculture and writing. From this perspective, babies are pint-sized psychopaths, self-interested beings who need to be taught moral notions such as the wrongness of harming another person.
If evil is empathy erosion, and empathy erosion is a form of illness, then evil turns out to be nothing more than a particularly awful psychological disorder.
Some scholars argue that although the brain might contain neural subsystems, or modules, specialized for tasks like recognizing faces and understanding language, it also contains a part that constitutes a person, a self: the chief executive of all th...
