By Jonathan Haidt, Reason Magazine From a rational perspective, joining a protest rally is like voting—a complete waste of time. The odds that your voice or your protest sign will make a difference are no better than the odds that your vote will change an election. And yet, people do join protests and...

Moral Disgust Carries Foul Flavour, Researchers Say By Misty Harris in The Montreal Gazette Moral revulsion literally leaves a bad taste in people's mouths, a new study suggests. Researchers have found that some people of Christian faith were more likely to describe a lemon-water drink as disgusting...

By Cordelia Fine, the Wall Street Journal 'If there were an Olympics of desiring," the philosopher William B. Irvine once observed, "we would all make the team." Desire animates us: What, quite literally, would we do without it? Yet all too often—for about four hours a day, according...

From TPM (The Philosopher's Magazine) In this activity you will be presented with 19 different scenarios. In each case, you will be asked to make a judgment about what is the morally right thing to do. When you have answered all the questions, you will be presented with an analysis of your responses...

Video from The Science Network Patricia Churchland is one of the most interesting public intellectuals of our time. Since the publication in 1986 of her seminal book “Neurophilosophy”, which began to explain the neural underpinnings of an enormous tradition of philosophy, Churchland has been a major...

By MacGregor Campbell, New Scientist Does free will actually exist? Or are we all just biological robots? In this video, see why modern neuroscience claims free will is an illusion and why psychology experiments suggest we may be better off believing the lie. Controlling our own destiny is so ingrained...

By David Brooks, The New York Times The story of evolution, we have been told, is the story of the survival of the fittest. The strong eat the weak. The creatures that adapt to the environment pass on their selfish genes. Those that do not become extinct. In this telling, we humans are like all other...

By Wilhelm Hofmann and Malte Friese, Scientific American Mind Most of us start out with the best of intentions. Then we walk right past the fruit bowl in search of the devil's food cake. Or drink one glass of wine too many. Or, after yet another glass, kiss that co-worker at the holiday party. Unfortunately...

By Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, The New York Times It’s easy to look at big names like Warren E. Buffett, and big companies like Ernst and Young, and be judgmental. Of course they overlooked ethical lapses. Why wouldn’t they? That’s business. Regulators, prosecutors and journalists tend to...

3/11/11 By David Brooks, The New York Times We’re an overconfident species. Ninety-four percent of college professors believe they have above-average teaching skills. A survey of high school students found that 70 percent of them have above-average leadership skills and only 2 percent are below average...

By Liane Young and Rebecca Saxe Abstract: Contemporary moral psychology has focused on the notion of a universal moral sense, robust to individual and cultural differences. Yet recent evidence has revealed individual differences in the psychological processes for moral judgment: controlled cognition...

Disruption of the right temporoparietal junction with transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces the role of beliefs in moral judgments By Liane Young, Joan Albert Camprodon, Marc Hauser, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, and Rebecca Saxe Abstract: When we judge an action as morally right or wrong, we rely on our...

By Gabriel Abend Drawing on Williams’ distinction between thin and thick ethical concepts, I argue that current moral neuroscience and psychology unwarrantedly restrict their researches to thin morality only. Experiments typically investigate subjects’ judgments about rightness, appropriateness, or permissibility...

By Gianluca Gini, Tiziana Pozzoli, and Marc Hauser Bullying behavior is an immoral action because it humiliates and oppresses innocent victims. Presently unclear is whether bullies bully because of deficiencies in moral competence (knowledge of right and wrong), moral compassion (emotional awareness...

By Markus H. Schafer Abstract: The position that people take on moral issues, such as infidelity, can be influenced by abstract principles (e.g., religious ideals) but also by their own relational experience. Conservative religious orientation provides clear moral prescripts about sexual behavior, but...

By Serena Does, Belle Derks, & Naomi Ellemers Abstract: An important step toward reducing group-based disparities in society is creating support for equality among advantaged group members (e.g., Whites and men). The current research examined how presenting social equality between ethnic groups in...

By Audun Dahl, Joseph J. Campos, and David C. Witherington Emotional action and communication are integral to the development of morality, here conceptualized as our concerns for the well-being of other people and the ability to act on those concerns. Focusing on the second year of life, this article...

By Shanda Traiser and Myron A. Eighmy Abstract: In this study, researchers examined the assumption that senior-level undergraduate students from private colleges universities possess higher levels of moral and ethical development than students from public institutions. In addition, the researchers sought...

By Jaap Ham and Kees van den Bos Abstract: In this article, we argue that when making moral decisions, unconscious thought can lead to more utilitarian moral decisions (approving of harmful actions that maximize good consequences), compared to conscious thought and immediate decision making. Therefore...

By Eugene Caruso & Francesca Gino Abstract: Four experiments demonstrate that closing one's eyes affects ethical judgment and behavior because it induces people to mentally simulate events more extensively. People who considered situations with their eyes closed rather than open judged immoral...