By Peter Singer, in New Scientist The Enlightenment philosopher David Hume pointed out long ago that no combination of statements about what "is" the case could ever allow one to deduce what "ought" to be. After all, in deductive arguments, the truth of the conclusion is already contained...

By Sam Harris from The Daily Beast. " As I argue in my new book, The Moral Landscape , questions about values—about meaning, morality, and life’s larger purpose—are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Throughout the book I make reference to a hypothetical space that I call...

By Joshua Knobe from The New York Times. "...The study of human nature, whether in Nietzsche or in a contemporary psychology journal, is obviously relevant to certain purely scientific questions, but how could this sort of work ever help us to answer the distinctive questions of philosophy? It may...

By Laurie Santos from TED Talks Science of Virtues Scholar Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. A clever series of experiments in "monkeynomics" shows that some of the silly choices we make, monkeys make too. See...

By Brian Palmer from Slate "Leaving aside the question of medical ethics, did any useful science ever come out of Nazi experiments on unwilling subjects? Very little. Concentration camp doctors conducted research on vaccines, antibiotics, fertility, transplantation, and eugenics. The majority of...

By James Risen from The New York Times "Medical professionals who were involved in the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogations of terrorism suspects engaged in forms of human research and experimentation in violation of medical ethics and domestic and international law, according to a new...

From The Economist "What do the following have in common: the bar code, congestion charging, the cervical Pap smear and the internet? All emerged from work done at America’s pre-eminent research universities. The central contention of Jonathan Cole’s book is that these mighty institutions are “creative...

from BBC News "Men who do not openly express their anger if they are unfairly treated at work double their risk of a heart attack, Swedish research suggests. The researchers looked at 2,755 male employees in Stockholm who had not had a heart attack when the study began. They were asked about how...

By Katherine Harmon | Scientific American "If love is said to come from the heart, what about hate? Along with music, religion, irony and a host of other complex concepts, researchers are on the hunt for the neurological underpinnings of hatred. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has begun...

By Jan Dönges | Scientific American "No one doubts that the words we write or speak are an expression of our inner thoughts and personalities. But beyond the meaningful content of language, a wealth of unique insights into an author’s mind are hidden in the style of a text—in such elements as how...