By Carl Zimmer, New York Times Steven Pinker was a 15-year-old anarchist. He didn’t think people needed a police force to keep the peace. Governments caused the very problems they were supposed to solve. Besides, it was 1969, said Dr. Pinker, who is now a 57-year-old psychologist at Harvard. “If you...

By Linda Grant, Wall Street Journal An excerpt: Life and Fate , by Vassily Grossman (1959) An old Russian woman, seeing a captured German soldier, raises a brick to throw at him, but at the last moment she instead hands him a piece of bread. The woman has no idea why she does this and in the years 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 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 Terry Newell from Huffington Post "On March 4, 1865, with the Civil War finally approaching a victorious conclusion, Abraham Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address. Rather than satisfy the audience's thirst for celebration and revenge, Lincoln gave a sermon on the meaning of the war...

By Nancy Snow An excerpt: In five chapters, an introduction, and a short epilogue, Stan van Hooft conveys in highly readable and non-technical prose most of what is important about hope. He distinguishes hope from hopefulness, and uses the Aristotelian template of virtue as a mean between extremes to...

To have a virtue is to possess a certain kind of trait of character that is appropriate in pursuing the moral good at which the virtue aims. Human beings are assumed to be capable of attaining those traits. Yet, a number of scholars are skeptical about the very existence of such character traits. They...

By Paul K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stéphane Côtébo, Rodolfo Mendoza-Dentona, and Dacher Keltnera Abstract: Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals...

By P. Lawler and M. Guerra We are pleased to introduce this symposium on the moral, political, scientific, philosophical, and even theological dimensions of the thought of two contemporary American novelists and essayists: Walker Percy and Tom Wolfe. Astute and penetrating observers of modern America...

By Stan Van Hooft Abstract: This paper explores cosmopolitanism, not as a position within political philosophy or international relations, but as a virtuous stance taken by individuals who see their responsibilities as extending globally. Taking as its cue some recent writing by Kwame Anthony Appiah...

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 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 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...