Authors: Paul Bloom
30
more empathetic and less susceptible to stress:
S. M. Rodrigues, L. R. Saslow, N. Garcia, O. P. John, and D. Keltner, “Oxytocin Receptor Genetic Variation Relates to Empathy and Stress Reactivity in Humans,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
106 (2009): 21437–41.
31
the response that oxytocin generates is itself morally complex:
C. K. W. De Dreu, L. L. Greer, G. A. Van Kleef, S. Shalvi, and M. J. J. Handgraaf, “Oxytocin Promotes Human Ethnocentrism,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
108 (2011): 1262–66.
32
a trinity of moral foundations:
R. A. Shweder, N. C. Much, M. Mahapatra, and L. Park, “The ‘Big Three’ of Morality (Autonomy, Community, Divinity), and the ‘Big Three’ Explanations of Suffering,” in
Morality and Health
, ed. Allan M. Brandt and Paul Rozin (New York: Routledge, 1997), 119–69.
33
a sextuplet of distinct moral foundations:
This was originally developed in collaboration with Craig Joseph, in J. Haidt and C. Joseph, “Intuitive Ethics: How Innately Prepared Intuitions Generate Culturally Variable Virtues,”
Daedalus
133 (Fall 2004): 55–66. For a recent summary, see Jonathan Haidt,
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
(New York: Pantheon, 2012).
34
betrayal is a sin—and a very serious one:
Haidt,
Righteous Mind.
35
In the Gospels, Christ is explicit that he is there to replace the family:
Matt. 10:34–37 (King James Version).
36
One sees the same preference in the Hebrew Bible:
Deut. 13:6, 9, 10 (King James Version).
37
no dedicated brain system for reasoning about zero:
K. Wynn,
“Infants Possess a System of Numerical Knowledge,”
Current Directions in Psychological Science
4 (1995): 172–77.
38
we really are more likely to help others when we see their faces and hear their names:
P. Slovic, “ ‘If I Look at the Mass I Will Never Act’: Psychic Numbing and Genocide,”
Judgment and Decision Making
2 (2007): 79–95. For a review, see Dan Ariely,
The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home
(New York: Harper, 2010).
39
Rachel Aviv reports on the lives of homeless gay teenagers:
Rachel Aviv, “Netherland,”
New Yorker
, December 10, 2012, 64.
40
William Godwin … once asked his readers:
Peter Singer,
The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981).
41
As Adam Smith observed:
Adam Smith,
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
(1759; repr., Lawrence, KS:
Digireads.com
), 60.
42
we might treat the dilemma as little more than a math problem:
R. A. Shweder, “A Great Moral Legend from Orissa,”
Orissa Society of Americas Souvenir
, 40th Annual Convention of the Orissa Society of the Americas, July 2009.
43
a trolley scenario with teacups:
S. Nichols and R. Mallon, “Moral Rules and Moral Dilemmas,”
Cognition
100 (2006): 530–42.
44
One study asked one group of subjects to donate money.:
T. Kogut and I. Ritov, “The ‘Identified Victim’ Effect: An Identified Group, or Just a Single Individual?,”
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
18 (2005): 157–67; Slovic, “If I Look.”
45
Individuals with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex … treat the bridge case just like the switch case:
M. Koenigs, L. Young, R. Adolphs, D. Tranel, F. Cushman, M. Hauser, and A. Damasio, “Damage to the Prefrontal Cortex Increases Utilitarian Moral Judgments,”
Nature
446 (2007): 908–11.
46
tweaking the consequentialists:
D. Bartels and D. A. Pizarro, “The Mismeasure of Morals: Antisocial Personality Traits Predict Utilitarian Responses to Moral Dilemmas,”
Cognition
121 (2011): 154–61.
47
I agree with Joshua Greene:
J. D. Greene, R. B. Sommerville, L. E. Nystrom, J. M. Darley, and J. D. Cohen, “An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment,”
Science
293 (2001): 2105–8.
48
we are often nice to strangers, particularly those whom we can visualize as distinct individuals:
Kogut and Ritov, “ ‘Identified Victim’ Effect.”
7. HOW TO BE GOOD
1
charitable giving is the perfect way to advertise one’s wealth and status:
Thorstein Veblen,
The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions
(New York: Random House, 1899).
2
a good way to attract sexual and romantic partners:
G. F. Miller, “Sexual Selection for Moral Virtues,”
Quarterly Review of Biology
82 (2007): 97–125.
3
he scattered stamped, addressed letters all over New Haven:
S. Milgram, L. Mann, and S. Harter, “The Lost-Letter Technique: A Tool for Social Research,”
Public Opinion Quarterly
29 (1965): 437–38.
4
Our goodness is evident in other ways as well:
For an extended review, see Steven Pinker,
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
(New York: Viking, 2011).
5
Thomas Jefferson’s proposal:
Robert M. Pallitto,
Torture and State Violence in the United States: A Short Documentary History
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).
6
Some see our goodness as evidence for divine intervention:
Francis Collins,
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
(New York: Free Press, 2006); Dinesh D’Souza,
What’s So Great About Christianity
(New York: Regnery, 2007), 237. The Wallace quote comes from his review of Charles Lyell’s
Principles of Geology
and is cited in Robert J. Richards,
Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
7
this kindness turned into reflex:
Thanks to David Rand for discussion on this point. For discussion of how moral judgment can turn into moral reflex, see also D. A. Pizarro and P. Bloom, “The Intelligence of Moral Intuitions: Comment on Haidt,”
Psychological Review
110 (2001): 197–198.
8
Herodotus’s story:
Herodotus,
The Histories
, rev. ed., trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (New York: Penguin, 2003), 3:38.
9
how children … behave after observing the charitable acts of strangers:
For a review, see Natalie Henrich and Joseph Henrich,
Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
10
a recent set of experiments by the psychologist Peter Blake:
P. R. Blake, T. C. Callaghan, J. Corbit, and F. Warneken, “Altruism, Fairness and Social Learning: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Imitative Altruism,” paper presented at the Central European University Conference on Cognitive Development, Budapest, Hungary, January 2012.
11
“the moral circle”:
Peter Singer,
The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981); W. E. H. Lecky,
History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne
, vol. 1 (New York: George Braziller, 1955), 103.
12
our sympathies “became more tender and widely diffused …”:
Charles Darwin,
The Descent of Man
(1871; repr., London: Penguin, 2004), 149.
13
the power of personal contact:
Gordon W. Allport,
The Nature of Prejudice
(Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1954). For a review, see T. E. Pettigrew, “Intergroup Contact Theory,”
Annual Review of Psychology
49 (1998): 65–85.
14
exposure to stories:
M. Nussbaum, “Exactly and Responsibly: A Defense of Ethical Criticism,”
Philosophy and Literature
22 (1998): 354.
15
the plight of prisoners in solitary confinement:
A. Gawande, “Hellhole,”
New Yorker
, March 30, 2009, 36–45.
16
“Exposure to worlds that can be seen only through the eyes of a foreigner …”:
Pinker,
Better Angels
, 175.
17
“treating fictions as moral pep-pills …”:
H. Vendler, “The Booby Trap,”
New Republic
, October 7, 1996, 34, 37.
18
many of the great stories express terrible values:
R. Posner, “Against Ethical Criticism,”
Philosophy and Literature
21 (1997): 5.
19
Joseph Goebbels was said to love Greek tragedy:
M. Beard, “Do the Classics Have a Future?,”
New York Review of Books
, January 12, 2012.
20
people who read more fiction have somewhat higher social skills:
R. A. Mar, K. Oatley, J. Hirsh, J. de la Paz, and J. B. Peterson, “Bookworms Versus Nerds: Exposure to Fiction versus Non-fiction, Divergent Associations with Social Ability, and the
Simulation of Fictional Social Worlds,”
Journal of Research in Personality
40 (2006): 694–712.
21
adults who suffer from mild forms of autism, and hence who are socially impaired, are less interested in fiction:
J. L. Barnes, “Fiction, Imagination, and Social Cognition: Insights from Autism,”
Poetics
40 (2012): 299–316.
22
the right fiction at the right time can have an effect:
See also Paul Bloom,
Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human
(New York: Basic Books, 2004); Pinker,
Better Angels.
23
when rural Indian villages start to get cable television … there is a decrease in the preference for sons over daughters:
R. Jensen and E. Oster, “The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women’s Status in India,”
Quarterly Journal of Economics
124 (August 2009): 1057–94.
24
they think you cannot be good without believing in God:
P. Bloom, “Religion, Morality, Evolution,”
Annual Review of Psychology
63 (2012): 179–99.
25
They are seen as self-interested and immoral … elitists:
P. Edgell, J. Gerteis, and D. Hartmann, “Atheists as ‘Other’: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society,”
American Sociological Review
71 (2006): 211–34.
26
“Challenging the limited altruism … a condition of one’s recognition of Him”:
J. Waldron, “Secularism and the Limits of Community,” NYU School Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 10-88,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722780
, 10. For similar arguments, see D’Souza,
What’s So Great About Christianity.
27
religion is “violent, irrational, intolerant …”:
Christopher Hitchens,
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
(New York: Twelve Books, 2007), 56.
28
some of the most horrific atrocities in history have been motivated by religious faith:
Matthew White,
The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History’s 100 Worst Atrocities
(New York: Norton, 2011).
29
how “little children” teased the prophet Elisha about his baldness:
Kings 2:23–25 (King James Version).
30
Are the religious individuals in a society more moral than the secular ones?:
For a review, see P. Bloom, “Religion, Morality, Evolution,”
Annual Review of Psychology
63 (2012): 179–99.
31
“Once we know how observant a person is … not religious believing”:
Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell,
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 467, 473.