Authors: Paul Bloom
32
a strong relationship between religiosity and support for suicide bombing:
J. Ginges, I. Hansen, and A. Norenzayan, “Religion and Support for Suicide Attacks,”
Psychological Science
20 (2009): 224–30.
33
someone who believes that God wants them to kill infidels is going to be a lot more enthusiastic about killing infidels:
Richard Dawkins,
The God Delusion
(New York: Bantam, 2006), 348.
34
religious belief does not cause moral belief—it reflects it:
Robert Wright,
Evolution of God
(New York: Little, Brown, 2009), 410.
35
a bigger moral circle isn’t always a better one:
For an earlier exploration of some of the ideas here, see Bloom,
Descartes’ Baby.
36
lowering a cat onto a fire was considered an acceptable form of public entertainment:
Norman Davies, cited in Pinker,
Better Angels
, 145.
37
David Brooks provides an articulate defense of this trend:
David Brooks,
The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
(New York: Random House, 2011), x, xiii.
38
a classic 2001 paper:
J. Haidt, “The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment,”
Psychological Review
108 (2001): 814–34, quotes from 814 and 830.
39
one whose rallying cry comes from David Hume:
David Hume,
A Treatise of Human Nature
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 415.
40
Washing our hands (a reminder of purity) makes us more morally disapproving … fart spray:
S. Schnall, J. Haidt, G. L. Clore, and A. H. Jordan, “Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment,”
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
34 (2008): 1096–1109; E. Helzer and D. A. Pizarro, “Dirty Liberals: Reminders of Cleanliness Promote Conservative Political and Moral Attitudes,”
Psychological Science
22 (2011): 517–22.
41
We are more willing to help others if there is the smell of fresh bread in the air or if we have just found a small sum of money:
R. A. Baron and J. Thomley, “A Whiff of Reality: Positive Affect as a Potential Mediator of the Effects of Pleasant Fragrances on Task Performance and Helping,”
Environment and Behavior
26 (1994): 766–84; A. M. Isen and P. F. Levin, “The Effect of Feeling Good on Helping: Cookies and Kindness,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
21 (1972): 384–88.
42
the struggles faced by black and white children in the American South during the civil rights movement:
Robert Coles,
The Moral Life of Children: How Children Struggle with Questions of Moral Choice in the United States and Elsewhere
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986).
43
young women deciding whether to get an abortion:
Carol Gilligan,
In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).
44
individuals who are vegetarians for moral reasons have little problem articulating the rationale for their decision:
Paul R. Amato and Sonia A. Partridge,
The New Vegetarians: Promoting Health and Protecting Life
(New York: Plenum Press, 1989), quotes from 36–37.
45
six- to ten-year-olds who became vegetarians:
K. M. Hussar and P. L. Harris, “Children Who Choose Not to Eat Meat: A Study of Early Moral Decision-Making,”
Social Development
19 (2010): 627–41.
46
explicit statements of impartiality:
Peter Singer,
The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981).
47
“As soon as you try … you’re sucked into a commitment to the avoidance of harm as a general goal”:
Pinker,
Better Angels
, 648.
48
Empathy and impartiality are often mutually reinforcing:
D. A. Pizarro and P. Bloom, “The Intelligence of Moral Intuitions: Comment on Haidt,”
Psychological Review
110 (2001): 197–98; Martin L. Hoffman,
Empathy and Moral Development: Implications for Caring and Justice
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
49
parental behaviors that psychologist Martin Hoffman calls
inductions
:
Hoffman,
Empathy and Moral Development.
50
they captured this process of moral persuasion:
Melanie Killen and Adam Rutland,
Children and Social Exclusion: Morality, Prejudice, and Group Identity
(New York: Wiley/Blackwell, 2011), 20–21.
51
“Look, I’m no good at being noble …”:
The example of
Casablanca
is noted by Singer as well, in
Expanding Circle
, 340.
A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR
P
AUL
B
LOOM
is the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology at Yale University. He is the author or editor of six other books, including the acclaimed
How Pleasure Works.
He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching, and his scientific popular articles have appeared in
The New York Times Magazine, Nature
, the
New Yorker
, the
Atlantic, Science, Slate, The Best American Science Writing
, and many other publications. He lives in New Haven with his wife and two sons. Visit his website at
paulbloomatyale.com
and follow
@paulbloomatyale
on Twitter.