Dr. Michael McCullough is a professor of psychology at University of California, San Diego. There, he directs the Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory, where his team studies the cognitive mechanisms that contribute to cooperation, altruism, and aggression. His work also addresses shortcomings in the measurement of forgiveness, empathy, and altruism. He has authored and co-authored five books on these topics, the most recent of which we discuss in this podcast. In The Kindness of Strangers, Mike traces the interaction of social challenges and reason throughout history. We discuss how these ..read more

Dr. Andrew Vonasch is a lecturer in psychology at the University of Canterbury where he researches moral rationality. His academic training in economics and psychology has informed his interest in agency and divergences from the rational actor model. Specifically, Andy is interested in how people will incur costs to demonstrate that they are moral, and to ensure that other people behave morally too. In this podcast we discuss his work regarding costly tradeoffs in reputation management and tendencies to project hidden motives, or so-called phantom costs, onto others. APA citation: Cazzell, A ..read more

Dr. Sarah Schnitker is a Professor of Psychology and Nueroscience at Baylor University, where she directs the science of virtues lab. She previously researched as an associate professor in the Thrive Center for Human Development at Fuller Theological Seminary. As a principle investigator, Sarah has secured more than $3.5 million in research funding through the John Templeton Foundation for a number of projects with various aims, including understanding gratitude towards God and fleshing out a foundation for the scientific study of patience. In this podcast, we discuss her work which focuses on ..read more

Dr. Steven Pinker is a Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He conducts research on a number of topics, including visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. His work has received a number of prestigious prizes, including the Troland Research Prize from the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to his impressive scholarly work, Dr. Pinker has also drawn attention as a public intellectual. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, and has written nine books, including the New York Time best sellers, The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enli ..read more

Dr. J Kiley Hamlin is an Associate Professor of Psychology and the Canadian Research Chair at the University of British Columbia. There she directs the Centre for Infant Cognition, where she examines the developmental origins of moral judgments in preverbal babies and young toddlers. She is the recipient of numerous awards and grants from the Association for Psychological Science, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the John Templeton Foundation, among others. In this episode, we discuss her research which illuminates when and how babies express the earliest fo ..read more

Dr. Brad Owens is an Associate Professor in the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. There his teaching and research focus on ethical leadership in business. His work examines the impact of humility on leader effectiveness, relational energy, and team functioning, and has received a number of awards and funding from The Academy of Management, as well as the Templeton Foundation. Brad’s work has received wide media coverage, including in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review. In this podcast, Brad and I discuss the details of what humility is ..read more

In this episode, five scholars of morality talk about their observations of ethics during the coronavirus pandemic. These scholars include Bengt Brülde, an Associate Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Gothenburg and University West in Sweden, where he studies well-being, bioethics, and business ethics; Bradford Cokelet, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas where he researches comparative ethics, character, and agency; Debra Lieberman, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami, where she uses principles of evolutionary biology to u ..read more

Dr. Peter DeScioli is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Stony Brook University, where he teaches courses on Moral Politics and Public Policy. His research concerns how people strategically form friendships, how people understand notions of property and ownership, and the role of moral condemnation in social functioning. Today, we discuss his research on moral condemnation—the function of moral impartiality, third party judgement and punishment. Specifically, we talk about his theory which construes moral judgement as playing a functional role in reducing the costliness of conflict ..read more

Dr. Joshua Greene is a Psychology Professor and a faculty member of the Center for Brain Science at Harvard University. His work focuses on the dual-process theory of emotions and reason as it relates to moral judgment. He is perhaps most known for his past neuropsychological work involving the trolley dilemma. Today, he continues his research into strategies for effective altruism and how to apply principles of what he calls “deep pragmatism,” for solving large-scale social challenges. We discuss the principles of deep pragmatism, as outlined in his book Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the ..read more

Dr. Linda Skitka is a psychology professor and associate department head at the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as a professor of political science by courtesy. She has been the president of the Midwestern Psychological Association and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and an associate editor of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Social Justice Research. She has received numerous awards for her service. Her research spans a broad range of topics, but she is perhaps best known f ..read more