Robert Wright is a journalist and the best-selling author of Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information, The Moral Animal, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Evolution of God, and Why Buddhism is True. He has edited for Time and Slate and has written for The New Yorker, The Huffington Post, and New York Times Magazine, among others. He is a visiting professor of science and religion at Union Theological Seminary and the founder of the Nonzero Foundation, as well as a director of Bloggingheads.tv and MeaningofLife.tv, where you can watch him discuss the ..read more

Dr. Nancy Snow is a philosophy Professor and the director of the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing at the University of Oklahoma. She co-directed the Self, Motivation, and Virtue Project, and is the principle investigator of the Self, Virtue, and Public Life Project. She has edited six research volumes, and authored two books, including one written with Jennifer Cole Wright and Michael Warren, titled Understanding Virtue: Theory and Measurement, which is set for publication next year. In this podcast, we discuss Dr. Snow’s account of how people develop virtue through the natural cou ..read more

Dr. Jonathan Wight is a professor of economics in the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond. He has authored and coauthored four books, including most recently Ethics in Economics: An Introduction to moral frameworks. Much of his work concerns the intersection of ethics and economics pedagogy, including a Templeton Foundation backed project which introduced ethics in economics to several thousand economics teachers. In this podcast, we discuss the ethical underpinnings of differing definitions of market efficiency. Full transcript available at: https://www.ambercazzell.com/po ..read more

Dr. Tobias Krettenauer is a professor of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, where he directs the Morality, Identity, and Environmental Sustainability Research Group. He is also a consulting editor for Child Development and an associate editor of the Journal of Moral Education. Dr. Krettenauer’s current work examines morality and sustainability, the relationship between moral identity and moral emotions, and how moral identity is shaped by culture. He is most known, however, for his focus on how moral identity develops in adolescence and adulthood, which we discuss in this episode. Trans ..read more

Dr. Steven Hitlin is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Iowa. He has written numerous articles and book chapters on the sociology of morality, and has written and co-edited four books, including the Handbook of Sociology of Morality, as well as a second volume of the handbook to be published in 2021. His work has been supported by multiple grants, including funding from the MINERVA initiative to study “Moral Schemas, Cultural Conflict, and Socio-Political Action.” In this episode, we discuss sociology’s traditional interest in morality, Steven’s hopes for a renewed vigor in the soci ..read more

Dr. Gregg Henriques is a Professor of Psychology at James Madison University. Over many years, he has been working to develop an integrated way of understanding how psychological sciences are related to other physical and social sciences, and how to coherently approach the study of psychology. He is the author of A New Unified Theory of Psychology, and is a leader of the Unified Psychotherapy Movement and the Theory of Knowledge Society. In this podcast, we discuss his nested model of well-being: a unified approach to understanding well-being that moves beyond subjective judgments in order to ..read more

Dr. Daniel Batson has a PhD in Social Psychology and Theology, and is an emeritus professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Tennessee and the University of Kansas. His distinguished career began in graduate school, in which he and his adviser, John Darley, designed and conducted what is now famously known as the Good Samaritan Study. This study subsequently fueled the so-called “situationist challenge.” He is also renown for defending “empathy-induced altruism” against Robert Cialdini’s selfishly-motivated altruism in a professional debate which played out over many years. In ..read more

Dr. Owen Flanagan is the James B Duke professor of philosophy and Neurobiology at Duke University, where he co-directs the Center for Comparative Philosophy. Recently, he was also a Rockefeller Fellow at National Humanities Center, as well as a Berggruen Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Dr. Flanagan has written and edited 13 books, including The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World published in 2007, and The Geography of Morals published in 2017. His distinguished work concerns the philosophy of mind, moral psychology, and c ..read more

Dr. Gustavo Carlo is the Millsap Endowed Professor of Diversity and Multicultural Studies in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at the University of Missouri. He is also the director and co-director of two centers there: The Center for Family Policy and Research and the Center for Children and Families Across Cultures. In 2017, he was named a University of Missouri Top Achiever and he has received numerous awards for his excellence in mentorship. Dr. Carlo’s research concerns prosocial and moral development, and how cultural variables are related to that development. In par ..read more

Dr. Kurt Gray is an associate professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. There, he directs the Mind Perception and Morality Lab—a research lab dedicated to understanding who we interpret to have minds, and why it matters. Specifically, Dr. Gray and his research team examine how mind perception influences moral judgments. In this podcast, we discuss his research, his new Center for the Science of Moral Understanding which aims to reduce social and political polarization, as well as his most recent book co-edited with Jesse Graham, The Atlas of Moral Psychology. N ..read more