Very Bad Wizards

In a Very Special Episode of Very Bad Wizards, Dan Ariely joins David to chat about cheating, character, teling your significant other about kissing someone at a conference, and the importance of moral rules.  Tamler and David sandwich the chat with a discussion about the US Presidential election, the irony of moral psychologists making people do bad things, and end with a full-blown argument abou...

After a clip from The Third Man , Dave and Tamler continue their discussion from Episode 6 on Ted Bundy, utilitarians, and trolley problems. They also talk about Tamler's TED talk envy, inappropriate acts with trees, and make a plea for more listener feedback. The second segment begins with the long-awaited return of the 'eat the poo-poo' clip, but this time in a somewhat relevant context. Dave an...

Tamler contemplates ending it all because he can't get 'Call Me Maybe' out of his head, and Dave doesn't try to talk him out of it. This is followed by a discussion about drones, psychopaths, Canadians, Elle Fanning, horrible moral dilemmas, and the biggest rivalry in Ethics: utilitarians vs. Kantians.    Links "Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama. " by Conor Friedersdorf " Why I Refuse to Refus...

Dave and Tamler continue their discussion about their favorite topic.  They talk about the evolutionary origins of retributive behavior, cross-cultural differences in revenge norms, and the proportionate punishment for someone who gives your wife a foot massage. They also play a clipfrom an interview they conducted in Nosara with local attorney Andres Gonzalez about the Costa Rican treatment of th...

Dave allows Tamler to rant about Sam Harris's strawman attacks on moral relativism before launching into discussion about revenge, justice, True Grit, and Michael Dukakis. Though they differ on many issues, Tamler and Dave agree that it's hard to satirize a guy with shiny boots.   Links Sam Harris in the Huffington Post. "Brute force is better with Nazis." The answer that launched a series of Bush...

Tamler and Dave discuss recent work in philosophy and psychology about the differences in moral values and practices across cultures. We talk about the implications of moral diversity: does  it mean that we cannot criticize that practices of other cultures? How should we regard moral disagreement? Are there objective "truths" in ethics? Somehow we need to play clips from The Big Lebowski and Pulp...

Tamler and David discuss whether giving up our belief in free will makes us more likely to abandon our moral standards.  Links "You Can't Handle the Truth!"  Jesse Bering " Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist, but urge: "Don't stop believing!"  Excellent accessible description of the Vohs and Schooler study that we discuss. Tamler's blog post in Psychology Today criticizing the pessimi...

Dave and Tamler start out talking about the new wave of skepticism about free will and moral responsibility in the popular press from people like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne .   Neuroscience figures heavily in their arguments, but Dave and Tamler agree that neuroscientific data adds little of substance to the case other than telling us what we already know: human beings are natural biological entit...