Very Bad Wizards

Jesse Graham joins us for part 2 of our discussion on the nature of morality, and his recent paper on Moral Foundations Theory. He highlights the key components of MFT, defends himself against our accusations of weaseling out of the normative implications of MFT, champions "Synechdoche, New York" as one of the greatest films ever made, and comes out of the closet as a rationalist. Also in this epi...

Dave and Tamler bounce back this week after having to trash the last episode. Does morality ultimately boil down to a single principle (such as harm or justice), or is there more to ethical life than is dreamt of in the minds of philosophers? We settle this question once and for all in the first of a 2-part episode in which we discuss Jesse Graham et al's recent paper on Moral Foundations Theory....

Who is the real you? What happens to your identity when your body gets cloned or reconstituted with all the same memories and character traits? Does society construct our true selves or repress them? Can we ever escape our pasts and become different people?   Dave thinks conceptual analysis and arousal measuring devices can solve all these problems but allows Tamler his dream of temporarily becomi...

The guest we've been waiting for--Nina Strohminger--joins us to talk about the connection between disgust and humor, cheap laughs, moral character and personal identity, and the British opt-in plan for porn.  Plus: how psychologists measure erections and Dave goes Platonist about the form of hilarity. Tamler's daughter should have issued an extra strong disclaimer for this one. Links Nina Strohmin...

Our most irresponsible episode ever!  Dave and Tamler talk about two reviews of a book they haven't read--Joshua Greene's Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them --and feel only a little shame.   (Since the recording, at least one of us has finished the book).  Can Greene successfully debunk all non-utilitarian intuitions?  Does Greene have a dark enough view of human nature...

Dave and Tamler talk about the influence of character judgments on attributions of blame. What is the function of the blame--to assign responsibility or to judge a person's character? Is it fair that we blame douchebags more than good people who commit exactly the same act, or is it yet another cognitive bias that should be avoided? Plus we delve into the Richie Incognito hazing story (maybe a lit...

Special guest Will Wilkinson joins the podcast to talk about whether fiction makes us better people, and to discuss his recent Daily Beast article that trashed Dave's profession and livelihood. Also, Dave and Tamler try to make sense of Ancie nt Greek justice in a myth about incest, adultery, daughter-killing, husband-killing, matricide, cannibalism, and trash talking to disembodied heads.     Lin...

Special guest Laurie Santos (Psychology, Yale) joins us to talk about what animal cognition can tell us about human nature. Why are other primates better at resisting the misleading influence of others than humans? Is conformity a byproduct of our sophisticated cultural learning capacities? Are we more like Chimpanzees or Bonobos? Why does Dave spend so much time writing Smurf fan fiction? [Smurf...

Part II of our discussion on Rai and Fiske (sort of):  We answer a listener's email and in the process get into an episode long argument about moral intuitions, psychological facts, the implications of moral disagreement. Before that, we talk about the recent study about testicles and parenting.  We don't play small ball on this one. Links Testicular volume is inversely correlated with nurturing-r...

In the first of a two-part episode, we discuss one of our favorite recent papers--Tage Rai and Alan Page Fiske's 2011 paper on how social relationships shape and motivate our moral emotions and judgments.  We also talk about Sam Harris' $20,000  Moral Landscape    Challenge , and whether there's any real chance of convincing him that the arguments he made in The Moral Landscape (first published in...

Dave and Tamler celebrate their one year anniversary and 30th episode with one of their least cynical episodes yet.  They talk about 5 philosophy/psychology(-ish) books that influenced and inspired them throughout the years.  They also respond to a listener email that accuses them (mostly Tamler) of being "reckless and irresponsible" in their discussion of responding to insults.   Episode Links  (...

Dave and Tamler try to artificially bulk up their expertise on the ethics of performance enhancing drugs and end up raising a lot more questions than they answer.  Why do we condemn certain methods for boosting performance on the playing field and praise others?  Why is it OK to train at high altitudes but not in hyperbaric chambers that simulate high altitudes?  Why is Lance Armstrong a villain a...

Dave and Tamler try their best to do a show without guests--we talk about moral persuasion, motivated reasoning, and whether it's legitimate to use emotionally charged rhetoric in a philosophical argument. Plus, we describe how students proceed through the "Stages-of-Singer," and Tamler finally defends himself against Dave's slanderous accusation of hypocrisy about animal welfare.   Links Thomson,...

Our streak of very special guests continues!  Philosopher Eddy Nahmias joins the podcast to us why people mistakenly think they're not morally responsible, and how his new study casts doubt on Sam Harris's "pamphlet" on free will.  Eddy also describes his new project (with Toni Adleberg and Morgan Thompson) on why women leave philosophy.  Plus Dave and I discuss some reasons for having children, a...

Psychologist and author Jesse Bering joins us to talk about evolutionary psychology and his forthcoming book Perv.   In the relatively uncontroversial part of the episode, we ask if homophobia is an adaptation and if women have evolved rape defenses.  After that, sex with animals, sex with bookshelves, foot fetishes, amputee fetishes, falling down the stairs fetishes... I don't know, just listen. ...

Josh Knobe, the Michael Corleone of experimental philosophy, joins us to talk about taking philosophy into the lab and the streets.   We discuss how people moralize everyday concepts like intention, causation, and innateness.  Dave wonders if X-phi people are just doing social psychology, and Tamler tries his best to get Josh mad with his critique of Josh's experimental work on free will.  He migh...

Paul Bloom joins us in the second segment for a lively discussion about the value of  empathy as a guide our moral decisions.  And in our first scoop, we talk about Paul's new book (coming in November) Just Babies: The Origin of Good and Evil   ,   racist babies, and how 80s sitcoms changed the world.  In the first segment, Dave and Tamler face the music and try to respond to a listener's criticis...

Dave, Tamler, and special guest Yoel Inbar break down Sam Peckinpah's brilliant (at least according  to one of us) 1971 film Straw Dogs.     They talk about the notorious rape scene, the meaning of the final siege, standing up to Cornish townies, and whether the urge to respond to insults is rational in in modern society.  Also: Yoel and Tamler go another round in their debate about statistics and...

In what might very well be the last episode before we're pulled off the air, Tamler outlines his data-free "theory" of what makes something offensive. What makes a joke about race, ethnicity, gender, disability funny sometimes, and deeply hurtful at other times? What makes Louis CK so goddamn funny and Andrew Dice Clay just...an asshole? Is Family Guy racist? Throughout the episode,  David defends...

Dave and Tamler shrug off inside baseball concerns and argue whether to go to grad school, what to do when you get there, and share horror stories about the job market.   Also, Tamler explains why the sorority sister who wrote the infamous email is a "civil rights visionary," Dave refuses to say "c*#t punt," and listener contributions from Boomer Trujillo, Yoel Inbar, Rachel Grazioplene, Dave Tuck...

Dave and Tamler begin with a brief, heartfelt discussion about the Boston Bombings.  Tamler talks about why Patriots' Day and the Boston Marathon mean so much to a kid growing up in Boston.  They speculate a bit about the motive behind the attack and ask why the perpetrators didn't come out and claim responsibility.   In the second and third segments, Molly Crockett joins us to challenge Fiery Cus...

Re-recording a not-so-tragically lost episode (it kinda sucked), Dave and Tamler talk about the things they hate most about philosophy and psychology.  But first they discuss a blog post by a Rochester professor that wonders why it's not OK to rape someone who's passed out.  Also: same-sex marriage, telling dirty jokes to your daughter, Meredith Baxter Birney, Lifetime movies, how to eat crawfish,...

Joe Henrich joins the podcast to tell us that we know nothing about his work and that how we got to teach a class in anything is absolutely amazing.   We continue our discussion from Episode 17 about his critique of the social and behavioral sciences in "The Weirdest People in the World" and his work in small scale societies on fairness norms.  We also talk about the weird American obsession with...

Thousands of studies in psychology rely on data from North American undergraduates. Can we really conclude anything about the "human" mind from such a limited sample-- especially since Westerners are probably more different from the rest of the world's population than any other group?  We talk about Joseph Henrich and colleagues' critique of the behavioral sciences in their paper "The WEIRDEST Peo...

For those who thought our most uncomfortable topics were behind us, on this episode we are joined by David's childhood friend  Damani McDole  [facebook.com] to discuss several potentially offensive topics surrounding race and justice in America, such as slavery, reparations, affirmative action, and the use of the N-word. When Damani mounts an economic and moral defense for reparations for the desc...