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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Dr. Jennifer Cole Wright is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the College of Charleston, where she directs the Moral Lab. There, she researches meta-ethical pluralism and the foundational role of humility in virtue development. Her forthcoming book, Understanding Virtue: Theory and Measurement, written in collaboration with Nancy Snow and Michael Warren, is set for release late this year. In this podcast, we talk about how people tease diversity apart from deviance. We discuss the role...

Dr. Russ Roberts is the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has taught economics at George Mason University, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Rochester, Stanford University, and the University of California–Los Angeles. In 2006, he launched the popular podcast, EconTalk, which he continues to host today. He has also authored 5 books, including Gambling with Other People’s Money which was released last year (2019), and How Adam Smith Can...

Dr. Stephen Vaisey is a professor of Sociology and Political Science at Duke University. He is the Director of the Worldview Lab at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, where he studies the nature, origins, and effects of moral and political beliefs. Dr. Vaisey was part of the research team for the National Study of Youth and Religion, and is the Principal Investigator of the Measuring Morality Project. In this podcast, we discuss four popular theories of how morality and political ideology are...

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...

Dr. Sharad Goel is a professor of Management Science and Engineering, as well as a professor of Computer Science and Law at Stanford University. He is the founder and executive director of the Stanford Computational Policy Lab, where he uses advanced data science techniques to examine the effects of social and political policies, and how those policies might be improved upon. In this episode, we discuss the intractability of algorithmic fairness. We explore how decision systems are being used...

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...

Dr. Darcia Narvaez is a professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame. There, she directs the Evolved Developmental Morality Lab, where her program of research concerns how provision of physical, emotional, and social resources early in life bear upon the development of ethical behavior. In this episode, we discuss her recent book, Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom: First Nation Know-How for Global Flourishing, edited along with Four Arrows, Eugene Halton, Brian Collier, and Georges...

Dr. Oliver Scott Curry is the research director of Kindlab, and a researcher at Oxford’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography as well as the London School of Economics’ Center for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. His work weaves philosophy, psychology, and anthropology together to tackle questions about the nature of human morality. In this episode, we discuss his theory of morality as cooperation, and the evolutionary and game theory perspectives that underpin it. We also...

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...

Dr. Bradford Cokelet is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas. His work focuses on Eastern philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and applied ethics. In this podcast, Brad returns to finish discussing Eastern Ethical traditions—how they compare with one another, and how they contrast with Western Ethical traditions. Transcript available at: APA citation: https://www.ambercazzell.com/post/msp-ep23-bradcokelet APA citation: Cazzell, A. R. (Host). (2020, January...

Dr. Mark D. White is the chair of the philosophy department at the College of Staten Island CUNY, where he teaches courses on philosophy, economics, and law. He is also a professor of economics at the Graduate Center of CUNY. He has written and edited ten scholarly books on the intersection of these disciplines, including the Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics. Additionally, Mark has written eight popular books about the ethical philosophies underpinning pop culture series. Today, we...

Dr. Roy Baumeister is a social psychologist known for his research in a number of diverse areas, including: self-control, decision-making, the need to belong, human sexuality, self-destructive behaviors, and free will. He has published more than 600 empirical articles and 35 books. His work has been cited more than 187,000 times, landing him on the ISI highly-cited researcher list twice. In this podcast, we discuss his work with self-control, the so-called “moral muscle,” and the challenges...

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...

Dr. Tage Rai is the Associate Editor for social sciences at Science magazine, and is a research associate at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. His research focuses on moral conflict, violence, and personhood, and has been published in top academic journals, including Nature, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Psychological Review, as well as a trade book titled Virtuous Violence which was published in 2014. In this podcast, we discuss his work with Alan Fiske to develop...