Morality’s Long Evolution
“We used to assume that morality came from religion — that without religion we’d be as barbaric as our simian relatives. But now we know that’s not true — that in one sense you could say that morality came down to us from plants, which biologists have discovered have amazing strategies for looking after their own kind,” co-author interview with Sally M. Ornstein.
The Origins of Morality
Before recent studies in animal behavior, developmental psychology, neuroscience and even biology transformed our notion of morality, human beings in all societies thought that morality “cometh to them from above.” As a consequence, for many thinkers, the human being stands out as “the moral animal.” But taken alone, out of the religious context, that title reveals the same center-of-the-universe mentality as our pre-Copernicus predecessors had when presented with the fact that every planet, including Earth, revolved around the Sun.
How Reliable Is Our Ethical Behavior?
Morality and ethical behavior is foundational to human cooperation and success. But moral action can be distorted by misinformation, emotions, and the influence of others. The rise of social media has allowed misinformation about everything from politics to health, history to science to spread at unprecedented speed, raising concerns about the difficulty of distinguishing fact from fiction. We are challenged by “fake news” that “could have been true”.
More Featured Books
New World New Mind
Moving Toward Conscious Evolution
Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich
Over millions of years, our minds evolved with quick reflexes to deal with sudden threats, which makes long-term threats like pollution and overpopulation invisible to us. Our survival now requires that we consciously evolve a new mind and new perceptions to adapt.
Moral Tribes
Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
Joshua D. Greene
Our innate moral behavior evolved over millions of years to promote cooperation within our group. Each group has its own moral code, which provides a map for how individuals can live successfully within it. Our other innate tendency, to favor our group over all others, is something we need to understand and mitigate to address the existential challenges of our modern global society.
The Mountain People
Colin Turnbull
The story of the IK tribe of northeastern Uganda is a classic study of how a society’s concept of fairness and justice can quickly devolve when its people are cut off from their accustomed means of livelihood and forced to compete for their very survival.
The Matter with Things
Iain McGilchrist
One of McGilchrist’s central points is that our society is one in which we rely on representations of the world as our way of knowing it. Scientific theories expressed in mathematical form, economic models, photographs – all re-present the reality they purport to describe.
Humanity on a Tightrope
Paul Ehrlich & Robert Ornstein
Psychologist Robert Ornstein and biologist Paul Ehrlich join forces to explain why the human race has reached its current perilous precipice. To sidestep the fate they say is now barreling towards us will require us to address our “empathy shortfall.”
Beyond Culture:
Edward T. Hall and Our Hidden Culture
Report by John Zada
Edward T. Hall, after spending his early adulthood working and travelling among non-Anglophones, both in the United States and in other parts of the world, became cognizant and fascinated in the deeper layers of culture that he claimed lie buried beneath those more obvious forms.
God 4.0
On the Nature of Higher Consciousness and the Experience Called “God”
By Robert Ornstein with Sally Ornstein
Review by Denise Winn
Contributing Writer
Countless research findings reveal the existence of a second network of cognition that transcends everyday consciousness. It is what people have tried to activate, from the earliest shaman-sages to Moses 3,500 years ago, to Jesus 2,000 years ago, to Muhammad 1,400 years ago, all the way up to the myriad of contemporary seekers. Read more
Thinking Big
How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind
Robin Dunbar, Clive Gamble & John Gowlett
The social brain that drives our behavior and contemporary culture is essentially the same brain that appeared with the earliest humans some 300,000 years ago.
Moral Tribes
Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
Joshua D. Greene
Our innate moral behavior evolved over millions of years to promote cooperation within our group. Each group has its own moral code, which provides a map for how individuals can live successfully within it. Our other innate tendency, to favor our group over all others, is something we need to understand and mitigate to address the existential challenges of our modern global society.
The Mountain People
Colin Turnbull
The story of the IK tribe of northeastern Uganda is a classic study of how a society’s concept of fairness and justice can quickly devolve when its people are cut off from their accustomed means of livelihood and forced to compete for their very survival.
The Matter with Things
Iain McGilchrist
One of McGilchrist’s central points is that our society is one in which we rely on representations of the world as our way of knowing it. Scientific theories expressed in mathematical form, economic models, photographs – all re-present the reality they purport to describe.
In the series: Our Mind in the Modern World
- An Ancient Brain in a Modern World
- Our Unconscious Minds
- Maintaining a Stable World
- The Multiple Nature of Our Mind
- Connecting with Others
- Unconscious Associations
- The Brain’s Latent Capacities
- God 4.0
- Multimind: A New Way of Looking at Human Behavior
- Thinking Big
- Social
- The Weirdest People in the World
- The Righteous Mind
- New World New Mind
- Moral Tribes
- The Mountain People
- The Matter with Things
- Humanity on a Tightrope
- Beyond Culture