Human Morality - Marc Hauser - 1

This is the first part of an edited lecture by Marc Hauser. It moves from various philosophical theories of morality to social science research into moral dilemmas, leading up to the Trolley Problem.

part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3SMzJD8axY

part 3 will deal with the question of whether religious belief impacts moral decision-making.

Marc D. Hauser is an evolutionary biologist who teaches at the Psychology Department at Harvard University.
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/HauserBio.html
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/

Moral Sense Test website:
http://moral.wjh.harvard.edu/

The term morality can be used either
1.descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
a.some other group, such as a religion, or
b.accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2.normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

The Trolley Problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

My thanks to AncientAtheist for sending this link to a long, but interesting article by Steven Pinker:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html?pagewanted=1&a...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Marc
• Hauser
• lecture
• philosophy
• theory
• morality
• ethics
• Moral
• Sense
• Test
• emotion
• rational
• language
• Noam
• Chomsky
• Rawls
• Hume
• Kant
• Haidt
• social
• science
• research
• moral
• dilemmas
• Trolley
• Problem

[AncientAtheist1]

Pinker has discussed some similar things. Yes, it is fascinating.

[musekiteer]

@AncientAtheist1

That would make sense because Pinker is interested in language.

I have some ideas about this, but first I must make some more graphics and finish part 2.

[riversonthemoon]

This is awesome. Can't wait for part 2.

[musekiteer]

@riversonthemoon

His research is interesting, isn't it?

I should be able to complete the rest by tomorrow.

[dewinthemorning]

Thank you, I want this video, looking forward to part 2.