Tag Archives: Psychology

People attribute free will to mind, not soul

Posted on June 1, 2014 by

Broadly speaking, there are two conceptions of free will.  The first is libertarian free will, where one has metaphysical freedom from the laws of nature in making decisions.  Libertarianism is usually understood to require mind-body dualism, in other words, a non-material soul. … Continue reading →

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SMB: A psychology experiment and nature versus nurture

Posted on May 31, 2014 by

I think this ties in rather well with my comments on beauty yesterday.  Click through to see the full sized version. via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

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Beauty is determined by both biology and culture

Posted on May 30, 2014 by

Science can’t determine values, and this includes aesthetics, beauty.  But that doesn’t mean science has nothing to say about beauty.  As this article at PolicyMic indicates, it can study what most of us see as beauty and explore the reasons … Continue reading →

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Self Deception | Conscious Entities

Posted on May 25, 2014 by

Peter Hankins at Conscious Entities does a book review of ‘Kidding Ourselves‘ by Joseph T Hallinan. Joseph T Hallinan’s new book Kidding Ourselves says that not only is self deception more common and more powerful than we suppose, it’s actually … Continue reading →

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You don’t always know what you’re saying

Posted on May 4, 2014 by

If you think you know what you just said, think again. People can be tricked into believing they have just said something they did not, researchers report this week. The dominant model of how speech works is that it is … Continue reading →

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The importance of (experimental) design — ScienceDaily

Posted on February 26, 2014 by

One of the hottest debates in evolutionary biology concerns the origin of behavior: is it genetically encoded or do animals and birds copy their parents or other individuals? A classic experiment published in 2000 seemed to provide overwhelming evidence that … Continue reading →

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The scope of objective facts and morality

Posted on February 13, 2014 by

Our recent discussions, particularly on the thread about Jonathan Haidt’s response to Sam Harris’s challenge, left me thinking about the various scopes of objective facts.  In retrospect, it’s a bit obvious to me now that a key question in moral … Continue reading →

Posted in Morality, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

The foundations of morality

Posted on February 6, 2014 by

Last week, I made a post on the fact that we have desires, urges, impulses, motivations, that are inherently not rooted in reason or logic, that while reason and logic are extremely useful, they are tools of these desires, these … Continue reading →

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Morality arises from instincts

Posted on January 30, 2014 by

What is morality?  Look it up on Wikipedia or most dictionaries, and you’ll get something about whether acts or intentions are right or wrong.  But what is right and wrong?  Right and wrong for what?  The usual answer is right … Continue reading →

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Psychologists document the age our earliest memories fade — ScienceDaily

Posted on January 25, 2014 by

Although infants use their memories to learn new information, few adults can remember events in their lives that happened prior to the age of three. Psychologists have now documented that age seven is when these earliest memories tend to fade … Continue reading →

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