Two of my previous posts on moral development described the origins and consequences of following inner expectations and others' expectations. We form our inner expectations (conscience, or what we ...

Do children need religion to grow into good people? Sixty-five percent of Americans think so. And even though younger adults have been leaving traditional faiths in droves, about 48% of them still ...

(CN) — For as long as people have elected to study themselves, they have debated the origins of the human condition and associated behaviors: are we genetically driven toward certain behaviors, or do ...

Coupling two approaches of game theory can shed light on how moral norms evolve. Selfless behaviour and cooperation cannot be taken for granted. Mohammad Salahshour of the Max Planck Institute for ...

In a survey involving a total of 2,472 respondents, researchers asked participants about nonpolitical and political moral behavior and nonpolitical and political moral tolerance. They found people ...

Just as optical illusions can fool the eye to present a distorted image of reality, moral illusions can fool our decision-making ability, making us more selfish. This is the conclusion of a newly ...

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here. Over the past eight ...

I spent the summer of 2011 as an undergraduate researcher at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, in Colorado. My job was to collect burying beetles—necrophagous critters with wing cases the ...

Modern society often speaks about universal values; human rights, equality, justice, the sanctity of life, as if they emerged naturally through human progress or Enlightenment thinking. In reality, ...