Hosts Anna Cherry and Richard RallSHOW NOTES

5 Foundation of Morality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOQduoLgRw across cultures & disciplines, and species

Harm/Care

Fairness/Reciprocity

In-Group Loyalty - animals in small, usually family units, but humans make tribes, sports & cliques

“Sports is to War what Pornography is to Sex”

Authority/Respect

Purity/Sanctity - suppressing ideology, moralizing what you touch or what you put in your body

Morality in the BrainSteven Pinker - The Blank Slate

Best-selling 2002 book makes a case against tabula rasa models in the social sciences arguing that human behavior is substantially shaped by evolutionary psychological adaptations. Book was nominated for the 2003 Aventis Prizes and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Morality is built in to the brain - Organized in advance of experience

Temporoparietal junction

area of the brain where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, incorporates information from the thalamus and the limbic system, as well as from the visual, auditory, and somatosensory systems. TPJ is responsible for collecting all of this information and then processing it.[1]

also known to play a crucial role in self-other distinctions processes and theory of mind (ToM).[2] damage to the TPJ has been implicated in having adverse effects on an individual’s ability to make moral decisions and has been known to produce out-of-body experiences (OBEs).[3]

Electromagnetic stimulation of the TPJ can also cause these effects. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2872442/

Apart from these diverse roles that the TPJ plays, it is also known for its involvement in a variety of widespread disorders including amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, and schizophrenia.

Left VS RightEach is an attempt at morality - set of rules and ways of conceiving the world to help coexist in a society and go forward as a civilization - core of morality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOQduoLgRw 7:48

Liberals are 2-issue morality. Conservatives are 5-issue morality. Disagreement is crux of the issue.

InGroup, Authority, Purity VS Multiculturalism, Anarchy/Feminism, Atheism

Balance of Change VS Stability - as Asian religions figured out

Yin Yang, Preserver and Destroyer (Shiva and Vishnu), Buddhism

Sent-Ts’an - “If you want the Truth to stand before you, never be for or against, The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease.”

Brain differences between Liberals & Conservativeshttp://bigthink.com/videos/gail-saltz-the-brain-differences-of-liberals-versus-conservati