Moral psychology and media theory: historical and emerging viewpoints / by Allison Eden, Matthew Grizzard, and Robert J. Lewis -- Universal morality, mediated narratives, and neural synchrony / by Rene Weber, Lucy Popova, and J. Michael Mangus -- A model of intuitive morality and exemplars / by Ron Tamborini -- Morality subcultures and media production: how Hollywood minds the morals of its audience / by Dana Mastro ... [et al.] -- The experience of elevation: responses to media portrayals of moral beauty / by Mary Beth Oliver, Erin Ash, and Julia K. Woolley -- Moral disengagement during exposure to media violence: would it feel right to shoot an innocent civilian in a video game? / by Tilo Hartmann -- Moral monitoring and emotionality in responding to fiction, sports, and the news / by Dolf Zillmann -- How we enjoy and why we seek out morally complex characters in media entertainment / by Arthur A. Raney and Sophie H. Janicke -- The psychological functions of justice in mass media / by Tobias Rothmund ... [et al.] -- The effect of media on children's moral reasoning / by Marina Krcmar

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The acclaimed social psychologist challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to conservatives and liberals alike—a “landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself” (The New York Times Book Review). Drawing on his twenty-five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Jonathan Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns. In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation, as well as the curse of our eternal divisions and conflicts. If you’re ready to trade in anger for understanding, read The Righteous Mind.

The burgeoning science of ethics has produced a trend toward pessimism. Ordinary moral thought and action, we're told, are profoundly influenced by arbitrary factors and ultimately driven by unreasoned feelings. This book counters the current orthodoxy on its own terms by carefully engaging with the empirical literature. The resulting view, optimistic rationalism, shows the pervasive role played by reason our moral minds, and ultimately defuses sweeping debunking arguments in ethics. The science does suggest that moral knowledge and virtue don't come easily. However, despite the heavy influence of automatic and unconscious processes that have been shaped by evolutionary pressures, we needn't reject ordinary moral psychology as fundamentally flawed or in need of serious repair. Reason can be corrupted in ethics just as in other domains, but a special pessimism about morality in particular is unwarranted. Moral judgment and motivation are fundamentally rational enterprises not beholden to the passions.

A Harvard scientist illuminates the biological basis for human morality in this groundbreaking book. With the diversity of moral attitudes found across cultures around the globe, it is easy to assume that moral perspectives are socially developed—a matter of nurture rather than nature. But in Moral Minds, Marc Hauser presents compelling evidence to the contrary, and offers a revolutionary new theory: that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct. Hauser argues that certain biologically innate moral principles propel us toward judgments of right and wrong independent of gender, education, and religion. Combining his cutting-edge research with the latest findings in cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, economics, and anthropology, Hauser explores the startling implications of his provocative theory vis-à-vis contemporary bioethics, religion, the law, and our everyday lives.

This book explains the mediating effects of social media on our morality.

This volume brings together a collection of essays that explore in a new way how unacknowledged moral concerns are integral to debates in the philosophy of mind.The radical suggestion of the book is that we can make sense of the internal dynamics and cultural significance of these debates only when we understand the moral forces that shape them. Drawing inspiration from a variety of traditions including Wittgenstein, Lacan, phenomenology and analytic philosophy, the authors address a wide range of topics including the mind/body-problem, the problem of other minds, subjectivity and objectivity, the debates on mindreading, naturalism, reductive physicalism, representationalism and the ‘E-turn’; Dennett’s heterophenomenology, McDowell’s neo-Kantianism, Wittgenstein’s ‘private language’ considerations and his notion of an ‘attitude towards a soul’; repression, love, conscience, the difficulties of self-understanding, and the methods and aims of philosophy. Through a combination of detailed, immanent criticism and bold constructive work, the authors move the discussion to a new level, beyond humanistic or conservative critiques of naturalism and scientism.

"They don't have syntax, so we can eat them." According to Richard Sorabji, this conclusion attributed to the Stoic philosophers was based on Aristotle's argument that animals lack reason. In his fascinating, deeply learned book, Sorabji traces the roots of our thinking about animals back to Aristotelian and Stoic beliefs. Charting a recurrent theme in ancient philosophy of mind, he shows that today's controversies about animal rights represent only the most recent chapter in millennia-old debates. Sorabji surveys a vast range of Greek philosophical texts and considers how classical discussions of animals' capacities intersect with central questions, not only in ethics but in the definition of human rationality as well: the nature of concepts; how perceptions differ from beliefs; how memory, intention, and emotion relate to reason; and to what extent speech, skills, and inference can serve as proofs of reason. Focusing on the significance of ritual sacrifice and the eating of meat, he explores religious contexts of the treatment of animals in ancient Greece and in medieval Western Christendom. He also looks closely at the contemporary defenses of animal rights offered by Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Mary Midgley. Animal Minds and Human Morals sheds new light on traditional arguments surrounding the status of animals while pointing beyond them to current moral dilemmas. It will be crucial reading for scholars and students in the fields of ancient philosophy, ethics, history of philosophy, classics, and medieval studies, and for everyone seriously concerned about our relationship with other species. A Townsend Lecture Book