For over half a century, Stanley Milgram's classic and controversial obedience experiments have been a touchstone in the social and behavioral sciences, introducing generations of students to the concept of destructive obedience to authority and the Holocaust. In the last decade, the interdisciplinary Milgram renaissance has led to widespread interest in rethinking and challenging the context and nature of his Obedience Experiment. In Morality in the Making of Sense and Self, Matthew M. Hollander and Jason Turowetz offer a new explanation of obedience and defiance in Milgram's lab. Examining one of the largest collections of Milgram's original audiotapes, they scrutinize participant behavior in not only the experiments themselves, but also recordings of the subsequent debriefing interviews in which participants were asked to reflect on their actions. Introducing an original theoretical framework in the sociology of morality, they show that, contrary to traditional understandings of Milgram's experiments that highlight obedience, virtually all subjects, both compliant and defiant, mobilized practices to resist the authority's commands, such that all were obedient and disobedient to varying degrees. As Hollander and Turowetz show, the precise ways subjects worked out a definition of the situation shaped the choices open to them, how they responded to the authority's demands, and ultimately whether they would be classified as "obedient" or "defiant." By illuminating the relationship between concrete moral dilemmas and social interaction, Hollander and Turowetz tell a new, empirically-grounded story about Milgram: one about morality--and immorality--in the making of sense and self.

Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

"The book contributes to social psychology's Milgram paradigm and the sociology of morality by offering an original theory of the emergence of moral dilemmas in social interaction. Taking Milgram's notorious "obedience" experiments as a case study of morality in interaction, it argues that Milgram's "obedient" and "defiant" behavioural outcomes should be understood in terms of the tension between participants' moral obligations to the confederate Learner and their institutional obligations to the confederate Experimenter. Using the theoretical and methodological approach of ethnomethodological conversation analysis, the book analyses a large number of archived audio-recordings of Milgram's experiments to support this argument. It is organized in three parts: Part I (Chapters 1-2) introduces the project on Milgram and morality, situating it in relevant literatures and advancing an original theoretical framework for understanding the Milgram paradigm and the sociology of morality. Part II (Ch 3-5) focuses on the experiment itself, applying the theoretical framework to analyse morality in interaction. Part III (Ch 6-8) examines recordings of the post-experiment debriefing interviews that Milgram conducted with participants immediately after each session, addressing current debates relevant to the study of morality and Milgram and offering a new explanation - "doing ordinariness" - for obedient and defiant behaviour in Milgram's lab. Overall, in centring the constitutive orders of social interaction that made the experiment possible in the first place, as well as the participants' own reasons, justifications, and accounts for their actions, the book tells a new, empirically-grounded story about Milgram: one about justice - and injustice - in the making"--

A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates. Many of us take for granted that babies are born selfish and that it is the role of society—and especially parents—to transform them from little sociopaths into civilized beings. In Just Babies, Paul Bloom argues that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality. Drawing on groundbreaking research at Yale, Bloom demonstrates that, even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; feel empathy and compassion; act to soothe those in distress; and have a rudimentary sense of justice. Still, this innate morality is limited, sometimes tragically. We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry. Bringing together insights from psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations. Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, violent psychopaths, religious extremists, and Ivy League professors, and explores our often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion, and race. In his analysis of the morality of children and adults, Bloom rejects the fashionable view that our moral decisions are driven mainly by gut feelings and unconscious biases. Just as reason has driven our great scientific discoveries, he argues, it is reason and deliberation that makes possible our moral discoveries, such as the wrongness of slavery. Ultimately, it is through our imagination, our compassion, and our uniquely human capacity for rational thought that we can transcend the primitive sense of morality we were born with, becoming more than just babies. Paul Bloom has a gift for bringing abstract ideas to life, moving seamlessly from Darwin, Herodotus, and Adam Smith to The Princess Bride, Hannibal Lecter, and Louis C.K. Vivid, witty, and intellectually probing, Just Babies offers a radical new perspective on our moral lives.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, "brilliant and witty" (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will—and the implications that it is an illusion. A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion. In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

In this extensive inquiry into the sources of modern selfhood, Charles Taylor demonstrates just how rich and precious those resources are. The modern turn to subjectivity, with its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, has led—it seems to many—to mere subjectivism at the mildest and to sheer nihilism at the worst. Many critics believe that the modern order has no moral backbone and has proved corrosive to all that might foster human good. Taylor rejects this view. He argues that, properly understood, our modern notion of the self provides a framework that more than compensates for the abandonment of substantive notions of rationality. The major insight of Sources of the Self is that modern subjectivity, in all its epistemological, aesthetic, and political ramifications, has its roots in ideas of human good. After first arguing that contemporary philosophers have ignored how self and good connect, the author defines the modern identity by describing its genesis. His effort to uncover and map our moral sources leads to novel interpretations of most of the figures and movements in the modern tradition. Taylor shows that the modern turn inward is not disastrous but is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and reach the good. At the heart of this definition he finds what he calls the affirmation of ordinary life, a value which has decisively if not completely replaced an older conception of reason as connected to a hierarchy based on birth and wealth. In telling the story of a revolution whose proponents have been Augustine, Montaigne, Luther, and a host of others, Taylor’s goal is in part to make sure we do not lose sight of their goal and endanger all that has been achieved. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defense of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics.

A New York Times New and Noteworthy Book From the bestselling author of Waking Up and The End of Faith, an adaptation of his wildly popular, often controversial podcast “Sam Harris is the most intellectually courageous man I know, unafraid to speak truths out in the open where others keep those very same thoughts buried, fearful of the modish thought police. With his literate intelligence and fluency with words, he brings out the best in his guests, including those with whom he disagrees.” -- Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene “Civilization rests on a series of successful conversations.” —Sam Harris Sam Harris—neuroscientist, philosopher, and bestselling author—has been exploring some of the most important questions about the human mind, society, and current events on his podcast, Making Sense. With over one million downloads per episode, these discussions have clearly hit a nerve, frequently walking a tightrope where either host or guest—and sometimes both—lose their footing, but always in search of a greater understanding of the world in which we live. For Harris, honest conversation, no matter how difficult or controversial, represents the only path to moral and intellectual progress. This book includes a dozen of the best conversations from Making Sense, including talks with Daniel Kahneman, Timothy Snyder, Nick Bostrom, and Glenn Loury, on topics that range from the nature of consciousness and free will, to politics and extremism, to living ethically. Together they shine a light on what it means to “make sense” in the modern world.