A new, biologically driven model of human behavior in which reason is tethered to the evolutionarily older autonomic, instinctive, and associative systems. In Reason and Less, Vinod Goel explains the workings of the tethered mind. Reason does not float on top of our biology but is tethered to evolutionarily older autonomic, instinctive, and associative systems. After describing the conceptual and neuroanatomical basis of each system, Goel shows how they interact to generate a blended response. Goel’s commonsense account drives human behavior back into the biology, where it belongs, and provides a richer set of tools for understanding how we pursue food, sex, and politics. Goel takes the reader on a journey through psychology (cognitive, behavioral, developmental, and evolutionary), neuroscience, philosophy, ethology, economics, and political science to explain the workings of the tethered mind. One key insight that holds everything together is that feelings—generated in old, widely conserved brain stem structures—are evolution’s solution to initiating and selecting all behaviors, and provide the common currency for the different systems to interact. Reason is as much about feelings as are lust and the taste of chocolate cake. All systems contribute to behavior and the overall control structure is one that maximizes pleasure and minimizes displeasure. Tethered rationality has some sobering and challenging implications for such real-world human behaviors as climate change denial, Trumpism, racism, or sexism. They cannot be changed simply by targeting beliefs but will require more drastic measures, the nature of which depends on the specific behavior in question. Having an accurate model of human behavior is the crucial first step.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.

Free will is a key but contested concept in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: while the famed philosopher is known to have asserted that free will distinguishes human beings from animals, several interpreters have argued that he merely pretends to have this belief for the sake of healthy politics and to avoid persecution by religious authorities. Through careful readings of key texts and letters, The Free Animal offers a new and original exploration of Rousseau’s views on free will. Lee MacLean shows that Rousseau needs and uses the idea of human consciousness of free will to explain the development of morality, convention, and vice. MacLean bases her argument on a broad range of texts, from canonical works to Rousseau’s untranslated letters and drafts. Featuring careful analyses and an extensive engagement with the secondary literature, The Free Animal offers a novel interpretation of the changing nature and complexity of Rousseau’s intention.

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. Centered in philosophy, the volume also treats the scientific, historical, economic, and political dimensions of climate change. Our failure to prevent or even to respond significantly to climate change, Jamieson argues, reflects the impoverishment of our systems of practical reason, the paralysis of our politics, and the limits of our cognitive and affective capacities. The climate change that is underway is remaking the world in such a way that familiar comforts, places, and ways of life will disappear in years or decades rather than centuries. Climate change also threatens our sense of meaning, since it is difficult to believe that our individual actions matter. The challenges that climate change presents go beyond the resources of common sense morality -- it can be hard to view such everyday acts as driving and flying as presenting moral problems. Yet there is much that we can do to slow climate change, to adapt to it and restore a sense of agency while living meaningful lives in a changing world.

A surprising and intriguing examination of how scarcity—and our flawed responses to it—shapes our lives, our society, and our culture