Very Bad Wizards

Dave keeps trying to explain to Tamler that we're not a movie podcast, but somehow they're doing another podcast about movies. This time they each list their top 5 movies featuring moral dilemmas. Also, Tamler tries to rationalize the Woody Allen controversy, Ozymandias from Watchmen says "screw you Paul Bloom," Dave confuses Maggie Gyllenhaal with Droopy, and for the second time ever we have to censor something one of us (Tamler) says. Put on your astronaut adult diapers, folks, it's a long one. Links Dylan Farrow's Story [nytimes.com] Woody Allen Speaks Out [nytimes.com] The Woody Allen Allegations: Not So Fast [thedailybeast.com] "It's shockingly easy to create false memories" by Cara Laney [thedailybeast.com] Elizabeth Loftus [wikipedia.org] Watchmen Graphic Novel [wikipedia.org] The Vengeance Trilogy [wikipedia.org] Droopy Dog [wikipedia.org] Maggie Gyllenhal looks like Droopy Dog [cheezeburger.com] "Hard Determinism, Punishment, and Funishment" by Saul Smilansky [philosophycommons.typepad.com] Tamler's Top 5 (links all go to IMDB.com) The Third Man Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance In Bruges La Femme du Boulanger (The Baker's Wife) Gone Baby Gone David's Top 5  The Dark Knight Watchmen Minority Report 3:10 to Yuma Executive Decision Tamler's Honorable MentionsMovies that couldn't be talked about without spoilers: Oldboy (Park Chanwook's not fucking Spike Lee's). Mother The Maltese Falcon Seven Movies too close to personal identity Solaris Shutter Island So close... Beast of the Southern Wild. 3:10 to Yuma The Dark Knight Casablanca The Insider Donnie Brasco Maltese Falcon Shane Do the Right Thing Princess Mononoke Support Very Bad Wizards

Jesse Graham joins us for part 2 of our discussion on the nature of morality, and his recent paper on Moral Foundations Theory. He highlights the key components of MFT, defends himself against our accusations of weaseling out of the normative implications of MFT, champions "Synechdoche, New York" as one of the greatest films ever made, and comes out of the closet as a rationalist. Also in this episode, Tamler begins to defend Sam Harris (you read that right) from Dan Dennett's criticisms of Harris' Free Will--and then we pull back and realize that we need to devote a whole episode to Dennett's review.  Links Dan Dennett's review of "Free Will" by Sam Harris [naturalism.org] Free Will by Sam Harris [amazon.com affiliate link] Jesse Graham's lab website [usc.edu] Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism by Jesse Graham et al.  Synechdoche, New York   (RIP Phllip Seymour Hoffman!) Special Guest: Jesse Graham.Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler bounce back this week after having to trash the last episode. Does morality ultimately boil down to a single principle (such as harm or justice), or is there more to ethical life than is dreamt of in the minds of philosophers? We settle this question once and for all in the first of a 2-part episode in which we discuss Jesse Graham et al's recent paper on Moral Foundations Theory. (Jesse Graham himself will join us for part 2).  Plus: how liberal is this podcast?  We'll give you the precise percentage after taking a Time.com quiz that purports to measure political leanings, (and which includes that perennial litmus test of political preferences: is it OK to come home and find your partner watching porn?)     Links Can TIME predict your politics? [science.time.com] Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism Foundations Theory (in press, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology) by Graham, J. et al [usc.edu] Old School [imdb.com] "Boy, I've Put You in a Really Tough Spot, Haven't I?" by Woody Allen [onion.com] Support Very Bad Wizards

Who is the real you? What happens to your identity when your body gets cloned or reconstituted with all the same memories and character traits? Does society construct our true selves or repress them? Can we ever escape our pasts and become different people?   Dave thinks conceptual analysis and arousal measuring devices can solve all these problems but allows Tamler his dream of temporarily becoming the host of a movie podcast. They list their top 5 favorite movies about personal identity. Plus, do they have to eat still more crow--this time from Sam Harris?       LinksPersonal Identity [plato.stanford.edu]Google Glass [youtube.com]Tamler's Top 55. Fight Club4. A Clockwork Orange3. Infernal Affairs2. Moon1. A History of ViolenceDavid's Top 55. Blade Runner4. Vertigo3. Looper 2. Groundhog Day1. Back to the FutureHonorable Mentions Solaris (Russian version) Being John Malkovich Memento My Fair Lady All of Me Zelig  One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest Spirited Away The Prestige Shutter Island Unforgiven Side Effects Any Star Trek Movie Support Very Bad Wizards

The guest we've been waiting for--Nina Strohminger--joins us to talk about the connection between disgust and humor, cheap laughs, moral character and personal identity, and the British opt-in plan for porn.  Plus: how psychologists measure erections and Dave goes Platonist about the form of hilarity. Tamler's daughter should have issued an extra strong disclaimer for this one.Links Nina Strohminger [ninastrohminger.com] David Cameron Proposes Porn Filter [thedailybeast.com] Strohminger, N. and Nichols, S. (in press). The Essential Moral Self. Cognition. Special Guest: Nina Strohminger.Support Very Bad Wizards

Our most irresponsible episode ever!  Dave and Tamler talk about two reviews of a book they haven't read--Joshua Greene's Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them--and feel only a little shame.   (Since the recording, at least one of us has finished the book).  Can Greene successfully debunk all non-utilitarian intuitions?  Does Greene have a dark enough view of human nature?  What would an ideal moral world look like?   Will Dave ever stop making fun of Tamler's haunted boy haircut?  We answer all of these questions and more.  Plus we respond to a listener's email and read a couple of our favorite iTunes reviews.Links Moral tribes: Emotion, reason, and the gap between us and them by Joshua Greene [amazon.com] Joshua Greene's website [harvard.edu] Why can't we all just get along? The uncertain biological basis of morality. Robert Wright reviews "Moral Tribes" for The Atlantic. You Can't Learn About Morality from Brain Scans: The problem with moral psychology. Thomas Nagel Reviews "Moral Tribes" for the New Republic If you don't already have it, Tamler's interview with Joshua Greene and Liane Young in his book A Very Bad Wizard is worth the read [amazon.com] On Debunking (Tamler's five part series of posts at Eric Schwitzgebel's blog The Splintered Mind) *book links are amazon affiliate links. They are the same price for you but sends a few pennies our way. Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler talk about the influence of character judgments on attributions of blame. What is the function of the blame--to assign responsibility or to judge a person's character? Is it fair that we blame douchebags more than good people who commit exactly the same act, or is it yet another cognitive bias that should be avoided? Plus we delve into the Richie Incognito hazing story (maybe a little early since the story has developed) and Tamler tries to figure out how to teach the Gospels to students who know roughly 100 times as much about them than he does. Links "The Miami Dolphins and Everything that Will Never Make Sense." by Andrew Sharp.  (grantland.com) Interview with Richie Incognito (youtube.com)  Gospel of Matthew [wikipedia.org] Synoptic Gospels [wikipedia.org] Pizarro, D.A. & Tannenbaum, D. (2011). Bringing character back: How the motivation to evaluate character influences judgments of moral blame. In M. Mikulincer & Shaver, P. (Eds) The Social psychology of morality: Exploring the causes of good and evil. APA Press.   A recent chapter on character and moral psychology that David wrote (with Roy Baumeister) just to be able to talk about comics and porn : Superhero Comics as Moral Pornography. In R. Rosenberg (Ed.) Our Superheroes, Ourselves. Oxford University Press. Tannenbaum, D., Uhlmann, E. L., & Diermeier, D. (2011). Moral signals, public outrage, and immaterial harms. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(6), 1249-1254. Support Very Bad Wizards

Special guest Will Wilkinson joins the podcast to talk about whether fiction makes us better people, and to discuss his recent Daily Beast article that trashed Dave's profession and livelihood. Also, Dave and Tamler try to make sense of Ancient Greek justice in a myth about incest, adultery, daughter-killing, husband-killing, matricide, cannibalism, and trash talking to disembodied heads.     Links Agamemnon [wikipedia.org] Will Wilkinson [wikipedia.org]  The Will Wilkinson article that hurt David's feelings [thedailybeast.com] Hurt Feelings by Flight of the Concords [youtube.com]  Does great literature make us better? by Gregory Currie [nytimes.com]  Reading literature makes us smarter and nicer by Annie Murphy Paul [time.com] Want to learn how to think? Read fiction by Tom Jacobs [psmag.com] In Pursuit of Happiness Research [pdf] by Will Wilkinson    Special Guest: Will Wilkinson.Support Very Bad Wizards

Special guest Laurie Santos (Psychology, Yale) joins us to talk about what animal cognition can tell us about human nature. Why are other primates better at resisting the misleading influence of others than humans? Is conformity a byproduct of our sophisticated cultural learning capacities? Are we more like Chimpanzees or Bonobos? Why does Dave spend so much time writing Smurf fan fiction? [Smurf you, Tamler. -dap]. Also, Dave and Tamler talk about a scathing review of Malcolm Gladwell's new book, and Eliza Sommers poses the question of the day. This was a fun one. Links Comparative Cognition Laboratory [yale.edu] Laurie Santos and Jesse Bering on The Mind Report [bloggingheads.tv]  Buy Jesse Bering's latest book "Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us" [amazon.com affiliate link] Philospher's Pipe (a directory of podcasts related to philosophy) [philosopherspipe.com] Smurfette [wikipedia.org] Horner, V., & Whiten, A. (2005). Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens). Animal cognition, 8(3), 164-181. Kovács, Á. M., Téglás, E., & Endress, A. D. (2010). The social sense: Susceptibility to others’ beliefs in human infants and adults. Science, 330(6012), 1830-1834.  True Bonobo Love [youtube.com] Bonobos vs. Chimps [youtube.com]  What does the fox say? [youtube.com]  "The Trouble With Malcolm Gladwell."  by Christopher Chabris [Slate.com]. "Christopher Chabris Should Calm Down" by Malcolm Gladwell [Slate.com]   Special Guest: Laurie Santos.Support Very Bad Wizards

Part II of our discussion on Rai and Fiske (sort of):  We answer a listener's email and in the process get into an episode long argument about moral intuitions, psychological facts, the implications of moral disagreement. Before that, we talk about the recent study about testicles and parenting.  We don't play small ball on this one. Links Testicular volume is inversely correlated with nurturing-related brain activity in human fathers [pnas.org] "Study: You May be a Terrible Dad Because You Have Enormous Testicles"  "Aw Nuts!  Nurturing Dads Have Smaller Testicles, Study Shows" "Want to Know if Your Partner Will Be a Good Dad?  Measure His Testicles."  Frances Kamm [wikipedia.org] Reflective Equilibrium [plato.stanford.edu] Doris, J. M., and Plakias, A. (2008). “How to Argue about Disagreement: Evaluative Diversity and Moral Realism.” In Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology, Volume 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality. Cambridge: MIT Press  Support Very Bad Wizards

In the first of a two-part episode, we discuss one of our favorite recent papers--Tage Rai and Alan Page Fiske's 2011 paper on how social relationships shape and motivate our moral emotions and judgments.  We also talk about Sam Harris' $20,000 Moral Landscape  Challenge, and whether there's any real chance of convincing him that the arguments he made in The Moral Landscape (first published in English in 2011) are wrong. LinksSam Harris' Moral Landscape Challenge [samharris.org]Alan Fiske's overview of Relational Models Theory [sscnet.ucla.edu]Tage Rai's research [kellogg.northwestern.edu]Rai, T. S., & Fiske, A. P. (2011). Moral psychology is relationship regulation: moral motives for unity, hierarchy, equality, and proportionality. Psychological review, 118, 57-75. [irsp.ucla.edu] Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler celebrate their one year anniversary and 30th episode with one of their least cynical episodes yet.  They talk about 5 philosophy/psychology(-ish) books that influenced and inspired them throughout the years.  They also respond to a listener email that accuses them (mostly Tamler) of being "reckless and irresponsible" in their discussion of responding to insults.   Episode Links (Please note that the Top 5 links below are to purchase books through amazon.com via the Very Bad Wizards amazon affiliate account) Tamler's Top 5 5. The Razor's Edge 4. Culture Of Honor: The Psychology Of Violence In The South (New Directions in Social Psychology)/Humiliation: And Other Essays on Honor, Social Discomfort, and Violence 3. The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science) 2. Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions 1. Jacques the Fatalist and His Master (Penguin Classics) David's Top 5 5. Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman 4. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid 3. The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology 2. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies 1. Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions Honorable MentionsRevenge: A Story of Hope.  Laura BlumenfeldMortal Questions by Thomas NagelThe Fragility of Goodness by Martha NussbaumNot by Genes Alone: by Peter Richerson and Richard BoydThe Principles of Psychology by William JamesDescartes Error by Antonio DamasioBeyond Good and Evil Thus Spoke Zarathustra The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl PopperThe Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah BerlinEthics: Inventing Right and Wrong by J.L. MackieFinally...David shows Richard Dawkins "Lemon Party"  Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler try to artificially bulk up their expertise on the ethics of performance enhancing drugs and end up raising a lot more questions than they answer.  Why do we condemn certain methods for boosting performance on the playing field and praise others?  Why is it OK to train at high altitudes but not in hyperbaric chambers that simulate high altitudes?  Why is Lance Armstrong a villain and Graham Greene (who wrote many of his most famous novels on benzedrine) a hero?   Is there genetic therapy to cure haunted child haircuts, and if there is, how can Tamler get access to it?  Of course, no discussion on PEDs would be complete without clips from South Park and Sanford and Son.  Also, David misremembers Lyle Alzado as a regular on an 80's sitcom because of a single appearance on "Small Wonder."  We probably should have taken some podcast enhancing drugs for this one.  Links Performance-enhancing drugs [wikipedia.org] Benzedrine [wikipedia.org]  What do Auden, Sartre, and Ayn Rand have in common? Amphetamines [slate.com]  Lyle Alzado [wikipedia.org]  "Turin Sample: The nonsense of Olympic doping rules" by William Saletan [slate.com]  "Brain Gain: The underground world of 'neuroenhancing' drugs"  by Margaret Talbot [newyorker.com] Adderall [wikipedia.org] Modafinil (Provigil) [wikipedia.org]  "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems"  -Paul Erdos  [amphetamines.org] Up the down steroid [southparkstudios.com]  Sanford and Son: "Gorilla Cookies"  [youtube.com]   Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler try their best to do a show without guests--we talk about moral persuasion, motivated reasoning, and whether it's legitimate to use emotionally charged rhetoric in a philosophical argument. Plus, we describe how students proceed through the "Stages-of-Singer," and Tamler finally defends himself against Dave's slanderous accusation of hypocrisy about animal welfare. LinksThomson, J. J. (1971). A defense of abortion.  Philosophy & Public Affairs,1, 47-66.Marquis, D. (1989). Why abortion is immoral.  The Journal of Philosophy, 86(4), 183-202.Ditto, P. H., & Lopez, D. F. (1992). Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63 (4), 568.Ditto, P.H., Pizarro, D.A., & Tannenbaum, D. (2009). Motivated Moral Reasoning. In B. H. Ross (Series Ed.) & D. M. Bartels, C. W. Bauman, L. J. Skitka, & D. L. Medin (Eds.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 50: Moral Judgment and Decision Making. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Dawson, E., Gilovich, T., & Regan, D. T. (2002). Motivated Reasoning and Performance on the Wason Selection Task. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1379-1387.Sam's House, an orphanage in Nepal [sams-house.org] The identifiable victim effect [wikipedia.org] Tamler's mediocre TEDx talk on Moral Persuasion [youtube.com]10 Classic South Park Impressions (including Sally Struthers) [youtube.com]*musical breaks in this episode stolen from DJ Premier and Jay Electronica. Please don't sue.  Support Very Bad Wizards

Our streak of very special guests continues!  Philosopher Eddy Nahmias joins the podcast to us why people mistakenly think they're not morally responsible, and how his new study casts doubt on Sam Harris's "pamphlet" on free will.  Eddy also describes his new project (with Toni Adleberg and Morgan Thompson) on why women leave philosophy.  Plus Dave and I discuss some reasons for having children, and eat a little Partially Examined Life crow. Links "Name five women in philosophy.  Bet you can't." Tania Lombrozo, [npr.og] "Do Women Have Different Philosophical Intuitions than Men?" Eddy Nahmias (philosophyofbrains.com) "Is Neuroscience the Death of Free Will?' Eddy Nahmias.  [nytimes.com] Eddy on Bypassing [agencyandresponsbility.typepad.com]Edd trashing Tamler's Book [agencyandresponsbility.typepad.com]    Special Guest: Eddy Nahmias.Support Very Bad Wizards