Nature & Nurture #84: Dr. Joshua Greene - Moral Psychology & Pragmatism

Dr. Joshua Greene is a psychologist, philosopher, Professor at Harvard University, and author of Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them.

In this episode we talk about Josh’s early research on moral psychology, specifically trolleyology. He describes his empirical research on the famous trolley problem thought experiment in philosophy, and how people generally approach these problems via two different modes of reasoning: slow and rational, and fast and emotional. We talk about the evolutionary origins of these distinct moral cognitive processes, and an alternative framework to utilitarianism known as deep pragmatism. Lastly, Josh talks about his recent research on this pragmatic approach to moral psychology, including The Giving Multiplier which aims to motivate people to donate to more effective charities.

Josh created a special code for viewers of The Nature & Nurture Podcast to use on The Giving Multiplier. Use The Giving Multiplier to donate to charities of your own choice as well as highly effective charities identified by Josh’s lab. With this code, an extra 50% will be matched and added to any amount you donate:

https://givingmultiplier.org/invite/NATURENURTURE

Code: NATURENURTURE