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, Ã. 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. Links Sam 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 Mentions Revenge: A Story of Hope. Laura Blumenfeld Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel The Fragility of Goodness by Martha Nussbaum Not by Genes Alone: by Peter Richerson and Richard Boyd The Principles of Psychology by William James Descartes Error by Antonio Damasio Beyond Good and Evil Thus Spoke Zarathustra The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong by J.L. Mackie Finally... 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. Links Thomson, 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

Psychologist and author Jesse Bering joins us to talk about evolutionary psychology and his forthcoming book Perv. In the relatively uncontroversial part of the episode, we ask if homophobia is an adaptation and if women have evolved rape defenses. After that, sex with animals, sex with bookshelves, foot fetishes, amputee fetishes, falling down the stairs fetishes... I don't know, just listen. Or maybe don't. Jesse Bering [jessebering.com] Perv (pre-order) by Jesse Bering [amazon.com] "Darwin's Rape Whistle," by Jesse Bering [slate.com] "Natural Homophobes?" by Jesse Bering [scientificamerican.com] The Belief Instinct by Jesse Bering [amazon.com] Why is the Penis Shaped Like That? by Jesse Bering [amazon.com] "I think you're some kind of deviated prevert." [youtube.com] Special Guest: Jesse Bering. Support Very Bad Wizards

Josh Knobe, the Michael Corleone of experimental philosophy, joins us to talk about taking philosophy into the lab and the streets. We discuss how people moralize everyday concepts like intention, causation, and innateness. Dave wonders if X-phi people are just doing social psychology, and Tamler tries his best to get Josh mad with his critique of Josh's experimental work on free will. He might have succeeded but that argument had to be cut a little short this time. We'll have to have Josh back for the rematch! Links Experimental philosophy Anthem [youtube.com] Experimental Philosophy [fun 3 minute overview, youtube.com] The Experimental Philosophy webpage. Josh Knobe's webpage Person as Scientist, Person as Moralist by Joshua Knobe Philosophy meets the real world [slate.com] In Memoriam: The X-Phi Debate by Tamler Sommers [Philosophers Magazine] Experimental Philosophy and Free Will: An Intervention by Tamler Sommers Experimental Philosophy [wikipedia.org] Using the Knobe effect as an implicit measure of homophobia: Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D.A., Knobe, J., & Bloom, P. (2009). Disgust sensitivity predicts intuitive disapproval of gays, Emotion, 9, 435-439. Special Guest: Joshua Knobe. Support Very Bad Wizards

Paul Bloom joins us in the second segment for a lively discussion about the value of empathy as a guide our moral decisions. And in our first scoop, we talk about Paul's new book (coming in November) Just Babies: The Origin of Good and Evil , racist babies, and how 80s sitcoms changed the world. In the first segment, Dave and Tamler face the music and try to respond to a listener's criticisms of their episode on slurs and offensiveness (Episode 22) . Links The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy by Paul Bloom [newyorker.com] Descartes' Baby by Paul Bloom [amazon.com] Jesse Prinz "Is empathy necessary for morality" [subcortex.com] Pizarro, Bloom, and Detweiler-Bedell on the empathy, disgust, and the moral circle [peezer.net] Pre-order Just babies: The origins of good and evil by Paul Bloom [amazon.com] Louis CK: My Life is Really Evil. Special Guest: Paul Bloom. Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave, Tamler, and special guest Yoel Inbar break down Sam Peckinpah's brilliant (at least according to one of us) 1971 film Straw Dogs. They talk about the notorious rape scene, the meaning of the final siege, standing up to Cornish townies, and whether the urge to respond to insults is rational in in modern society. Also: Yoel and Tamler go another round in their debate about statistics and grad school. Links Straw Dogs [imdb.com] Yoel Inbar [yoelinbar.net] "The Power of Straw Dogs" [dailybeast.com] Edward Copeland on Straw Dogs [eddieonfilm.blogspot.com] "Home Like No Place: Peckinpah's Straw Dogs." [criterion.com] Musical interlude courtesy of Monibeatz [http://monibeatz.bandcamp.com/] Special Guest: Yoel Inbar. Support Very Bad Wizards

In what might very well be the last episode before we're pulled off the air, Tamler outlines his data-free "theory" of what makes something offensive. What makes a joke about race, ethnicity, gender, disability funny sometimes, and deeply hurtful at other times? What makes Louis CK so goddamn funny and Andrew Dice Clay just...an asshole? Is Family Guy racist? Throughout the episode, David defends the victims of hatred and is a voice of empathy and reason, while Tamler drops the c-word multiple times, jumps to racist conclusions, and makes fun of David's partial Arab heritage. Links Louis CK and his friends discuss the word f@**%t Wikipedia on F**** and C*** [wikipedia.org] Bill Burr on the c-word [youtube.com] Andy Ihnatko's podcast on 5by5.tv, where he discusses why Family Guy is not funny The Troubling Viral Trend of the "Hilarious" Black Neighbor by Aisha Harris [slate.com] Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler shrug off inside baseball concerns and argue whether to go to grad school, what to do when you get there, and share horror stories about the job market. Also, Tamler explains why the sorority sister who wrote the infamous email is a "civil rights visionary," Dave refuses to say "c*#t punt," and listener contributions from Boomer Trujillo, Yoel Inbar, Rachel Grazioplene, Dave Tucker, and Nina Strohminger. Links Michael Shannon Reads Sorority Letter [funnyordie.com] David Ortiz Pregame Speech [youtube.com] Twitter beef "Thesis Hatement" by Rebecca Schuman [slate.com] "Thesis Defense" by Katie Roiphie [slate.com] The Impossible Decision by Joshua Rothman [newyorker.com] VBW Bonus content: Dave and Yoel inbar on the "replicability crisis." Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler begin with a brief, heartfelt discussion about the Boston Bombings. Tamler talks about why Patriots' Day and the Boston Marathon mean so much to a kid growing up in Boston. They speculate a bit about the motive behind the attack and ask why the perpetrators didn't come out and claim responsibility. In the second and third segments, Molly Crockett joins us to challenge Fiery Cushman for the prize of classiest episode ever. She tells us about her research on the effects of serotonin depletion on retributive behavior, and how it was reported as "Chocolate and Cheese help you make better decisions" in the popular media. We talk about the responsibility that scientists have to make sure that their studies are reported properly, and how brain research can (despite David's previous claims) help shed light on human nature and behavior. Also: Tamler mangles the pronunciation of roughly 14 brain regions, Dave yearns for the days when restrictions of human experimentation were non-existent, and both Dave and Tamler subtly and then not so subtly try to get Molly to hook them up with...molly. Enjoy! Links Dirty Water by the Standells [youtube.com] Patriots' Day [wikipedia.org] Molly Crockett [mollycrockett.com] Crockett, M. J., Clark, L., Tabibnia, G., Lieberman, M. D., & Robbins, T. W. (2008). Serotonin modulates behavioral reactions to unfairness. Science, 320, 1739. Serotonin [wikipedia.org] Striatum [wikipedia.org] DMT [wikipedia.org] Special Guests: Fiery Cushman and Molly Crockett. Support Very Bad Wizards

Re-recording a not-so-tragically lost episode (it kinda sucked), Dave and Tamler talk about the things they hate most about philosophy and psychology. But first they discuss a blog post by a Rochester professor that wonders why it's not OK to rape someone who's passed out. Also: same-sex marriage, telling dirty jokes to your daughter, Meredith Baxter Birney, Lifetime movies, how to eat crawfish, and Dave takes a bold, even heroic, stand by criticizing a Republican senator. Links In honor of our 19th episode, some Paul Hardcastle for you.. Opening clip: Bridge on the River Kwai [youtube.com] Economist: Rapists reaping rewards of passed out girls [gawker.com] Molly Crockett's TEDx Talk on Neuro-Bunk [TED.com] Friendship and Freedom (blog post, Flickers of Freedom--Tamler and Saul Smilanksy get into it about the "dubiousness" of gratitude in the comments ) The Ikea Effect [hbr.org] Paul Bloom and David talk about social psychology's dismissal of reason [bloggingheads.tv] Donate to Oxfam. It will feel good. And then afterwards... Support Very Bad Wizards

Joe Henrich joins the podcast to tell us that we know nothing about his work and that how we got to teach a class in anything is absolutely amazing. We continue our discussion from Episode 17 about his critique of the social and behavioral sciences in "The Weirdest People in the World" and his work in small scale societies on fairness norms. We also talk about the weird American obsession with happiness, monkeys throwing cucumbers, and why some people reject "hyper-fair" offers of more than the half the pot in the ultimatum games. Links "I happen to have Marshall Mcluhan right here." (From Woody Allen's Annie Hall.) Longer HD version here Joe Henrich UBC.ca | Wikipedia The Machiguenga [wikipedia.org] Henrich on Brosnan and DeWaal's capuchin inequity aversion study. Chicha [wikipedia.org] How much money would it take for you to kill a puppy? [liveleak.com] Relevant papers are listed in the notes for Episode 17: Learning About Bushmen from Studying Freshmen? Special Guest: Joe Henrich. Support Very Bad Wizards

Thousands of studies in psychology rely on data from North American undergraduates. Can we really conclude anything about the "human" mind from such a limited sample-- especially since Westerners are probably more different from the rest of the world's population than any other group? We talk about Joseph Henrich and colleagues' critique of the behavioral sciences in their paper "The WEIRDEST People in the World." David offers a defense of psychology, arguing that it's usually not the goal of lab studies to generalize findings to all humans in the first place. Also, Tamler gives a brief, heartfelt, completely non-awkward rant about monkey torturer Harry Harlow and David defends the practice of electrocuting baby monkeys for no reason. Links The Gods Must Be Crazy [IMDB.com] Bushmen [wikipedia.org] Homo Economicus [wikipedia.org] The Ultimatum Game [wikipedia.org] Müller-Lyer illusion [wikipedia.org] We aren't the world [psmag.com] Harlow studies [wikipedia.org] Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010).The weirdest people in the world. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61-83. Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., & McElreath, R. (2001). In search of homo economicus: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. American Economic Review, 73-78. Mook, D.G. (1983). In Defense of External Invalidity. American Psychologist, 38,379-387. Support Very Bad Wizards

For those who thought our most uncomfortable topics were behind us, on this episode we are joined by David's childhood friend Damani McDole [facebook.com] to discuss several potentially offensive topics surrounding race and justice in America, such as slavery, reparations, affirmative action, and the use of the N-word. When Damani mounts an economic and moral defense for reparations for the descendants of slaves, David prefers to point to the difficulties in deciding who gets paid ( someone who's 1/16th descended from slaves? Jamaican-Americans? African immigrants?) and who should be responsible for paying (only people whose descendants benefitted from slavery? all non-slave descended taxpayers?). Tamler proposes (taking a note from Lenny Bruce) that if we use the N-word often enough it will lose its sting, and decides to practice what he preaches. And Damani reveals a surprising theory about race and geography (surprising for a Black man, at least) that leaves Tamler awkwardly speechless. For those who are visually inclined: here's a one-minute set of behind-the-scenes clips from our Google+ Hangout: Links Nigger [wikipedia.org] Leonardo DiCaprio bleeds for his role in Django Unchained [cinemablend.com] Lenny Bruce- Are there any niggers here tonight? [youtube.com] 60-year old white man slaps Black baby [thesmokinggun.com] The truth about 40 Acres and a Mule [theroot.com] The "great migration" of American Blacks out of the South [inmotionaame.org] 1811 Louisiana Slave Rebellion [theroot.com] Maya Angelou and Dave Chappelle on Iconoclasts [sundancechannel.com] Bonus: Dave Chappelle imagines reparations [youtube.com] Special Guest: Joseph Damani McDole. Support Very Bad Wizards

You don't need to be a psychologist or a philosopher to enjoy a good, old-fashioned bitch-fest. In the first of a two-part episode (no single compact disc, 8-track, or LP could hold all our complaints), Tamler and David list two of the things that bug them about their respective fields. We take issue with bad writing, brain worship, meaningless questions, and psychologists' obsession with the number two. Enjoy and try not to hold it against us. Links Simpsons clip on philosophy majors [youtube.com] Peter Hacker on philosophy [leiterreports.typepad.com] Business-speak buzzwords [wikipedia.org] Dual process theory [wikipedia.org] Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman [amazon.com] Dual-Process Theories in Social Psychology [amazon.com] Gettier Problem [wikipedia.org] Seduced by the flickering lights of the brain by Paul Bloom [seedmagazine.com] Support Very Bad Wizards

In a break from tradition, we recorded a 25-minute episode on the morality of tattletaling, snitching, ratting, and whistleblowing. We discuss why these people seem especially despicable (except for maybe "Bubbles" from "The Wire" and the guy from "The Insider"), and David gets Tamler to agree that he'd never turn him into the police. We also puzzle over the existence of porn theaters, and the origins of the expression "flip a bitch." Links Stop Snitchin' campaign [wikipedia.org] Bubbles (character from "The Wire") [wikipedia.org] Time Magazine Persons of the Year: Whistleblowers [time.com] Ingram, G. P., & Bering, J. M. (2010). Children's tattling: The reporting of everyday norm violations in preschool settings. Child development, 81, 945-957. Obie Trice feat. Akon "Snitch" "Dry Snitching" [urbandictionary.com] Support Very Bad Wizards

Our classiest episode yet (OK, that's not saying much, but still...)--Psychologist Fiery Cushman joins us for a discussion about collective punishment and collective responsibility. We use Fiery's recent paper on the practice of "beaning" in baseball (punishing one player for a teammate's offense by throwing a 95 MPH fastball at the player's head) to illustrate the phenomenon. Is the "innocent" player being punished because he is somehow morally responsible for his teammate's offense? Or does deserve have nothing to do with it? Also in this episode: listener feedback (sort of, we're just psyched to have a Norwegian stand-up comic as a listener), and Fiery solves the 3,000 year-old problem of moral responsibility just so he can get out of Dave's hotel room. Links Fiery Cushman [brown.edu] Beanball [wikipedia.org] Hatfield-McCoy Blood Feud [wikipedia.org] Major League (1989) [imdb.com] Revenge: A story of hope, by Laura Blumenfeld Blood Revenge, by Christopher Boehm "The Two Faces of Revenge: Moral Responsibility and the Culture of Honor." T Sommers. "John Kruk and Desert." [Flickers of Freedom blog post] Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler square off the role of the victim in criminal punishment and find little to agree about. Tamler defends the restorative justice approach, while Dave expresses skepticism about its value and worries it might even be damaging. Arguments ensue, but be sure to stick around for the third segment as it features an unusually focused and productive discussion--for them anyway. Also discussed: the best character on "The Wire," the startling specificity of KG's trash-talking, and a listener calls us out on not justifying the meaningfulness of life. Links Family Guy- Breaking Bad (and The Wire) [youtube.com] The Wire- Omar in court [youtube.com] Restorative Justice [wikipedia.org] Christie, N. (1977). Conflicts as Property. British Journal of Criminology Greg Ousley is sorry for killing his parents. Is that enough? [NY Times magazine] "The Caging of America" by Adam Gopnik. [New Yorker] "Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?" [NY Times magazine] Support Very Bad Wizards

Social psychologist Yoel Inbar joins Tamler and David to discuss Clint Eastwood's masterpiece of the Western genre, "Unforgiven." The discussion includes the nature of revenge, the requirements of justice, the rules of nicknaming, and who or what was being referred to as "unforgiven" in the movie's title. Links Unforgiven (1992): IMDB, Wikipedia Page If you haven't seen "Unforgiven," don't worry : Story Spoilers Don't Spoil Stories Actor Saul Rubinek [wikipedia.org] Relevant Book about moral character by a couple of great social psychologists: Out of Character: Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us Special Guest: Yoel Inbar. Support Very Bad Wizards

Does life have meaning if there is no God? Why should I be a good person if there's no reward or punishment waiting for me in the afterlife? Why does religion seem to make people happier and healthier? Dave and Tamler heroically try to answer these questions without being stoned. Other topics include Dave's paralyzing fear of death, bad times on mopeds, and the pros and cons of naming your daughter Chlamydia. They almost get through the episode without having to censor something--but not quite. Links Woody Allen's "Love and Death" Paul Bloom- Does Religion Make You Nice? [Slate.com] Follow-up reading on religion and health (for the slightly academically inclined)- Powell, L. H., Shahabi, L., & Thoresen, C. E. (2003). Religion and spirituality: Linkages to physical health. American Psychologist, 58, 36. Pascal's Wager [wikipedia.org] Albert Camus [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] The Problem of Evil. [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] "Yes but subjectivity is objective." Collateral Support Very Bad Wizards

After discussing some listener feedback about the movie Swingers, Tamler and David talk about two classic experiments in social psychology: the Milgram Experiments and the Zimbardo Prison experiment. They discuss the power of the situation, its influence on recent philosophy, and whether there is room given the evidence to believe in moral character and virtue. Also, Tamler admits to his former struggles with hard core street drugs, and Dave ponders which prison gang would be most accepting if he had to serve hard time. Links "Swingers," Directed by Jon Favreau [metacritic.com] The Milgram Experiment [Wikipedia.org] Video clip of a replication of the Milgram Experiment [youtube.com] The Stanford Prison Experiment [Wikipedia.org] Short video on Stanford Prison Experiment [youtube.com] Asch Conformity Experiment [youtube.com] Jon Doris "Lack of Character" [amazon.com] Support Very Bad Wizards

In a Very Special Episode of Very Bad Wizards, Dan Ariely joins David to chat about cheating, character, teling your significant other about kissing someone at a conference, and the importance of moral rules. Tamler and David sandwich the chat with a discussion about the US Presidential election, the irony of moral psychologists making people do bad things, and end with a full-blown argument about what it means to say that something is morally wrong, and whether that's an interesting question. Links Buffy/Angel Crossover Viewing Guide Sir Ian McKellen on Ricky Gervais' "Extras" Eric Dondero's Democrat Boycott. Eric Dondero on who he would save: A family member who's a democrat or a republican child molester. Dan Ariely's podcast--"Arming the Donkeys" "The Honest Truth about Dishonesty" on Amazon.com Tamler's favorite kind of epistemology The debate about moral wrongness that Tamler thinks is stupid and David finds intriguing. Special Guest: Dan Ariely. Support Very Bad Wizards

After a clip from The Third Man, Dave and Tamler continue their discussion from Episode 6 on Ted Bundy, utilitarians, and trolley problems. They also talk about Tamler's TED talk envy, inappropriate acts with trees, and make a plea for more listener feedback. The second segment begins with the long-awaited return of the 'eat the poo-poo' clip, but this time in a somewhat relevant context. Dave and Tamler then discuss the role that emotions play in moral judgment and the role they should play. If we feel disgust at someone's behavior, does that mean the behavior is morally wrong? Tune in to find out… Links The Third Man Ferris Wheel Scene (maybe Dave will see this movie one day) Dave's TEDx talk, bumped up to TED (129,000 views) Tamler's TEDx talk, not as much bumping up. (676 views) "Consequentialist are Psychopaths" The Splintered Mind blog post Eat the poo poo Yuck by Dan Kelly "Grime and Punishment." Brief review of disgust and moral judgment from The Jury Expert by Yoel Inbar (the brains--and brawn--behind all the disgust work) and David P. Support Very Bad Wizards

Tamler contemplates ending it all because he can't get 'Call Me Maybe' out of his head, and Dave doesn't try to talk him out of it. This is followed by a discussion about drones, psychopaths, Canadians, Elle Fanning, horrible moral dilemmas, and the biggest rivalry in Ethics: utilitarians vs. Kantians. Links "Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama." by Conor Friedersdorf "Why I Refuse to Refuse to Vote for Obama" by Robert Wright. Dave's study "The Mismeasure of Morals" The write-up of Dave's study in The Economist: "Goodness Has Nothing to Do With It" Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler continue their discussion about their favorite topic. They talk about the evolutionary origins of retributive behavior, cross-cultural differences in revenge norms, and the proportionate punishment for someone who gives your wife a foot massage. They also play a clipfrom an interview they conducted in Nosara with local attorney Andres Gonzalez about the Costa Rican treatment of the criminals they call 'pobrecitos.' Links "Would you give a man a foot massage?" Robert Frank's Passions Within Reason, one of the best books of the last 100 years. Tamler's article "The Two Faces of Revenge" Dave's post for the Harmony Blog: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Become a Philosopher-in-Residence." Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave allows Tamler to rant about Sam Harris's strawman attacks on moral relativism before launching into discussion about revenge, justice, True Grit, and Michael Dukakis. Though they differ on many issues, Tamler and Dave agree that it's hard to satirize a guy with shiny boots. Links Sam Harris in the Huffington Post. "Brute force is better with Nazis." The answer that launched a series of Bush presidencies. "This ain't no coon hunt." ·Justice and Honor, Tamler's Psychology Today blog post. "Partial Desert" blog post at Flickers of Freedom. Support Very Bad Wizards

Tamler and Dave discuss recent work in philosophy and psychology about the differences in moral values and practices across cultures. We talk about the implications of moral diversity: does it mean that we cannot criticize that practices of other cultures? How should we regard moral disagreement? Are there objective "truths" in ethics? Somehow we need to play clips from The Big Lebowski and Pulp Fiction in order to resolve these questions. Links "No Donnie, these men are nihilists, nothing to be afraid of." Interview with Jon Haidt. "Pigs are filthy animals" Support Very Bad Wizards

Tamler and David discuss whether giving up our belief in free will makes us more likely to abandon our moral standards. Links "You Can't Handle the Truth!" Jesse Bering "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist, but urge: "Don't stop believing!" Excellent accessible description of the Vohs and Schooler study that we discuss. Tamler's blog post in Psychology Today criticizing the pessimistic views of Smilansky and Vohs and Schooler: "No Soul? I can live with that. No free will? Aaahhhh!". "Eat the poo-poo." "Like ice cream…" Josh Knobe on free will and experimental philosophy. Tamler's dialogue on some of the problems with current experimental work on free will: "Free Will and Experimental Philosophy: An Intervention." "I want him dead! I want his family dead!" Uhlmann, Zhu, Pizarro & Bloom "Blood is Thicker: Moral Spillover Effects Based on Kinship" Support Very Bad Wizards

Dave and Tamler start out talking about the new wave of skepticism about free will and moral responsibility in the popular press from people like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne. Neuroscience figures heavily in their arguments, but Dave and Tamler agree that neuroscientific data adds little of substance to the case other than telling us what we already know: human beings are natural biological entities. Dave also accuses Tamler of being a hipster philosopher for abandoning a view once it got popular. Next, we talk about what kind freedom we need to have in order to deserve blame and punishment. Do we need to create ourselves out of the swamps of nothingness? Dave comes out as a Star Trek nerd and asks whether we're all, in the end, like Data the android. They also wonder whether a belief in free will is all that's keeping us from having sex with our dogs. Finally, Dave grills Tamler about his new book on the differences in attitudes about free will and moral responsibility across cultures. After seeing how long they've been carrying on, they then agree to talk about all the stuff they left out in the next episode. Links Coyne, J. "Why You Don't Really Have Free Will." Sam Harris. "Free Will." Eddy Nahmias. "Is Neuroscience the Death of Free Will?" Galen Strawson "Luck Swallows Everything." Support Very Bad Wizards