Joshua Greene on Moral Tribes, Moral Dilemmas, and Utilitarianism

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2015

⏱️ 70 minutes

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Summary

Joshua Greene, of Harvard University and author of Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about morality and the challenges we face when our morality conflicts with that of others. Topics discussed include the difference between what Greene calls automatic thinking and manual thinking, the moral dilemma known as "the trolley problem," and the difficulties of identifying and solving problems in a society that has a plurality of values. Greene defends utilitarianism as a way of adjudicating moral differences.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:06.4	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:11.0	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find links
0:16.2	and other information related to today's conversation.
0:19.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done
0:23.1	going back to 2006.
0:25.4	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:27.9	We'd love to hear from you.
0:32.2	Today is December 23rd, 2014, and I want to mention that as we have done in the past,
0:38.0	we'd like to know your top episodes of the year to participate, go to econtalk.org where
0:43.8	you will find a link in the upper left hand corner to a survey that will give you a chance
0:48.1	to tell us a little bit about yourself, give us some general feedback if you'd like,
0:51.7	as well as voting for your five favorite episodes of 2014.
0:55.8	That survey will stay up through early February of 2015, and I will announce the results sometime
1:01.5	in mid to late February.
1:03.7	Now onto today's guest, Joshua Green, professor of psychology at Harvard University and the
1:08.8	director of the Moral Cognition Lab there.
1:10.9	He is the author of Moral Tribes, a motion reason and the gap between us and them, which
1:17.2	is our topic for today's episode.
1:18.8	Josh, welcome to econtalk.
1:20.6	Oh, thanks very much for having me.
1:22.5	So this is a fascinating, thought-provoking and very ambitious book.
	...

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