You're listening to the Michael Shermer Show.

As most of you know that have been watching this show for a while, I have an intense interest in why people do bad things. That is, violence, aggression, war, genocide, you know, the evil

side of good and evil and the immoral side of the moral arc. And so I have the perfect guest

for us today. She is Emily Kaspar, is a professor at Ghent University, Belgium,

where she leads the moral and social brain lab. She specializes in social neural science,

driving to uncover the neural mechanisms underlying moral and immoral decision-making.

Her main research interests focus on obedience and how restricting one's autonomy and choice options impacts the brain.

She works with various populations worldwide, including former genocide perpetrators and genocide rescuers in Rwanda and Cambodia,

as well as inmates and military personnel.

She's received numerous awards for research and collaborates with several NGOs worldwide to provide science-based tools that could assist

citizens in resisting undue inducement. She's got a new book out just about that. It's called

Just Following Orders, Atrocity and the brain science of obedience.

Emily, nice to see you.

I read your book while I listened to it on audio.

It's a nice read.

Thank you very much.

And thank you for the invitation.

That's a nice introduction.

Oh, well, you know, what you're doing is important.

I mean, most people are probably familiar with Milgram Shock experiments and

and probably Zimbardo's

faux prison experiments at Stanford. Beyond that, probably not too much. There's a lot of research

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