Where Marc D. Hauser appears
19 total
p others. We all desire good health, fulfilling relationships, and knowledge to explain the world. Some also desire great wealth and power, each culture weighing in on its signature vision of what counts: money, land, livestock, wives, and...
istorical record, punishment can strengthen solidarity and cooperation within the group, while simultaneously enhancing antagonism and prejudice toward those outside the inner sanctum. Ironically, the psychology that benefited cooperation a...
set if punishers and their group benefit by removing cheaters or teaching them a lesson. Among animals, punishment is infrequently seen in vertebrates, especially our closest relatives the nonhuman primates. When it is seen, the most common...
aggressive species, one capable of inflicting great harm on others in any context. Though the modern invention of scud missiles and stealth bombers undoubtedly enriched our capacity to kill on a large scale by putting distance between kille...
Denying others their moral worth by reclassifying them as threats to our survival or as non-human objects is toxic thinking. When we deny others their moral worth, the thought of killing them is no longer aversive or inappropriate. If we en...
has suggested, animals can surmount these costs by attacking and killing only when there is a significant imbalance of power. This imbalance minimizes the costs to the killers and maximizes the odds of a successful kill. Still, the rarity o...
rtually every known environment on earth and some beyond, inventing abstract mathematical concepts, conceiving grammatically structured languages, and creating glorious civilizations rich in rituals, laws, and beliefs in the supernatural. O...
addressing novel problems, some of which we create for ourselves. Disgust provides an example. Disgust originally evolved as an adaptive response to detecting substances that are toxic to our health, especially substances that are outside o...
How? To explain the landscape of human atrocities, from Reverend Lawrence Murphy to Mao Zedong, we need an account of why we evolved this capacity and how it works. I will explain both of these problems using the theories and evidence of sc...
onsible for forcing nudity and sex among the Iraqi prisoners of Abu Ghraib, putting individuals on dog leashes, depriving them of their senses with head bags, and piling naked bodies into photographed still lifes, orchestrations that led to...
standing may force us to exonerate the perpetrators, recognizing that they harbored significant brain damage and as a result, lacked self-control or awareness of others’ pain. In other cases, understanding will reveal that they knowingly ca...
of this book. A brief history of malice Homo sapiens, the knowing and wise animal, has logged an uncontested record of atrocities, despite moral norms prohibiting such actions: no other species has abducted innocent children into rogue armi...
he experience ⎯⎯ as did Lionel James ⎯⎯ fits well with a common view of evil. On this view, we think of someone as evil if they inflict harm on innocent others, knowing that they are violating moral or legal norms, and relishing the abuse d...
Dad,” I said, “if I hit them, they will crush me.” “They might,” he said, “but you will have gained some respect, and they may turn their attention to someone else.” It seemed like a remarkably stupid idea. But my father lived through a war...
larger and stronger than I. Almost daily they locked me inside of the school’s lockers, bruised my arms by giving me knuckle-punches, and gave me purple-nurples by twisting my nipples. This was no fun for me. For James, Paxton, and Joffe it...
s of the book, or its entirety: Kim Beeman, Kent Berridge, George Cadwalader, Donal Cahill, Noam Chomsky, Jim Churchill, Randy Cohen, Daniel Dennett, Jonathan Figdor, Nick Haslam, Omar Sultan Haque, Lilan Hauser, Bryce Huebner, Ann Jon, Gor...
nation of evil that is anchored in the sciences. I believe, as do many scientists, that deep understanding of exceptionally complicated phenomena requires staking out a piece of theoretical real estate with only a few properties, putting to...
of the school is handing Jewish children over to the Nazis.” My father promptly called his parents who picked him up, moved him to another village and school, and survived to tell the story. This little girl expressed one of our species’ si...
Explaining our taste for excessive harm Marc D. Hauser Viking/Penguin For Jacques and Bert Hauser, my parents, my friends, and my reminder that life should be lived to its fullest Hauser Evilicious. Front matter 2 Pleasure is the greatest...
