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Comparing “astronaut” to “cowboy” ethics can show that Locke’s limits on liberty need to be revised. We once could see that pitting self-interest against collective self-preservation wasn’t rational. Me-opic and logically unworkable ideas that economics sometimes encourage have made that harder to see.   

Envy hurts, and it can devolve into nastiness and even violence, but envy can also encourage us to aspire to our better or our best selves at work, school or at home.

A recent New York Times op-ed advocating for student loan default has elicited a bevy of critical responses.

For all we make about our disagreements with each other, we are bound to have more in agreement by the nature of conservation.

The threat is real and many scientists and engineers are standing behind them.

Can history offer us clues on happiness? Yes, argues Yuval Noah Harari, if we’re willing to listen.

If Scrooge gave away just a few pennies, he would suffer a big loss of well-being; for Mother Teresa to suffer a comparable loss she would have to give until she were nearly penniless.

Why does our belief in the ability of drugs to enhance the achievements of artists stop with artists? Isn’t reaching new physical heights just as inspiring as a lyric that tells us some truth creatively?

Questions like, “What will happen when it all goes wrong?” are at the top of the list.

The “extraordinary authority” of maps helped perpetuate an erroneous image of West Africa for almost an entire century.

Why Banksy’s dystopian vision of the future might be the kind of shock we need to realize the problems humanity faces.

The Daily Table, a new Boston grocery store from the ex-president of Trader Joe’s, sells nearly expired food items at a steep discount.

The intensity of sports rivalry is justified if it helps us develop morally praiseworthy attitudes that transfer from the sporting arena into real life.

The story of the boy who survived underwater for 42 minutes is astounding. But how was he able to live? Science gives us a few possible answers.

Words of wisdom from public intellectual Noam Chomsky: “One of the problems of organizing … is that people tend to think — even the activists — that instant gratification is required. You constantly hear: ‘Look I went to a demonstration, and we didn’t stop the war, so what’s the use of doing it again?'”

Moral sciences are back. Natural laws of ethics, envisioned early in the Enlightenment, can now be objectively studied. Game Theory is reteaching scientists and “rationalists” old wisdoms, while suggesting a “Golden Punishment Rule,” and a Naturalistic Fallacy reform (via “negative telos”).

People like rewards. Researchers found people are more likely to participate in programs as well as change their behavior if there’s a little money coming their way.

When confronting a challenge, people with an optimistic outlook persist at trying to overcome that challenge about 20 percent longer than those with less optimism.

After seeing these pictures, you’ll switch to raising your own. “People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal […]

Is ruthless selfishness natural and rational? The idea that this is just how “selfish genes” and evolution work is unnaturally selective. Without certain kinds of cooperation, no gene can survive (that’s using the term cooperative in a similar metaphoric way that genes can be described as “selfish”). 

Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup, is constructing event infrastructure with what basically amounts to modern-day slave labor. Where is the outrage?

Should ABC hold George Stephanopoulos accountable for undisclosed contributions to Clinton organizations? If he’s a journalist, yes. But is he? The Good Morning America host represents an ill trend in mainstream journalism.

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”  

Letting kids take control of their summer reading may help boost test scores and prevent the “summer slide.”

The pope laments the state of the environment, but he also decries the naive central environmentalist belief that humans are separate from nature and the villain in a simple myth of US (humans) against True Nature.

“Games are a trigger for adults to again become primitive, primal, as a way of thinking and remembering. An adult is a child who has more ethics and morals; that’s all.”

An op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times by sociologist Phil Zuckerman supplied a reassuring answer for secular parents: absolutely. In the face of a previous study finding that children […]

I won’t make you wait: the answer is no. But Article IV, section 2 of the Constitution, which spells that out, is apparently no obstacle for Roy Moore, the Chief […]

Pope Francis’ remarks on climate change, that we must collectively account for our mistreatment of nature, has also weakened the GOP’s political narrative in which they appear as the party of God.

In the United States, the FDA has the power to fine drug companies $10,000 a day for failing to publish clinical trials, yet most clinical trials still never see the light of day.