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For some time now, cognitive scientists have been sure that the mind is not made for logical reasoning. That ability is just a lucky side effect of the work brains […]

In his book Blind Spots, Professor Max Bazerman of Harvard Business School argues that the Challenger fiasco exploited inconsistencies in the decision-making mechanisms of the brain. 

–Guest post by Kathrina Maramba, American University graduate student. Recently, Dr. David Agus appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote his new book The End of Illness. “Why […]

Are we born with a sense of morality? 

Like their namesakes from fable who live under bridges, “Trolls” are people who write nasty remarks and live underneath an online article, in its Comments section.  Media mavens and content […]

The shift in U.S. strategic attention toward Asia has even some astute commentators wondering why Americans should care about Asian security. It’s about keeping Asia divided.

One of the themes in my book that elicited attention was my “new monogamy” section, where I explore ethically non-monogamous marriages, and the gray zone of don’t ask, don’t tell […]

The most sterling truth standard in marriage is that you’re both monogamous for life, if you vowed that you would be. You don’t flirt with intent; you don’t have boozy […]

The last thing I ever wanted to do was to write a word about Newt Gingrich’s sex life. But, alas, ABC’s “blockbuster” interview with Newt’s ex-wife Marianne, airing tonight on […]

Irish poet Eavan Boland published her first collection, a pamphlet entitled 23 Poems, fifty years ago. To commemorate the milestone I’d like to offer this brief retrospective of her distinguished career. […]

Francesca Minerva has been receiving death threats. Did she harm anyone? Did she stab, mutilate, or otherwise physically incite people to violence? No: instead she fulfilled her duty as a […]

At Pennsylvania State University, morality has taken a back seat to football glory. How could academic leadership have failed so spectacularly in the face of overtly reprehensible behavior?

While reading some remembrances of Christopher Hitchens, I came across a column which quoted this statement from his brother Peter, who was a believer: Like Einstein, he viewed ethics as […]

Today marks the start of the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the world’s great scientific meetings. Many of the panels held in Vancouver […]

–Guest post by Judy Millili, American University graduate student. In today’s technologically-driven digital age, consumers are constantly inundated with drug advertisements that encourage active engagement in making decisions related to their […]

Dell predicts that IT managers will move to the sort of model that film studios use: big temporary teams that come together to solve a problem then disband.

There’s a very good chance that generating food from traditional farming and livestock practices will not be able to keep pace with the world’s population boom.

The financial crisis and its excesses have spurned alternative banking initiatives. One of them is ethical banking, which stands for total transparency and invests only in the real economy.

Paula always thought that infidelity should be “a deal breaker” in marriage—until two good friends confided in her about their unfaithful husbands. “I had a hard time wrapping my head […]

The social contract is clear: if you commit a violent crime, you go to prison. But what if you commit a violent crime because you have a brain tumor in a region of the brain that controls good judgment? 

When did the world turn so “inappropriate?” It seems to be getting more so by the year.  Inappropriate’s already appeared 26,200,000 times in 2011 on Google-indexed material. In 2010, it […]

Researchers have found a way to shrink the size of the medical lab to the size of a microchip, using advances from nanotechnology to pave the way for radically new […]

If managed intelligently, efforts like Mark Tercek’s with the Nature Conservancy may succeed in funding ambitious environmental projects that would otherwise remain on the drafting table, and transforming the way industry understands its relationship with the Earth.

It’s not just the Mediterranean tier of countries – Tunisia, Libya, Egypt – that are experiencing stirrings of new life across Africa. Throughout the African continent, formerly moribund nations like […]

–Guest post by Yuwen Yang, American University graduate student. In January 2009, new voluntary pharmaceutical industry guidelines on marketing to physicians went into effect (David 2010), which emphasize disclosure and […]

We now have the power to map the brain, peering into the human mind to decode words from silent thoughts. But what will human consciousness look like, if we ever finally catch a glimpse of it? Neuroscientist Joy Hirsch kicks off the debate.

Many expensive “ethics interventions” are doomed to failure because they are predicated on the faulty assumption that individuals always recognize an ethical dilemma when it is presented to them.

by Michael Garfield “As viewed by astronauts from the moon, the earth lacks those lines of sociopolitical division that are so prominent on maps. And as recognized here below, the […]

Do you have the ethical obligation to inform a friend if their spouse is cheating? Is love even ethical at all? The Ethicist Randy Cohen weighs in.

Former New York Times columnist Randy Cohen tackles the ethics of love in the latest in this Big Think series.