Past Presentation

Lynn Stout: UCLA School of LawLegal scholars have become keenly interested in behavioral approaches to lawthat recognize that real people do not always behave in a selfishly rational fashion: numerous recent papers examine how human choice can be distorted by endowment effects, anchoring effects, availability biases, and other cognitive deficiencies. There is a curious imbalance […]

Nancy K. Dess: Occidental CollegeGlimpses at our primate relatives and diverse human cultures provide prima facie evidence that as a species, we are capable of far more benevolent, just, and healthful living than exists in many places. Illuminating human nature through evolutionary reasoning has great potential to make public policy more effective and more humane. […]

Stephen Stich: Rutgers Dept. of PhilosophyThe talk has three parts: In Part I, I will sketch a hotly debated question in moral philosophy. Roughly stated, the issue in dispute is whether moral disagreement is fundamental or superficial; disagreement is fundamental if it would persist even under “idealized” circumstances in which the parties to the dispute […]

Christine Harris: UC San Diego Dept. of PsychologyThe specific innate modular theory of jealousy (JSIM) hypothesizes that men are innately prone to upset over a mate’s sexual infidelity and women, over a mate’s emotional infidelity. This view claims that natural selection has shaped sexual jealousy as a mechanism to prevent cuckoldry and emotional jealousy as […]