Hello,

Ive been asked to put together a reading list for people

interested in pursuing the study of moral psychologyI have
done so below. This is largely based on the 2011
undergraduate course that I taught at Yale (though whole
books werent assigned for that coursejust excerpts). I have
updated it to include books and talks that have come out since
then. Note that much of this will overlap with what has already
been assigned in this course.

This list is, of course, idiosyncratic, reflecting my own tastes
and interests. I should add that I dont necessarily agree with
the views expressed in these readings I just think theyre
important and interesting.

***

1. General Sources

A useful starting point is:

Pinker, Steven. The Moral Instinct. The New York Times
Magazine. 2008.

If you want to learn about moral philosophy, two good sources
are:

Rachels, James, and Stuart Rachels. The elements of moral
philosophy. New York: Random House, 1986.

Sandel, Michael J. Justice: What's the right thing to do?.
Macmillan, 2010.

Sandel also has a superb online course on the topic:

http://www.justiceharvard.org

For book-length treatments of moral psychology, I would
recommend my own book (which isnt just about babies) as
well as Jon Haidts important and beautifully written overview:

Bloom, Paul. Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil. Random
House 2013.

Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why good people are
divided by politics and religion. Random House LLC, 2012.

To quickly get exposed to two very different perspectives on
morality, watch the following talks:

Harris, Sam. Science can answer moral questions. TED talk,
2010.

Haidt, J. The moral roots of liberals and conservatives. TED
talk, 2008.

2. Empathy and compassion

Smith, Adam. The Theory of the Moral Sentiments. 1759.

Baron-Cohen, Simon. The science of evil: On empathy and the
origins of cruelty. Basic books, 2012.

Batson, Charles Daniel. Altruism in humans. Oxford University
Press, 2011.

For a somewhat unusual take on the subject:,

Bloom, Paul. "The baby in the well: the case against empathy."
The New Yorker (2013).

For an irreverent discussion of psychopathy, see:
Ronson, Jon. The psychopath test. Picador, 2011.

3. Disgust and dehumanization

Nussbaum, Martha C. Hiding from humanity: Disgust, shame,
and the law. Princeton University Press, 2009.

Miller, William Ian. The anatomy of disgust. Harvard University
Press, 1998.

Pizarro, David. How disgust shapes our thoughts on moral
wrong and political right. TEDxEast, 2012.

4. Racism and social groups.

Smith, David Livingstone. Less Then Human: Why we demean,
enslave, and exterminate. St. Martins Press, 2011

Banaji, Mahzarin R., and Anthony G. Greenwald. Blindspot:
Hidden biases of good people. Random House LLC, 2013.

Berreby, David. Us and them: The science of identity. University
of Chicago Press, 2008.

5. Morality in non-humans

De Waal, Frans. Primates and Philosophers: How Morality
Evolved. Princeton University Press, 2009.
[an excellent dialogue between a primatologist and several
philosophers]

6. Experimental philosophy approaches to moral
psychology

Appiah, Anthony. Experiments in ethics. Harvard University
Press, 2008.

Knobe, Joshua. Person as scientist; person as moralist.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2010.

7. Moral progresssome very different perspectives

Harris, Sam. The moral landscape: How science can determine
human values. Simon and Schuster, 2011.

Pinker, Steven. The better angels of our nature: a history of
violence and humanity. Penguin, 2012.

Greene, Joshua. Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason and the Gap
Between Us and Them. Atlantic Books, 2013.

Bloom, Paul. The war on reason. The Atlantic, 2014.

DIGGING DEEPER

All of the reading I suggest above is for a smart and interested
audience with no special backgroundI did not include
articles in more technical journals. If you want to dig deeper,

though, some of the more specialized work is fascinating, and

can be appreciated with just a bit more attention and effort.

Rather than suggest articles, Ill suggest people. If you go to the
webpages of these scholarsmostly psychologists but also
some philosophers and othersyoull find links to work of
great interest (This is not a complete listjust people who
come to mind)

Dan Ariely
Mahzarin Banaji
Fiery Cushman
Kurt Gray
Joshua Greene
Jonathan Haidt
Sam Harris
Joshua Knobe
Robert Kurzban
Eddy Nahmias
Martha Nussbaum
Steven Pinker
David Pizarro
David Rand
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Karen Wynn
Liane Young

Finally, if you are interested in hearing two smart, funny, and
foul-mouthed scholars argue about morality, I highly
recommend checking out this podcast:

http://verybadwizards.com