Quotessence
Home / Authors / Joshua Greene

Joshua Greene Quotes

Psychologist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMoralCommunityIndividualMoralityPsychologicalThinkingConflictGutsHelpingObligationPeopleTryingUnderstandingBrainChallengesCommonCommon SenseDifferentFar AwayGoal

Famous Joshua Greene Quotes

“Morality is essentially a suite of psychological mechanisms that enable us to cooperate. But, biologically at least, we only evolved to cooperate in a tribal way. Individuals who were more cooperative with those around them - could outcompete others who were not. However, we have the capacity to take a step back from this and ask what a more global morality would look like. Why are the lives of people on the other side of the world worth any less than those in my immediate community? Going through that reasoning process can allow our moral thinking to do something it never evolved to.”

PeopleThinkingWorldIndividualCommunityMoralMoralityPsychological
Author:Joshua Greene
Create image

“We now have a better biological and psychological understanding of our moral thinking. The idea that we should do what maximizes happiness sounds very reasonable, but it often conflicts with our gut reactions. Philosophers have spent the last century or so finding examples where our intuition runs counter to this idea and have taken these as signals that something is wrong with this philosophy. But when you look at the psychology behind those examples, they become less compelling. An alternative is that our gut reactions are not always reliable.”

ThinkingPhilosophyRunningUnderstandingMoralTakenPsychologyConflictPhilosopherIntuitionPsychologicalGuts
Author:Joshua Greene
Create image