We’d be really screwed if we had to start our life over again as children with our brains right now, because I think we lose the plasticity and flexibility. – Paul Bloom
If our moral attitudes are entirely the result of nonrational factors, such as gut feelings and the absorption of cultural norms, they should either be stable or randomly drift over time, like skirt lengths or the widths of ties. They shouldn’t show systematic change over human history. But they do. – Paul Bloom
Once we accept violence as an adaptation, it makes sense that its expression is calibrated to the environment. The same individual will behave differently if he comes of age in Detroit, Mich., versus Windsor, Ontario; in New York in the 1980s versus New York now; in a culture of honor versus a culture of dignity. – Paul Bloom
The real problem with natural selection is that it makes no intuitive sense. It is like quantum physics; we may intellectually grasp it, but it will never feel right to us. – Paul Bloom
Humans are born with a hard-wired morality: a sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. I know this claim might sound outlandish, but it’s supported now by research in several laboratories. – Paul Bloom
Some of the natural world is appealing, some of it is terrifying, and some of it grosses us out. Modern people don’t want to be dropped naked into a swamp. We want to tour Yosemite with our water bottles and G.P.S. devices. The natural world is a source of happiness and fulfillment, but only when prescribed in the right doses. – Paul Bloom
If Inigo Montoya were around now, he wouldn’t need to storm the castle to bring his father’s murderer to justice; the police would do it for him, and fewer people would have to die. – Paul Bloom
If evil is empathy erosion, and empathy erosion is a form of illness, then evil turns out to be nothing more than a particularly awful psychological disorder. – Paul Bloom
You’d expect, as good Darwinian creatures, we would evolve to be fascinated with how the world really is, and we would use language to convey real-world information, we’d be obsessed with knowing the way things are, and we would entirely reject stories that aren’t true. They’re useless. But that’s not the way we work. – Paul Bloom
Even in the most peaceful communities, an appetite for violence shows up in dreams, fantasies, sports, play, literature, movies and television. And, so long as we don’t transform into angels, violence and the threat of violence – as in punishment and deterrence – is needed to rein in our worst instincts. – Paul Bloom
Almost nobody believes anymore that infants are insensate blobs. It seems both mad and evil to deny experience and feeling to a laughing, gurgling creature. – Paul Bloom
Imagination is Reality Lite – a useful substitute when the real pleasure is inaccessible, too risky, or too much work. – Paul Bloom
The irrationality of disgust suggests it is unreliable as a source of moral insight. There may be good arguments against gay marriage, partial-birth abortions and human cloning, but the fact that some people find such acts to be disgusting should carry no weight. – Paul Bloom
The emotions triggered by fiction are very real. When Charles Dickens wrote about the death of Little Nell in the 1840s, people wept – and I’m sure that the death of characters in J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’ series led to similar tears. – Paul Bloom
We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life: a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community. – Paul Bloom
Modern science tells us that the conscious self arises from a purely physical brain. We do not have immaterial souls. – Paul Bloom
Natural selection shaped the human brain to be drawn toward aspects of nature that enhance our survival and reproduction, like verdant landscapes and docile creatures. There is no payoff to getting the warm fuzzies in the presence of rats, snakes, mosquitoes, cockroaches, herpes simplex and the rabies virus. – Paul Bloom
Strong moral arguments exist for why we should often try to ignore stereotypes or override them. But we shouldn’t assume they represent some irrational quirk of the unconscious mind. In fact, they’re largely the consequence of the mind’s attempt to make a rational decision. – Paul Bloom
We know that young babies, as they become capable of moving voluntarily, will share. They will share food, for instance, with their siblings and with kids that are around. They will sooth. If they see somebody else in pain, even the youngest of toddlers will try to reach out and pat the person. – Paul Bloom
I want to convince you that humans are, to some extent, natural born essentialists. What I mean by this is we don’t just respond to things as we see them or feel them or hear them. Rather, our response is conditioned on our beliefs, about what they really are, what they came from, what they’re made of, what their hidden nature is. – Paul Bloom
A sympathetic parent might see the spark of consciousness in a baby’s large eyes and eagerly accept the popular claim that babies are wonderful learners, but it is hard to avoid the impression that they begin as ignorant as bread loaves. – Paul Bloom