"From a review of the anthropological and evolutionary literatures [Edge.org]... there were three best candidates for being additional psychological foundations of morality [embedded video], beyond harm/care and fairness/justice. These three we label as ingroup/loyalty (which may have evolved from the long history of cross-group or sub-group competition...); authority/respect (which may have evolved from the long history of primate hierarchy, modified by cultural limitations on power and bullying...), and purity/sanctity, which may be a much more recent system, growing out of the uniquely human emotion of disgust, which seems to give people feelings that some ways of living and acting are higher, more noble, and less carnal than others. [more inside]
posted by McLir on Sep 11, 2007 - 19 comments

This strange mixture of meanings and symbols confuses me. maybe it's just that some of the ideas are confusingly named.
posted by StrikeTheViol on Aug 4, 2007 - 34 comments

Does atheism sound too gloomy? Has the word 'freethinker' been co-opted by too many organizations? Some think so and now the world has a new social group: the "Brights." Also of interest is Daniel Dennett's "The Bright Stuff." The official brights website is here.
posted by skallas on Jul 14, 2003 - 109 comments