Psychologist and author Steven Pinker and philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. Photo coutesy of http://www.jakewallissimons.com/SFI News:
The Santa Fe Institute presents a Community Event, “On Moral Progress: Is the Human Conscience Led by the Head or the Heart?”
The lecture will be 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 14 in the James A Little Theater (1060 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe). Lectures are free and open to the public, but seating is limited.
Is the human conscience led by the head or the heart? Is the moral progress we have enjoyed – religious freedom, the abolition of slavery, anti-war movements, civil, women’s, and gay rights – a gift of empathy and emotion, or of reason and logic?
Psychologist and author Steven Pinker and philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein survey the history of moral progress in human society, a history, they say, suggesting that reason and logic have had a surprisingly powerful role in shaping the human condition.
Pinker is a Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He conducts research on language and cognition and is the author of seven books, most recently The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature.
Goldstein is an American novelist and professor of philosophy. She has written five novels, a number of short stories and essays, and biographical studies of mathematician Kurt Gödel and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Goldstein was a 2011 Santa Fe Institute Miller Scholar.
Watch this special event on the live webcast on SFI’s YouTube Page. This event is sponsored by Los Alamos National Bank.
