Top 25 Paul Bloom Quotes

A growing body of evidence suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life.

Empty heads, cognitive science has taught us, learn nothing. The powerful cultural and personal flexibility of our species is owed at least in part to our starting off so well-informed; we are good learners because we know what to pay attention to and what questions are the right ones to ask.

If our wondrous kindness is evidence for God, is our capacity for great evil proof of the Devil?

Having kids has proven to be this amazing – for me, this amazing source of ideas of anecdotes, of examples, I can test my own kids without human subject permission, so they pilot – I pilot my ideas on them. And so it is a tremendous advantage to have kids if you‘re going to be a developmental psychologist.

Periods of cooperation between political parties shouldn’t be taken for granted; they are a stunning human achievement.

Maybe one of the most heartening findings from the psychology of pleasure is there’s more to looking good than your physical appearance. If you like somebody, they look better to you. This is why spouses in happy marriages tend to think that their husband or wife looks much better than anyone else thinks that they do.

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.

We benefit, intellectually and personally, from the interplay between different selves, from the balance between long-term contemplation and short-term impulse. We should be wary about tipping the scales too far. The community of selves shouldn’t be a democracy, but it shouldn’t be a dictatorship, either.

Perhaps looking out through big baby eyes – if we could – would not be as revelatory experience as many imagine. We might see a world inhabited by objects and people, a world infused with causation, agency, and morality – a world that would surprise us not by its freshness but by its familiarity.

The enjoyment we get from something is powerfully influenced by what we think that thing really is. This is true for intellectual pleasures, such as the appreciation of paintings and stories, and it is true as well for pleasures that seem simpler and more animalistic, such as the satisfaction of hunger and lust.

Imagination tends to be truly useful if accompanied by the power of mental control – if the worlds in one’s head can be purposefully manipulated and distinguished from the real one outside it.

Our best hope for the future is not to get people to think of all humanity as family – that’s impossible. It lies, instead, in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love.

Relying on the face might be human nature – even babies prefer to look at attractive people. But, of course, judging someone based on the geometry of his features is, from a moral and legal standpoint, no better than judging him based on the color of his skin.

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.

It is clear that rituals and sacrifices can bring people together, and it may well be that a group that does such things has an advantage over one that does not. But it is not clear why a religion has to be involved. Why are gods, souls, an afterlife, miracles, divine creation of the universe, and so on brought in?

Modern science tells us that the conscious self arises from a purely physical brain. We do not have immaterial souls.

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.

On many issues, empathy can pull us in the wrong direction. The outrage that comes from adopting the perspective of a victim can drive an appetite for retribution.

Families survive the Terrible Twos because toddlers aren’t strong enough to kill with their hands and aren’t capable of using lethal weapons. A 2-year-old with the physical capacities of an adult would be terrifying.

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.

It’s really difficult working with kids and with babies because they are not cooperative subjects: they are not socialized into the idea that they should cheerfully and cooperatively give you information. They’re not like undergraduates, who you can bribe with beer money or course credit.

I don’t doubt that the explanation for consciousness will arise from the mercilessly scientific account of psychology and neuroscience, but, still, isn’t it neat that the universe is such that it gave rise to conscious beings like you and me?

More-radical scholars insist that an inherent clash exists between science and our long-held conceptions about consciousness and moral agency: if you accept that our brains are a myriad of smaller components, you must reject such notions as character, praise, blame, and free will.

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.

If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well – better, in many ways, than devout ones.