Joshua Greene

So it's a cultural invention, and it's a set of things that influence us emotionally, all of those rituals, all of those prayers, all of those parties, all of those dances, all of that stuff

binds people together and makes them feel like a cohesive cooperative unit, but often at the cost of making other people feel more distant, right?

So for those of us who want to see a sort of maximally wide and inclusive world, then religion is both an opportunity and a challenge.

So what I would say is morality first is not like a thing in the brain.

Like on Star Trek, the next generation, I'm showing my age here, but maybe you know the kids know this.

Oh, I love that one.

Oh my gosh, it's the best.

During the pandemic, my family, we watched all seven seasons just straight through.

It was like the great, that was our religion basically.

And so you have Commander Data and he has his like ethics module that was like added to him so that he wouldn't be like his evil twin brother lore.

But morality for humans is not a module, right?

It's really our sort of whole social, emotional intelligence complex.

What you see as kind of naturally arising out of human experience is certain basic cooperative tendencies.

That's a lesson you probably learn as a toddler if you don't turn out to be a psychopath, right?

That like toddlers are pretty violent.

Like if they were eight feet tall, we'd be in trouble.

And then you learn like you're not allowed to behave that way and you internalize that, right?

So certain basic feelings about physical violence, lying, stealing, the stuff that like this group ain't gonna work unless we have certain boundaries that we've emotionally internalized.

And then a sense of who's in and who's out with varying degrees.

Who do you owe things to?