Santa Fe Institute

Community Event

August 14, 2013
7:30 PM
James A. Little Theater

On Moral Progress: Reason and Logic or Empathy and Emotion

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.  

Steven 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.

Rebecca Newberger 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.

Lectures are free and open to the public. Seating is limited.

Sponsored by Los Alamos National Bank

Photo Credit: http://www.jakewallissimons.com/

Watch it on our live webcast on SFI's YouTube Page 

To Follow the live Twitter feed visit: @sfi_live or follow the Hashtag #sfi_live

Purpose: Community Event

SFI Host: Ginger Richardson

• * SFI community lectures are free, open, & accessible to the public.
• * Seminars & colloquia are geared for scientists but free & open to the interested public.
• * All other SFI events are by invitation only.
• * Note: We are unable to accommodate members of the public for SFI's limited lunch service; you're welcome to bring your own.