In the midst of one of the most famous passages in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith writes “nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog” (WN I.ii.2). In and of itself, this is probably not a noteworthy sentence, but it has always rubbed…
Is the assumption of self-interested behavior assumed in economics at odds with altruism and compassion? I believe that this question—which has been formulated in various ways in the literature for the past two centuries—is the thorn that often turns us away from reconciling the Adam Smith of the Wealth of Nations (hereinafter WN) with the…
I had the good fortune to meet at a conference the very excellent Frances White who is featured in this documentary. Frances is so much more interesting and empirically sound than the cultural anthropologists who typically operate under a highly derivative and lazy Marxist lens. anthropologybonobosEmpathyevolutionary biologyfrances whiteSociality
The intro to Jack Weinstein’s chapter. In the midst of one of the most famous passages in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith writes “nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog” (WN I.ii.2). In and of itself, this is probably not a noteworthy…
The intro to Gloria Zúñiga y Postigo’s essay Is the assumption of self-interested behavior assumed in economics at odds with altruism and compassion? I believe that this question—which has been formulated in various ways in the literature for the past two centuries—is the thorn that often turns us away from reconciling the Adam Smith of the…
This from ABC in OZ In the early 90s an Italian team of neuroscientists reported a new class of brain cells in the macaque monkey. These mirror neurons responded just as well during the monkey’s own actions as when the monkey watched someone else performing similar actions. The mirror neuron theory took off and has…
Here is the intro to Joel’s article: Often, I tell a joke and the people around me laugh. (Sometimes this laughter even appears to be sincere.) I usually take this reaction to mean that they find my comment amusing. I like to smile at babies whenever possible and relish the bright-eyed facial animation and gestures…
The intro and conclusion to Chiara’s chapter: Humans are social creatures and they deeply rely on mentalizing, which aims at understanding other people behaviors and formulating expectations about their future actions. The existence of inner mental states has been postulated to give an explanatory account of the observed behaviors of other individuals. In particular, the activation…
This from The Economist. Animal CognitionCognitionCognitive neuroscienceCognitive scienceEmpathyPhilosophy of mind
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