I think that all moralities adequately serving the function of fostering social cooperation must contain a norm of reciprocity - a norm of returning good for good received. Such a norm is a necessity, I argue, because it helps relieve the strains on motivation of contributing to social cooperation when it comes into conflict with self-interest.

Accommodation is a willingness to maintain constructive relationship with others with whom one is in serious and even intractable disagreement. Social cooperation would come under impossible pressure if it always depended on strict agreement.

Welcome to freakdom, Dave. It’ll be time to start a Web site soon, where you’ll type out everything in one huge paragraph.

I once saw Arnold Schwarzenegger kill a man in a movie by grabbing his head and twisting it until the neck broke. Was that difficult? Could a man do it without a lot of practice?

But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them.

Falling in love with a house or a car or a pair of shoes, it was a dead end. You save your love for the things that can love you back.

The good of the family cannot be achieved without consideration of an individual's important interests. If those interests are urgent and weighty, they must become important interests of the family and can sometimes have priority in case of conflict. Sometimes, members must split their differences in compromise. Over time, yielding to others at some times must be balanced against getting priority for one's interests at other times.