We scientists have way too much a tendency to simplify problems. I guess it actually comes to us naturally. Take the simplest unit, separate out all the confusing, external factors. Study it. Make sure you understand it. And in psychology that means the person studying the individual. But if you want to study our social nature, if you want to study processes that will lead to war and peace, you don't learn all that much by looking at the single individual. A lot of the important things are emergent facts about us, things that you can only see when you get a lot of us interacting.

Sacredness binds people together, and then blinds them to the arbitrariness of the practice.

I got interested in the American culture war back in 2004, and it's one of the only growth stocks I've ever invested in.

If I believe that abortion is wrong, and I want to convince you that it's wrong, there's no reason I should recount to you my personal narrative of how I came to believe this.

Some comedians really are funnier than others. Some people really are more beautiful than others. But these are true only because of the kinds of creatures we happen to be; the perceptual apparatus - apparati - that we happen to have.

Most of our social nature is like that of other primates - we're mostly out for ourselves.

We can tolerate great diversity in our aesthetic beliefs, but we can't tolerate much diversity in our moral beliefs.