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

I think moral philosophy is speculation on how we ought to live together done by people who have very little clue how people work. So I think most moral philosophy is disconnected from the species that we happen to be. In fact, they like it that way. Many moral philosophers insist that morality grows out of our rationality, that it applies to any rational being anywhere in the universe, and that it is not based on contingent or coincidental facts about our evolution.

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.

There are a couple of watersheds in human evolution. Most people are comfortable thinking about tool use and language use as watersheds. But the ability to play non-zero-sum games was another watershed.

Economic issues are just as much moral issues as social issues.

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.

Empathy is an antidote to righteousness, although it's very difficult to empathize across a moral divide