Objection
Disgust, Morality, and the Law
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Objection
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Narrated by:
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Matthew Josdal
About this listen
Why do we consider incest wrong, even when it occurs between consenting adults unable to have children? Why are words that gross us out more likely to be deemed "obscene" and denied the protection of the First Amendment?
In Objection, psychologists Debra Lieberman and Carlton Patrick examine disgust and its impact on the legal system to show why the things that we find stomach-turning so often become the things that we render unlawful. Shedding light on the evolutionary and psychological origins of disgust, the authors reveal how ancient human intuitions about what is safe to eat or touch, or who would make an advantageous mate, have become co-opted by moral systems designed to condemn behavior and identify groups of people ripe for marginalization. Over time these moral stances have made their way into legal codes, and disgust has thereby served as the impetus for laws against behaviors almost universally held to be "disgusting" (corpse desecration, bestiality) - and as the implicit justification for more controversial prohibitions (homosexuality, use of pornography).
Written with a critical eye on current events, Lieberman and Patrick build a case for a more reasoned approach to lawmaking in a system that often confuses "gross" with "wrong."
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 766
For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
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The Blank Slate
- The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,961
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,291
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,255
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Don't bother. Outdated science & poor logic...
- By ejf211 on 03-31-10
By: Steven Pinker
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The Science of Good and Evil
- Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule
- By: Michael Shermer
- Length: 2 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4 out of 5 stars 69
In The Science of Good and Evil, psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer explores how humans evolved from social primates into moral primates, how and why morality motivates the human animal, and how the foundation of moral principles can be built upon empirical evidence. Along the way he explains the implications of scientific findings for fate and free will, the existence of pure good and pure evil, and the development of early moral sentiments among the first humans.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Read by author
- By Gregory A. Townsend on 04-16-23
By: Michael Shermer
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Our Political Nature
- The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us
- By: Avi Tuschman
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
Our Political Nature is the first book to reveal the hidden roots of our most deeply held moral values. It shows how political orientations across space and time arise from three clusters of measurable personality traits. These clusters entail opposing attitudes toward tribalism, inequality, and differing perceptions of human nature. Together, these traits are by far the most powerful cause of left-right voting, even leading people to regularly vote against their economic interests.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A Trivial Version of Haidt's "The Righteous Mind"
- By Curt Doolittle on 10-29-13
By: Avi Tuschman
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Primates and Philosophers
- How Morality Evolved
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
"It's the animal in us," we often hear when we've been bad. But why not when we're good? Primates and Philosophers tackles this question by exploring the biological foundations of one of humanity's most valued traits: morality.In this provocative book, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that modern-day evolutionary biology takes far too dim a view of the natural world, emphasizing our "selfish" genes.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Having Just Read...
- By Douglas on 12-14-13
By: Frans de Waal
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Wild Justice
- The Moral Lives of Animals
- By: Marc Bekoff, Jessica Pierce
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human emotions, warning that such anthropomorphizing limits our ability to understand animals as they really are. Yet what are we to make of a female gorilla in a German zoo who spent days mourning the death of her baby? Or a wild female elephant who cared for a younger one after she was injured by a rambunctious teenage male?
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5 out of 5 stars
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What Some Of Us Have Always Known...
- By Douglas on 12-12-13
By: Marc Bekoff, and others
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This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 990
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 988
A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Entertaining but questionable studies
- By mdkoci on 01-02-17
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Mating Intelligence Unleashed
- The Role of the Mind in Sex, Dating, and Love
- By: Scott Barry Kaufman PhD., Glenn Geher PhD., Helen Fisher PhD. - foreword
- Narrated by: Bernard Setaro Clark
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
Psychologists often paint a picture of human mating as visceral, instinctual. But that's not the whole story. In courtship and display, sexual competition and rivalry, we are also guided by what Glenn Geher and Scott Barry Kaufman call Mating Intelligence - a range of mental abilities that have evolved to help us find the right partner. Mating Intelligence is at work in our efforts to form, maintain, and end relationships. It guides us in flirtation, foreplay, copulation, finding and choosing a mate, and many other behaviors.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Tedious with the gems buried deep within
- By Matt J on 09-26-15
By: Scott Barry Kaufman PhD., and others
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The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One
- By: Satoshi Kanazawa
- Narrated by: Paul Neal Rohrer
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Story4 out of 5 stars 68
Satoshi Kanazawa's Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (written with Alan S. Miller) was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "a rollicking bit of pop Science & Technology that turns the lens of evolutionary psychology on issues of the day." That book answered such burning questions as why women tend to lust after males who already have mates and why newborns look more like Dad than Mom. Now Kanazawa tackles the nature of intelligence: what it is, what it does, what it is good for.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very entertaining
- By Liz W. on 03-01-20
By: Satoshi Kanazawa
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Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why
- The Science of Sexual Orientation
- By: Simon LeVay
- Narrated by: Topher Payne
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
What causes a child to grow up gay or straight? In this book, neuroscientist Simon LeVay summarizes a wealth of scientific evidence that points to one inescapable conclusion: Sexual orientation results primarily from an interaction between genes, sex hormones, and the cells of the developing body and brain. LeVay helped create this field in 1991 with a much-publicized study in Science, where he reported on a difference in the brain structure between gay and straight men. Since then, an entire scientific discipline has sprung up around the quest for a biological explanation of sexual orientation. In this book, LeVay provides a clear explanation of where the science stands today, taking the reader on a whirlwind tour of laboratories that specialize in genetics, endocrinology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, and family demographics. He describes, for instance, how researchers have manipulated the sex hormone levels of animals during development, causing them to mate preferentially with animals of their own gender. LeVay also reports on the prevalence of homosexual behavior among wild animals, ranging from Graylag geese to the Bonobo chimpanzee.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent litterature review on the topic
- By Matt H. on 06-28-17
By: Simon LeVay
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Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters
- By: Alan S. Miller, Satoshi Kanazawa
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 487
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 362
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Story4 out of 5 stars 363
Contrary to conventional wisdom, our brains and bodies are hardwired to carry out an evolutionary mission that determines much of what we do, from life plans to everyday decisions. With an accessible tone and a healthy disregard for political correctness, this lively and eminently readable book popularizes the latest research in a cutting-edge field of study: one that turns much of what we thought we knew about human nature upside-down.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not bad but didn't live up to the reviews
- By Ana Mohammed on 01-08-12
By: Alan S. Miller, and others
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Sex, Time, and Power
- How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution
- By: Leonard Shlain
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
Sex, Time, and Power offers a tantalizing answer to an age-old question: Why did big-brained Homo sapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000 years ago? The key, according to Shlain, is female sexuality. Drawing on an awesome breadth of research, he shows how, long ago, the narrowness of the newly bipedal human female's pelvis and the increasing size of infants' heads precipitated a crisis for the species. Natural selection allowed for reconfiguration of hormonal cycles, entraining women with the periodicity of the moon - and imbuing women with the concept of time.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting conjecture
- By DJKPP on 10-15-20
By: Leonard Shlain
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Big Gods
- How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict
- By: Ara Norenzayan
- Narrated by: Paul Nixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By paro on 02-27-24
By: Ara Norenzayan
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Cool
- How the Brain's Hidden Quest for Cool Drives Our Economy and Shapes Our World
- By: Steven Quartz, Anette Asp
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 126
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4 out of 5 stars 107
In Cool, the neuroscientist and philosopher Steven Quartz and the political scientist Anette Asp bring together the latest findings in brain science, economics, and evolutionary biology to form a provocative theory of consumerism, revealing how the brain's "social calculator" and an instinct to rebel are the crucial missing links in understanding the motivations behind our spending habits.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Some Useful Ideas
- By Carson on 07-20-17
By: Steven Quartz, and others
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The Genetic Lottery
- Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
- By: Kathryn Paige Harden
- Narrated by: Katherine Fenton
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 209
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 164
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 162
In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces listeners to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mix of Genetic Science and Ideology
- By James on 10-12-21
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Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life
- A Psychologist Investigates How Evolution, Cognition, and Complexity Are Revolutionizing Our View of Human Nature
- By: Douglas T. Kenrick
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4 out of 5 stars 106
Between what can be learned from evolutionary psychology and cognitive science a picture emerges. In Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life, social psychologist Douglas Kenrick fuses these two fields to create a coherent story of human nature. In his analysis, many ingrained, apparently irrational behaviors—one-night stands, prejudice, conspicuous consumption, even art and religious devotion—are quite explicable and (when desired) avoidable.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Rather dated and self-aggrandizing
- By Laurie Frick on 07-21-11