1. Explain Churchland’s theory of the origin of morality.
2. Explain DeWaal’s theory of primate morality. Be sure to discuss his treatment of Veneer theory, levels of empathy, and monkey fairness. What does this tell us about morality in humans?
3. Explain Joshua Greene’s overall argument that we are vexed with tribalism but that Utilitarianism works as a metatheory to overcome the tragedy of commonsense morality.
4. Explain Joshua Greene’s trolley arguments. Go through at least five cases and how they are explained by the dual process theory of morality. Be sure to discuss the fast and slow thinking distinction.
5. Explain the Public Goods Game, the Dictator Game and the Ultimatum Game. What do we learn from these games, particularly the cross-cultural comparisons? Also discuss the Honor Insult Test, the “Chicken Point” test, Chinese Collectivism and the Muhammad cartoons.
6. Explain the Prisoner’s Dilemma and how it relates to the evolution of the social and moral emotions required for cooperation.
7. Has Greene identified a moral “blind spot” in our reluctance to help others in need if they are far away? Does this help support his argument for “modular myopia,” or does it undermine it? Be sure to address the Happiness Pump, the Identifiable Victim Effect, the Typhoon Case, the Drop in the Bucket Problem and Tribalism in relation to charity for distant people.
8. Explain how the “Alarm System” in Greene’s theory handles the issues of side effect blindness, the Double Effect Doctrine, Means versus Ends, and the killing versus letting die controversy in terms of the dual process brain and Mikhail’s theory of action plans.
9. Explain and evaluate Greene’s arguments against Kantianism and Virtue Ethics. Be sure to explain “the Secret Joke of Kant’s Soul,” punishment, the fashionability argument, and the FMRI argument.
10. Explain the problem of bias in moral action. Be sure to discuss biased fairness (the Settlement Case), tribal bias, biased escalation, and the problem of mixed evidence.
11. Explain the appeal to science, religion and math to ground morality in a common moral currency. Be sure to discuss the appeal to Holy texts (Leviticus) in regard to religion and Obama’s argument that public (political) argument be secular or translatable into secular argument. To what extent is Greene’s theory an attempt to ground ethics in science in spite of the fact that he rejects that approach?
12. Explain several of what you consider to be the most important criticisms of Greene. Are these criticisms fatal, or does he have good responses to them?
