Paul Bloom quotes - page 2

If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well - better, in many ways, than devout ones. (Paul Bloom)
Having kids has proven to be this amazing - for me, this amazing source of ideas of anecdotes, of examples, I can test my own kids without human subject permission, so they pilot - I pilot my ideas on them. And so it is a tremendous advantage to have kids if you're going to be a developmental psychologist. View quote
Paul Bloom
A growing body of evidence suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life. View quote
Paul Bloom
I want to convince you that humans are, to some extent, natural born essentialists. What I mean by this is we don't just respond to things as we see them or feel them or hear them. Rather, our response is conditioned on our beliefs, about what they really are, what they came from, what they're made of, what their hidden nature is. View quote
Paul Bloom
Any simple claim that you need religion to be good is flat wrong. View quote
Paul Bloom
If our moral attitudes are entirely the result of nonrational factors, such as gut feelings and the absorption of cultural norms, they should either be stable or randomly drift over time, like skirt lengths or the widths of ties. They shouldn't show systematic change over human history. But they do. View quote
Paul Bloom
We are naturally moral beings, but our environments can enhance - or, sadly, degrade - this innate moral sense. View quote
Paul Bloom
Too often, our concern for specific individuals today means neglecting crises that will harm countless people in the future. View quote
Paul Bloom
One way to make a baby cry is to expose it to cries of other babies. There's sort of contagiousness to the crying. It's not just crying. We also know that if a baby sees another human in silent pain, it will distress the baby. It seems part of our very nature is to suffer at the suffering of others. View quote
Paul Bloom
We know that young babies, as they become capable of moving voluntarily, will share. They will share food, for instance, with their siblings and with kids that are around. They will sooth. If they see somebody else in pain, even the youngest of toddlers will try to reach out and pat the person. View quote
Paul Bloom
You'd expect, as good Darwinian creatures, we would evolve to be fascinated with how the world really is, and we would use language to convey real-world information, we'd be obsessed with knowing the way things are, and we would entirely reject stories that aren't true. They're useless. But that's not the way we work. (Paul Bloom)
I think what a lot of fiction is, is the imagining of the worst so as to prepare ourselves. View quote
Paul Bloom
The genetic you and the neural you aren't alternatives to the conscious you. They are its foundations. View quote
Paul Bloom
We can imagine our bodies being destroyed, our brains ceasing to function, our bones turning to dust, but it is harder - some would say impossible - to imagine the end of our very existence. View quote
Paul Bloom
The real problem with natural selection is that it makes no intuitive sense. It is like quantum physics; we may intellectually grasp it, but it will never feel right to us. View quote
Paul Bloom
The enjoyment we get from something is powerfully influenced by what we think that thing really is. This is true for intellectual pleasures, such as the appreciation of paintings and stories, and it is true as well for pleasures that seem simpler and more animalistic, such as the satisfaction of hunger and lust. View quote
Paul Bloom
Even in the most peaceful communities, an appetite for violence shows up in dreams, fantasies, sports, play, literature, movies and television. And, so long as we don't transform into angels, violence and the threat of violence - as in punishment and deterrence - is needed to rein in our worst instincts. View quote
Paul Bloom
If our wondrous kindness is evidence for God, is our capacity for great evil proof of the Devil? View quote
Paul Bloom
Periods of cooperation between political parties shouldn't be taken for granted; they are a stunning human achievement. View quote
Paul Bloom
This enthusiasm [for empathy] may be misplaced. Empathy has some unfortunate features – it is parochial, narrow-minded and innumerate. We're often at our best when we're smart enough not to rely on it. View quote
Paul Bloom