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Paul Bloom Quotes
Paul Bloom Quotes
Paul Bloom
Canadian
Psychologist
Born:
Dec 24
,
1963
Better
Good
People
Sense
Will
You
Related authors:
Abraham Maslow
B. F. Skinner
Carl Jung
Erich Fromm
Jordan Peterson
Sigmund Freud
Viktor E. Frankl
Wayne Dyer
We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life: a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community.
Paul Bloom
Positive
Life
Work
Kindness
Good
Gratitude
Happy
Charity
Key
Simple
Giving
Happy Life
Community
Good Life
Relationships
Our
Moods
Seems
Long-Term
Effect
Sustained
Connections
Expressing
Acts
Challenging
Natural selection shaped the human brain to be drawn toward aspects of nature that enhance our survival and reproduction, like verdant landscapes and docile creatures. There is no payoff to getting the warm fuzzies in the presence of rats, snakes, mosquitoes, cockroaches, herpes simplex and the rabies virus.
Paul Bloom
Nature
Survival
Natural
Our
Virus
Drawn
Rats
Selection
Shaped
Toward
Docile
Like
Snakes
Brain
Getting
Human
Human Brain
Reproduction
Warm
Natural Selection
Landscapes
Aspects
Payoff
Cockroaches
Enhance
Creatures
Presence
Our best hope for the future is not to get people to think of all humanity as family - that's impossible. It lies, instead, in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don't empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love.
Paul Bloom
Love
Hope
Future
Best
Family
Appreciation
Humanity
People
Impossible
Value
Strangers
Think
Our
Distant
Those
Lies
Fact
Empathize
Instead
Get
Same
Even
Lives
Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others.
Paul Bloom
Better
Others
Happier
Social
Connected
Beings
Humans
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.
Paul Bloom
Best
Smart
Enough
Our
Some
Rely
Features
Parochial
Empathy
Narrow-Minded
Often
Unfortunate
In politics and in society, we can use our reason to rise above our parochial natures. Too bad that our elected officials don't choose to do so more often.
Paul Bloom
Politics
Rise Above
Society
Too
Our
Bad
Rise
Above
More
Parochial
Officials
Often
Elected
Elected Officials
Use
Choose
Natures
Reason
The irrationality of disgust suggests it is unreliable as a source of moral insight. There may be good arguments against gay marriage, partial-birth abortions and human cloning, but the fact that some people find such acts to be disgusting should carry no weight.
Paul Bloom
Good
Gay
Marriage
People
Abortion
Some People
Argument
Gay Marriage
Carry
Moral
Find
Insight
Some
Unreliable
Fact
Weight
Source
Cloning
Irrationality
May
Human
Disgust
Disgusting
Human Cloning
Against
Should
Acts
Some of the natural world is appealing, some of it is terrifying, and some of it grosses us out. Modern people don't want to be dropped naked into a swamp. We want to tour Yosemite with our water bottles and G.P.S. devices. The natural world is a source of happiness and fulfillment, but only when prescribed in the right doses.
Paul Bloom
Happiness
Natural
People
World
Water
Naked
Our
Out
Some
Only
Tour
Bottles
Dropped
Devices
Terrifying
Source
Yosemite
Modern
Want
Swamp
Doses
Us
Fulfillment
Natural World
Gross
Appealing
Prescribed
Right
A sympathetic parent might see the spark of consciousness in a baby's large eyes and eagerly accept the popular claim that babies are wonderful learners, but it is hard to avoid the impression that they begin as ignorant as bread loaves.
Paul Bloom
Eyes
Wonderful
Babies
Baby
Claim
See
Parent
Accept
Learners
Impression
Begin
Bread
Might
Spark
Ignorant
Hard
Avoid
Large
Popular
Eagerly
Consciousness
Sympathetic
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.
Paul Bloom
Time
History
Change
Result
Feelings
Our
Randomly
Systematic
Moral
Gut
Entirely
Drift
Factors
Absorb
Over
Attitudes
Like
Ties
Cultural
Norms
Stable
Human
Either
Human History
Should
Show
Skirt
More-radical scholars insist that an inherent clash exists between science and our long-held conceptions about consciousness and moral agency: if you accept that our brains are a myriad of smaller components, you must reject such notions as character, praise, blame, and free will.
Paul Bloom
Character
You
Science
Blame
Will
Free
Insist
Free Will
Our
Moral
Must
Clash
Components
About
Myriad
Scholars
Smaller
Between
Accept
Praise
Exists
Brains
Agency
Inherent
Notions
Consciousness
Reject
Most of us know nothing about constitutional law, so it's hardly surprising that we take sides in the Obamacare debate the way we root for the Red Sox or the Yankees. Loyalty to the team is what matters.
Paul Bloom
Loyalty
Law
Debate
Matters
Nothing
Sides
Way
Obamacare
Constitutional
About
Take
Red
Red Sox
Know
Most
Yankees
Surprising
Sox
Us
Root
Team
Hardly
The emotions triggered by fiction are very real. When Charles Dickens wrote about the death of Little Nell in the 1840s, people wept - and I'm sure that the death of characters in J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' series led to similar tears.
Paul Bloom
Death
People
Emotions
Tears
Harry
Harry Potter
Characters
Charles
Charles Dickens
About
Similar
Potter
Wrote
Sure
Real
Wept
Led
Dickens
Very
Fiction
Little
Series
Rowling
We are naturally moral beings, but our environments can enhance - or, sadly, degrade - this innate moral sense.
Paul Bloom
Sense
Our
Moral
Degrade
Moral Sense
Environments
Sadly
Naturally
Beings
Enhance
Innate
If evil is empathy erosion, and empathy erosion is a form of illness, then evil turns out to be nothing more than a particularly awful psychological disorder.
Paul Bloom
Evil
Nothing
Out
More
Empathy
Particularly
Erosion
Than
Form
Psychological
Then
Turns
Disorder
Illness
Awful
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.
Paul Bloom
Food
Try
Will
Somebody
Become
Young
Pain
Babies
Else
Kids
Out
See
Instance
Share
Voluntarily
Reach
Know
Around
Pat
Person
Moving
Capable
Toddlers
Youngest
Even
Sibling
We'd be really screwed if we had to start our life over again as children with our brains right now, because I think we lose the plasticity and flexibility.
Paul Bloom
Life
Lose
Think
Our
Had
Over
Because
Brains
Children
Screwed
Again
Really
Flexibility
Now
Right
Start
I think what a lot of fiction is, is the imagining of the worst so as to prepare ourselves.
Paul Bloom
Think
Worst
Ourselves
Lot
Fiction
Prepare
Imagining
Enjoying fiction requires a shift in selfhood. You give up your own identity and try on the identities of other people, adopting their perspectives so as to share their experiences. This allows us to enjoy fictional events that would shock and sadden us in real life.
Paul Bloom
Life
You
People
Events
Try
Real Life
Own
Enjoy
Other
Would
Give
Adopting
Share
Identities
Identity
Real
Shift
Up
Shock
Experiences
Fiction
Fictional
Us
Perspectives
Requires
Your
Enjoying
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.
Paul Bloom
Impossible
Dust
Our
Say
Destroyed
Would
Some
Existence
Brains
End
Very
Being
Turning
Bodies
Function
Harder
Imagine
Bones
If Inigo Montoya were around now, he wouldn't need to storm the castle to bring his father's murderer to justice; the police would do it for him, and fewer people would have to die.
Paul Bloom
Justice
People
Police
Father
Would
Castle
He
Him
Around
Were
His
Die
Fewer
Storm
Now
Bring
Need
Part of the satisfaction of tattling surely comes from showing oneself to adults as a good moral agent, a responsible being who is sensitive to right and wrong. But I would bet that children would tattle even if they could do so only anonymously. They would do it just to have justice done.
Paul Bloom
Good
Justice
Responsible
Moral
Would
Bet
Oneself
Only
Could
Adult
Part
Wrong
Anonymously
Surely
Done
Just
Being
Children
Sensitive
Agent
Who
Showing
Even
Satisfaction
Right
Right And Wrong
Imagination tends to be truly useful if accompanied by the power of mental control - if the worlds in one's head can be purposefully manipulated and distinguished from the real one outside it.
Paul Bloom
Power
Control
Imagination
Worlds
Distinguished
Mental
Tends
Outside
Head
Real
Accompanied
Truly
Manipulated
Useful
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
Religion
You
Atheist
Better
States
Ways
Seems
Better Person
Look
Well
Make
Devout
Within
Very
Than
Person
Many
United
United States
Societies
Morality is often seen as an innovation, like agriculture and writing. From this perspective, babies are pint-sized psychopaths, self-interested beings who need to be taught moral notions such as the wrongness of harming another person.
Paul Bloom
Innovation
Writing
Perspective
Agriculture
Seen
Babies
Harming
Moral
Morality
Like
Another
Person
Often
Taught
Notions
Who
Beings
Need
I have my own difficulty with movies in which the suffering of the characters is too real, and many find it difficult to watch comedies that rely too heavily on embarrassment; the vicarious reaction to this is too unpleasant.
Paul Bloom
Suffering
Own
Difficult
Difficulty
Too
Embarrassment
Characters
Find
Unpleasant
My Own
Rely
Comedies
Reaction
Real
Which
Movies
Many
Watch
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