Human nature
Old questions about how to live, tested against what science now knows about people. Why we cheat when no one is looking, why we snooze the alarm, what makes a life go well, what we owe each other. Yale's full course, with our everyday pictures and quizzes added.
From Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature (PHIL 181), Tamar Gendler, Yale University, spring 2011. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. 2 of 26 lectures ready so far.
High schoolYoung adultsEveryday life
By the end you will be able to...
- Tell apart looking fair and being fair, in yourself first.
- Set things up ahead of time so the choice you want still wins when temptation is close.
The Ring of Gyges: being fair or seeming fair
Why you need this: When no one checks (the self-checkout, the tax form, the unwatched tip jar) you find out what you really value. Knowing that your own mind will call a bent rule "fair" lets you catch it, and spot it in others.
A full Yale lecture. Use the chapters to watch it in pieces.
Check yourself
1. In Glaucon's story, what does the Ring of Gyges let you do?
The ring separates what you do from how you look. That is the whole test: how would you act if your reputation could not be hurt?
"If your act of immorality were invisible to the world, if you could behave immorally and nobody would see you, so that your reputation remained unscathed, how is it that you would behave?"
2. Glaucon claims people act fairly mainly because...
Glaucon argues that fairness is like medicine: you take it for what it gets you, here a good name.
"That the only reason people act and conform with the laws of morality is because they will gain good reputations thereby."
3. In Batson's study, people flipped a coin to decide who got the fun task. How many of them gave it to themselves?
A fair coin gives you the fun task half the time. Nine in ten means most people found a way around the coin, then kept the result.
"What happens is that upon flipping the coin, 90% of them assign themselves to the positive condition!"
4. How did those coin flippers rate their own fairness?
This is the hypocrisy part: the coin let them feel fair while doing the selfish thing.
"rate themselves as having acted in an extraordinarily moral way: seven on a scale of nine"
5. What made people actually follow the coin?
Feeling watched, even by your own reflection, brings behavior back to fair. The same lecture tells of eyes taped over an honor-system coffee jar raising payments.
"And if they are facing the mirror and flipping the coin, they behave 50%: exactly as chance would predict."
More: why it matters, what else to watch, read and do, who teaches it
Why it matters
Plato's brother Glaucon asked: if a ring made you invisible, would you still be good? A psychologist named Daniel Batson then tested it. Given a coin to decide fairly, most people kept the good task for themselves anyway, and still rated themselves as moral.
How this reaches you
Splitting a bill, dividing chores, grading your own work, the expense report, the "random" pick that keeps landing on you, the leader who sets the rules and keeps winning.
Do this week
This week, the next time you settle something with a coin, a draw or a rule, decide before it lands that you will keep the result. Notice the pull to flip again.
Who teaches this unit
- Tamar Gendler, philosopher and cognitive scientist, yale. Taught this course at Yale in 2011 and gave it away free through Open Yale Courses, pairing old philosophy with new psychology.
- Plato, philosopher, athens. Wrote the Republic about 375 BC, where his brother Glaucon tells the story of the ring that makes you invisible.
- C. Daniel Batson, psychologist. Ran the coin-flip studies on moral hypocrisy: most people kept the good task while rating themselves fair, unless they faced a mirror.
Weakness of the will: why the snooze button wins
Why you need this: Every "I'll start tomorrow" runs on this. Knowing why the snooze button wins at 5:30 lets you arrange things the night before, so the better choice wins in the morning: money, food, work, sleep, habits.
A full Yale lecture. Use the chapters to watch it in pieces.
Check yourself
1. Offered $5 today or $6 in two days, some students took the $5. Offered the same choice a month out, what did they do?
Same two days, same extra dollar. Only the distance changed. Up close, the sooner reward looms larger.
"20% of you were preferring to take $5 today over $6 on Thursday, even though almost none of you wanted to take the same decision in a month."
2. What did the psychologist George Ainslie call this pattern?
The value we feel for a reward drops steeply with delay, then jumps as the reward gets close.
"Ainslie calls it hyperbolic discounting."
3. Mischel's children waited longest for the second marshmallow when they...
Keeping the treat vivid in mind made it hard to resist. Cooling it down (imaginary, abstract) let four-year-olds wait about 18 minutes.
"So the presence of the temptation before your mind is part of what makes the temptation difficult to resist."
4. Odysseus had himself tied to the mast so he could hear the Sirens and not steer to them. Which everyday move is the same idea?
Decide while you are clear-headed, then make it hard to act on the temptation later.
"You can put your alarm clock all the way across the room you can take the cupcakes out of your house, you can put your credit card in a glass of water in the freezer."
5. How does a rule like "no dessert after 4 pm" help?
A rule makes one cupcake stand for all cupcakes, so "just this once" stops being a fresh decision every time.
"if I have a principle that I don't eat dessert after 4:00 pm, then it's easy. I don't have to make a decision on a case-by-case basis."
More: why it matters, what else to watch, read and do, who teaches it
Why it matters
Asked a month ahead, almost everyone waits two extra days for $6 over $5. Asked today, one in five grabs the $5. Up close, a small reward looks bigger than it is. Aristotle named the problem; Ainslie measured it; Mischel's marshmallow children show what beats it.
How this reaches you
The snooze button, the cupcake on the diet, the impulse buy, the paper left to the last night, the savings plan that starts next month, the phone you check "for a second".
Do this week
Pick one temptation you lose to. Before it comes, do one "mast" move: put the alarm across the room, the phone in another room, the snacks out of the house, or make it a rule ("no screens after 10") so you do not decide case by case.
Who teaches this unit
- Tamar Gendler, philosopher and cognitive scientist, yale. Taught this course at Yale in 2011 and gave it away free through Open Yale Courses, pairing old philosophy with new psychology.
- Aristotle, philosopher, athens. Plato's student. In the Ethics, Book VII, he named weakness of will: knowing the better thing and doing the other.
- George Ainslie, psychiatrist. Measured how people and animals undervalue later rewards in a steep curve, so the sooner, smaller one wins up close.
- Walter Mischel, psychologist. Ran the marshmallow studies and found that how children thought about the treat changed how long they could wait.
- Robert Nozick, philosopher. Argued that principles bind us like Odysseus's ropes: one act stands for the whole class, so we stop deciding case by case.