An Essay on Liberation outlines the new possibilities for contemporary human liberation.

This article shows that social norms are better explained as correlating devices for a correlated equilibrium of the underlying stage game, rather than Nash equilibria. Whereas the epistemological requirements for rational agents playing Nash equilibria are very stringent and usually implausible, the requirements for a correlated equilibrium amount to the existence of common priors, which we interpret as induced by the cultural system of the society in question. When the correlating device has perfect information, we need in addition only to (...) posit that individuals obey the social norm when it is costless to do so. When the correlating device has incomplete information, the operation of the social norm requires that individuals have a predisposition to follow the norm even when this is costly. The latter case explains why social norms are associated with other-regarding preferences and provides a basis for analyzing honesty and corruption. (shrink)

From lectures over the BBC by a Cambridge professor on answers to our problems on the meaning of life.

Music and listening, music and consciousness -- Conceptualizing consciousness -- The phenomenology of everyday music listening experiences -- Absorption, dissociation and trancing -- Musical and non-musical trancing in daily life -- Imaginative involvement -- Musical and non-musical trancing : similarities and differences -- Experiencing life and art : ethological and evolutionary perspectives on -- Transformations of consciousness -- Everyday music listening experiences reframed.

The problem of evil throws up many awkward questions for theologians. McCabe handles the many contradictory twists and turns with dexterity and skill.>.

Are humans genetically predisposed to exhibit prosocial behaviours? Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson have made major contributions to our understanding of this question. In my remarks here I will propose a revision in their definition of altruism, suggest a broader term, ‘prosociality', to account for cooperation in humans, and present evidence for a particular set of human prosocial traits that likely evolved with our species and may account for our unique ability to maintain intricate cooperative networks not based on (...) ties of kinship. (shrink)