- Spring 2021
Syllabus Description:
conversion from 100 point scale to a 4.0 scale
midterm exam is here
information about midterm exam
link to lectures, Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:30-5:20, https://washington.zoom.us/j/99853471743
link to Professor Smith's office hours, last one on Monday 6/7 (not Thursday 6/3) from 5:00-6:00, https://washington.zoom.us/j/97761974017
link to Christianna Parr's office hours, Mondays from 1:30-3:30, (Note: 5/31 office hours moved to Wed 6/2, 1:30 - 3:30 for observance of Memorial Day) https://washington.zoom.us/j/97788779873
full syllabus syllabus--302 spring 2021.pdf
March 29 Free will, nature, and nurture in political science and other disciplines (lecture recording part 1) (lecture recording part 2) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Closer to Truth, The Big Questions in Free Will (2016), watch
March 31 Free will in Western philosophy (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Julian Baggini, Do We Have Free Will? (2015), watch or listen
Paul Bloom, The War on Reason (2014), read
Robert Sapolsky, The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (2018), watch
April 5 Religious ideas, determinism, and free will (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Jayaram V, Perspectives on What Karma Means (2021), read
Jane Dempsey Douglass, Predestination (1985), read
Richard Phillips, Original Sin (2021), read
WhyIslam, Concept of God in Islam (2020), read
April 7 Free will and moral responsibility (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Adrian Raine, Neurobiology of Violence (2013), watch
Michael Shermer, Free Will and Moral Responsibility in a Secular Society (2014), watch
Stephen Cave, There’s No Such Thing as Free Will (2016), read
April 12 Free will in political science: structure and agency (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Daron Acemoğlu, Why Nations Fail (2012), watch or listen
Raj Chatty, Improving Equality of Opportunity (2019), watch
Tage Rai, How Could They? (2015), read
April 14 Nature and evolutionary psychology (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Frans de Waal, Moral Behavior in Animals (2012), watch
Leda Cosmides, Evolutionary Psychology and Human Nature (2010), watch (Cosmides's talk begins at about 1:02 and ends at about 16:40)
Laith Al-Shawaf, Seven Key Misconceptions about Evolutionary Psychology (2019), read
Laith Al-Shawaf, Evolutionary Psychology: Predictively Powerful or Just-So Stories? (2020), read
David Buss, Why Students Love Evolutionary Psychology . . . And How to Teach It (2012), watch
April 19 Nurture and cultural anthropology (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Honor and Moral Revolutions (2014), watch
Richard Nisbett, Honor Cultures (2017), listen
Pew Research Center, What’s Morally Acceptable (2014), read
Marianna Pogosyn, A Big-Picture Look at Social Rules (2018), read
Michele Gelfand, States Are Not Divided by Red or Blue—A Deeper Difference Came before Politics (2018), read
April 21 Midterm exam
April 26 Nature and nurture: reconciling evolutionary psychology and cultural anthropology (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Susan Clancy, Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Abducted by Aliens, (2016), watch
Hidden Brain, Olympic Victory and Defeat (2016), listen
Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter, talk at Google (2016), watch
Rebecca Saxe, How We Read Each Other’s Minds (2009), watch
April 28 Nature and nurture in behavioral genetics, part I (video recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch
Robert Plomin, How DNA Makes Us Who We Are (2019), watch
Nancy Segal, Twin Misconceptions (2017), watch or listen
Gretchen Reynolds, One Twin Exercises, The Other Doesn’t (2015), read
May 3 Nature and nurture in behavioral genetics, part II; applying free will, nature, and nurture to success, achievement, and socio-economic status (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, Introduction and chapters 1-4, 6, 8-9, and the Epilogue (2008)
May 5 Nature and nurture in behavioral genetics, part III
Read/listen/watch:
Nothing for today
May 10 Free will, nature, and nurture case studies: group identity and politics (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Laurie Santos, The Roots of Racism in Rhesus Monkeys (2011), watch
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, talk at Google (2012), watch
Seth Andrews, Let’s Not Wake Up Like This (2019), watch
Shadi Hamid, How Politics Replaced Religion in America (2021), read
Thomas Edsall, America, We Have a Problem (2020), read
May 12 Free will, nature, and nurture case studies: religion (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Justin Barrett, The Naturalness of Religion (2011), listen
Ara Norenzayan, The Idea that Launched a Thousand Civilizations (2012), read
Kristin Laurin, Belief in God: A Cultural Adaptation with Important Side Effects (2017), read
Azim Shariff, Psychological and Social Consequences of Religious (Dis)belief (2015), watch
May 14 First paper due by 4:00 PM. You will upload your paper to the course’s Canvas site.
May 17 Free will, nature, and nurture case studies: political attitudes and behaviors, part I (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Robert Kurzban, Why Everybody (Else) Is a Hypocrite, talk at The Amazing Meeting (2014), watch
Hannah Holmes, Red Brain, Blue Brain (2014), watch
John Hibbing, Liberals and Conservatives: The Biology of Political Differences (2019), watch
Christopher Federico, The Psychology of Political Behavior (2019), listen
May 19 Free will, nature, and nurture case studies: political attitudes and behaviors, part II (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Julia Galef, How to Think (2021), watch or listen
Danny Westneat, Outbreak in Town of Republic Is a Cautionary Tale about Covid Vaccination (2021), read
Aallyah Wright, Republican Men Vaccine-Hesitant, But There’s Little Focus on Them (2021), read
Emma Green, The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown (2021), read
Veronique de Rugy, Open the Schools Already (2021), read
May 24 Free will, nature, and nurture case studies: political leadership and authority (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Mancur Olson, Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development (1993), read just pp. 567-570
Glenn Wilson, The Psychology of Politics (2012), watch
Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order, talk at the Carnegie Council (2014), watch
May 26 Free will, nature, and nurture case studies: sexual orientation and gender identity (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Judith Butler, Your Behavior Creates Your Gender (2011), watch
Andrew Sullivan, #MeToo and the Taboo Topic of Nature (2018), read
Scott Barry Kaufman, Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019), read
Alice Eagly and Wendy Wood, Gender Identity: Nature and Nurture Working Together (2017), read
May 31 No class (Memorial Day)
June 2 The political and policy implications of beliefs about free will, nature, and nurture (lecture recording) (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Elizabeth Suhay, The Political Science of Genetic Explanations (2018), listen
Discovery Institute, The Wedge Document (1998), read
J. P. Moreland, Neuroscience and the Soul (2013), watch
Robert Frank, Before Tea, Thank Your Lucky Stars (2009),read
Sociobiology Study Group, Against Sociobiology (1975), read
June 8 Second paper due by 4:00 PM. You will upload your paper to the course’s Canvas site.