You can find the full syllabus here
Smith's grading scale here
First midterm exam study guide here
Second midterm exam study guide here
September 25 Free will, nature, and nurture in political science and other disciplines (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Closer to Truth, The Big Questions in Free Will (2016), watch
September 30 Free will in Western philosophy (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Julian Baggini, Do We Have Free Will? (2015), listen or watch
Paul Bloom, The War on Reason (2014), 
read
Robert Sapolsky, The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (2018), watchLinks to an external site.
Rush, lyrics to Freewill, read
October 2 Religious ideas, determinism, and free will (slides)
(One of the original readings from the syllabus has been removed from the list below.)
Read/listen/watch:
Jayaram V, Perspectives on What Karma Means (2021), read
Jane Dempsey Douglass, Predestination (1985), read
WhyIslam, Concept of God in Islam (2014), read
October 3 Acknowledgment of course policies due, 8:00 PM
October 7 Free will and moral responsibility (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Adrian Raine, Making a Murderer (2021), watch
Paul Bloom, Natural Born Killers (2013), read
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
October 9 Free will in political science: structure and agency (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Raj Chatty, Improving Equality of Opportunity (2019), watch
Tage Rai, How Could They? (2015), read
Brian Klaas, Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters, LSE event (2024), watchLinks to an external site.
October 14 Nature and evolutionary psychology (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Frans de Waal, Moral Behavior in Animals (2012), watch
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, The Mind Is Not a Blank Slate (2015), watch
Cristine Legare, Why Social Science Needs Evolutionary Theory (2018), read
Laith Al-Shawaf, Seven Key Misconceptions about Evolutionary Psychology (2019), read
Laith Al-Shawaf, Evolutionary Psychology: Predictively Powerful or Just-So Stories? (2020), read
October 16 Midterm exam #1
October 21 Nurture and cultural anthropology (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Honor and Moral Revolutions (2014), watch
Whet Moser, American Violence and Southern Culture (2012), read
Michele Gelfand, Understanding the Cultural Codes that Drive Behavior (2019), watchLinks to an external site.
Pew Research Center, What’s Morally Acceptable (2014), read
The Economist, The Japanese Art of Child-Rearing (2024), read
October 23 Nature and nurture: reconciling evolutionary psychology and cultural anthropology (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
October 28 Nature and nurture in behavioral genetics, part I (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Robert Plomin, How DNA Makes Us Who We Are (2019), watch
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Can Progressives Be Convinced that Genetics Matters? (2021), read here, or here if you hit the paywall
October 30 Nature and nurture in behavioral genetics, part II (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Freddie deBoer, Individual Genetics, Group Environments (2020), read
Ed Yong, A Waste of 1,000 Research papers (2019), read here or here if you hit the paywall
Nancy Segal, Twin Misconceptions (2017), listen or watch
Gretchen Reynolds, One Twin Exercises, The Other Doesn’t (2015), read
November 4 Group identity and politics (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Laurie Santos, The Roots of Racism in Rhesus Monkeys (2011), watch
Seth Andrews, Let’s Not Wake Up Like This (2019), watch
Thomas Edsall, America, We Have a Problem (2020), read, or here if you hit the paywall
November 6 Political attitudes and behaviors, part I (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
November 11 No class (Veterans' Day)
November 13 Midterm exam #2
November 18 Political attitudes and behaviors, part II (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Glenn Wilson, The Psychology of Politics (2012), watch
Shadi Hamid, How Politics Replaced Religion in America (2021), read, or here if you hit the paywall
David Pinsof, The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems (2024), listenLinks to an external site.
November 20 Political attitudes and behaviors, part III (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Roy Baumeister, Do You Really Have Free Will? (2013), read, or here if you hit the paywall
Julia Galef, Soldiers and Scouts: Why Our Minds Weren’t Built for Truth, talk at Long Now Foundation (2019), just the first 50:45 (watchLinks to an external site.)
November 25 Nature and nurture in religion (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
Justin L. 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
December 2 Nature and nurture in sex and gender (slides)
Read/listen/watch:
The Economist, The Perils of Polygamy, 2017, read
Scott Barry Kaufman, Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019), read
Judith Butler, Your Behavior Creates Your Gender (2011), watch
wikipedia entry on fa'afafine, read
December 4 The political and policy implications of beliefs about free will, nature, and nurture (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
Jonah Goldberg, It's Just a Pun, People (2025), read
December 9 Final exam, 4:30-6:20