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I spent decades thinking, writing and engaging in activism dealing with a variety of issues related to enhancing health and sustainability on many levels. A few years ago, I achieved a major breakthrough in my understanding of these issues when I realized that all of them, essentially, involved one core issue: human ethical choice. Specifically, I became aware that in order to most effectively and strategically address any of these issues, it was crucial to understand that humans differ in how they make ethical choices and that these differences involve many factors, including biological ones.

Just as I was making this realization, thanks to a number of resources on the topic, it seemed that much of the rest of the world was beginning to make the same realization. More and more stories related to the neuroscience of moral choice were coming out everywhere I looked. And dramas and books centering on psychopaths – perhaps the most fascinating examples of the stark difference between some humans and others in how they make moral choices – were attracting large audiences.

So I started this blog in order to help amplify this awakening to a new understanding about the factors underlying moral choice and, in turn, the types of events we refer to as “evil.”

Here on the blog, I’ve featured many stories that highlight the growing knowledge base at the intersection of neuroscience and morality. And today I read a quote that sums up well my feeling about this area of knowledge:

“It’s a field that’s waiting for a big revolution sometime soon.” (more…)

Our last post was about an episode of the documentary series National Geographic Explorer called “Born to Rage,” which focused on a topic very germane to ponerology, namely “the Warrior Gene,” a genetic variant that predisposes many men to aggression and violence.

Little did I know that, in the course of researching for that post, I would come across an episode of Explorer seemingly even more precisely relevant to ponerology than that. But that is just what happened.

Ponerology is defined as “the science of evil.” And, to my surprise, I came across a 2008 episode of Explorer actually entitled “Science of Evil.”

Just as in “Born to Rage,” the main framework for this episode’s exploration is established by the narrator early on. This time the guiding quote is this:

“Evil. It is blamed for cruelty beyond our mind’s comprehension. Is it a dark force outside of us that we are all vulnerable to, that we must work to resist? Is it inside of us, a stain on the soul, a dysfunction of the brain? Or just a word used to distance ourselves from inherently human behavior?” (more…)