Here’s my conversation with journalist Meghan Daum and clinical psychologist Andrew Hartz, Ph.D. on episode 13 of the Open Therapy podcast.
Links for Spotify and Apple Podcast.
From the archives:
I Was Mistaken When I Said That Giving Unsolicited Advice Is a Mistake
The Psychology of Morality:
My new lecture series “The Psychology of Morality” is now available exclusively at Peterson Academy.
I delivered six lectures in front of a live studio audience that explore the origins of morality. The course examines the distinction between moral philosophy and moral psychology, showing how emotions and intuitions often guide our judgments more than rational principles. It also investigates frameworks such as Haidt’s moral foundations theory and Gray’s moral dyad theory. The series also covers dark personality traits and their relationship with moral behavior, and concludes by examining the relationship between morality and happiness, sex differences in moral judgment, and moral development across the lifespan.
Enroll here for immediate access.
Here’s the trailer:
Links and recommendations:
Do Flock Cameras Actually Work? by Ian Adams and Scott Mourtgos
Breaking the Cycle of Sexual Morality by Roy Baumeister
Progressive Intellectuals: Image vs. Reality by Michael Huemer
The Death Penalty is Overwhelmingly Popular. Here’s Why That Matters. by Charles Fain Lehman
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Three interesting findings:
1. Gay men commit fewer crimes than straight men, whereas lesbians commit more than straight women. This pattern is most plausibly explained in terms of sex-atypical prenatal hormones rather than social factors. (source: A Billion Years of Sex Differences by Steve Stewart-Williams)
2. In 2021, Oregon and Washington both effectively decriminalized the possession of small amounts of all controlled substances. Decriminalization caused over 1,000 excess deaths per year—a dismal cost to a misguided experiment. (source).
3. The share of Harvard undergraduates receiving disability accommodations rose from roughly 3 percent in 2014 to 21% in 2024 — a sevenfold increase in a decade. Meanwhile, at community colleges, the rate is 3 to 4 percent and has not changed in a decade. (source).
The paperback version of Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class is now available.
If you have gained any value from this newsletter and want to support my work, please buy a copy today. For yourself. For a friend or a loved one. If you can’t afford it, please support your local library.
Order your copy now:
Audible (I narrated the audiobook myself)
Stanford at 40% seems ahead of Harvard’s 21%at the game of special needs for better treatment.
All elite colleges should limit special needs students, like those getting more SAT time or other accommodations, to the state 5 year average of CC special needs, ~4%.
Teaching “How to Game the System for Selfish Benefit yet claim moral superiority” is very much a luxury belief adjacent behavior.
Harvard 🙈