Learning to Be More Selfish

From a young age, we are taught that one of the greatest risks to our integrity and flourishing is our own selfishness. We must – wherever possible – learn to think…

Learning How to Be Angry

There are many reasons to believe that one of the dominant problems in the world today is an excess of anger. We know all about the very shouty and their antics:…

Why We're All Liars

Our image of liars is so negative, our sense of their motives so dark, our presumption of their primal sinfulness so unyielding, it’s no wonder that we generally go around denying…

Are You a Masochist?

One of the more surprising and yet effective things we might learn about ourselves is that we are, and perhaps have always been, masochists – an idea as controversial as it…

How Badly Adapted We Are to Life on Earth

We’re used to singing the praises of the human mind and body: these are, from many perspectives, truly astonishing pieces of engineering. We have brains capable of doing fractal equations, translating…

How We Prefer to Act Rather Than Think

There’s a fundamental distinction to be made between two kinds of thinking: figuring out what we would like to achieve and working out how to achieve it. Or, put another way,…