Radio Interview with Pinker about his article "The Moral Instinct" (NPR's Talk of the Nation, Jan 28, 2008, 30 minutes)
Kohlberg Dilemmas - a set of moral questions used to uncover underlying moral principles, and stages of moral development. You could use these as part of the pre-reading survey questions you give students. For background on this, see Kohlberg's theory of the stages of moral development (Wikipedia: "Expanding on Piaget's work, Kohlberg determined that the process of moral development was principally concerned with justice, and that it continued throughout the individual's lifetime.")
Some background on Pinker: http://www.ted.com/speakers/steven_pinker.html, plus a video of Pinker talking about the history of violence, which has a number of connections to the arguments in his article.
(For fun) Stephen Colbert interviews Stephen Pinker ("Steve vs. Steve") on The Colbert Report
Brooks, "The End of Philosophy." Op-ed about study of morality from evolutionary perspective.
“Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal.” NICHOLAS KRISTOF, NYT, May 27, 2009.
Jonathan Haidt "On the moral roots of liberals and conservatives." An 18 minute video on the evolution of morality, and how "ratios" of "universal" moral principles are differently balanced by conservatives and liberals.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
1. Rhetorical reading of Pinker by Glen McClish (from orientation)
3. A PACES map of his project, argument, evidence, claims and strategies
See all purpose teaching materials on rhetorical reading and analyzing texts
See all purpose teaching materials on ethos pathos logoc, metadiscourse and rhetorical strategies.
David Barash "The Roar of the Crowd: Sports fans' primal behavior." The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 20, 2009.