Morality is a tricky business. If you are an expert in preaching about it, people tend to hold you to a higher standard of probity. Perhaps this is what has made allegations of academic misconduct against one of the leading exponents of the “new science of morality” so disturbing for Bostonians. 

Harvard professor Marc D. Hauser has persuasively argued that no action is inherently wrong. "We generally do not commit wrong acts because we recognize that they are wrong and because we do not want to pay the emotional price of doing something we perceive as wrong," he says. As an evolutionary biologist, he is fascinated by the idea of evil and thinks that his research can shed light on its origin and its attraction. “I believe that science, and scientists, have an important role to play in shaping the moral agenda. We have an obligation to use facts and reason to… click here to read whole article and make comments