@mattlindauer
Philosophy prof at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center. Research on normative concepts, moral motivation, justice, and value pluralism. *The Fruitfulness of Normative Concepts,* now out with Oxford University Press https://matthewlindauer.com
Hi Bluesky! 👋 We’re the Philosophical Moral Psychology Lab, based at the Uehiro Oxford Institute. We use experimental philosophy and moral psychology methods to study morality, with the aim of contributing to normative and philosophical debates in ethics. Follow us to keep up with our work!
love the ”almost American“ bit 😂
unreal 😔
Giving two talks in Chicago next week: 1) Wednesday at Loyola University Chicago 2) Thursday at the Morality Preconference at SPSP. Looking forward to presenting on my new book and seeing old friends. @loyolachicago.bsky.social @spspnews.bsky.social #philsky #psysky #moralpsychology
Remarkable: Majority of working class voters oppose deportations of undocumented immigrants with jobs/no criminal records, per new Marquette data.
Remember how pundits said 2024 meant Dems must become restrictionist to win back working class? I challenge that here:
newrepublic.com/article/2059...
"a whopping 60 percent of overall Americans disapprove of how ICE is handling enforcement." New Marquette poll data shows significant opposition to ICE enforcement across demographics mistakenly thought to be MAGA strongholds.
link.springer.com/article/10.1... link.springer.com/article/10.1... link.springer.com/article/10.1... link.springer.com/article/10.1... link.springer.com/article/10.1... link.springer.com/article/10.1... link.springer.com/article/10.1... See also excellent recent work by @mattlindauer.bsky.social...
Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs. The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.
Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
who become immoral, selfish, and careless with others?” (as thinkers like Peter Kropotkin, Philippa Foot, and Philip Kitcher, in different ways, would have us ask instead). /end
actually gets things quite backwards (“how do we get selfish beings to become moral?” even more so). The more pertinent question for philosophers and social scientists seems to be, “what is going wrong with some members of a deeply cooperative species, /2
Philosophy and This Moment: In these times we fight to remain positive, but it is beautiful to directly be exposed to evidence that people are cooperative, caring, and moral, willing to stand up for others even when it is hard. It makes it seem like the question “why be moral?,” while interesting /1
it's honestly amazing how many folks have never met a trans woman, never spoken to a trans woman, never spent any time in our proximity or heard us talk about our lives, but feel ABSOLUTELY confident opining about us at length
In 2018, less than a year after reporting that first story on deepfakes, I wrote about how it’s a serious mistake to ignore the fact that nonconsensual imagery, synthetic or not, is a societal sickness and not something companies can guardrail against into infinity. “Users feed off one another to create a sense that they are the kings of the universe, that they answer to no one. This logic is how you get incels and pickup artists, and it’s how you get deepfakes: a group of men who see no harm in treating women as mere images, and view making and spreading algorithmically weaponized revenge porn as a hobby as innocent and timeless as trading baseball cards,” I wrote at the time. “That is what’s at the root of deepfakes. And the consequences of forgetting that are more dire than we can predict.”
we have to, at some point, address the fact that there are thousands and thousands of people are behind these prompts. there are no guardrails against misogyny. it's a feature, not a bug, as they say bit.ly/452c8bj
Independent journalism is absolutely a form of resistance, thanks to the important work of @marisakabas.bsky.social @autonomynews.co @404media.co @assignedmedia.org @boltsmag.org.
My latest in @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
I am very excited to announce that over the holidays, my first ever paper (w/ @samiyousif.bsky.social) was published in Cognitive Science! Here, we describe a new illusion of *number*: The Crowd Size Illusion!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
as a regular @michaelhobbes.bsky.social listener i’m surprised that i missed that one!
I’m so glad you’ve popularized this. I’ve referred to it as toxic centrism, just in conversation, but I like this label as much and really think it needs to be highlighted. Also, very enticing to many philosophers as it has the feel of performative reasonableness.
!! there's now a wiki page for reactionary centrism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactio...
‼️From Matthew Lindauer:
The Fruitfulness of Normative Concepts
James Talarico: Imagine a Democratic Party that takes on big money and isn't captured by it. Imagine a Democratic Party that delivers for people on housing, healthcare, education, and actually defeats the right-wing extremists who have taken over this country.
The new journal *Experimental Philosophy* is now open for submissions! Very glad to serve as an AE and looking forward to seeing this take off. #philsky
“Traumatized, humiliated, degraded.”
The nurse, a US citizen, 4’11”, 85 lbs, says she was following orders when she was dragged out of her car by masked immigration agents in Florida.
It was the 3rd time she had been stopped and told to produce ID.
Free link ⤵️
www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...
Thanks Luis! Hope to discuss it and catch up some time.
What's not reported is as important as what is. This didn't fit the corpo media's narrative, just like dozens of other issues.
Last week, ICE arrested and separated a father and son after a routine check-in. Six-year-old Yuanxin had just enrolled in the first grade at an elementary school in Astoria. Now he's in custody, alone. ICE won't say where. This cruelty serves no one. It must end.
A quick request for academic friends: if you have a moment, please consider asking your institution's librarian to order a copy of my new book The Fruitfulness of Normative Concepts.
Link to brief request form: urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...
ISBN for book: 9780197633809
Thanks! :)
#philsky
Chart showing detention population, among those arrested in the interior, by criminal record, May 2019 through present. There are three lines shown. (1) Prior conviction (which rises from around 9,000 in January 2025 to just over 16,000 in November 2025), (2) Pending criminal charges (which rises from around 5,000 to 15,000), and (3) No criminal record (which rises from around 1,000 to 21,000).
NEW: ICE has finally released post-shutdown detention data. The latest data reveals that a full 40%(!) of people arrested in the interior and held in ICE detention have no criminal record; no criminal charges or prior convictions. That is up from just 4% when Trump took office.
My 6-year-old after crushing me at Uno and being told it’s skill, not luck: “Skill *is* luck, Dad, the luck of whether you have that skill.” Rawlsian Papa couldn’t be prouder.
This is big: elected Republicans in a deep-red state saying NO to Trump even after his personal plea.
The balance is shifting - and we have to keep up the pressure everywhere.
We knew this, but we are glad someone really really looked.
"Reading through it, I felt physically ill by the complete understanding of the caliber of people that the current U.S. government threw out because of bigotry and malice."
