Lance Bush, Instructor in Collaborative Discovery

Lance S. Bush takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of morality that draws on philosophy and psychology. Lance’s primary research is in the psychology of metaethics, an emerging field that explores how people think about abstract questions about the nature of morality. Do people tend to believe that there is a single, objective standard of moral truth? Or do they think moral standards are only true relative to individuals or societies? These questions are difficult to answer, prompting Lance’s more recent focus on methodological difficulties in devising valid ways to measure people’s attitudes towards traditionally philosophical questions.

Lance also works on broader methodological issues in philosophy and psychology and on the more traditional dispute between moral realism and antirealism. Lance’s most recent projects include a critique of scales designed to measure belief in free will and a collaborative series of studies which provide a novel explanation for the social role that expressing an objective or relative stance towards morality plays in signaling tolerance and intolerance towards people with different beliefs.

Lance completed a Ph.D. in psychology at Cornell University, an M.A. in philosophy at Tufts University, and bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and psychology at Florida Atlantic University. Lance has experience teaching courses in philosophy and psychology and conducts research in both fields.