Michael McCullough describes science that helps us comprehend how revenge came to have a purpose in human life. At the same time, he stresses, science is also revealing that human beings are more instinctively equipped for forgiveness than we’ve perhaps given ourselves credit for. Knowing this suggests ways to calm the revenge instinct in ourselves and others and embolden the forgiveness intuition. Krista’s unedited conversation with Michael McCullough, author of “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct.” Krista spoke with him on August 29, 2008 from the studios of American Public Media in St. Paul, Minnesota, and he was in the studios of WLRN in Miami, Florida. This interview is included in our program “Getting Revenge and Forgiveness.” See more at onbeing.org/program/getting-revenge-and-forgiveness/104

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