This week's Newsweek has a short essay by Marc Hauser outlining his ideas about the universality of morality.  He throws out some of the moral dilemmas that he's used in his online moral sense test.  It's always interesting how the sense of right and wrong is seemingly instinctive, what he describes as a universal moral grammar.  Francis Collins, by way of C. S. Lewis, would say humans are endowed by their creator with this "moral law" but that strikes me as a deadend buzzkill that negates further valuable inquiry of the sort Hauser pursues.

Hauser's moral sense test is online at www.moral.wjh.harvard.edu.  He strikes me as that special sort of scientist who engages in serious scientific research but also makes the effort to help people understand his findings in popular books and publications.  Basic research is crucial, but if scientists don't take the time to explain it, we're going to end up with a scientifically illiterate public.