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Darwinian explanation of morality, contending that moral behavior emerges from a natural process of competition among human groups.
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The core of the book is an attempt at a Darwinian explanation of morality, contending that moral behavior emerges from a natural process of competition among human groups.
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Human beings “have the ability, under special circumstances, to shut down our petty selves and become like cells in a larger body, or like bees in a hive, working for the good of the group,” an ability that “facilitates altruism, heroism, war, and genocide.”
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At the heart of my research and theory is the "Social Intuitionist Model," which lays out an account of how moral reasoning and moral emotions work together to produce moral judgments. In brief, the model says that moral judgments are like aesthetic judgments -- we make them quickly and intuitively. We know what is right and wrong in much the same way we know what is beautiful. When called on to explain ourselves we make up reasons after the fact. Moral reasoning does affect judgment, but this happens primarily in between people, as they talk, gossip, and argue (hence the "social" part of the model).
in list: Neuroethics
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At the heart of my research and theory is the “Social Intuitionist Model,” which lays out an account of how moral reasoning and moral emotions work together to produce moral judgments. In brief, the model says that moral judgments are like aesthetic judgments -- we make them quickly and intuitively. We know what is right and wrong in much the same way we know what is beautiful. When called on to explain ourselves we make up reasons after the fact. Moral reasoning does affect judgment, but this happens primarily in between people, as they talk, gossip, and argue (hence the “social” part of the model).
"In an article published in Science on 18 May 2007 (volume 316, pp. 998-1002) Haidt goes over his research on the different moral conceptions of people who consider themselves politically conservative or progressive. In particular, he identifies five types of moral concerns, and asks people of various political ideologies how they rank each of the types of concern when it comes to exercising moral judgment."
in list: Neuroethics
"Why are so many Americans reluctant to join the party? As a social psychologist I believe that one major reason is that some people are thinking about this national event using the same moral intuitions they'd use for a standard criminal case. For example, they ask us to imagine whether it would be appropriate for two parents to celebrate the execution, by lethal injection, of the man who murdered their daughter. "
in list: Neuroethics
"In a flabbergasting editorial published in the New York Times after the news of bin Laden’s death came out, Haidt once more begins with interesting science — a mix of (as we shall see, a bit sloppy) evolutionary biology and sociology — and ends up into moral philosophical territory, where he predictably blunders."
"Jonathan Haidt studies Morality and he , with Joseph and Graham, has discovered what he calls the five major moral foundations or ethical areas of concern. A Steven Pinker article that is doing the rounds these days introduces these as follows :"
in list: Neuroethics
Much is at stake regarding the role disgust should play in moral decision-making. Should we allow disgust a full place at the table when we render moral judgment? There are grave risks to doing this. Here's one example. Assume that we are attacked by a country that has customs we deem repugnant. Assume further that we allow our disgust (regarding those foreign cultural traditions) to run rampant in our moral/political thinking. Assume that we decide to exact our revenge by attacking a country that reminds us of the country that attacked us, because that they have similar traditions-we are disgusted by the traditions of both. Again, our minds are clever lawyers, and we love to put them to work to spin rationalizations.
in list: Neuroethics
I’ve written before about the work of Jonathan Haidt (pronounced “height”). He is a psychologist who has taken an experimental approach to investigating morality. I was highly impressed by Haidt’s analysis of conservative versus liberal versus of morality, for instance. In his previous work, Haidt determined that disgust played a significant role in the moral judgments of conservatives, but not so much for liberals. This result, based upon numerous surveys, sheds light on moral disputes regarding many things, including homosexuality.
Haidt's theory of the five measures of morality allows the two sides of the culture wars to communicate with each other in a fine-grained way, rather than shouting "You are immoral" at each other. His theory allows the discussion to move up at least one level to considering the validity and application of each of the five measures. With Haidt's approach, people can consider the merits of each of the five measures, based upon the function that those measures have traditionally served. Haidt's five measures approach assists the two sides in the culture war to identify what it is that they're not understanding about each other. It invites a real-life research agenda, one that is already bearing fruit, for studying and, perhaps, cooling down the culture wars.
in list: Neuroethics
This is the eleventh in a new series of weekend posts taken from the presentations at the Salk Institute's "Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.". I have placed an index of essays in this series in an introductory post, Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction.
in list: Neuroethics
Moral Foundations Theory was created to understand why morality varies so much across cultures yet still shows so many similarities and recurrent themes. In brief, the theory proposes that five innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of “intuitive ethics.” Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world, and conflicting within nations too.
The most offensive idea in all of science for the last 40 years is the possibility that behavioral differences between racial and ethnic groups have some genetic basis. Knowing nothing but the long-term offensiveness of this idea, a betting person would have to predict that as we decode the genomes of people around the world, we're going to find deeper differences than most scientists now expect. Expectations, after all, are not based purely on current evidence; they are biased, even if only slightly, by the gut feelings of the researchers, and those gut feelings include disgust toward racism.
...the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way. When Republicans say that Democrats "just don't get it," this is the "it" to which they refer.
in list: Neuroethics
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