Harry wrote: just so you know I wasn't making it up, this came out in the economist since I wrote that.
https://www.economist.com/united-states ... all-eatery

So I just got around to checking on the Economist article I linked to. The title is not the one in my magazine.

In my magazine the title is "I and Thou and tacos". Really.

Penelope wrote:‘Assumptions about privilege and status’ ??

Or biologically fixed instincts?

I’m not sure what you are saying here, not because you are not lucid in your argument,but because I am not familiar with the terminology and I’ve never heard of Haidt.

Sorry, Penelope. We did have a group on Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" a while back. If I remember right, I did not participate myself. But I have read about half the book, and it gets discussed a lot, at least in America.

Jonathan Haidt is an experimental psychologist who studies moral judgements. His trolley questions, like "there is a runaway trolley, and if it continues on course it will momentarily kill 5 people. You see the lever to divert it onto another track where it will only kill 1 person. Should you pull the lever?" were already famous well before "Righteous Mind" came out.

In that book he argues, based on experimental evidence (and I think his evidence has held up well over time) that people make such judgements very quickly, unreflectively one might say, and afterward they come up with explanations based on their instincts or moral emotions. These explanations may be slightly edited for clarity and coherence, but the judgements themselves are based on deep interpretations that are not really consciously examined. So his metaphor is that the judgements are the elephant, and the rider (who may attempt sometimes to influence the elephant, but is far from being in control) makes up justifications for what the elephant did. (I hope I got that right. Anyone else who read the book, feel free to comment on nuances.)

My comment was essentially arguing that moral emotions may be responsible for a lot of our judgements, but that should not be interpreted to mean our genetic programming leads in some inevitable sort of way to conclude that, say, mothers are morally responsible for limiting the risks to their children and fathers are not.

Instead, my interpretation would be that those snap judgements are in fact influenced by a lot of social interpretation that we have been exposed to for most of our lives. Not only are most women easier targets for moral censure, but the system assigning responsibility for children's safety to mothers is part of a vast system in which men are assumed to be away earning a living while women are assumed to be home at the hearth making pancakes for the little ones. My resistance to this sort of programming may be due partly to having taken primary care of my children for a large majority of their growing up time, so that my wife's career could proceed.

Penelope wrote:Of course, there is no conclusion to be reached. Our emotions interfere with our intellect.

Love is an emotion and we can’t help it. We need to achieve a balance between emotion and intellect. This gushing love that a parent feels for a child is about evolution. It’s the selfish gene isn’t it?

I would never dispute that emotions, including pre-programmed emotions, play a large role in our "intellectual" decisions. I wouldn't want it any other way.

But we have interesting cases, like people who adopt other people's children, that suggest we should not be too reductionistic about inferring the source of the emotions. The simplest interpretation, such as the selfish gene, may be far too simple to capture the full range of forces influencing our choices.

Penelope wrote:My children and grandchildren don’t always be the way I want them to be. It’s distressing, but I am reminding myself that it is a different world for them than it was for me.

It’s freer but with freedom comes responsibility.

I think I can remember my Mum proposing the same to me when I was in my teens. She lived through two world wars. Fought for the freedom we had in the sixties?? Perhaps??

Those generational divides are good puzzles for us all, I think. How is it people can live for 15 or 20 years in the same household and turn out to have different interpretations and sometimes different values? In the States we are used to an even stronger form of this because the children of immigrants have trouble even imagining the life their parents are coming from, and we have a lot of immigrants.

Penelope wrote:I was forty before I was offered a long and peculiar looking cigarette. I was quite flattered that the young people thought I was that ‘cool’. However, I went to sit at another table as I didn’t do mind altering substances. My mind was only just reaching some sort of equilibrium.

Nice you had enough equilibrium to sort that one out on the spot. Better than cool, even.

Harry wrote:I'm arguing that if you are doing your thing in an unethical way, you are ipso facto not flourishing. You may be accomplishing great things, but you are not doing so in a way that allows you to know yourself to be a person you admire.

Sure, but the only concern here with respect to morality is how it affects others, correct? I don't see the importance of an individual flourishing, where morality is concerned. All I see in the causal web is that the person's sanctity is respected. I mean, we all agree that a person should flourish, but where that relates to morality, it's only tangential.

But we all recognize that "we would all be better off if we exercise more" is not likely to turn exercise into a moral obligation.

I agree, but I think in this case it's because exercise is more about the individual, and less about the collective. Certainly a more fit person would put less strain on the healthcare system and would potentially be a more productive member of society. But where those things may slightly promote flourishing of the species, the scale in this particular instance would be weighted against the sanctity of the individual.

Contrast this with littering from your car window. There is very little individual sanctity lost, and the impact on the collective is a bit more visible.

Regarding littering and recycling, I think it's still in the process of being accepted as a moral concern. Some people are convinced, while others are not. I think the problems need to become a little worse for the impact to drive it over the edge.

Well, I don't think there is much improvement to be gotten by morbid introspection about purity of one's motives.

I completely disagree. Know thyself. Some of the best self-improvement I've ever had is through introspection and comparing what I've found with the way I perceive others.

The way it often surfaces is that sometimes, a very subtle character trait in someone I know will rub me the wrong way. The behavior, being an irritant, rests in my memory of a bit. A few months, perhaps a year. Then I come across myself behaving the exact same way and immediately freeze, going introspective. I want to know why I acted in a way that I myself find irritating.

There are only two conclusions, I've found. One is that I was indeed being selfish or impure of motive(which means the other person I know was being selfish or impure of motive). The second is that my motives were pure, but somewhere between the emotion and my outward action, strange psychology happened. Once I understand that, I understand that the person I know could have had the same occurrence. Granted, there's always the possibility they had impure or selfish(or whatever) motives, but dwelling on that is helpful to no one. So I give them the benefit of the doubt, which is helpful both to myself and to the relationship.

Well said. Yes, actually, I also think shifting between analytic mode and encounter mode is a sensible, maybe even vital, way to live. In fact I think I overstated the instrumental aspect of understanding - reflection is a big help in dealing with other people, for example, and I don't think this has to work by subtracting from our openness to them. Often it seems to be just the opposite - that I am better able to translate from what they say to what they really mean (or purposely leave unsaid).

Right, I think this is nearly identical to what I was saying above. A little less pedantically worded.

As long as you are not trying to force some exclusion of any proposition that things can really be wrong, or really be meaningful, I am okay with wherever such a discussion takes itself.

Sometimes I'm a turd and point out limits to the propositions, but only ones worded with a parochial bent. There are things that are truly wrong, much that is truly meaningful, and in both cases this is only true with respect to an intelligent agent. The reason I get turdish is due to the number of times I've run across people who swear that meaning is objective, and exists "out there" apart from an intelligence that can harvest it.

Unlike you and Penelope, apparently, I put little weight on such moral sentiments. I think they usually arise more from social norms which people pick up, intertwined heavily with assumptions about privilege and status, than from natural empathy and mirror neurons, (much less from biologically fixed instincts.)

I think you misunderstood my position, which is ok because it's complex. I agree that how our moral code develops over time has influences that affect purity, for lack of a better term. I agree that the code comes from social norms and is colored by perspective. This is different from our moral emotions.

Where moral emotions are concerned, they are the other side of the coin. We have the code, yes. But we have the emotions that influence us on a personal level to abide by the code. ("Code" in this context is just an easy short word. I mean sentiment/obligation/standard/etc. - that which we agree is moral behavior).

So we agree as a society that stealing or perhaps littering is bad. That agreement is the code. Our guilt when we steal or litter is the enforcing emotion. If we suppress the enforcing emotion(which for some isn't hard), then we have embarrassment or shame to curb future action. If we suppress all moral emotions, society will still enforce the code with the legal system.

Quote
Unlike you and Penelope, apparently, I put little weight on such moral sentiments. I think they usually arise more from social norms which people pick up, intertwined heavily with assumptions about privilege and status, than from natural empathy and mirror neurons, (much less from biologically fixed instincts.)


We should look after one another (not to say ‘cherish’ one another). Why? Because that is the right thing to do. We must, therefore, look after our environment. It is not about being selfless or altruistic. It’s just being humane.

Oh wait!! Whoops! My Socialism is showing again.

Penelope wrote:We should look after one another (not to say ‘cherish’ one another). Why? Because that is the right thing to do. We must, therefore, look after our environment. It is not about being selfless or altruistic. It’s just being humane.

Yes, I thoroughly agree. I think there are limits and degrees and so I am open to discussion on this. Most people don't feel the same sense of duty about looking after the Untouchables of India, even if they do feel that such a status is unjust. The why's and wherefore's are complicated and make for frustrating discussions, (but interesting philosophical investigations). But currently my country, the U.S., is doing approximately nothing about global warming. That is definitely not the right amount.

Penelope wrote:Oh wait!! Whoops! My Socialism is showing again.

Suspicion of Socialism is mostly a kind of paranoia. Even when Europe believed in Socialism (commanding heights of the economy, and all that) and so actually put a version of Socialism in place, it functioned quite well.

The main argument for not having socialism is that free markets innovate faster. I fear that is no longer much of an advantage.

Harry Marks, I could just kiss you!

We worship that God, The Economy! So it’s all about now, fast returns, not thinking about future consequences.

We had an excellent National Health Service in this country. It didn’t make a profit but if people were ill and suffering, they got treated and we all paid our taxes towards that. If the children from a financially poor family were ill, they got equal treatment with those from wealthy families. We were working towards equal education and I was privileged to benefit from that. But not so now...There are children who know they have no future. There was always ‘hope’ for us post war children.

Okay, end of rant.

I think it is because governments look at short-term investment. Never caring about the long term.

Once the Soul Awakens, the Search Begins
And You Can Never Go Back
From then on You are Inflamed with a Special Longing
That will Never Again let You Linger
In the Lowlands of Complacency and Partial Fulfillment
The Eternal Makes You Urgent
- John O'Donohue from "Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom"

crios wrote:Agnostic here...!

Welcome, crios. I hope you enjoy the book, and the discussion. Please continue to join in.