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Week 11--Why Talk with One Another?
By showing how moral judgments are ex-post-facto explanations
of moral
intuitions, Haidt does a pretty good job of explaining "the futility of
most moral arguments." How can you accomodate his research into your
own upcoming search for an answer to an ethical dilemma?
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Haidt and Homelessness
Haidt and Homelessness
Haidt's argument is that
What I found interesting
What I found interesting from this reading is the idea that "children's task is not to become like their parents but to fit into their peer group, for it is among peers that alliances must be formed and prestige garnered" (21). In a way I agree with this statement and I see it occur in our society today because especially for adolescents, "social life" is a big part of their lives and a lot of people are influenced by their peers opinions and views. So if a situation comes up, your gut feeling would probably be the same as your peers. However, after much thought and reflection, your opinion may differ and have a moral reasoning and explanation.
I think this relates to my topic because growing up near NYC, my peers barely had any sympathy for the homeless and would not take time out of their schedule to even help out. I was one of those kids as well but after I volunteered at Soup Kitchens and other places, my perspective on the homeless has greatly changed.
moral arguments
Haidtin' on Genetic Testing (har har har)
I agree with Haidt that there is a sort of moral intuition ingrained in all of us. Upon reading the brief story of the brother and sister commiting incest that proceeded the essay, I immediately had a gut reaction (that also provoked me to make a gagging noise aloud). But even though my gut reaction said what Mark and Julie did was wrong, I saw that it, according to Haidt, caused no harm. Ew. And, to prove his point further, I could not find any other reason within myself that it was wrong other than that it just felt that way.
Probably every group can apply Haidt's theory of an "it just is" type of morality existing within us. My group is researching genetic testing, a topic which is probably more easily dismissable than, say, abortion or euthanasia, because it can be seen as an advancement in medicine. Indeed it is, but not all "advancements" are right. Someone posted that, yes, we can listen to our gut reaction, but sometimes to do what is actually right we need to apply reasoning. Instictive morality, for some issues, is not enough. For me, genetic testing is something I have mixed feelings about, but I'm sure further research (reasoning?) will make it clearer.
Euthanasia and Instinct
Haidt & Welfare
not futile.
I think the notion that most moral dilemmas are judged by a moral intuituion is interesting and rather true in most cases. This is the reason we have such large debates about subjects like abortion and incest and why it is so incredibly difficult to persuade someone to change their beliefs. However, I don't think that most moral arguments are "futile". With our topic, homelessness, we understand that most people already have their own idea as to how to deal with the destitute on the street. We won't try to force anyone to believe something, rather we will provide a wealth of information about the subject to allow for people to reevaluate their judgments.
Futility of Moral Arguments
I think the idea of ex-post-facto explanation is very interesting. It makes perfect sense that there is just something innate within us that makes us believe certain things are immoral and in order to explain that we come up with reasons why we feel like that. I think by using our gut reactions to our topics, and then researching we are clearly using this idea to write our final papers. For a lot of people, no matter how much evidence they have against their gut reaction they won't change how they feel. To me, this shows that people have feelings about certain issues and just find information to support what they think and disregard information that doesn't support it. For my topic, genetic testing, my gut reaction was that I supported it, because I think new progressive ideas and scientific advancement is a good thing. But there are a lot of bad consequences that can come along with it.
morality
I agree with Haidt that people make up reasons ex-post facto in order to support their initial gut reaction to a situation. However, there has to be a reason that they had that gut reaction,it may not be expalinable but that is because it is a gut reaction or 'intuition'. Not to be cliche, but they say always trust a womans intuition. There is some base, possibly primal instinct that is so ingrained in who we are as a species that it affects a majority of our judgements without us realizing it. I agree that people come up with reasons afterwards that are ex post facto but I beleive that is because they have no words to explain their intuition.
I do not know how this will help in our apaers, other than we have to appeal to people's sense of judgement, and possibly twist things to make one side seem worse, because if they are already set in a certain mind set due to intuition it is going to be hard to sway them.
By showing how moral
By showing how moral judgments are ex-post-facto explanations of moral intuitions, Haidt does a pretty good job of explaining "the futility of most moral arguments." How can you accomodate his research into your own upcoming search for an answer to an ethical dilemma?
I feel that ethical dilemmas do not have a right/wrong answers; instead, they have pros and cons for each side. This is why it's so hard to find a solution to a given problem.
He states that moral reasoning is usually followed after a judgement is made. Perhaps this is especially true for ethical dilemmas - many form more pros and cons for each side after there has been a decision.
We should note the idea of compromise and how which side is to work with the other to negociate to maximize the satisfaction for both arguments.
You Tail Wagger, You.
While I'm still not thoroughly convinced that "genetic testing" is an actual ethical dilemma, I'm sure, somehow, it can apply to this reading.
"The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail" gave me two things: a headache, and hope that someone's opinions can ultimately be changed, seeing as they are not actually based in reason. There is the possibility still to convince a stubborn person of your own mindset, be it by befriending them and using the "morals by association" technique, or through giving them the tools to personally reflect and change their own opinions.
Haidt and Euthanasia
By showing how moral judgments are ex-post-facto explanations of moral intuitions, Haidt does a pretty good job of explaining "the futility of most moral arguments."
Yes I would say that this is fairly true statement. I do believe that people make many, maybe even most, of their moral judgements, be they fundamentally moral or not, that are simply rooted in their most basic instincts. Haidt recognizes this human power as intuitions into which we are individually and collectively cued to the same moral judgement. Moral reasoning here is the interesting part. How people decide to argue their instinctive(ly different) moral judgments is where deviation occurs and perhaps one is really able to get down to what a truly moral response to something would have been had people been unaffected by outside influences etc. It would perhaps be interested to look at why people argue Euthanasia certain ways when if they are already so dead set on the subject they wouldn't need to even go about morally reasoning out their position.
is a solution possible?
I think Haidt's argument fits in verywell with Michelle and my ethical dilemma about whether or not to make thedecision to help those less fortunate. In an examination of young adultsTuriel, Hildebrandt, and Wainry discovered that “people who judged the actionsto be moral violations also talked about harmful consequences, whereas peoplewho thought the actions were not wrong generally cited no harmfulconsequences.” In trying to decide if it is humanities responsibility toprovide aid to the less fortunate or those in need, Michelle and I have are tryingto consider the consequences of that help. We are speculating that help incertain situations, can be harmful or helpful. If you give a homeless man$20you don’t know if he will use it to buy drugs, which would be harmful or go buyhimself food, which would be helpful. Philosopher Hume states that, “unless wecare…unless with have some sentiment…reason alone cannot advise against takingthe action.” If a person doesn’t have compassion for those less fortunate thenthey aren’t going to take action to help them. Some people feel that in manycases it is a person’s own fault for becoming homeless and that helping him isonly fueling his lack of motivation. Haidt states that "moral reasoning isan effortful process, engaged in after a moral judgment is made, in which aperson searches for arguments that will support an already-made argument."To me, this means that it would be difficult to change one's moral reasoning.It sounds as though a person's mind will already be made up and that it doesn'tmatter if their argument is incoherent because they won't change their opinion.This makes me feel as if there is no solution to my ethical dilemma becausepeople are simply going to make up their mind whether or not to help the poorand there will be no changing of their mind.
moral judgments "evaluations
moral judgments "evaluations (good versus bad) of the actions or character of a person that are made with respect to a set of virtues held by a culture or subculture to be obligatory."
moral reasoning "conscious mental activity that consists of transforming given information about people in order to reach a moral judgement"
moral intuition "the sudden appearance in consciousness of a moral judgment, including an affective valence (good-bad, like-dislike), without any conscious awareness of having gone through steps of search, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion"
In my opinion these three tie together my (and Malli's) ethical dilemma. We are going to write about medical termination of pregnancies and second trimester abortions. We bring up issues like "who decides when it is okay to abort the pregnancy?" "what makes a child "normal" or "ill"?" So I feel like we all go through those three definitions above when we are confronted with an ethical issue, and Malli and I are trying to go through the moral thought processes to understand more where the line becomes fuzzy for the medical termination of pregnancies and second trimester abortions.
is instinct universal or relative?
My paper (with Aybala of course) this week has gone more from the dilemma of what a good parent is and who should be allowed to decide who may or may not have children to more of a question if a so called "good parent" is a relative term across cultures or has (or should have?) a universal definition. I think Haidt's argument has a very interesting relationship to this question in terms of the idea of instinct. When reading the article I wasn't sure if he sees instinct as universal across cultures. I guess to me it seems that instinct is something that humans as a species share--not something that humans within one specific culture share. I brought this up during my meeting with Anne today and she countered that there can be "learned instincts." I'm not sure how I feel about this... If instincts can be learned then don't they have some sort of cultural background and therefore reason behind them?...in which case reason is not futile, but the cause of that "gut reaction" that we've been discussing.
As far as accommodating his research into finding an answer to my own dilemma I almost feel like...well, what's the point? If ethical decisions are made instinctually, then people's opinions cannot be changed (because they're not even opinions! they're...basically facts), so why try to find a solution? Maybe I'm just very cynical...
I agree with Haidt that
I agree with Haidt that most moral arguments are useless. People are not going to hear an argument that goes completely against their gut instinct and think "wow, this person is right." Therefore, our current papers on an ethical dilemma can't just be us forcing our opinion onto our reader. No matter how right I think my moral point of view is, it is useless to argue. So, similar to Emily's posting, I believe that compromise is the most important part of answering an ethical dilemma. There needs to be aspects of the solution that everybody can understand and agree with, regardless of moral intuitions. However, I’m not sure that anything can really be “solved.” Isa, Anna and I struggled with how to solve our ethical dilemma. Instead, we decided to shock everyone’s moral argument with practical arguments put into the extreme.
Haidt:
In summary, in issues of moral dilemmas that involve the body, obvious reactions are of disgust because one imagines oneself in the situation, and the "gut reaction" takes place. But I question Haidt's use of intuition- which conjures up images to me of inner knowledge and foresight, whereas here it is used as the so-called "split second" judgements, that perhaps are passed down in society through religion or parental beliefs. For instance, thinking that Julie and Mark's love making is bad because of our biblical prohibition of incest for genetic reasons is based in society's laws, not automatic "ewww" from our own sense. Because of this, I have a problem with Haidt's social intutionist model, and I will not be incorporating it into my paper as a general non zero sum maker. Instead, my paper with Isa and Courtney works to create the gut reaction by shocking the reader and questioning ideas of political correctness and our judgement system by using reasonable arguments that seem disgusting.
As a side note, I've read some of Haidt's work and even taken some of his tests on yourmorals.org, which put people in bins of republican and democrat and you answer a few questions on purity, chastity, etc and rate how important they are to you, and then it releases a graph showing how you stand against people in your political party and in the opposite. For me, I was in my own category, far more left than the democrats that took the test too, but I don't think my political compass is necessarily about morals, more about politics. I don't know how to explain.
support your argument
In my search for an answer to my ethical dilemma on welfare and abusing the system, I was basing what I thought was a good solution on my moral judgement. After reading The Emotional Dog and it's Rational Tail and Haidt's explanation for the "futility of moral arguments" I think it is very imporant to address both points of view; that of the tax payer and that of those receiving welfare (both those who use it and those who abuse it). In doing so I can try to escape the "I don'tknow" answer by presenting facts to support my choice. If after researching I find that my solution is still the same then I will be able to support my stance on the topic of welfare abuse.
Haidt and ethical dilemmas
the only way to really win an argument is to compromise
TOEING THE MORAL LINE
I think that each one of us has a core morality - a set of central attitudes which prescribes/disallows certain ways of thinking , feeling , and acting NO MATTER WHAT .
The Cultural Commons
Another note (of help, I hope) as you get to work on the collaborative projects we've asked you to produce over the next few weeks...a NYTimes Magazine interview with Lewis Hyde, this weekend, called What is Art For? Turns out Hyde has been working, the past ten years, on re-writing the intellectual history of this country, from one of isolated geniuses to one of a "cultural commons," in which we can all participate. Lotsa great quotes in the article, but here's my favorite:
“It takes a capacious mind to play host to…others and to find new ways to combine what they have to offer....a mind willing to be taught, willing to be inhabited, willing to labor in the cultural commons.”
Argue well
I can see the rationale behind Haidt's argument and now that I think of it, yes, people do undertake ex-post-facto explanations of moral intuitions. Yet, there can be ways to overcome the "futility of moral arguments"
In his article he mentions the reasoned persuasion link that 'works not by providing logically compelling arguments, but by triggering new affectively valenced intuitions in the listener'. This would work as a way to get your side of the argument into the other side. Since people only listen to what validates or proves something they already believe in, we can tailor our argument such that it can convince people in a subtle but effective manner, by appealing to their judgement, yet sticking really to your own.
Haidt also mentions that to be one has to reason like a lawyer, not present the truth, but defend your argument. If people are presented with other sides or 'roles' in the argument they change their mind. If one is meant to empathize with a certain person in a situation they were morally against they can turn their favor towards it by putting themselves in their shoes.
I believe that these and other techniques make moral arguments interesting and challenging, and far from futile.
So what?