7 ms·

> According to a recent study, people who make instinct-based moral judgments are perceived by their peers to be more moral and more trustworthy than those who

> According to a recent study, people who make instinct-based moral judgments are perceived by their peers to be more moral and more trustworthy than those who rely on reasoning alone. That's a depressing fact if true. Reasoning is a superior way of making a moral judgement, solely because we're wired to thing about ourselves and our close tribe before anything else. It's only through reasoning that we can consider the true "big picture."

scarecrowbob 8y ago
Well, if peoples' reason is perfect, than it is a superior way of making decisions. I'd certainly like it to be the case that we could do that. However, one thing we might take away from your claim that "wired to thing about ourselves and our close tribe before anything else" is this: If people are motivated to come up with an incorrect decision, then reason can often give people a mistaken sense that they are being ration, when in fact they are using a rather large set of tools to get their preferred answer.
kdl20kxkrk 8y ago
That describes all the managers I’ve worked with. Stern or at least unapologetic and unwavering support of company and process the worker bees all bitch about. “Owning” their role when the reasoned mind might question what they really own? Don’t think some mid-level director has their name on the right paperwork. CEOs drink the kool-aid. They control the spec to which people build. Reasoning around that is verboten. They all think they have good reason, but it’s usually “abide the cultural meme”.
darkerside 8y ago
It actually makes total sense. If you make decisions based on emotion and not just reason, if we are close, you are more likely to make decisions in my favor. So of course I'd be more likely to trust you. Don't be depressed by human nature. Accept it for what it is, and realize that it's what's gotten civilization this far.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Against your favour and in their selfish but sometimes ill-conceived interest. Only belonging works in your favor, everything else emotional is against.
  - darkerside 8y ago
    Do you have friends or family? Don't you have emotional bonds or attachment to them? Wouldn't you make decisions in their best interests over a stranger, possibly irrationally?
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  One might also say that moving above human nature is what's gotten civilization this far. Our nature for 99% of our time of a species have been to kill, rape, pillage each other. Emotions are never going to be superior to logic and rationality in decision making. At worst, they lead people to make very bad decisions. And they also lead to people being exploited. As far back as the Ancient Greeks Socrates wrote extensively on exploiting emotions to achieve success in argument. And today politicians, the media, advertisers, even individuals actively exploit emotional response for their own benefit. Emotional control has become more important than ever in today's society. In times past people were not so widely adept in emotional exploitation and communication was limited in any case to a close physical proximity. But in today's society of global communication with vast numbers of individuals skilled in emotional exploitation, emotionality is like a leash that those skilled in pathos can drag people around by, to whatever end they seek.
  - darkerside 8y ago
    We could argue forever about what is human nature. I consider is to have risen above only our animal nature in building things up instead of tearing them apart. Where animal nature may be unthinking selfish greed (there are certainly exceptions, but I think those are considered surprising cases of animals acting human), human nature is the ability to suspend that first level instinct to protect our provide for ourselves and those close to us. Human nature encompasses war and capitalism, and the rallying of others for a common cause or against a common enemy. Accept it and harness it instead of acting like it doesn't exist.
Nasrudith 8y ago
I've heard worse from an interviewing course from a Human Resources veteran who left the field to care for family that has me conclude that much of humanity is frankly batshit insane by the definition of 'divorced from reality'. In addition to paying 80% attention to how it is said instead of the content of what is said they tend to judge people who are better at putting on an appropriate 'mask' of confidence as 'trustworthy' when they all know that nearly everyone puts on a show for interviews anyway. That is believing that people who demonstrate better capabilities of actively faking emotions are more trustworthy. When aptitude is widely linked to practice. Saying you want a surgeon who can't stand the sight of blood so they'll make fewer unnecessary cuts is more logical than that. That is beyond trusting your intuition and into flat out divorced from reality and putting on a heaping helping of cognitive dissonance on top. The revelation was disturbing yet it also explains /a lot/ of societal dysfunctions and why high functioning sociopaths are disproportionate among CEOs.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  I somewhat agree with you, but I don't think you're giving these intuitions enough credit. Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good signals. Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence. Humans may recently have found a better way but that remains to be seen; on the face of it, reason is much more abstract and hence more 'divorced from reality'. It certainly doesn't warrant an immediate switch of strategies.
  - maze-le 8y ago
    >> Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good signals. If you're going for a hunt on large mammals, gut feelings about your peers is probably a good way to judge a person. An interview for a job is (usually) an entirely different situation. >> Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence. Oh my god, please don't tell me you trust people because they are looking good. If you do, you should consider establishing a different trust-metric, one that maybe has to do with the job a person is actually requested to do.
keithnz 8y ago
morals are tricky. I think quite often when people make a quick "moral" judgement it's more about what they feel is right. Reasoned morals can be the opposite, sometimes they can feel wrong and often require people to stop and think about why a certain thing is in fact moral. When someone makes an instinct based moral judgement the instant message is that the person is concerned with morals ( whether it be reasoned or not ), which does send this message that the persons fundamental nature is to do the right thing ( whatever 'right' is doesn't matter so much as the desire to do it) Where someone who takes time to figure out moral questions, it feels like they aren't inherently moral. Even worse when their reasoned moral judgement doesn't "feel" right. You may have to know that person more intimately to realize that they thoughfully moral. I feel maybe this has lot more to do with social cohesion rather than morality.
hrktb 8y ago
The working definition for instinct based moral judgements in the study is to have an absolute position on things (ex: kiling is wrong, whatever the circumstances), and I can see how it can be easier attribute morality, and cooperate and trust people with consistent believes. As long as they don’t kill people you can say they kept their moral views, it’s very simple. On the other hand, people who take moral decisions depending on the situation and the context are unpredictable in a way. And the result will be more difficult to judge as moral or not. People who stick with them long enough might come around to trust them and see them as moraly sound, but there is a higher barrier to entry. The study was about partner choice, and for me the takeaway would be that it’s easier to trust people that are also easier to understand
biql 8y ago
Once the logic argument is formulated, the part the decides to act or not act on it is still the emotional part. If someone chooses interests of humanity over their selfish interests, it's because the level of their understanding, which they attained after spending time thinking about, makes them feel better about this choice.
MaxBarraclough 8y ago
Well, sorta. Research has shown that emotion is vital to 'good behaviour'. It is not the case that we should hope to craft humanity into unfeeling robots. [0] At the same time, you're clearly right that we should be more rational when it comes to trying to act morally [1] [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-smart/201502/why-our-emotions-are-more-rational-we-think https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-smart/201502... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/06/against-empathy-paul-bloom-the-empathy-instinct-peter-bazalgette-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/06/against-empath...
- ajuc 8y ago
  Always remember this when reading a psychology paper: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/most-psychology-papers-cant-be-reproduced/ http://www.iflscience.com/brain/most-psychology-papers-cant-...
goldfeld 8y ago
Actually, no it's not--for me. I'm very analytical yet instinct and intuition are far more trusworthy in general as a human source of contact than any reasoning my poor material brain can concoct. It depends on your understanding of the world, granted HN skews disproportionately to your view.
ycombinete 8y ago
I don't think this is depressing, for the reasons that you find it depressing. This says "on reasoning alone". I wouldn't trust someone who didn't reference their instincts/emotions for moral decisions. There are studies on people who function on reasoning alone, and they are, unsurprisingly not very good at moral decisions. And I'm not just talking psychopaths, but also people who's emotional centers have been damaged. This is unsurprising to me, because our emotions and our morality are both part of the system that makes us social creatures (e.g. empathy). Morality is essentially a meta-structure that helps hold societies together. Besides, there's a lot of evidence now that our "reasoning", especially on moral matters, is more often than not, a post hoc justification of our emotional instinct. There are some nice explanations of this by people like Jonathan Haidt.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  > There are studies on people who function on reasoning alone, and they are, unsurprisingly not very good at moral decisions > Besides, there's a lot of evidence now that our "reasoning", especially on moral matters, is more often than not, a post hoc justification of our emotional instinct. Can you give an example of these studies? I’m interested in how they assign a qualifier of “good” or “bad” to various moral decisions. Are subjects not consistent in their moral decisions, or do their decisions disagree with the moral priors of the researchers? How do the researchers establish that their moral decisions are correct? That’s the essence of ethics itself. Unless these studies are exceptionally careful in their setup, I think it’s probable they’re begging the question implicitly. A more reserved conclusion might be that people with less empathy, in the aggregate, consistently make moral decisions which are different from those who have more empathy. But I think this conclusion might be kind of vacuous to anyone who has read a philosophy book or two on ethics.
  - ycombinete 8y ago
    I don't have any specific studies to mention, I am afraid, as I've only had them through third party sources. They will be in the books Waking Up by Sam Harris, The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, and The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. The last two more specifically.

scarecrowbob 8y ago

Well, if peoples' reason is perfect, than it is a superior way of making decisions. I'd certainly like it to be the case that we could do that. However, one thing we might take away from your claim that "wired to thing about ourselves and our close tribe before anything else" is this: If people are motivated to come up with an incorrect decision, then reason can often give people a mistaken sense that they are being ration, when in fact they are using a rather large set of tools to get their preferred answer.

kdl20kxkrk 8y ago

That describes all the managers I’ve worked with. Stern or at least unapologetic and unwavering support of company and process the worker bees all bitch about. “Owning” their role when the reasoned mind might question what they really own? Don’t think some mid-level director has their name on the right paperwork. CEOs drink the kool-aid. They control the spec to which people build. Reasoning around that is verboten. They all think they have good reason, but it’s usually “abide the cultural meme”.

darkerside 8y ago

It actually makes total sense. If you make decisions based on emotion and not just reason, if we are close, you are more likely to make decisions in my favor. So of course I'd be more likely to trust you. Don't be depressed by human nature. Accept it for what it is, and realize that it's what's gotten civilization this far.

AstralStorm 8y ago
Against your favour and in their selfish but sometimes ill-conceived interest. Only belonging works in your favor, everything else emotional is against.
- darkerside 8y ago
  Do you have friends or family? Don't you have emotional bonds or attachment to them? Wouldn't you make decisions in their best interests over a stranger, possibly irrationally?
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
One might also say that moving above human nature is what's gotten civilization this far. Our nature for 99% of our time of a species have been to kill, rape, pillage each other. Emotions are never going to be superior to logic and rationality in decision making. At worst, they lead people to make very bad decisions. And they also lead to people being exploited. As far back as the Ancient Greeks Socrates wrote extensively on exploiting emotions to achieve success in argument. And today politicians, the media, advertisers, even individuals actively exploit emotional response for their own benefit. Emotional control has become more important than ever in today's society. In times past people were not so widely adept in emotional exploitation and communication was limited in any case to a close physical proximity. But in today's society of global communication with vast numbers of individuals skilled in emotional exploitation, emotionality is like a leash that those skilled in pathos can drag people around by, to whatever end they seek.
- darkerside 8y ago
  We could argue forever about what is human nature. I consider is to have risen above only our animal nature in building things up instead of tearing them apart. Where animal nature may be unthinking selfish greed (there are certainly exceptions, but I think those are considered surprising cases of animals acting human), human nature is the ability to suspend that first level instinct to protect our provide for ourselves and those close to us. Human nature encompasses war and capitalism, and the rallying of others for a common cause or against a common enemy. Accept it and harness it instead of acting like it doesn't exist.

Nasrudith 8y ago

I've heard worse from an interviewing course from a Human Resources veteran who left the field to care for family that has me conclude that much of humanity is frankly batshit insane by the definition of 'divorced from reality'. In addition to paying 80% attention to how it is said instead of the content of what is said they tend to judge people who are better at putting on an appropriate 'mask' of confidence as 'trustworthy' when they all know that nearly everyone puts on a show for interviews anyway. That is believing that people who demonstrate better capabilities of actively faking emotions are more trustworthy. When aptitude is widely linked to practice. Saying you want a surgeon who can't stand the sight of blood so they'll make fewer unnecessary cuts is more logical than that. That is beyond trusting your intuition and into flat out divorced from reality and putting on a heaping helping of cognitive dissonance on top. The revelation was disturbing yet it also explains /a lot/ of societal dysfunctions and why high functioning sociopaths are disproportionate among CEOs.

akvadrako 8y ago
I somewhat agree with you, but I don't think you're giving these intuitions enough credit. Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good signals. Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence. Humans may recently have found a better way but that remains to be seen; on the face of it, reason is much more abstract and hence more 'divorced from reality'. It certainly doesn't warrant an immediate switch of strategies.
- maze-le 8y ago
  >> Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good signals. If you're going for a hunt on large mammals, gut feelings about your peers is probably a good way to judge a person. An interview for a job is (usually) an entirely different situation. >> Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence. Oh my god, please don't tell me you trust people because they are looking good. If you do, you should consider establishing a different trust-metric, one that maybe has to do with the job a person is actually requested to do.

keithnz 8y ago

morals are tricky. I think quite often when people make a quick "moral" judgement it's more about what they feel is right. Reasoned morals can be the opposite, sometimes they can feel wrong and often require people to stop and think about why a certain thing is in fact moral. When someone makes an instinct based moral judgement the instant message is that the person is concerned with morals ( whether it be reasoned or not ), which does send this message that the persons fundamental nature is to do the right thing ( whatever 'right' is doesn't matter so much as the desire to do it) Where someone who takes time to figure out moral questions, it feels like they aren't inherently moral. Even worse when their reasoned moral judgement doesn't "feel" right. You may have to know that person more intimately to realize that they thoughfully moral. I feel maybe this has lot more to do with social cohesion rather than morality.

hrktb 8y ago

The working definition for instinct based moral judgements in the study is to have an absolute position on things (ex: kiling is wrong, whatever the circumstances), and I can see how it can be easier attribute morality, and cooperate and trust people with consistent believes. As long as they don’t kill people you can say they kept their moral views, it’s very simple. On the other hand, people who take moral decisions depending on the situation and the context are unpredictable in a way. And the result will be more difficult to judge as moral or not. People who stick with them long enough might come around to trust them and see them as moraly sound, but there is a higher barrier to entry. The study was about partner choice, and for me the takeaway would be that it’s easier to trust people that are also easier to understand

biql 8y ago

Once the logic argument is formulated, the part the decides to act or not act on it is still the emotional part. If someone chooses interests of humanity over their selfish interests, it's because the level of their understanding, which they attained after spending time thinking about, makes them feel better about this choice.

MaxBarraclough 8y ago

Well, sorta. Research has shown that emotion is vital to 'good behaviour'. It is not the case that we should hope to craft humanity into unfeeling robots. [0] At the same time, you're clearly right that we should be more rational when it comes to trying to act morally [1] [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-smart/201502/why-our-emotions-are-more-rational-we-think https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-smart/201502... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/06/against-empathy-paul-bloom-the-empathy-instinct-peter-bazalgette-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/06/against-empath...

ajuc 8y ago
Always remember this when reading a psychology paper: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/most-psychology-papers-cant-be-reproduced/ http://www.iflscience.com/brain/most-psychology-papers-cant-...

goldfeld 8y ago

Actually, no it's not--for me. I'm very analytical yet instinct and intuition are far more trusworthy in general as a human source of contact than any reasoning my poor material brain can concoct. It depends on your understanding of the world, granted HN skews disproportionately to your view.

ycombinete 8y ago

I don't think this is depressing, for the reasons that you find it depressing. This says "on reasoning alone". I wouldn't trust someone who didn't reference their instincts/emotions for moral decisions. There are studies on people who function on reasoning alone, and they are, unsurprisingly not very good at moral decisions. And I'm not just talking psychopaths, but also people who's emotional centers have been damaged. This is unsurprising to me, because our emotions and our morality are both part of the system that makes us social creatures (e.g. empathy). Morality is essentially a meta-structure that helps hold societies together. Besides, there's a lot of evidence now that our "reasoning", especially on moral matters, is more often than not, a post hoc justification of our emotional instinct. There are some nice explanations of this by people like Jonathan Haidt.

throwawaymath 8y ago
> There are studies on people who function on reasoning alone, and they are, unsurprisingly not very good at moral decisions > Besides, there's a lot of evidence now that our "reasoning", especially on moral matters, is more often than not, a post hoc justification of our emotional instinct. Can you give an example of these studies? I’m interested in how they assign a qualifier of “good” or “bad” to various moral decisions. Are subjects not consistent in their moral decisions, or do their decisions disagree with the moral priors of the researchers? How do the researchers establish that their moral decisions are correct? That’s the essence of ethics itself. Unless these studies are exceptionally careful in their setup, I think it’s probable they’re begging the question implicitly. A more reserved conclusion might be that people with less empathy, in the aggregate, consistently make moral decisions which are different from those who have more empathy. But I think this conclusion might be kind of vacuous to anyone who has read a philosophy book or two on ethics.
- ycombinete 8y ago
  I don't have any specific studies to mention, I am afraid, as I've only had them through third party sources. They will be in the books Waking Up by Sam Harris, The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, and The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. The last two more specifically.