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The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-extension (2018)
- generalizations 3y agoAs a philosophy/theology prof of mine once pointed out, ethics training doesn’t make one moral; it merely makes one an ethicist.
- froh 3y agosay what you will, they at least are chicken friendly ethicists: > However, one issue on which ethicists not only held stronger normative attitudes but also reported better corresponding moral behaviors was vegetarianism. (from the article summary)
- canjobear 3y agoIf I were hiring someone to do a job requiring major ethical judgment, exposure to academic thinking on ethics would be immediately disqualifying. My experience is that it is corrupting: it equips a student with a vast array of theories they can use to justify anything.
- endominus 3y agoIn the same sense that learning about cognitive biases can equip people to become even more entrenched in their own beliefs. Being able to claim that others are falling prey to "confirmation bias" whenever confronted with evidence that conflicts with their own preconceptions does a lot to shore up the Semmelweiss reflex. It does make one think about how much education actually helps people think better; the simple heuristic of "more learning = better" doesn't seem to hold up to real scrutiny. I would hypothesize that some forms of pedagogy would instead calcify incorrect ideas in people's heads, and predicting which would do that is nontrivial considering we don't actually know much about why people learn in the first place.
- atoav 3y agoIf you are not interested in the truth, every theory becomes a weapon to hide it. This is why instead of teaching theories you have to teach the love of truth — coincidentally that is the meaning of the word philosophy.
- taylorius 3y agoI think it's hard to know whether you're interested in the truth. Even if you think you've scrupulously cleared away all the thickets of biases and prejudices, there are probably more still there, hiding in all the corners you've turned away from.
- jrumbut 3y agoIt's true that all of us have a lifetime of work to do in that area, but I think the grandparent posted is referring to the people who cling to and consciously nurture biases. Maybe my standards are too low but these days I'm excited to talk to anyone who even has a passing interest in truth for its own sake, no matter what the quality of their inquiry is.
- vixen99 3y agoIf you love truth you will know those hidden corners exist and be alert to emerging evidence of biases and prejudices. There is the story which I suppose is true, of the professor who sat through a lecture and understood that the work being described had demolished the basis for his own work of the last twenty years. Rather than despairing he stood up and congratulated the speaker on discovering a better theory.
- dr_dshiv 3y agoTruth =! Wisdom
- atoav 3y agoIt isn't (and nobsoy claimed it was), but if you A) know ethics B) have a love for the truth It is harder to use ethics to lie to yourself or others. Ethics are a tool that can be used to justify heinous behaviour, or to shine a light on how your daily choices could be made better, all depending on those wielding the tool.
- cschwarm 3y agoThat is common human behavior, not corruption of what would be 'good' behavior otherwise. The only difference to academics is that normal people don't try to create a consistent theory. We merely pick from whatever is available in to our moralistic toolbox.
- totetsu 3y agoSo people without any exposure to 'academic' discussion of ethics, are not exposed to any other types of ethical thought that couldn't be equally 'corrupting'? .. Do you really think that there is some pure un-corrupted state that a person could be in that would allow them to make perfect ethical judgements, that are not motivated by any instinct to justify something? I would put it to you that we are all deeply marinated in the sauce of the values and thoughts, and ways of reasoning of the societies and cultures we are raised in. Academic study gives people a tool to reflect on these things and make more careful judgements. In come cases it is as simple as giving people a shared vocabulary to talk about things they notice in every day life.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoI agree, the comment you replied to supports the "noble idiot" bias a lot of people have; that the best moral judgements are those without thought and from the purity of naive instinct.
- scotty79 3y agoMoral instincts are correct on average because they reflect the bulk morality of the society that the person was raised in. While "informed" ethics can be imported from societies with other ethical frameworks that do not fit the desired ethics of this society. Worse yet people might think it's superior in some way just because it's educated and reasoned.
- PartiallyTyped 3y agoYou can say the same thing about religion; in fact, religions that tell you to ask for forgiveness are not only guilty of this, they don’t even allow one to consider the basis of their morality may be wrong.
- Llamamoe 3y agoThis largely agrees with my own observations- I find that the benefit of knowing about ethical frameworks, societal issues, biases and fallacies ends at being aware of and taking them into consideration, and past that rapidly devolves into justifying increasingly contorted worldviews. You can see this in any and every ideology-centric group no matter how moral it actually is, from the unequivocally good like feminism, all the way to incels. The main reason people dig deeper into the underlying theory is motivated cognition, not desire for open-mindedness.
- dudeinjapan 3y agoFeminism is “unequivocally good” is it?
- scotty79 3y agoYes. Do you think that believing that women are lesser form of humans is better?
- CrampusDestrus 3y agoThat is a false dichotomy. There are many other beliefs incompatible with feminism that don't include believing that women are "lesser".
- scotty79 3y agoSuch as?
- CrampusDestrus 3y agosuch as believing that females and males are better optimized for certain tasks
- scotty79 3y agoI don't think that's incompatible with feminism. I think feminism just opposes putting up gender barriers of any kind in the way of any activity despite of what anyone thinks about who's optimized for what. I mean the discussion is about what constitutes a barrier, and how to prevent them, but the general sentiment that's still the core of the idea is unequivocally good. Anything else?
- tbitrust 3y agoPurely anecdotal, but I choose not to read the literature on the ethics of animal exploitation because I was still eating meat. But I decided to take the plunge, and now I cannot go back to eating meat.
- astrashe2 3y agoI don't know if I'd go so far as to disqualify someone, but I agree with the basic point you're making. What you've described happens with religious people of a certain type as well. Sometimes they can adopt a legalistic approach to right and wrong that allows them to do things that are very much against the spirit of a teaching, by claiming they meet the letter of the law (or rule). Other times religious people take the position that the end justifies the means -- that their moral mission is so important that it's OK if they cut corners, sometimes very serious ones, along the way. I've never known what to make of SBF's parents, especially his mom, a scholar who has championed the idea of effective altruism. I don't know how much his parents knew about what was going on at FTX, but they seemed to benefit from the wealth the company threw off while FTX was at its peak. On one hand, it seems reasonable to me for parents to support their child, even or perhaps even especially when the child is being prosecuted. I don't know the truth of anything that happened. But it seems that SBF's defense is probably made up of lies. If that's the case, is it OK for his parents to sit on the sidelines and support SBF while he continues to lie?
- ykonstant 3y ago> My experience is that it is corrupting: it equips a student with a vast array of theories they can use to justify anything. So does a textbook or two read in their free time. I don't understand this rationale at all.
- at_a_remove 3y agoI am reminded of that Berkeley ethics professor, Clanton, who snuck up behind people at various protests and struck them in the head with a bike lock, seven times. This was not at just one event, either. He did this at multiple events. Even got one of his targets wrong, hit one of the people on his own side. Just three years probation. Three felony assault charges were dropped. One can only imagine the ethical gymnastics there. All of the steps, however, I've heard laid out, so he need merely assemble them. First, you classify a bunch of people as "Nazis." Second, you convince yourself that their speech is violence. Third, you're nobly defending people from the depredations of the violent, and if that means skulking up from behind, well, that's just being practical.
- lincon127 3y agoReading the study (https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2019.1587912 https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2019.158...) the questions don't sound overly morally charged. They're certainly what I'd imagine a normal person may find moral questions, but are otherwise fairly middling in terms of moral impact. Other than vegetarianism, I'd say many of the don't have moral weight, at least not how they were asked. And even if you had considered them moral, it would only be from a deontological, or possibly virtue, ethics perspective. The behaviour is a little more damning, but they only show evidence from two different scenarios. One of those scenarios had to do with charity and once again I feel like donating to charity is not overly morally charged. And if it is, it's certainly not the way they presented it.
- jrumbut 3y agoI'd like to see a self-controlled case series design here, so we can isolate the effect of studying ethics and working as an ethicist from the choice to do so. For instance, if I gathered together experts on sobriety I suspect the group would include many very heavy drinkers. That's because most people don't interact with the concept of sobriety unless they have a problem with their drinking. Maybe these ethicists took up the field because they were struggling to behave ethically, and so becoming individuals with a normal amount of flaws is a major improvement.
- mattigames 3y agoThat makes as much sense as assuming structural engineers are most likely people who have experienced infrastructural problems before opting for a career.
- dlkf 3y ago> empirically investigated if philosophy professors engaged with ethics on a professional basis behave any morally better or, at least, more consistently with their expressed values than do non-ethicist professors The first investigation is just begging the question. The whole point of moral philosophy is that how to live is an open question. The second investigation sounds more interesting, but it doesn’t prove much either. ”Knowing that” and ”knowing how” are different. Doctors smoke more than the baseline.
- Nasrudith 3y agoI have observed a similar effect for constitutional lawyers. There are many whose ethics make it abundantly clear that they pursued the field not out of a desire to defend rights but how to justify abuses and find loopholes.
- verisimi 3y agoBecoming ethical, letting reason permeate throughout one's life, is a job for the individual. If someone deigns to explain to me the moral implications of this and that, I have to ask - what special abilities do they have? How do they know the truth better than I do? If someone believes they know what another adult ought to do, that, to me, would be an indication that they don't really have much of a clue at all!
- Emma_Goldman 3y agoI am not confident in this study. Anyone who has studied in the area knows that there's self-sorting by field, which runs, from most to least conservative: Ethics < political philosophy < political theory. Most 'activist' philosophers are in politics and sociology departments, not philosophy departments. In both cases the tendency runs from the most abstract and rationalist, to the most concrete and political. The study also begs the question about what is and is not moral. It finds that professional ethicists judge that not keeping in contact with one's mother is less morally reprehensible than do other academics. And, on the strength of this and other, similar judgements, conclude that non-ethicist academics have more stringent moral beliefs. Well - maybe the ethicists are right? Whether greater 'leniency' or 'stringency' is appropriate in any given case is relative to one's ethical beliefs, not a scientific given to be assumed at the outset of the study.
- lapcat 3y ago> Anyone who has studied in the area knows that there's self-sorting by field, which runs, from most to least conservative: Ethics < political philosophy < political theory. Most 'activist' philosophers are in politics and sociology departments, not philosophy departments. Citation needed. I have studied in the area, with multiple degrees in philosophy and political science, but I don't know what you claim that I know.
- lordgrenville 3y agoThere's an old joke about a professor of moral philosophy caught cheating on his wife. When asked how his conduct suits his professional title, he shrugs and says, "And if I taught mathematics, would I have to be a triangle?"