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Nate, I recommend to you the work of moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt. This is his TED talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_min

Nate, I recommend to you the work of moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt. This is his TED talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_mor... This is an essay that describes his research on morality: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html I strongly recommend it! It changed my understanding of what morality is and what moral beliefs to expect in others, and deepened my understanding of my own moral intuitions. The key insight that is relevant here is that educated Westerners (like me and, presumably, you) see morality as mostly about harm and fairness. But that view of morality is not so popular outside the West. When we see people doing harm to innocent girls we find it hard to believe that they think they're doing good. But other cultures are relatively more concerned with morality relating to authority/obedience, in-group/out-group treatment, and purity/disgust. When people persecute homosexuals or let improperly-dressed girls burn[1] they're acting based on the purity/disgust aspect of morality, and probably authority/obedience too. I expect they also usually feel conflicted about it, because burning schoolgirls must register on the harm-based morality meter. I think the way to engage with fundamentalists who do this kind of thing is to emphasize the harm done, and try to undermine the concept of purity-based morality. (Westerners also have some reckoning to do with disgust-based morality. It is hard to argue against infertile adult consensual incest using the morality of harm and fairness, but many Westerners still regard it as immoral, and find it hard to explain their moral intuitions. Similarly, Bush Administration-appointed bioethicist Leon Kass coined the term "the wisdom of repugnance"[2], using the argument against genetic engineering. I wish humans would abandon repugnance as relevant to morality.) [1] Are we talking about this incident? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1874471.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1874471.stm [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_repugnance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_repugnance

randallsquared 17y ago
Research on morality can tell you a lot about what morals people have, but it can't tell you anything about what morals people ought to have. I think that repugnance and disgust exist precisely because they are pretty good heuristics for things humans thrived by avoiding in general (like your example of incest), and continuing to thrive may depend on allowing your disgust to influence what you do even when you can't articulate a rational reason for it.
- michaelkeenan 17y ago
  >Research on morality can tell you a lot about what morals people have, but it can't tell you anything about what morals people ought to have. Yes, I recommended Haidt because the topic was whether the fundamentalists were acting according to their understanding of morality. If you're saying that research on morality doesn't yield conclusions on something like "real true morality", then I agree. But I'd add that Haidt's research helped me see inconsistencies in my morality, and in this way it's affected my view of the morality I ought to have. I agree that repugnance can be a good heuristic for personal actions. I wish that people wouldn't impose their sense of repugnance on others, though. You know how Jews aren't allowed to mix dairy products and meat? I thought that was just an arbitrary rule until I went to Israel and talked to some Jews. They didn't just find it immoral because the Torah said so; they found the idea of a cheeseburger or a meat-topped pizza disgusting, as we might find the idea of meat ice cream disgusting. So I'm concerned that repugnance can easily get attached to arbitrary things. More abstractly, we can view repugnance as nature's buggy hack to get us to avoid harmful things, dating from before we were as intelligent and knowledgeable as we are now. Purity-morality is just harm-morality implemented on an obsolete system. Now that we're intelligent enough to judge harm more competently than instinct (i.e. we get fewer false positives), we can and should override that judgment, when it helps us. (Trivial but real example from real life: I used to find mushrooms disgusting, just because. After Haidt got me thinking about the usefulness of repugnance, I looked up the nutritional value of mushrooms, found that mushroom-phobia was unhelpful, and decided to get over it.) Hubris!
nate_meurer 17y ago
I just read that Haidt essay, and I'm hooked; thanks for the link. I hadn't heard of the fire in Saudi Arabia, but yes, that's just the kind of thing I'm talking about.

randallsquared 17y ago

Research on morality can tell you a lot about what morals people have, but it can't tell you anything about what morals people ought to have. I think that repugnance and disgust exist precisely because they are pretty good heuristics for things humans thrived by avoiding in general (like your example of incest), and continuing to thrive may depend on allowing your disgust to influence what you do even when you can't articulate a rational reason for it.

michaelkeenan 17y ago
>Research on morality can tell you a lot about what morals people have, but it can't tell you anything about what morals people ought to have. Yes, I recommended Haidt because the topic was whether the fundamentalists were acting according to their understanding of morality. If you're saying that research on morality doesn't yield conclusions on something like "real true morality", then I agree. But I'd add that Haidt's research helped me see inconsistencies in my morality, and in this way it's affected my view of the morality I ought to have. I agree that repugnance can be a good heuristic for personal actions. I wish that people wouldn't impose their sense of repugnance on others, though. You know how Jews aren't allowed to mix dairy products and meat? I thought that was just an arbitrary rule until I went to Israel and talked to some Jews. They didn't just find it immoral because the Torah said so; they found the idea of a cheeseburger or a meat-topped pizza disgusting, as we might find the idea of meat ice cream disgusting. So I'm concerned that repugnance can easily get attached to arbitrary things. More abstractly, we can view repugnance as nature's buggy hack to get us to avoid harmful things, dating from before we were as intelligent and knowledgeable as we are now. Purity-morality is just harm-morality implemented on an obsolete system. Now that we're intelligent enough to judge harm more competently than instinct (i.e. we get fewer false positives), we can and should override that judgment, when it helps us. (Trivial but real example from real life: I used to find mushrooms disgusting, just because. After Haidt got me thinking about the usefulness of repugnance, I looked up the nutritional value of mushrooms, found that mushroom-phobia was unhelpful, and decided to get over it.) Hubris!

nate_meurer 17y ago

I just read that Haidt essay, and I'm hooked; thanks for the link. I hadn't heard of the fire in Saudi Arabia, but yes, that's just the kind of thing I'm talking about.