Oct 15

14: OCT 15. Unit Three: Two Theories of Moral and Political Difference

Stage 2: Please evaluate four student answers and provide brief comments and a score. Review the Assignment Rubric for this exercise. We will be using all four areas of the rubric for this assignment. Complete your evaluations and scoring by Tuesday, October 20, 11:59pm.

To determine the papers you need to peer review, I will send you a key. Find your Saint and then review the next four (4) animals' work, looping to the top of the list if necessary.

Some papers may arrive late. If you are in line to review a missing paper, allow until October 18, 11:59pm, at the latest for it to show up. If it does not show up, go ahead and review enough papers to get to four reviews. This assures that you will get enough "back evaluations" of your work to get a good average for your peer review credit.

You will have an opportunity to challenge a back evaluation score of your reviewing that is out of line with the others.

from professional life
keep expectations modest - normal disagreement, variation in skill and sensitivity in giving comments
try to be helpful and understanding, even cheerful.

analogy of moral sense to taste sense. "the righteous mind is like a tongue with six taste receptors"

places where our sensitivities to underlying value perception have depth from evolution, but have flexibility or plasticity from the "big brain", which allows for shaping within culture and retriggering.
morality is rich, not reducible to one taste. A way of perceiving the world. against moral monism
like cuisines, there is variation, but within a range.

mentions Enlightenment approaches, again: argument against the reductive project of philosophical ethics 113-114. ethics more like taste than science.

Hume's three way battle: Enlightenment thinkers united in rejecting revelation as basis of morality, but divided between an transcendent view of reason as the basis (Kant) or the view that morality is part of our nature (Hume, Darwin, etc.). Hume's empiricism. also for him, morality is like taste

Autism argument: Bentham (utlitarianism), Kant (deontology). Think about the person who can push the fat guy.

Bentham told us to use arithmetic, Kant logic, to resolve moral problems. Note Bentham image and eccentric ideas. Baron-Cohen article on Bentham as having Asperger's Syndrome (part of the autism range). Kant also a solitary. Just saying. clarify point of analysis. not ad hominem. part of Enlightenment philosophy's rationalism -- a retreat from observation.
the x/y axis on page 117 shows a kind of "personality space" that could be used to locate Enlightenment rationalists. (Note that Haidt is looking at the psychology of the philosopher for clues about the type of theory they might have!)

discusses how he speculates from mechanisms to common virtues discussed in global literature.

Avoiding bad evolutionary theory or evolutionary psychology: "just so stories" -- range of virtues suggested "receptors", but for what? the virtue? some underlying response to a problem-type?

moral taste receptors found in history of long standing challenges and advantages of social life. The "moral foundations" in Haidt's theory just are the evolved psychological centers of evaluation that make up moral consciousness for humans.

Modularity in evolutionary psychology, centers of focus, like perceptual vs. language systems. Sperber and Hirshfield: "snake detector" - note on deception/detection in biology/nature. responses to red, Hyperactive agency detection.

See chart, p. 125: C F L A S: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation

work through chart. Note how the "adaptive challenges" are some of the things we have been reading research on.

Small group discussion with reporting: Try to find examples from everyday life of events do or would trigger each of these foundations. Consider either real cases of people you know and the things they say or examples from general knowledge, or even hypothetical examples. For example:

You and your friends all worry about COVID cases, but some more than others. Might be observing the Care/Harm trigger.
You and your friends all occasionally enjoy risque humor, but you are uncomfortable listening to people talk about intimate things like sex casually. Maybe you have a different sanctity trigger.

Focus on both ways that we are all triggered and ways that we are differentially triggered.
Send your items as you develop them, through the chat window to Everyone. Try to get 1-2 per foundation.

We'll be looking at political applications of MFT next class, but here is a political example: Random bumper sticker on a truck in downtown Spokane: Annoy a Liberal. Work. Succeed. Be happy. Note how you can read into this bumper sticker to find the "triggers". This person likely thinks that liberals are not committed to a work ethic (or don't appreciate how hard real work is), may be envious of success, and is always focused on what's wrong with society instead of being happy...