SEPT 14

6: SEP 14

Assigned

• Robert Sapolsky, from Behave, Chapter 13, "Morality and doing the Right Thing, Once You've Figured Out What that Is." pp. 478-483.

In-class

• Supplemental document for SW1. Alfino, "Defining Morality and Values" (shared folder) for next time. Part of SW1.
• Theory of Mind
• Rubric training

Sapolsky, Robert. Behave. C 13, "Morality and Doing the Right Thing" (479-483)

• What is the capacity: Theory of Mind?

• Theory of mind and baby prosociality. Helper and hinderer puppet shows: Yale Theory of Mind & Baby prosociality Basic Puppet set up for prosociality studies on babies.

• Is moral decision making mostly reasoning or intuition?

• The case for primacy of cognition:

• Lots of examples of reason based rules in law and social institutions. Law books. This kind of reasoning activates the dlPFC and TPJ (temporoparietal junction) - also for theory of mind tasks. Suppress TPJ and less concern about intentions! Yikes.
• Theory of Mind tasks are those involving perceiving and inferring intentions. Central to social life!
• Moral reasoning is skewed toward the cognitive in some predictable ways:
• Doing harm worse than allowing it. (commission vs. omission.)
• Better at detecting rule violations that have malevolent causes as their outcomes. (Bias toward danger.). (Boss/environment/profits study)
• Note comment about Singer (Trolley, trolley…)

• The case for primacy of intuition:

• We often don’t know why we make some judgements.
• Problem with the moral reasoning (cognitive) view: lots of evidence for intuition and emotion. We often make moral judgements automatically. vmPFC before dlPFC.
• Different types of transgressions activate, preferentially, vmPFC (and other areas) vs dlPFC. Pity, indignation, intense conflict all have “localizations”. Sexual transgressions activate the insula. Some predictive ability in this research. People with damage to vmPFC will sacrifice 1 family member to save 5 strangers (Trolley…)
• Reviews Haidt's Social Intuitionism: "moral thinking is for social doing". The reasoning is mostly to show others what we're doing (and to "advertise" it). "virtue signaling"

Rubric Training

• Assignment Rubric - Normalizing scores. What's a 5 out of 7? How likely are we to see 3, 2, or 1?

• Today we will do some rubric training (sometimes called "grade norming").

• I have made a directory with writing and scores from a previous set of students writing on a different SW1 prompt. You may find it valuable to open the spreadsheet document and read some of the 14s. If we have time in class, we may look at a few.

• Here's the prompt they were responding to:

• How does evolution shape moral social behaviors in animals and in species like us? Is there good reason to think that some moral social behaviors or morality itself is a product of evolution? Present Sapolsky's answers to these questions in a detailed and well organized short essay (400-450). Then raise and address a critical question you have about these ideas (150-200), drawing, if you wish, on the short writing, Alfino "Defining Morality and Values" (Do not reproduce the questions in your answer, but write a continuous essay that addresses both questions.)