Difference between revisions of "Tem"

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==SEP 30==
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==11: OCT 6==
  
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[[Topic preferences]]
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===Assigned===
  
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Click on the link below to add notes from your browsing exercise to the page:
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:*Haidt, Chapter 5, "Beyond WEIRD Morality" (17)
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:*Writing exercise: How WEIRD is Morality?
  
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[[Fall 2015 Proseminar Browsing Exercise]]
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===Brief Survey on Student Engagement in Hybrid course delivery===
  
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===Singer, Ch. 1, "A Changing World"===
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:*Please take the following anonymous [https://gonzaga.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3I98g1ecsTe59ZP survey].
  
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:*Globalization: Terrorism, climate change, (added: human migration)
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===Final Stage of Sapolsky Writing Assignment===
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:*US interests: political consensus (dems/repubs) on Bush remark.
 
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:*Should political leaders adopt an internationalist stance (beyond interests of their nation-state)?
 
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::*competing models of leadership
 
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:*Historical parable: reaction to 1914 assasination of Crown Prince Ferdinand (and wife) by Bosnian Serb nationalists, starting WW1. Objections to Autro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia.  Compare to international reaction to US demands of Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden.  principle p. 7, new today vs. WW1.
 
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:*Rawls "old school" scope for theory of justice
 
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:*Is the Nation-state on the decline?
 
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:*Should we be internationalists?  Why is multilaterism no longer a political topic in the US?
 
  
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===Singer, Ch. 5, "One Community"===
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:*'''Stage 4''': Back-evaluation: After you receive your peer comments and my evaluation, take a few minutes to fill out this quick "back evaluation" rating form: [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdgKCYITDTSOOHcvC3TAVNK-EZDsP4jiiyPj-7jdpRoNUsLPA/viewform?usp=sf_link].  '''Fill out the form for each reviewer, but not Alfino.'''  Up to 10 points, in Points.
  
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:*Considers aid given after 9/11 to other international aid needs.  again with partiality.
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::*Back evaluations are due '''Thursday, October 8, 11:59pm'''.
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:*Sidgwick and Himmler on partiality.  Godwin on saving Fenelon vs. the chambermaid.
 
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:*Singer's famous example of saving the small child drowning in the university fountain.  distance doesn't matter.
 
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:*Biblical reference to Paul and ethics of partiality.
 
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:*Examination of different forms of partiality: family and kin, gratitude 160ff. 
 
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:*Compatriots 167ff. prefering our own might be justified by obligation of reciprocity. 
 
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:*Choice between "imagined" community of nation-state and "imagined" global community.
 
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:*Justice between vs. within states: Wellman's arguments
 
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:*Rawls and The Law of Peoples: Rawls example of the two societies: no obligation to redistribute to improve the worst off between the two societies.
 
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:*2nd criticism: Why allow difference between countries to circumvent redistribution and not allow differences within a country to do so?  178
 
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:*Millenium Development Goals (MDGs); US shortfalls; public perceptions of giving (15% rather than actual 1%)
 
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:*Comparative Value Exercise: Unger's thought experiment: Bob's bugatti.  amputation scenarios. yuck.
 
  
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===Sachs, Jeffrey, "Can the Rich Afford to Help the Poor?" (2006)===
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===Some samples from Henrich's, "The Weirdest People on Earth"===
  
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:*(One of the architects of the UN Millennium Development Goals. Opposed by some noted development economists.)
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:*p. 25: "Who Am I?" task. Show charts
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:*Optimist about relief: .7 GNP level of giving adequate. Absolute poverty down from 1/3 to 1/5 (interesting to compare US discussion in 1960 at the start of the domestic "war on poverty" of the Johnson administration)
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:*p. 28: sociocentric vs. individualistic
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::*Increase in wealth of the rich world is dramatic (note Rawlsian difference principle from yesterday)
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:*p. 34: guilt vs. shame
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::*(Digression on actual giving: [http://www.globalissues.org/article/35/foreign-aid-development-assistance]
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:*p. 44: impersonal honesty research (recall Ariely).   
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::*Note analysis on pages 294 of amounts that developing countries can supply to meet their own poverty needs.  Middle-income countries like Brazil, Chile, and Mexico have enough.
 
  
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:*Can the US afford to meet a .7 GNP target?
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===Haidt, Chapter 5, "Beyond WEIRD Morality"===
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::*Sachs considers this obvious.  To dramatize his point, on pages 304-308, he points out that the wealthiest 400 US citizens earned more than the total populations of Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda.  More to the point, the tax cuts this group received during the Bush administration in 2001, 2002, and 2003 totaled about 50 billion a year, enough to meet the US giving goal of .7% of GNP.
 
  
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====WEIRD Morality====
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:*WEIRD morality is the morality of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic cultures
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::*just as likely to be bothered by taboo violations, but more likely to set aside feelings of disgust and allow violations
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::*only group with majority allowing chicken story violation.
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::*"the weirder you are the more likely you are to see the world in terms of separate objects, rather than relationships"  "sociocentric" moralities vs. individualistic moralities; Enlightenment moralities of Kant and Mill are rationalist, individualist, and universalist. 
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::*survey data on East/West differences in sentence completion: "I am..."
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::*framed-line task 97
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:*Kantian and Millian ethical thought is rationalist, rule based, and universalist.  Just the ethical theory you would expect from the culture. 
  
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===Singer, "Rich and Poor"===
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====A 3 channel moral matrix====
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:*Schweder's anthropology: ethics of autonomy, community, divinity 99-100 - gloss each...
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::*claims Schweder's theory predicts responses on taboo violation tests, is descriptively accurate.
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::*ethic of divinity: body as temple vs. playground
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::*vertical dimension to values.  explains reactions to flag desecration, piss Christ, thought exp: desecration of liberal icons.  (Note connection to contemporary conflicts, such as the Charlie Hebdot massacre.)
  
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:*facts about absolute poverty
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====Making Sense of Moral/Cultural Difference====
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:*difference between grain consumption accounted for in terms of meat consumption.  problem of distribution rather than production.
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:*'''Haidt's Bhubaneswar experience''': diverse (intense) continua of moral values related to purity. (opposite of disgust). Confusing at first, but notice that he started to like his hosts (elephant) and then started to think about how their values might work.  Stop and think about how a mind might create this.  Detail about airline passenger.
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:*absolute affluence = affluent by any reasonable defintion of human needs.  Go through paragraph on 221.
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:*Theorizing with Paul Rozin on the right model for thinking about moral foundations: "Our theory, in brief" (103)
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:*American politics often about sense of "sacrilege", not just about defining rights (autonomy).  Not just harm, but types of moral disgust.
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:*'''Stepping out of the Matrix''':  H's metaphor for seeing his own cultural moral values as more "contingent" than before, when it felt like the natural advocacy of what seem true and right.  Reports growing self awareness of liberal orientation of intellectual culture in relation to Shweder's view.  Social conservatives made more sense to him after studying in India.  
  
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:*figures on giving by country: OPEC countries most generous. U.S. and Japan least.
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===Small Group Discussion===
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The Moral equivalent of murder?
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:*Discussion questions:
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five purported differences:
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::*Does it make sense to talk about "stepping out of a matrix"? Is this a temporary thing? What value might it have in your experience?
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::*1. allowing to die not eq. to killing.  no intention to kill. 
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::*Do you have a parallel story to Haidt's? (Mention travel experiences.)
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::*2. impossible to ask us to be obligated to keep everyone alive.
 
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::*3. uncertainty of outcome in not aiding vs. pointing a gun. less direct responsibility, less like 1st deg. murder.
 
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::*4. no direct and identifiable causal connection between consumerist action and death of individuals in other countries.
 
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::*5. People would be starving with or without me.  I am not a necessary condition for there to be starving people.
 
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:*Singer's point: these differences are extrinsic to the moral problem. there would be cases with these features in which we would still hold the person responsible. 
 
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:*Showing the extrinsic character of the differences: Singer's argument strategies at this point is to show that the differences are smaller and more contingent that one might think.  Point by point:
 
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::*1.  example of salesman selling tainted food.  doesn't matter if no identifiable victim in advance.
 
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::*2.  lack of certainty about the value of donations does reduce the wrongness of not giving (concession), but doesn't mean that its ok not to give.
 
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::*3.  responsibility for acts but not omissions is incoherent way to think about responsibility.  consequences of our actions are our responsibility.  irrelevant that the person would have died if I had never existed.
 
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Considers non-consequentialist justifications for not aiding (166)
 
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:::*idea of independent individual in Locke and Nozick doesn't make sense. Note appeal to social conception of humans based on ancestry!
 
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::*absence of malice also doesn't excuse inaction. involuntary manslaughter (in the case say of a speedin motorist) is still blameworthy.
 
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::*grants that we may not be as blameworthy for not saving many lives if saving those live requires heroic action.
 
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:*The obligation to assist: Main Principle: '''If it is in our power to prevent something vey bad happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, we ought to do it.'''
 
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::*goes on to claim that it is within the power of dev. countries to aid the poor without sacrificing . . . etc.
 
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considers major objections:
 
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:*taking care of your own
 
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:*property rights [at most weakens the argument for mandatory giving (but note that governmental means might be the most effective, esp. where problems have a political dimension)
 
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:*population and the ethics of triage:
 
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:*questions whether the world is really like a life boat
 

Latest revision as of 19:51, 6 October 2020

11: OCT 6

Assigned

  • Haidt, Chapter 5, "Beyond WEIRD Morality" (17)
  • Writing exercise: How WEIRD is Morality?

Brief Survey on Student Engagement in Hybrid course delivery

  • Please take the following anonymous survey.

Final Stage of Sapolsky Writing Assignment

  • Stage 4: Back-evaluation: After you receive your peer comments and my evaluation, take a few minutes to fill out this quick "back evaluation" rating form: [1]. Fill out the form for each reviewer, but not Alfino. Up to 10 points, in Points.
  • Back evaluations are due Thursday, October 8, 11:59pm.

Some samples from Henrich's, "The Weirdest People on Earth"

  • p. 25: "Who Am I?" task. Show charts
  • p. 28: sociocentric vs. individualistic
  • p. 34: guilt vs. shame
  • p. 44: impersonal honesty research (recall Ariely).

Haidt, Chapter 5, "Beyond WEIRD Morality"

WEIRD Morality

  • WEIRD morality is the morality of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic cultures
  • just as likely to be bothered by taboo violations, but more likely to set aside feelings of disgust and allow violations
  • only group with majority allowing chicken story violation.
  • "the weirder you are the more likely you are to see the world in terms of separate objects, rather than relationships" "sociocentric" moralities vs. individualistic moralities; Enlightenment moralities of Kant and Mill are rationalist, individualist, and universalist.
  • survey data on East/West differences in sentence completion: "I am..."
  • framed-line task 97
  • Kantian and Millian ethical thought is rationalist, rule based, and universalist. Just the ethical theory you would expect from the culture.

A 3 channel moral matrix

  • Schweder's anthropology: ethics of autonomy, community, divinity 99-100 - gloss each...
  • claims Schweder's theory predicts responses on taboo violation tests, is descriptively accurate.
  • ethic of divinity: body as temple vs. playground
  • vertical dimension to values. explains reactions to flag desecration, piss Christ, thought exp: desecration of liberal icons. (Note connection to contemporary conflicts, such as the Charlie Hebdot massacre.)

Making Sense of Moral/Cultural Difference

  • Haidt's Bhubaneswar experience: diverse (intense) continua of moral values related to purity. (opposite of disgust). Confusing at first, but notice that he started to like his hosts (elephant) and then started to think about how their values might work. Stop and think about how a mind might create this. Detail about airline passenger.
  • Theorizing with Paul Rozin on the right model for thinking about moral foundations: "Our theory, in brief" (103)
  • American politics often about sense of "sacrilege", not just about defining rights (autonomy). Not just harm, but types of moral disgust.
  • Stepping out of the Matrix: H's metaphor for seeing his own cultural moral values as more "contingent" than before, when it felt like the natural advocacy of what seem true and right. Reports growing self awareness of liberal orientation of intellectual culture in relation to Shweder's view. Social conservatives made more sense to him after studying in India.

Small Group Discussion

  • Discussion questions:
  • Does it make sense to talk about "stepping out of a matrix"? Is this a temporary thing? What value might it have in your experience?
  • Do you have a parallel story to Haidt's? (Mention travel experiences.)
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