Difference between revisions of "NOV 7"

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==21: NOV 7==
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==22: NOV 7. ==
  
 
===Assigned===
 
===Assigned===
  
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:*Introduction to Capabilities Approach [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZgsFd-huFw], Sabine Alkire [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabina_Alkire]
+
:*Henrich C6 – “Psychological Differences, Families, and the Church” – (193-230; 37) – psychology of kin based institutions, impersonal prosociality, out-group trust, public goods game research, impersonal punishment and revenge.
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:*View video on the "Capabilities Approach" to development and justice. Anna Horodecka, Warsaw School of Economics [https://youtu.be/c76g5U-Nlng]
 
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:*Today's class has no other assign reading or viewing.  We will be working with ideas and theories that help with PP1.
 
  
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===In-class===
+
===In-Class===
  
−
:*"How cultures commit impersonal or structural injustice." Afterthoughts about "informal injustice"
+
:*Recap of problem of decline of religious culture in light of it's effects. 
 +
::*Benefits and problems of religious culture.
 +
::*Evolutionary challenges to cooperation: mass shootings, homelessness, climate & environment
 +
::*Evolution of religions toward universalism
 +
::*Evolution of secular humanistic attitudes
 +
::*The challenge of globalism.  - loss of sovereignty Behind all of this — the power of individual and kin selection.
  
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===Small Group Discussion: Is there a limit to kin partiality?===
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:*Church’s Marriage and Family Plan - chart from C14
  
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:*One way to promote altruism is Dillion’s strategy - give your money and maybe a kidney.  But another way to assess altruism is at critical junctures in your life, such as between generations.   
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:*Comment on the "weirdness" of culture as a determinant of our thinking.
 +
::*The idea of culture as a determinant of our thinking.
 +
::*We have pretty good evidence that many aspects of our thinking are influenced by culture.  Recall the paradox of moral experience.  When we study culture objectively, like Henrich et al do, it is apparent that culture “causally determines” psychology, beliefs, and attitudes.  But when we ask our selves about our subjective beliefs, we think of them as our own.  This is paradoxical.  Which is it?
 +
::*Creates the possibility of “critical distance” from our culture (Also happens when we travel.).
  
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:*Imagine three futures for yourself.  In all of them, you grow up to have a successful career, a family with two kids, and a medium size extended family.  You are approaching retirement and your retirement and estate planning recalls a distant memory of an ethics class which talked about "justified partiality." You and your partner are wondering if you should leave all of your estate to your children or not.  Remember, you will have access to this money until you die, so you could cover end of life care for yourself and your partner.  Consider these three scenarios:
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===Henrich C6 – “Psychological Differences, Families, and the Church===
  
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::*A. You and your partner retire with about 1 million dollars, a paid off house, and good health insurance.
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:*Establishing the connection between “strength of kinship / prevalence of cousin marriage” and leading psychological features of WEIRD culture. KII used to rank countries, then correlation of measures of KII/cousin marriage with various WEIRD psych features.
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::*B. You have all of the conditions in A, but 2 million dollars in net worth.
 
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::*C. Same as B, but 8 million dollars.
 
  
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:*For all three scenarios, assume that all indications suggest continued growth of your assets.  You are also "aging well"!
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:*WEIRD Psychology:
 +
::*Tightness of norms and norm enforcement
 +
::*Conformity
 +
::*Individualism
 +
::*Out-In-Group Trust
 +
::*Universalism/Loyalty - measured by Passenger’s Dilemma (note Haidt’s MFQ data here)
 +
::*Prosociality - measured by PGG, blood donations
 +
::*Impersonal honesty - measured by Impersonal Honesty Game, diplomat’s parking tickets
 +
::*Impersonal Punishment and revenge - PGG with punishment (217) note diff effects
 +
::*Intentions
 +
::*Analytic Thinking
  
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:*In your group discussion, pretend you are actually making this estate planning decision.  Would you give 100% of your estate to your kids and relatives in each scenario?  What considerations come into the discussion?  (Note: you could continue the options by imagining an estate with larger value - 16 million -- 16 billion.)
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:*Why think the Catholic Church has anything to do with this?
 +
::*Timeline of Church’s MFP in C5 -
 +
::*”Duration of exposure model” for Church’s influence (224-230) Exposure to Church explains 40-60% of variation in KII.
  
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:*[https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/second-quarter-2019/wealth-retired-households Data on household net worth at retirement]
+
===Critical Assessment of WEIRD culture===
 +
:*What does WEIRD culture allow us to do that we might agree is good?
 +
::# Live in cities with lots of strangers.
 +
::# More willing to invest in public goods.  
 +
::# Increased support for universal rules that apply to everyone
 +
::# Be less conformist
 +
::# Internalize standards - guilt over shame
 +
::# Live autonomously - less dependent on kinship obligations
 +
::# Engage in market behavior due to impersonal trust, imp prosociality, imp honesty
  
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===How Cultures commit "impersonal or structural injustice"===
+
:*How might WEIRD culture limit us or lead to negative (maladaptive) consequences?
 +
::# Decreases the power of religion (mixed - less authoritarian norm enforcement but less norm enforcement)
 +
::# Decreases loyalty to family (at least as measured by passenger’s dilemma).  Family member’s suffering less likely to be addressed by kin. (Mixed since kin-based society have more corruption, unjust partiality.)
 +
::# Decreases “tightness” of norm enforcement. (“No shame.”) (Mixed - good to end shaming, but norm enforcement is still important)
 +
::# Increases personal isolation (WEIRD cultures are lonelier.)
 +
::# Normalizing self-interest may normalize lack of concern for others.
  
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:*Our discussion of PPNs (personal preference networks) like the Alumni Association might help us think about another category of injustice, one supported by cultural processes.  
+
:*Possible general criticisms of WEIRD culture and its other.
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:*Main Claim: Cultures allow humans to "normalize" claims that legitimate conduct not perceived as unjust, but later determined to be unjust.
+
::# Atomism: We are less bonded with kin, but not really bonded to each other.
 +
::# Both kin-based and WEIRD cultures are having trouble meeting challenges that transcend groups and borders, like climate change, global environmental degradation, absolute poverty.
  
−
:*Think of examples of cultural ideas related to justice that were considered normal, but have since been shown to be incorrect:
+
:*What can we do about this? We do get a “vote” in evolution. Once we have a cultural evolution explanation for a dysfunctional cultural problem, we are in a good position to make a cultural argument for change.  (Go back to the Paradox to see why) Examples:
−
 
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::*Mass shootings.   
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::*Some races are superior to others.
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::*Lack of solutions for homelessness
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::*Some cultures are superior to others.
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::*High incarceration rates and recidivism rates for criminal conduct.
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::*Race is not just a political category, but biologically real.
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::*High rates of suicide and death from addiction.
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::*The US can't compete at soccer. Well...
 
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::*Women can't do math and science.
 
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::*Women shouldn't do strenuous exercise.  Etc....
 
−
 
 
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:*What's interesting about "cultural impersonal injustice" is that it involves a "normalization" a set of beliefs that support practices that, from hindsight, we don't just say that we have different beliefs, but that our predecessors were mistaken.  (Something we wouldn't say, for example, about other cultural beliefs, like attractive clothing styles or art.)
 
−
 
 
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:*An obvious example for US culture would be structural injustice against ethnic minorities that experience discrimination.  If you are a formal rights theorist about justice, you might overlook or minimize the impacts on opportunity and success that come from “impersonal injustice”.  Maybe an easier example to see this comes from Italian culture and the “problem of the south”. Overview of Italian attitudes toward the south, which still experiences lower socio-economic success.  Northern Italians still normalize attitudes toward southerners that we now explain through culture and history. This allows them to explain lower SES in Sicily as a condition that contemporary Sicilians are responsible for.  Likewise, we may underestimate the effect of disruptions of culture that come from slavery and discrimination in US history.
 
−
 
 
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:*Now we have better ways of understanding different outcomes for culturally distinct groups. Compare for example Sicilian cultural experience and the cultural disruption that comes from slavery and discrimination.
 
−
 
 
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===Capabilities Approach to Justice and Social Obligations===
 
−
 
 
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:*A bit about Amartya Sen. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen]  Some paragraphs. 
 
−
 
 
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:*From video, with Anna Horodecka -- Warsaw School of Economics.
 
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:*Capabilities - possibility to choose and achieve something which helps you to reach well-being.
 
−
 
 
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:*Capabilities are a form of freedom -- freedom to be able to make important choices that should be provided by the social and political culture.  '''Think of this as a competitor to libertarian freedom.'''  
 
−
 
 
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::*Functionings - states and activities related to wellbeing: health, being treated equally, a place to live, educated, having a supportive social network, a good job, travel.  Functionings are more like "achieved capactities for an individual".  Crucially, they are not things you can get by yourself.  You need your society to support them.   
 
−
 
 
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:*Capabilities determine functionings.  They determine our freedom. 
 
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:*Analysis of Happiness:  Just being happy with your condition doesn't necessarily mean you are really happy. Normalized gender discrimination might be an example.  Not extending freedom to choose functionings to women is denying an objective possibility for well-being. Sen wrote on this. (In our earlier discussion, a cultural "impersonal injustice".) 
 
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:*Capabilities might be more important than income.  Example of the bike -- Conversion factors - things that limit capabilities -- not being able to ride a bike or having bike lanes in your community.  Anna's bike adventures in Chicago!
 
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:*Environmental conversion factors could include problem of heating in housing. 
 
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:*Instrumental freedoms - wealth of the country matters, but there are problems with GDP as a measure of collective well-being. It doesn't measure:
 
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::*Political (freedom to participate),
 
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::*Access to financial institutions (access to investment and markets),
 
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::*Access to social goods central to well-being (education, equity, childcare),
 
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::*Transparency guarantees (open instiutions, absence of corruption, mechanisms for promoting justice, police protection)
 
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::*Protective (Social) Security (unemployment, emergency services, protections against homelessness).
 

Latest revision as of 18:37, 7 November 2024

22: NOV 7.

Assigned

  • Henrich C6 – “Psychological Differences, Families, and the Church” – (193-230; 37) – psychology of kin based institutions, impersonal prosociality, out-group trust, public goods game research, impersonal punishment and revenge.

In-Class

  • Recap of problem of decline of religious culture in light of it's effects.
  • Benefits and problems of religious culture.
  • Evolutionary challenges to cooperation: mass shootings, homelessness, climate & environment
  • Evolution of religions toward universalism
  • Evolution of secular humanistic attitudes
  • The challenge of globalism. - loss of sovereignty Behind all of this — the power of individual and kin selection.
  • Church’s Marriage and Family Plan - chart from C14
  • Comment on the "weirdness" of culture as a determinant of our thinking.
  • The idea of culture as a determinant of our thinking.
  • We have pretty good evidence that many aspects of our thinking are influenced by culture. Recall the paradox of moral experience. When we study culture objectively, like Henrich et al do, it is apparent that culture “causally determines” psychology, beliefs, and attitudes. But when we ask our selves about our subjective beliefs, we think of them as our own. This is paradoxical. Which is it?
  • Creates the possibility of “critical distance” from our culture (Also happens when we travel.).

Henrich C6 – “Psychological Differences, Families, and the Church

  • Establishing the connection between “strength of kinship / prevalence of cousin marriage” and leading psychological features of WEIRD culture. KII used to rank countries, then correlation of measures of KII/cousin marriage with various WEIRD psych features.
  • WEIRD Psychology:
  • Tightness of norms and norm enforcement
  • Conformity
  • Individualism
  • Out-In-Group Trust
  • Universalism/Loyalty - measured by Passenger’s Dilemma (note Haidt’s MFQ data here)
  • Prosociality - measured by PGG, blood donations
  • Impersonal honesty - measured by Impersonal Honesty Game, diplomat’s parking tickets
  • Impersonal Punishment and revenge - PGG with punishment (217) note diff effects
  • Intentions
  • Analytic Thinking
  • Why think the Catholic Church has anything to do with this?
  • Timeline of Church’s MFP in C5 -
  • ”Duration of exposure model” for Church’s influence (224-230) Exposure to Church explains 40-60% of variation in KII.

Critical Assessment of WEIRD culture

  • What does WEIRD culture allow us to do that we might agree is good?
  1. Live in cities with lots of strangers.
  2. More willing to invest in public goods.
  3. Increased support for universal rules that apply to everyone
  4. Be less conformist
  5. Internalize standards - guilt over shame
  6. Live autonomously - less dependent on kinship obligations
  7. Engage in market behavior due to impersonal trust, imp prosociality, imp honesty
  • How might WEIRD culture limit us or lead to negative (maladaptive) consequences?
  1. Decreases the power of religion (mixed - less authoritarian norm enforcement but less norm enforcement)
  2. Decreases loyalty to family (at least as measured by passenger’s dilemma). Family member’s suffering less likely to be addressed by kin. (Mixed since kin-based society have more corruption, unjust partiality.)
  3. Decreases “tightness” of norm enforcement. (“No shame.”) (Mixed - good to end shaming, but norm enforcement is still important)
  4. Increases personal isolation (WEIRD cultures are lonelier.)
  5. Normalizing self-interest may normalize lack of concern for others.
  • Possible general criticisms of WEIRD culture and its other.
  1. Atomism: We are less bonded with kin, but not really bonded to each other.
  2. Both kin-based and WEIRD cultures are having trouble meeting challenges that transcend groups and borders, like climate change, global environmental degradation, absolute poverty.
  • What can we do about this? We do get a “vote” in evolution. Once we have a cultural evolution explanation for a dysfunctional cultural problem, we are in a good position to make a cultural argument for change. (Go back to the Paradox to see why) Examples:
  • Mass shootings.
  • Lack of solutions for homelessness
  • High incarceration rates and recidivism rates for criminal conduct.
  • High rates of suicide and death from addiction.
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