FEB 27

14: FEB 27. Unit Two (Part two): Models of morality from moral psychology

Assigned

• Churchland C5 – “I’m just that way” – (110-126; 16) – neurology and moral personality, political attitudes.

In-Class

• The Paradox of Moral Experience.
• Issue Commitment v Political Orientation
• Conversational Strategies for Engaging Political Difference

Churchland C5 – “I’m just that way” – (110-126; 16)

• Do personality traits partially determine how we decide something is right or wrong?
• Is political orientation partially determined by personality?
• Is personality partiality determined by genes?
• If the answers are yes, yes, and yes, what are the implications?

• 111: Neuorological response to negative stimuli, such as rotting carcases or someone eating live worms correlates significantly with political orienation (as measured by Wilson-Patterson Attitude Inventory).

• 2014 study by Woo-Young Ahn - even response to one image is enough for better than chance prediction of political orientation. Interestingly little correlation with reported (Sys 2) rating of images. It's Sys 1 that betrays us...

• Work of Hibbing (see especially Chapters 5 and 6 from previous course readings). Physio-politics: Attentaional studies, Electrodermal studies (EDM or skin conductivity)

• Gaze cueing studies - liberals more influenced by gaze cues.
• Eye tracking - conservatives lock on to negative or threatening faces faster, longer dwell time.
• Cognitive tests - soft categorizers v hard categorizers, Beanfest!
• From Churchland also, p. 116.

• Heritability of moral personality and political attitudes.

• MZ (identical) and DZ (fraternal) twin studies show this for traits such as personality traits like aggressiveness, traditionalism, obedience to authority.
• Also for political attitudes.
• Extroversion, openness to new experience, emotional stability (neuroticism), agreeableness. Note: These are results in personality theory and research broadly. [1]

• How do heritable personality traits related to political orientation?

• Caveat: Traits are on a spectrum. You can be conservative about some things and liberal about others. But:
• 120: Openness predicts less traditional, more liberal.
• Conservatives relatively neophobic, liberals neophilic.

• Skepticism about the theory that "instinctive pathogen stress response" underlies outgroup behavior. This might modify our theorizing about the fart spray experiment (and related results).

• The things we get most worked up about: sexuality, intimacy, treatment of outgroups, might be the parts of our conscience and psychology that are most shaped by evolution. (Note the issues these core challenges map onto: abortion, gay marriage, immigration, war, discrimination.)

Some ways that our moral personalities show up in everyday life.

• In intimate partnerships, we often look for “differences”. But there are at least 3 things we look for sameness on in partner choice: religion, political orientation, and drinking behavior.

• Trump fridges v. Biden fridges [2]

• Cons and Libs like: different kinds of sermons, jokes, stories, decor. Cons favor Porsches, Libs Volvos

Issue Commitment v Political Orientation

• To make practical use of this research, we need to introduce a distinction between "issue commitments" (roughly our position on the political questions of the day) vs "political orientation" (our enduring (after age 22-25) cognitive and emotional responses that predict liberal - moderate - conservative).
• Textbook examples:

• Pearl Harbor
• Americans with Disabilities Act
• Immigration - Bush republicans vs. Trump republicans

• Theory Contrast:

• Old school thinking -- We decide to be liberal or conservative (under the tutelage of our dear professors). (Enlightenment connection. Reason is independent of culture. We reason our way to our political orientation.)
• (Possible) New thinking. Political orientation is:

• part of our identity, connected to personality, gels around age 25.
• orientation doesn't change, but issue commitments can.

• Implications: In light of this research:

• Is it bigotry to think less of someone because they have a different political orientation than you?
• Is political orientation more like other identity issues than we thought?
• Should we consider new conversational strategies (and values) to accommodate the new research?
• Should we focus more on issue commitment?
• What are the best ways to get someone with a different political orientation than you to agree on your issue commitment? Give them a path....

Paradox of Moral Experience

• The Paradox of Moral Experience involves a conflict between two "standpoints" for seeing values. Roughly, we experience our moral positions as our "truths", but when we study morality using social science methods (objective, 3rd person), our positions look "caused".

The two standpoints:

• 1. We experience our morality as beliefs we hold true. They are compelling to us in a way that leads us to expect others to find them compelling. We can be surprised or frustrated that others do not see our reasons as compelling. From this standpoint, our moral truths feel necessary rather than contingent.

• Examples: "What's wrong with those (lib/con)s, don't they see X/Y?" "How can anyone think it's ok to act like that?")

• 2. But, when we study morality objectively, as a functional system that integrates people who see and interpret the world differently, it is less surprising that we often do not find each others' reasoning or choices compelling. We can also see how groups of people might develop "values cultures" that diverge on entire sets of values (or, "cooperative toolkits") while still solving some of the same underlying problems that all human societies face. From this standpoint, the functions of morality are universal, but the specific strategies that individuals and cultures take seem very contingent -- like the accident of a history of causes. But, knowing this, why don’t we experience our own values as contingent? That's the paradox.

• Examples: Sociocentric / Individualist cultures, Specific histories that groups experience (Us vs. Europe vs. ...)
• In experiencing political difference, we see our opposites as "caused" by ideology or bad thinking to believe what they believe.