Tem

29/30 MAR

Haidt Chapter 9: Divinity with or without God

Elevation as a vertical axis in relationship.

• Flatland
• Major speculative hypothesis: 183: In addition to relationship and status, we perceive/experience "divinity" as a kind of "moral purity".

• But this is puzzling, given that we are also ANIMALS
• Research on disgust. Why do we experience disgust? 186. Purity opposite impulse from disgust. Disgust brings us "down".

• Psychological anthropologist Richard Shweder, U Chicago: Haidt worked with him on research in morality in India: "Shweder's research on morality in Bhubaneswar and elsewhere shows that when people think about morality, their moral concepts cluster into three groups, which he calls the ethic of autonomy, the ethic of community, and the ethic of divinity." 188 -- evidence on diff. distribution of these ethics by class. Note observations on research in India. Link bt. purity/divine.

• Cites approvingly: Eliade, The Sacred and Profane -- perceiving sacredness universal among humans. 189: Interesting examples: handedness, space in houses.

Elevation and Agape

• Looking for a name for the emotions that we experience when we observe morally outstanding deeds. "Elevation"
• Jefferson: Experience of aesthetic value triggers physical changes in the body and recognizable feeling of elevated sentiments.

• 196: wants to see if elevation is a kind of happiness. research with student Sara Algoe, (three conditions: doing something good for someone, saw someone tell a joke, saw extraordinary non-moral performance) results seem to separate out different responses: moral elevation vs. response to non-moral excellence like basketball player.

• initial research documents elevation as response. Unclear how moral/non-moral triggers work.

• Vagus Nerve theory -- operation of vagus nerve, relationship to oxytocin. Since oxcytocin causes bonding rather than action, this theory might explain the lack of evidence in an earlier study that elevation leads to action.

• Puzzle about moral elevation and lack of action -- in two studies no sig increase in "signing up" to volunteer after elevation.

• Lactating moms study 198 -- (answers puzzle: oxcytocin is about bonding, not acting. we've managed to make moral conduct a trigger for oxcytocin.)

• Letter from religious person distinguishing two kinds of tears in church. compassion/celebration

• Latter like agape : objectless love

Awe and Transcendence

• cites Darwin / Emerson, idea of elevation from exp of nature.

• Drugs - -entheogens. reports old experiment with mushrooms and religion.

• Emerson's "transparent eyeball" experience. Awe and transcendence of the ego. (also in flow)

• Awe: "As we traced the word "awe" back in history, we discovered that it has always had a link to fear and submission in the presence of something much greater than the self." 202

• Emotion of awe: "Keltner and I concluded that the emotion of awe happens when two conditions are met: a person perceives something vast (usually physically vast, but sometimes conceptually vast, such as a grand theory, or socially vast, such as great fame or power); and the vast thing cannot be accommodated by the person's existing mental structures." 203

• Story of Arjuna Pandava from Gita. Gets a cosmic eye. Extreme case, but Haidt implies this is a model for how we describe spiritual transformation.

• Maslow's work on peak experiences. Side note on clash about the nature of science in psychology. Maslow is considered a founder of humanistic psych.

• Mark Leary, Curse of the Self: Self as obstacle to -- mental chatter -- self as obstacle to vertical development . Read p. 207.

Hall, Ch 9, Altruism, Social Justice, Fairness, and the Wisdom of Punishment

• Hall's point about the wisdom of Solomon (from beginning and end of chapter) -- implication for theory. Was Solomon's behavior unwise?

• Problem of altruism

• from Darwin, then from Hamilton and Trivers "reciprocal altruism" and "kin selection" - golden rule, also in Confucius, a proverbial version of reciprocity.
• Adam Smith, Moral Sentiments, top 153.
• "Strong reciprocity" Bowles and Gintis.
• Research by Ernst Fehr -- wanting to study "fairness" judgements in pay and motivation. behavioral studies of subjects in Prisoner's Dilemma situations (digress on Prisoner's Dilemma), bias toward cooperation.
• 2002 finding by Rilling -- mutual cooperation in a PD game stimulates learning and pleasure responses. (Later, on p. 161, same is true for punishment.)

• Ultimatum Game 157

• Interpretation of Ultimatum Game regularity (25% or less gets rejection). Example of NFL revenue sharing. "altruistic punishment"
• Alan Sanfey's work on neural response in ultimatum game -- areas for emotion and disgust "light up" on low offers.
• Fehr research using TMS --- respondents accepted unfair offers. p. 161

• Public Goods games and punishment / Wisdom and punishment

Prisoner's Dilemma Intro

• for more depth, see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on game theory.

	Prisoner B: Smith stays silent(cooperates)	Prisoner B: Smith betrays (defects)
Prisoner A (you) stays silent (cooperates)	Each serves 1 year	Prisoner A (you): 3 years Prisoner B: Smith: goes free
Prisoner A (you) betrays (defects)	Prisoner A (you): goes free Prisoner B: Smith: 3 years	Each serves 2 years

• Pay off matrix for any outcome:

• Smith stays silent (cooperate), you betray (defects): 3, 0 (Smith's a sucker)
• Smith betrays (defects), you stay silent (cooperate): 0,3 (You're a sucker)
• Both betray (defect): 2 years each (Game theoretic outcome)
• Both (cooperate): 1 year each (Optimal outcome for combined interests/utility - allegedly only achievable with an enforceable social contract - even one enforced by bad guys!)

• Why should you defect in the the face of uncertainty about Smith's cooperation?

• Analyze both possibilities for Smith
• He stays silent (cooperates)
• He betrays you (defects)

• Note on iterated prisoner's dilemma

Edgarton, Sick Societies, Chapters 1 and 2

Ch 1: Paradise Lost

• myth of primitive harmony in 20th c anthr and pop culture.

• Supported by assumption that it is misery that needs explaining, cities as cause of dysfunction; early anthropology ranged from idealistic misrepresentations and glossing over of the violence in trad. societies to racist accounts of non-Europeans as subhuman.
• Examples of anthropologists doing follow-up studies and finding big discrepancies with earlier accounts. Redford. 6
• Story of Ik tribe in Uganda. Controversy over Turnbull's judgement, but also evidence of a disrupted culture: forced to horticulture by gov't
• also, ethos of being a guest in a culture; expression of solidarity might rationalize some concealment of disfunction. Calling something maladaptive seems to violate anthropologists "methodological relativism".
• examples of attempts to explain genital mutilation as adaptive. but also counter examples "ecologically oriented" anthropologists who were willing to judge practices as maladaptive.
• example of Siriano Indians of Bolivia -- very asocial and low family bond. p. 13. unclothed, lack of knowledge to make fire.

Ch 2: From Relativism to Evaluation

• recognition of adaptive/maladaptive in our own culture.
• Oneida Community 1848-1879 John Noyes
• sexual practices -- reservatus also part of other traditions
• changing the rules -- justifying rape and sexual child abuse. 18
• Duddie's Branch, 1960, Eastern Kentucky 238 ind. p. 19 - the horror of it - interestingly, very low levels of social communication.
• gov't support, deterioration of hygiene, basic values
• non standard tracking of patrimony.
• fierce loyalty to community, showed "pride, dignity, courage, and generosity"
• 23-45: Review of the issue of relativism in anthropology, especially in mid-late 20th century.

• comparisons are inevitable, and some involve evaluation.
• traces relativism in the methodology of anthropology 26ff.
• "suttee" - wife joining deceased husband by being burned to death.
• [Note diff between "methodological" and "principled" relativism]
• [Too strong on Spir-Whorf: the weak version of the thesis survived.]
• 31ff: racist past of non-relativistic anthropology. yet functionalism can go to far. quote from Malinowski 31.
• Example: Ruth Benedict praising burdensome marriage practices of the Kurnai