Fall 2024 Ethics Class Notes and Reading Schedule

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Ethic

1: AUG 27. First Day of Class

First Day of Class Information

• Welcome - personal introduction and welcome.

• About the Course

• Types of Ethics courses. The type this one is.
• Major Ethics Course Questions
• This is a writing enriched course. More about my approach later. (Some student introductions.)

• More About the Course

• Websites in this Course. I do not use Canvas. Review handout.
• Unit 1: Evolution of Morality
• Unit 2: Moral Psychology
• Unit 3: Basic Liberties - Is Abortion a basic liberty?
• Unit 4: Justice and Partiality - What do I owe strangers?
• Unit 5: Cultural Evolution
• Unit 6: Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Criminal Justice - (Some student introductions.)

• What are Values? Expectations we have of ourselves and others to act, think, speak, and feel certain ways in certain circumstances.
• Naturalism in Ethics -- What if Ethics has its origins in our natural history? Why this is/was a radical claim. What if humans use expectations of each other to solve basic problems that we confront because of the kind of creatures we are? (Student introductions.)

• Course Mechanics

• Websites in this course.
• Finding assignments, readings, and notes.

• Overview of Teaching Approach.

• 1. Grading Schemes.

• You will be able to make some choices about what you are graded on and the weight of different assignments. This is your "grading scheme." You can customize up to 30% of your grading scheme to suite your learning style or motivations in the course. You will also have some grade information about "Points" assignments that will allow you to raise or lower the weight of "Points". This allows you to work on early difficulties without a big effect on your final grade.

• 2. Transparency of student work and grades.

• In this course we use pseudonyms to allow sharing of grade information and student work - You will see most of the writing and scoring for required writing assignments, including my assessments of other student's work. This has many benefits.

• 3. Approach to writing instruction.

• a. Learning to assess writing. Writers improve when they acquire skills in evaluating their own and others' writing. We will cultivate these skills directly and through peer review.
• b. Building from small, short writing, to longer, more complex writing. The writing skills in this course are sequenced and early assignments give you performance information without affecting your grade much.
• c. Looking at reading comprehension. I no longer use reading quizes, but you should compare your "recall" from reading in class with others'. Comment on reading comprehension and its role in performance. (Some student introductions.)

• Succeeding in the Course:

• There is no final exam in this course, so your success depends upon demonstrating the philosophical skills we build toward in required and optional assignments.
• Prep Cycle - view reading notes as you are reading, read, note, evaluate preparation against other students' access to reading content in class and small discussions. Hierarchy of skills and goals.
• Reading - Keep track of the time you spend reading for the course. Mark a physical text. Contact me about your reading experience. Advice on Reading
• Speaking and Discussion - Don't underestimate the importance of practicing the articulation of your views. This happens in class together and in small groups. Speaking well is at least as important as writing well. Small group discussions provide your most extensive opportunities to improve your articulateness ahead of writing assignments.
• Writing - We will train on the rubric early on, you will be able to read lots of other students' writing and compare scores, and discuss your writing with me, especially during office hours. Because everything is transparent, you can compare your work to slightly higher and lower evaluated student work. This often leads to productive office hour discussions. (Some student introductions.)

• Required Assignments and Default Grade Weights for your Grading Scheme

• Points 35-65% default = 55%
• Position Paper 1 15-25% default = 20%
• Position Paper 2 20-30% default = 25%

• First Day TO DO list

• Read "Websites in this Course".
• Go to the two course websites and make sure you understand what information and resources each provides.

• From the wiki: Click on Fall 2024 Readings to see what you need to read for Thursday.
• Make sure you can log in to courses.alfino.org. That is where you find the readings for next class. Click on "Links".

• Keep an eye out for Ethics News!!

2: AUG 29. Unit One. Evolution of Morality

Assigned

• Note: Typical reading loads are about 25-30 pages per class. For Thursday, you might not make through all 48 pages of reading, but note that reading for Tuesday is only 13 pages.

• Sapolsky C10 – “The Evolution of Behavior,” (329-353; 24) – Key concepts: – evolution basics, ind/kin selection, reciprocal altruism, cooperation.
• Churchland C1 – “The Snuggle for Survival,” – (19-43; 24) Key concepts: neurology of mammalian bonding

In-Class

• Everyday Ethics: Mapping Conscience
• Writing: Practice Writing and Dropbox Training starts today.

Sapolsky, Chapter 10: The Evolution of Human Behavior Part 1 328-354

• Evolution 101 — 3 steps - Inheritance - Variation - Fitness

• Some misconceptions:

• 1. Evolution is not so much about survival as reproduction. Antagonistic pleiotropy — sperm early, cancer later.
• 2. The living are not better adapted than the extinct. Fitness isn't "prospective"
• 3. Evolution is "just a “theory”

• Sexual selection and natural selection. Example of peacocks — trade offs between two forms of selection.

• Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Premise: Evolution selects for social and psychological traits and behaviors that improve fitness -- just like it selects for bodies that stand up to selection pressures.

• Marlin Perkins and Mutal of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Bad ideas about evolution of altruistic species behavior. Group selection doesn’t work that way.

• Individual Selection — 334: competitive infanticide: why langur monkeys kill babies. How females develop a false estrus to fight back. (Working against mountain gorillas these days.)

• Kin Selection — 336: Basic idea: your nearest kin has most of your genes. Haldane, “I’d gladly lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.” Allomothering. Grooming behaviors reflect closeness. 337: vervet monkey study - A treats B badly, then B treat A and A's kin badly. Playback studies. These studies show in various ways how warning behaviors track kinship relationships in social primates.

• problem for kin selection — avoiding inbreeding. Many species mate with 1-3rd cousins. Sperm aggregation. Malagasy giant jumping rat. 340 - women prefer smell of near relatives over unrelated.

• How do animal recognize kin? Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) gives many animals olfactory recognition of kin. Other mechanisms: songs, vaginal fluid smell, milk.

• How do we do kin selection? Pseudo-kin selection or “green beard” effects. We are not limited to actual kin, any conspicuous feature (like a green beard). Humans show green beard effects. Related to parochialism and xenophobia. It could also be that our preference for humans over non-humans is a big green bread effect.

• Reciprocal Altruism.

• Don't just think about evolution as promoting competition toward extinction. Equilibriums are important. Sustaining conditions that meet selection pressures. (problems that can be addressed by values) Maintaining a good community.

• Reciprocal altruism is a third way that evolution shapes human behavior. Unrelated individuals cooperate across nature (fish in schools, birds in formation, herds). "Geometry of the selfish herd." Also unrelated primates. Important 1971 paper by Trivers (344) on reciprocal altruism. How social species incur a fitness cost to benefit another individual with expectation of reciprocation.

• Requirements for reciprocal altruism. Social species, frequent interactions, recognition of individuals (so, also memory).

• cheating and freeriding can create a "Red Queen" situation.

• Two big questions: when is cooperation optimal, how can altruism start?

• What strategy for cooperating is optimal?

• background to Game Theory - John von Neumann. Prisoner's Dilemma connected biologists to game theorists. Short video on PD: [1] (Note: A good video, but he doesn’t quite get the implication right. It’s not really just a dilemma between individual and group, because the optimal cooperative benefit is also the optimal individual benefit. So it’s more a dilemma between counting on the group payoff being the best for you vs. getting the best individual payoff. It’s all about you, not doing something for the group.)
• Basics of a Prisoner's Dilemma payoff: A&B cooperate (hold out): 1 year: A cooperates, B defects (rats out B by confessing): B walks and A gets three years. Cooperation is best, but only if you can count on it. If not, then you have to think of average payoffs or outcomes. Some some sets of payoffs, thinking this way leads to defection, the most rational choice, but not optimal. Quite a little dilemma.

• defection is optimal for single round PD, but what about 3 rounds. Still best to defect. What about "iterated" (uncertain number of rounds)?

• Axelrod's challenge: Optimal strategy for iterated PD. Winner: Anatol Rapoport: Cooperation on 1st round and then match opponent's previous behavior. "Tit for Tat" Always works toward a draw, or slight negative outcome. Not that Tit for Tat tilts toward cooperation, but avoids being a sucker and punishes defectors. famous paper in 1981 by Axelrod and Hamilton.

• "Signal errors" can reduce Tit for Tat payoffs. Remedies: "Contrite tit for tat (retaliate after two defections) and Forgiving (forgive 1/3 of defections). Both address the signal error problem, but have other vulnerabilities.

• Mixed (genetic) strategies: You could start out with one strategy and then change to another. How do you go from punitive Tit for Tat to one incorporating forgiveness? Trust. 350-351: describes a changing environment a events signal to individuals to change strategies. Kind of a model of real life.

• Black Hamlet fish

• Stickleback fish

• But skeptical that tit for tat has been found outside humans.

Churchland C1 – “The Snuggle for Survival,”

• Agatha Christie quote. Moms are tough.

• Turtles never help salamanders, but dogs sometimes help kittens. Aren't you glad you're not a lizard?

• Altricial infancy - born dependent, long maturation period. Big Learners.

• Endothermy is "expensive". Altricial infancy and learning is "expensive".

• Meet your cortex. Very involved in social behaviors, but also other structures, like nucleus accumbens.

• Mice - 14 million cortical neurons; Monkey - 2 billion; Human - 16 billion. Yeah!!!

• "Expensive" - brain is 2% of body mass but 25% of calorie intake. Fire, cooking. Wrangham, Catching Fire!

• read at 41: What your cortex does for you that enables morality. Interpreting expections!

Everyday Ethics: Sorting Expectations by Values

• In today's roll call question, fill in the sentence, "I expect . . ." with an expectation your have of yourself or others. For example, "I expect zags to be kind, I expect drivers to avoid distractions, I expect others to obey the law". (Notice how easy it is for you to generate these.) As you listen to each student's statement, try to decide whether it is an expectation related to morality or not ("I expect the light to turn green" is not). Also, try to identify the value or values associated with the expection.

Everyday Ethics: Mapping Conscience

• One of the remarkable things about morality in humans is how we already know many "objective" things about norms even if we can't say exactly where we learned them. Consider the following list:

• 1. You are not obligated to forgive the murderer of your father.
• 2. Harming a child is one of the worst things you can do.
• 3. You should not accept a gift, favor, or benefit from someone if you are not prepared to reciprocate in some way.
• 4. It’s ok to tell a friend that their partner is cheating on them.
• 5. If you feel someone is disrespectful to you, it is ok to share your experience with others.
• 6. If a stranger asks you a very personal question, it’s ok to avoid answering, or even not tell them the truth.
• 7. It’s okay to defend yourself.
• 8. If your country is attacked, it’s okay to strike back.
• 9. You shouldn’t complain if your friend chooses to help their family members over you.
• 10. You should help your family over friends and strangers.
• 11. Strangers in your community have a greater expectation of help from you than distant strangers.
• 12. No one is obligated to be your friend.
• 13. If your friend asks you for help, you shouldn’t ignore them.
• 14. Some of the things you learn about an intimate partner should not be disclosed to others.
• 15. If someone is your friend, they are obligated to some degree of loyalty, cooperation, and sympathetic interpretation of your motives and actions.
• 16. If you are cooperating with someone as a partner, you should avoid disparaging them to others.
• 17. If you choose to cooperate with someone, you need to make yourself answerable to them about things related to your cooperative tasks.

• In your group discussion of this list, pick items and ask each other if they are true statements. Then, assuming it is, consider whether you learned this truth explicitly or implicitly. For example, is it something you were taught, learned by example, or implied by more general understandings you have of humans and human reality?

1st Writing and Dropbox practice (not due on today’s class)

• Please write a 250-300 word maximum answer to the following question by Sept 4, 2024, 11:59pm. This assignment will give us some initial writing to look at and give you practice with the dropbox protocol for turning in pseudonymous writing in the course. For this assignment, the writing itself is ungraded, but you will receive 15 points for following the instructions accurately.

• Topic: Do you have to tell the truth to everyone? In preparing your answer, take some time to generate cases on which the obligation varies. Why does it vary? Can you offer a theory about the obligation to tell the truth?

• Writing Advice: Try to make your position clear (the "what") and the reasons clear (the "why"). Good arguments also try to respond to objections and consider the most reasonable opposing views. Your position is likely to be stronger if it is qualified in various ways. I strongly encourage you to draft your answer the night before it is due and return to it on the night that it is due.

• Advice about collaboration: Collaboration is part of the academic process and the intellectual world that college courses are based on, so it is important to me that you have the possibility to collaborate. I encourage you to collaborate with other students, but only up to the point of sharing ideas, references to class notes, and your own notes, verbally. Collaboration is also a great way to make sure that a high average level of learning and development occurs in the class. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to NOT share text of draft answers or outlines of your answer. Keep it verbal. Generate your own examples.

1. To assure anonymity, you must remove your name from the "author name" that you may have provided when you set up your word processing application. For instructions on removing your name from an Word or Google document, [click here].
2. Format your answer in double spaced text, in a typical 12 point font, and using normal margins. Do not add spaces between paragraphs, but do indent the first line of each paragraph.
3. Save your document in .docx format.
4. Do not put your name in the file or filename. You may put your student ID number in the file. Always put a word count in the file. Save your file for this assignment with the name: TruthTelling.
5. To turn in your assignment, log into courses.alfino.org, click on the “0 - 1st Writing and Dropbox practice" dropbox.
6. If you cannot meet a deadline, you must email me about your circumstances (unless you are having an emergency) before the deadline or you will lose points.

3: SEP 3.

Assigned

• Sapolsky C10 – “The Evolution of Behavior,” (360-373; 13). Key concepts: multi-level selection theory (MLS). Cultural selection pressures?
• Aristotle and Virtue Theory: PBS Crash Course in Philosophy #38 - Key concepts: The use of reason to school emotions. Virtue as a mean between extremes.

In-Class

• Details on how to submit your practice writing.
• Everyday Ethics: Thinking about virtue ethics in your own experience.
• Mini-Lecture on Sapolsky 353-360 - Tournament Species as examples of evolved behavior.
• More on conscience -- Inferences we make among them. Accepted variation/Contested variation.

Sapolsky, Chapter 10: The Evolution of Human Behavior 354-374

• How can cooperation get started and become stable? 353-

• In other words, how does "tit for tat" survive among defectors? Coalitions, green beard effects.
• Sometimes natural events cut a group off. Inbreeding promotes stronger kin bonds. That group may outperform others once they out migrate. (Give example from Henrich of Inuits with meat sharing behaviors. A better "cooperative package".)
• Effects of ind. selection, kin selection, and reciprocal altruism:

• Tournament vs. Pair bonding - lots of traits and behaviors follow from sexual dimorphism. This also happens in degrees.
• Parent-Offspring competition - in spite of kin selection, there are some "zero sum" situations bt parents and offspring. parent-offspring weaning conflict and mother-fetus conflict. Over insulin. Dad even has a vote through paternal "imprinted genes," which promote fetal growth at expense of mom. (Intersexual Genetic Conflict)

• Multilevel Selection MLS

• Remember the "bad" group selection from the beginning of the chapter? Group selection returns in the last few decades. (Tell story of visits with Bio prof friends over the years.)
• Genotypic and Phenotypic levels of explanation - unibrows.
• Organism (expressed individual) is a vehicle of the genome, but the genome has alot to say about how the organism turns out. .
• Big debate in Biology. Three positions: 1. Dawkins took the "selfish gene" view that the best level of explanation is individual genes. 2. Others say the genome - "a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg" (It's the whole genome travelling through evolutionary "space".); finally, 3. Others like Gould take the phenotype. After all, it's visible to the world. Selection could operate on a single phenotypic trait or the whole individual. Dawkins cake metaphor. 362. (So that's really four levels of selection.)

• Four levels and counting. Theorists might favor one or more levels as relatively more important than others. Each level involves possible selection pressure or adaptive value in meeting a pressure. The peacock’s plumage is both.

• 1. Genetic traits. Single selfish genes use us to get into the next gen.
• 2. Genome. The recipe is what’s passed on, so focus on that.
• 3. Phenotypic trait. Individual expressed traits (potential to make money).
• 4. Phenotype. It’s the “whole package - whole person” that we choose.

• Fifth level: Neo-group selection - the idea that some heritable traits are maladaptive for the individual, but increase the group's fitness (note difference from the bad old group selection).

• Examples:

• Encouraging patriotism might lead you to enlist, taking a fitness risk that we benefit from.
• Jailing someone for their reproductive life is a serious fitness hit, but we're better off with murderers locked up.

• Neo-group selection happens when groups impose fitness costs or benefits on members or sub-groups.

• Positive (fitness benefits): zags helping zags, (but is that totally positive?).
• Negative for some, positive for others(fitness costs): Slavery, racism, class bias, criminal punishment, patriotism, heroism, priests.

• Some scientists agree that neo-group selection can occur, but think it's rare. Sapolsky points out that it is not rare in humans, due to Green Beard effects.

• Remember "Green Beard" effects from p. 341 -- a thought experiment in extending/recognizing kin. With neo-group, we go further, and hypothesize that we can form groups around almost anything (sport teams in an imaginary baseball league). Human mind does not limit partiality or commitment to kin or even social group.

• Where do we fit in? AND US?

• We're bit of chimp and a bit of bonobo. Men 10% larger, 20% heavier than women. Slight dimorphism. Not quite pair-bonding, not quite tournament
• US and Individual Selection: Example of divorce: natural experiment when cultural taboos are lifted. Note that increased divorce rates are confined to the same percentage of population. Lift culture and you get to see who the "less pair-bonding" people are! Likewise with historically powerful (and not very romantic) rulers. Point: with absolute power, tyrants often adopt extreme reproductive behaviors with many hundreds of women, if possible.
• US and Kin selection: Still very powerful, most feuds are clan based, but we can go to war against kin, and we give to strangers. We can be disgusted by people who betray their families: Story of Pavlik Morozov, 368. 368: study about preferring dog to x, y, z. vmPFC involved.
• Why do humans deviate from kin selection so much. Biologists also want to find mechanisms. Animals recognize kin by MHC or imprinted genes. We do it cognitively. Much more flexibility.

Some Preliminaries about Objectivity in Ethics and Features of Ethical Discourse

• Where should we look for "moral goodness"?

• Intentions (Kantian),
• Person (a virtuous person) (Aristotle),
• Consequences (Mill, Singer - Utilitarian)

• (The following is pretty standard, but was drawn from Peter Singer's classic, Practical Ethics)

• What does it mean to say "values vary by culture"? Is it always "bad relativism"?

• Singer's arguments against cultural relativism:

• Cultural Relativism (the old discussion): Ethics varies by culture. Singer: This is true and false, same act under different conditions may have different value, but this is superficial relativism. For example, existence of birth control led to a general change in sexual ethics. The moral principle in question here is: don't have kids that you're not ready to care for. That principle might remain the same and be objective, but the prohibition on casual sex might change. (What dropped out was the idea that sex before marriage was sinful.)

• Note: There is strong polling data on advisability of living together prior to marriage. Now, yes; 60 years ago, no. So cultural change itself doesn't tell you whether moral principles are changing. The consistent principle here?

• What kind of conversation is an ethical conversation

• Subjectivist Relativism - This position may not be held by any thoughtful person, but it sounds like what some people say when they start studying values and becomes confused or cynical.

• The Position: "Wrong" means "I disapprove" or "my society disapproves")
• The Problems:

• If this sort of relativism is true, polls could determine ethics. But they don't.
• Deep subjectivism can't making sense of disagreement. Ethics is a kind of conversation.
• There is just too much research suggesting that "I approve" isn't philosophical "rock bottom".

• Singer: Ok to say the values aren't objective like physics (aren't facts about the world), but not sensible to deny the meaningfulness of moral disagreement and ethical reasoning.

• An evolutionist's twist: A society's ethical culture can produce positive, neutral, or negative outcomes for human flourishing. In this sense, values have objective consequences in meeting selection pressures (both natural and cultural). (Vax values, for example.)

• The sorts of reasons that count as ethical: universalizable ones. Can't just appeal to one person or group's interest. Note: most standard ethical theories satisfy this requirement, yet yield different analysis and advice. We will look at the specific form of universalization in each theory we discuss, but you could say this is a kind of defining feature of ethical discourse.

Philosophical Moral Theories: Virtue Ethics

• PBS Aristotle and Virtue Theory: Crash Course Philosophy #38

• concepts from video...

• Virtue — general idea of being an excellent person. Also, specific lists of virtues (vary by time and culture)

• A bit of Aristotle’s theory of virtue and human nature: fixed nature, species eternal, proper function (telos), distinctive aspect of function: being rational and political. (Note that modern virtue theorists aren't committed to some of A's false ideas.)

• Virtue is natural to us. Like an acorn becoming a tree. Being virtuous is being the best of the kind of thing you are. A deep intuition supports this developmental approach. (Pause to consider personal examples of the reality of moral development.)

• Theory of the Golden Mean: Virtue as mean between extremes of emotion: Ex. Courage (story of stopping the mugger), Honesty, Generosity. (Let's give our own examples.) Virtue as training of emotional response in relation to knowledge of circumstances and the good.

• How do you acquire virtue? Experience. Practical Wisdom cultivated through habituation. Follow a moral exemplar (virtue coach). Good parenting and shaping by healthy family. It's a training program in becoming the best human you can be based on your "telos".

• What if we don’t want to become virtuous? What is the motivation to virtue? The pursuit of a happy life that “goes well”. Eudaimonia. Human flourishing. Challenge and development of talents. Should be attractive. Connection between virtue and happiness not guaranteed for Aristotle, but could be tighter in other versions.

• Additional points:

• centrality of virtues and practical wisdom. Is practical wisdom real?
• historic variability and list of virtues. Curiosity was a vice in Medieval Europe. Check out virtue lists on Virtue Wiki.

Everyday Ethics: Thinking about Virtue in your own experience

• Scroll through the Virtue wiki page Virtue Wiki. Notice the various list of virtues. Write down 5 that are important to you in your life right now and that you would say you are working on. Report your results with this form

• Then, in your group discussion, identify virtues that you have made alot of progress on and ones that you are still working on. Record some of each to report back to the class.

4: SEP 5.

Assigned

• Hare and Woods – “Humans Evolved to be Friendly” – (1-19; 18) -- Key concepts: self-domestication, cooperative communication
• Practice Writing Due last night.

In-Class

• Everyday Ethics: What kind of conversation is an ethical conversation
• Practice Writing update.

Hare and Woods – “Humans Evolved to be Friendly”

• Homo is the genus — there were others, not just Neanderthals. (Ok, let’s watch a Geico Caveman commercial [2]).

• Not obvious that we were going to succeed. Neanderthals were smart, had culture, fine motor skills (maybe speech). Bigger, stronger.

• Major claim: Sapiens advantages may have include self-domestication and the changes that comes with that.

• cooperative communication, shared intentionality, theory of mind.

• morphology of skeletons and skulls is influenced by neurohormones. Evidence trail.

• bonobos are “wild domesticates”. - dogs are the best example. Also engage in cooperative communication. And they typically love us!

• dogs and wolves have common ancestor, the Ice Age wolf. Domestication involve genomic change, not just about “taming a wild animal”. Physical traits of domestication syndrome (3).

• Belyaev wolf breeding experiments in Siberia — 1959 — 50 generations foxes to domesticate. General story: relatively friendly member of wild species hang out near human garbage dump, reproductive advantage, interbred. Then maybe we warmed up to them too. So maybe wolves were somewhat self-domesticated at first. (In Food studies, also pigs.).

• 14K to 40K y.ago. Humans almost eradicate wild wolves. 300K wolves, 1 billion dogs.

• And us? Changes around 80K y.ago. Middle Pleistocene. (5) read Human domesticate are “feminized” versions of earlier Homo Sapien.

• Experimental corroboration - SSRI treated baby mice get globular head shape. Neanderthals football shaped heads. Lower testosterone, higher serotonin, more oxytocin. Research links oxytocin to cooperative behaviors.

• Chimps, bonobos, humans on strangers: we have a category “intragroup stranger” (a stranger who we regard as a group member). Chimps generally hostile to strangers, bonobos friendlier to bonobo strangers. What did this do for us? (6).

• Also about 80K y.ago we got more consistent in implementing the kind of culture that comes from cooperation. Expanded social networks mean more information flows. 50K y.ago jewelry, cool 3d animal paintings.

• 7: But we are also an incredibly cruel species.

• Oxytocin has another side. “Mama bear hormone”. Hamster moms. Social bonding and aggression to out groups go together.

• What Wrangham calls “the Goodness Paradox” “Humans become more violent when those we evolved to live more intensely were threatened.”

• Positive implications. We can expand the circle. Whites/Black schooled together have more cooperative behaviors in later life (ok with interracial marriage, have friends from other group…)

• Very interesting comment — Changing behavior changes attitudes.

Everyday Ethics: What kind of conversation is an ethical conversation

• Ethical conversations and analyses are about evaluating "values and expectations" - claims that we ought to adopt or reject some value(s) and the associated behavior motivated by those values.

• So what are some of the unwritten, but widely acknowledged rules for having an ethical conversation? What are the legitimate "moves" you can make in an ethical conversation? What moves would earn you a yellow or red card.

• Illegitimate moves:

• Appealing to only one person's or group's interests.

• "What's right is what serves my interests!" vs. "In this circumstance, it is morally permissible for everyone to pursue their interests"

• Denying the standing (need for consideration) of a person or group arbitrarily. "

• "Everyone deserves human rights except group X"

• Most illicit appeals in informal logic (fallacies): ad hominems and appeals to pity, ignorance, etc.

• Legitimate moves:

• Appealing to broadly held values about human life and human dignity.
• Appealing to cultural and local norms that may be considered well justified.
• Appealing to objective knowledge claims that may support or invalidate premises.
• Calling into question these norms or their application, often by:

• 1. Conceptual analysis -- What does it mean to value human life? How will we know that we are guaranteeing human dignity?
• 2. Advocacy for specific understanding of human nature or human needs.
• 3. Showing that some value proposition will or will not function to promote desirable outcomes.

5: SEP 10.

Assigned

• Wrangham C10 – “The Evolution of Right and Wrong” – 1st half (198-212; 14) Key concepts: Good Samaritan Problem, emotions as moral guides, interference, baby prosociality, Ultimatum Game, reverse dominance hierarchies, self-protection, conformity, obedience, shame, guilt, and embarrassment.

In Class

• Writing Workshop on Practice Writing
• Wrangham's broader argument in "The Goodness Paradox"

Writing Workshop

Some writing concepts - Review of first writing

• A general challenge of good writing -- Getting outside of your head -- looking at the writing as if you didn't write it.

• Here are a few good writing concepts to look for in the samples on the handout.

• Good starts -- Without good introductions and signals of organization and thesis readers are disoriented and confused. Set context by framing the topic. Tell your readers where you are going to take them. Sometime you will find a “hook” to start with. Something relevant to the topic that has high interest.
• Flow -- How well does one sentence follow another? Do you notice places where flow is interrupted? When you see good flow, try to notice how it is achieved, at the level of wording and sentence structure.
• Efficient writing -- Literally, how much you say with so many words. Awkward phrasing and limited word choice reduce efficiency.

• Review of writing samples.

• Get into your groups and read one of the two practice writing papers on the handout (not your section). Give yourselves about two minutes to read it. Then, in a brief discussion, keep track of what was good about the writing and what might still be improved. Do the same with the second one. Does it do some things better or worse than the first? Then, if you have time, randomly pick one that wasn't on the "nominated list", read it and compare it to the first two.

Wrangham's broader argument in "The Goodness Paradox"

• Here are a couple of topics from earlier chapters that it will be helpful for you to know about:

• Claims about aggression in humans.
• A bit of history on the self-domestication hypothesis.
• Bonobos!
• The Tyrant Problem
• Capital Punishment as a solution

Wrangham C10 – “The Evolution of Right and Wrong”

• C10 - Self-dom is a broad gene/culture theory, but also shaped morality. Coalitionary aggression could also police conformity to expectations. Values! Proactive aggression is a source of social control.

• Kullabak story.

• Humans very groupish. 90%chimp 10% bee. But group benefits aren’t the only motivation for morality. Also, perhaps, self-interest in avoiding negative judgements from a dominant groups or value consensus. “We evolved to fear the killing power of the men in the group” 200.

• part of the “goodness paradox” is that people who commit genocide are often conventionally moral in other areas of their lives. “Most violence is motivated by moral emotions.” 202.

• Three problems:

• 1. Why are we so prosocial. Good Samaritan problem
• 2. Emotions as moral guides - how do we classify actions as “right” and “wrong”?
• 3. Interfering with others

• 1. Good Sam problem - How do you explain altruistic behaviors that are not directed at kin? Maybe “Veneer Theory”, but toddlers are spontaneously helpful and babies are deeply prosocial (watch video on babies). 3yr olds will disobey commands that involve harm. (Digression on baby prosociality and theory of mind. Helper and hinderer puppet shows: Yale Theory of Mind & Baby prosociality Basic Puppet set up for prosociality studies on babies. )

• Ultimatum Game - also demonstrates that we are not strictly rational about sharing. Donor’s offer about 1/2, anticipating Decider’s sense of fairness. (Culturally variable.).

• Group selection theory might help solve the Good Sam problem, but group selection might not benefit the whole group. Example of control of women in some Hunter-gatherer society. “We need other mechanisms to explain how self-sacrificing behavior evolved (the Good Sam problem)

• 2. How do we classify actions as right or wrong? 208: We are both utilitarian and deontological (duty to a principle). Trolley problem v. Organ donor. (Digression to show "The Trolley Problem" The Trolley Problem)

• Three biases that help explain how we classify actions right or wrong:

• Inaction bias - we favor omission over commission.
• Side Effect bias - we favor avoiding intentional harm.
• Noncontact bias - we have a bias against physical contact with someone being harmed.

• research: thought to be connected to nonmoral cognitive bias. Others add that they may confer benefits.

• 3. Interfering with others.

• Chimps - Passion and Pom, and Prof. young mother Gilka. Passion charges her and kills her baby, Otta. Not atypical for chimps. Sudden violent behavior toward a chimp without obvious provocation. Thought to be a strategy (show of violence) for securing food. Point: males police some of this behavior, but not much. Very little 3rd party punishment.

• By contrast, humans punish (differently) and are more generous.

• 1st half of reading ends here.

• Theories that help with these three theoretical problems:

• Boehm’s theory - reverse dominance hierarchy - is that Homo sapiens used coalitionary proactive aggression to control alpha males. This would produce a selection pressure against alpha male reactive aggression. Then, with the discover of “coalitionary power”, males use that power to enforce expectations on pain of execution. Read at bot 213: in hunter-gather groups (and human societies prior to about 200 years ago) you can be killed for LOTS of things. (Note this also gives an account of patriarchy.). “Once men dominate the society through their control of death, their word becomes law.” “Some three hundred thousand years ago, males discovered absolute power.” 215.

• Reverse dominance hierarchy - a social hierarchy based on reversing power of the dominant members by use of a coalition of proactively aggressive males or females.

• 216-221: Wrangham’s “solutions” to the three puzzles.

• 1. Prosociality - Good Samaritan problem - Following Boehm, W argues that coalitions of militant egalitarians would cut down bullies. Two further possibilities: they might do it from judgements about the good of the group (enforcing cooperation) or from self-interest of the coalition of males. Either way prosocial behavior would be rewarded.

• 2. Emotions as moral guides - how do we classify actions as “right” and “wrong”? The three biases seem like defenses against a possible accusation. "I did nothing" "That wasn't my goal" "I never touched them". Makes sense in a linguistic world of gossip and reputation, especially if there is a proactively aggressive coalition of men policing things. Could be origin of "inner voice" of conscience. Helps us steer clear of moral mobs.

• 3. Interfering with others. Why do we monitor each other's behavior and intervene sometimes? W claims this reflects a bias toward conformity, that is, not wanting to be seen as a nonconformist (or the moral mob will get you). Shame, embarassment, guilt, pain from being ostracized, all only human responses. read about embarassment 219. Cyberball research 220.

6: SEP 12.

Assigned

• Wrangham C10 – “The Evolution of Right and Wrong” – 2nd half (210-220; 10) – Key concepts: Good Samaritan Problem, emotions as moral guides, interference, baby prosociality, Ultimatum Game, reverse dominance hierarchies, self-protection, conformity, obedience, shame, guilt, and embarrassment.

In-Class

• Looking at more writing [3]
• Rubric and Process

Rubric and Process

• 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").

• Process for writing review, scoring, and comments. (Use SW1 assignment.)

Wrangham C10 – “The Evolution of Right and Wrong” – 2nd half (210-220; 10)

• See notes from previous class.

The Tyrant Problem and Capital Punishment (C7 & C8)

• The Tyrant problem and Capital Punishment- Evidence of use of capital punishment in human societies. Execution was a selective pressure against aggressive individuals (mostly males). Or, "We evolved a behavior of using coalitionary proactive aggression against bullies."

• Execution hypothesis - Selection against aggressiveness and in favor of greater docility came from execution of the most anti-social individuals.

• Has Darwin’s support, even though he didn’t think we self-dom. Appreciated that contemporary society’s execution practice was a kind of selection pressure. (Prison does nothing for your dating prospects.) More dominant theory has been: parochial altruism hypothesis — groups that could cooperate in war have an advantage. Specifically self-sacrifice. But this is not seen in hunter-gather groups. Maybe more of a cultural level effect.

• Alexander argues that reputation is the key to h.sapien cooperation. Gossip matters. Chimps don’t gossip and don’t care about their reputation. Evidence from h-gatherers. Reputation matters. 137.

• Solution to the Tyrant problem (an alpha male who doesn’t care about his reputation) is for coalitions of males to kill him.

• C8 - Capital punishment

• Used to be lots of ways to get executed. Read at 143. Popular. Crimes to execution in a few days. Not just America. Capital punishment is a human universal. By contrast, other primates allow for contests against the alpha male.

• Examples of male coalitions in h-gather groups. Importance of self-deprecation to show you are not arrogant. Egalitarian expectation. Predates ag societies hierarchy.

• Why aren’t there alpha males around h-gatherers. Story 157 of gift of ox that backfires. (Like anti-social punishment). Dom from cap pun supported by absence of alpha males and egalitarian values among males.

• 161: genetic account — Would 300,000 years (12,000 generations) be enough? Some indicators, yes. But needs language. Language comes in bt 100,000 and 60,000 y ago. Good evidence h.sapien langauge better than other homo.

• ”The development of increasingly skilled language, in combination with our evolved solution to the tyrant problem, thus provides the best basis for the ultimate explanation of human domestication. Or, "Unlike chimps, but like bonobos, h. sapiens did not tolerate alpha males ruling by 1-1 contests for dominance. Humans and bonobos gang up on tyrants."

7: SEP 17.

Assigned

• Tomasello – “The Origins of Human Morality” SciAm – (5) – Key Concepts: Logic of interdependence, obligate collaborative foraging, cultural norms, outgroups.
• Tomasello - "Human Morality as Cooperation Plus" (135-143); 8) - Key Concepts:
• Sapolsky C13 – “Morality and Doing the Right Thing – (488-492; 4) – Context and social intuitions, Trolley fMRI research, intentionality.

Tomasello – “The Origins of Human Morality” SciAm – (5)

• 400,000 y ago. Collaborative hunting and gathering starts process toward sense of obligation.

• Two lines of research to explain origin of morality: 1. “inclusive fitness” or kin selection and 2. Reciprocal altruism.

• But we need to explain “sense of obligation” - Logic of interdependence.

• The Role of Collaboration

• How chimps and bonobos forage - only partially collaborative.

• Key environmental change around 2 million y. Ago - global cooling and drying led to proliferation of terrestrial monkeys. Selection pressure on homo ergaster. Much later, 400,000 y ago, how heidelbergensis engaged in collaborative foraging. Collaboration became obligate (compulsory).

• Partner choice - puts pressure on homo who can communicated well and less aggressive (note overlap with Wrangham).

• Evidence - Some from historical record. Some from study of cognitive adaptations of young children and compared to primates.

• Logic collaborations - roles independent of individuals, dev of role specific standards and expectations (Values!), roles interchangeable, equality of partnership. Part of our commitment to roles would be acceptance of fault on failure. Even guilt or self-condemnation. Result:

• Second-person morality - understanding of self and other as equal partners in collaborative enterprise. Entails equal respect and fairness.

• The Birth of Cultural Norms

• 2nd step starts about 200,000 y ago - competition among human groups. Leads to collective group identity. (“We” instead of the “you” of 2nd person morality). Pressure to conform (note overlap with Wrangham). Identity based on shared practice of the group.

• The People of We

• With culture, we need to worry about what the group thinks of me, and what I think of my behavior in light of group expectations.

• Them v Us. This environment fostered strong out group dis-preference. (Hatred)

Tomasello - "Human Morality as Cooperation Plus" (135-143; 8)

• Theories of origins of morality focus on group processes, but evidence from moral psychology suggests dyadic relationships were important. Eye contact, voice direction, body language all part of partner behaviors. From there, we developed a group identity in culture.

• Two parts of the theory: second personal morality from dyadic experience and group morality from collective cultural experience. Pattern in both: 1. Ecology changes creating food competition; 2. Cooperative behaviors increase to meet challenge; 3. Shared intentionality and new social, cooperative skills, as well as self-regulation.

• Theories of Evolution of Morality

• Three kinds of theorizing:

• 1. Evolutionary ethics theories focus on reciprocity and social exchange. Boehm’s theory of transition to from dominance to egalitarianism (Wrangham too); Baumard’s focus on reputation gossip in maintaining values. “Most cost-effective way to secure a good reputation would be to be a good person.”

• Tomasello et al agree with these theories, but think there is a specific logic of collaboration that links dyadic and collective values. Interdependence is a kind of symbiosis. Sense of “we” and “self—other equivalence” missing from other theories.

• 2. Moral psych theories - focus on proximate psychological mechanisms - judgements of harm, Trolley problem, prominent role for emotions and intuitions. Haidt exemplary. For him, reason is ad hoc, system 2, comes later. Moral foundations theory. CFLAS. Pro sociality creates more effective groups. Relies on MLS.

• 3. Cultural explanations of morality - Theorists like Schweder give cultural a more dominant role and de emphasize universal accounts of child morality. But other cultural evolutionist like Richerson and Boyd suggest cultures create competition that creates objective selection pressures for imitation of successful individuals and conformity to successful practices. Tomasello thinks this sort of explanation can only work over the last 12,000 years or so, with highly developed culture and writing.

• Tomasello’s theory. Claims to be more comprehensive. Two step process from dyadic logic of interdependence to cultural level. Specific account of how these process created adaptations. Finally, gives account of “cooperative rationality” (in dyadic relationship) and “cultural rationality” (collective intentionality).

Sapolsky C13 – “Morality and Doing the Right Thing – (488-492; 4)

• From first few pages (not assigned), alleged example of evolved psychology in capuchin monkeys.
• Monkey fairness: [4]

• Context: Neuroscience of the Trolley Problem and "Intuition discounting"

• dlPFC (focused on reasoning) in lever condition and vmPFC (focused on emotional information processing) in bridge condition. Correlation of vmPFC activation with likelihood of not pushing the guy of the bridge.
• Greene's hypothesis: not so much because it is "up close and personal" as we speculated, but in lever condition the killing of the one is a side-effect. In bridge condition, its because of the killing. Different kinds of intentionality. Ok for most people if you push someone out of the way on your way to the lever. Not intentional killing. [Note how Wrangham's theory independently arrives at a similar view about the "biases" we use to decide whether something is right or wrong. This makes philosophers happy!]
• Why this is so cool: This research helps us think about the particular cognitive adaptation we have about killing. It's not just something that excites the brain because "it's up close and personal", it seems to involve a concept of intentionality, and hence Theory of Mind is somehow instantiated in our brains. Coincides with the baby-puppet studies.
• Loop condition -- you know you have to kill the person on the side track, should be like bridge condition, but test subjects match lever condition, roughly.
• Hypothesis: Intuitions are local; heavily discounted for time and space. (Think of other examples of this.) Stories in which your reaction to something changes when you learn where it happens. Can you see the value of this in evolutionary terms?

• Related point about proximity - leave money around vs. cokes. Cokes disappear. One step from money and the rationalization is easier. (Also in Ariely research) Singer's pool scenario vs. sending money for absolute poverty relief.

• Priming study on cheating involving bankers. 492 - shows "intuition discounting" when primed to think about work identity. more cheating the more primed about "role" - "It's not me"...

• But this circumstance is different...

• Under stress subjects make more egoistic, rationalizing judgments regarding emotional moral dilemmas.
• [this is not mentioned in the text, but it is what he is talking about: the Fundamental Attribution Error - neuro-evidence for the Fundamental Attribution Error [5]
• Short version: We judge ourselves by internal motives and others by external actions. Our failings/successes elicit shame/pride while others' elicit anger and indignation. The FAE suggests that we explain our own failures more generously than the failures of others. We offer ourselves excuses (inner lawyer) but are biased toward inferring bad intent from others. (Think of fitness advantage for this bias.)

SW1 Evolved Morality (800 words)

• Stage 1: Please write an 800 word maximum answer to the following question by Sunday, September 22nd, 11:59pm.

• Topic: In this first unit of the course, we have been studying ways in which our natural history has shaped behaviors and capacities in us that might explain the origins of morality. In the first 400-500 words of your answer, summarize the most important facts and theory from our biology and evolutionary history that bear on the origin of morality. How do the ideas from authors Sapolsky, Churchland, Hare and Woods, and Wrangham fit together? Then, in the last 300-400 words, let's assume that these explanations hold up to future evidence. What insights or practical value you can find in this understanding of morality? Does it help us understanding our moral experience better?

• Advice about collaboration: Collaboration is part of the academic process and the intellectual world that college courses are based on, so it is important to me that you have the possibility to collaborate. I encourage you to collaborate with other students, but only up to the point of sharing ideas, references to class notes, and your own notes, verbally. Collaboration is also a great way to make sure that a high average level of learning and development occurs in the class. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to NOT share text of draft answers or outlines of your answer. Keep it verbal. Generate your own examples.

• Prepare your answer and submit it in the following way. Please follow these instructions:

1. To assure anonymity, you must remove your name from the the "author name" that you may have provided when you set up your word processing application. For instructions on removing your name from an Word or Google document, [click here].
2. Format your answer in double spaced text, in a typical 12 point font, and using normal margins. Do not add spaces between paragraphs and indent the first line of each paragraph.
3. Do not put your name in the file or filename. You may put your student ID number in the file. Always put a word count in the file. Save your file in .docx format with the name: EvolvedMorality.
4. To turn in your assignment, log into courses.alfino.org, click on the "1 - Points" dropbox.

• Stage 2: Please evaluate four student answers and provide brief comments and a score. Review the Assignment Rubric for this exercise. We will be using the Flow and Content areas of the rubric for this assignment. Complete your evaluations and scoring by Friday, September 27th, 11:59pm.

• To determine the papers you need to peer review, you will receive an email from me with your animal name and a list of animals in this assignment. Find your animal name on the list and review the next four animals, looping to the top of the list if necessary.

• Use this Google Form to evaluate four peer papers. Submit the form once for each review.

• Some papers may arrive late. If you are in line to review a missing paper, allow a day or two for it to show up. If it does not show up, go back to the list and review the next animal's paper, continuing until you get four reviews. Do not review more than four papers.

• Stage 3: I will grade and briefly comment on your writing using the peer scores as an initial ranking. Assuming the process works normally, most of my scores probably be within 1 point or so of the peer scores, plus or minus.

• 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: [6]. Fill out the form for each reviewer, but not Alfino. You must do the back evaluation to receive credit for the whole assignment. Failing to give back-evaluations unfairly affects other classmates.

• Back evaluations are due Saturday, October 5th, 2024, midnight.

8: SEP 19. Unit Two: Moral Psychology

Assigned

• View: System 1 and System 2. Veritasium, “The Science of Thinking” 12 mins.

• Utilitarianism: PBS Philosophy Crash course on utilitarianism

• The Trolley Problem The Trolley Problem.
• Recommended to browse: Self-driving cars with Trolley problems: [7], The Cold Logic of Drunk People

• Tomasello - "Human Morality as Cooperation Plus" (143-157); 14)

• Churchland C4 – “Norms and Values” – (96-110; 14) – neurology of rewards, empathy, Ultimatum game, cultural effects.

In-Class

• System 1 and System 2 - Lecture with research from moral psychology
• Group work on SW1.
• Giving Peer Criticism

Veritasium video, “The Science of Thinking” -- System 1 and System 2

• examples of letting Sys1 do the job and get it wrong: earth around sun, bat/ball price.

• Sys1 and Sys2 - Gunn and Drew.

• Sys1 is quick, intuitive, selective, fills in gaps (“The Cat”), part of process for long term memory
• Sys2 is slow, deliberate, limited to working memory.

• ”chunking” - Sys1 finds patterns that help us store long term memory. “Muscle memory” - going from Sys2 to Sys1. Deliberate and effortful at first, then more automatic.

• ”Add 1” task - pupil dilation, heart rate increase. Three cheers for psychophysiology!!!

• In overcoming automatic thinking, you need to bring in Sys2 (Note: This is important in overcoming bias, which relies on automatic thinking.)

• Ads - The “un” campaign got around Sys1’s filter for boring insurance ads.

• Pedagogy - Active pedagogy - making you do something with the information (small groups, worksheets, but also interactive discussion) is better than passive learning environment. (Note caveat - Life learners do this also on their own and cultivate behaviors that keep Sys2 involved. Or, some of the best students in the class make Sys2 work hard even just while listening!

System 1 and System 2 in moral psychology

• gloss Elephant and Rider metaphor in Haidt. Plato's Charioteer. (Diff metaphors for consciousness.)

• (This is from Haidt, C3, "Elephants rule" - In that chapter he's introducing some research in moral psychology that shows how System 1 works, especially with value judgements. "Intuitions comes first" is another way of saying that system 1 is fast and on the scene judging before system 2 gets out of bed.)

• Personal Anecdote from Haidt's married life: your inner lawyer (automatic speech)
• Priming studies: "take" "often" -- working with neutral stories also

• Research supporting "intuitions come first"

• 1. Brains evaluate instantly and constantly - Zajonc on "affective primacy"- small flashes of pos/neg feeling from ongoing stimuli - even applies to made up language "mere exposure effect" tendency to have more positive responses to something just be repeat exposure.

• 2. Social and Political judgements are especially intuitive

• Affective Priming - flashing word pairs with dissonance: "flower - happiness" vs. "hate - sunshine"
• Implicit Association Test Project Implicit
• Flashing word pairs with political terms causes dissonance. measurable delay in response when, say, conservatives read "Clinton" and "sunshine". Dissonance is pain.
• Todorov's work extending "attractiveness" advantage to snap judgements. "Competency" judgments of political candidates correct 2/3 of time. Judgements of competence. note speed of judgement .1 of a second.(59)

• 3. Bodies guide judgements --Fart Spray exaggerates moral judgements (!); Zhong: hand washing before and after moral judgements. Helzer and Pizarro: standing near a sanitizer strengthens conservatism.

• 4. Psychopaths: reason but don't feel - Transcript from Robert Hare research

• 5. Babies: feel but don't reason; Helper and hinder puppets. The babies are not thinking with concepts...system 1.

Tomasello - "Human Morality as Cooperation Plus" (143-157; 14)

• Note: The text has a couple of pages at the end from a different part of the book. This material summarizes some of the early childhood research that Tomasello uses to support his theory.

• Diffs bt US and other primates:

• Great apes are "instrumentally rational"; mostly competitive, some friendships, not a lot of helping.
• Chimps and bonobos don't use structured cooperation, don't exclude freeriders, no concept of fairness.

• Hypothesis: We (400K ago) were forced to develop a cooperative rationality that included concern for the well being of the partner, then group. Values this explains: mutual respect, fairness, exclusion of free riders, allowance for "2nd person protest" ("Hey, you said you would..."). From there a collective intentionality that recognizes right and wrong as having an objective status.

• 147: Paraphrased from "Rather.." Morality doesn't develop just by assessing the rational costs for individuals involved, but it might develop if we recognized our dependency on partners and the group. Relationships involve "investment", not just "payoffs" (as in game theory models).

• Cooperation in reciprocal altruism models is fragile. Someone is always ready to make a sucker out of you and then cooperation goes to zero.

• Interdependence cultivates genuine concern for the partner, shared intentionality, self-other equivalence (of roles), "deservingness".

• Ontogeny - how something comes to be.

• Digression from text: "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" - meaning "This phrase suggests that an organism's development will take it through each of the adult stages of its evolutionary history, or its phylogeny. Sort of true. [8]. The slogan is still used, but evolutionists would deny that it is a powerful or general principle. Distinguish from the philosophy field: Ontology.

• Still, Contemporary children pass through two stages similar to the stages of the theory (2nd person morality and joint commitment). read at 155. The extra pages are from C3, which he mentions as providing evidence. See summary box at end of pdf.

• prior to age 3, no recognition of social norms, but after, they will engage in 3rd party punishment.

• Go through text boxes from Chapter 3 at the end of the pdf.

Utilitarianism - Additional notes

• Let's meet Jeremy Bentham. [9]

• Brief historical intro to utilitarians: Early industrial society, "social statics" (early efforts to measure social conditions). Utilitarians were seen as reformers.

• Fundamental consequentialist intuition: Most of what's important about morality can be seen in outcomes of our actions that promote happiness and human well-being.

• Basic principles of utilitarian thought:

• Equal Happiness Principle: Everyone's happiness matters to them as much as mine does to me. Everyone's interests have equal weight. (Note this is a rational principle. Emotionally, it's false. Utilitarian thinking often involves overcoming a System 1 automatic (evolved) preference.)

• Note on method: this is a way to universalize. Recall earlier discussion about conditions for ethical discourse. Ethics is about figuring out when we need to take a moral concern about something and, if we do, then we take on constraint (conversational): universalizability, equality of interests. (Note that also get to this result from Tomasello and Wrangham.)

• Principle of Utility: Act always so that you promote the greatest good for the greatest number.

• Hedonic version: Act to promote the greatest pleasure ...
• Classical utilitarian: greatest balance of range of qualitatively diverse pleasures and aspects of well-being. More wholistic.
• Preference utilitarian version: Act to maximally fulfill our interest in acting on our preferences. (Very compatibile with neo-liberal economic thinking.)

• But what is utility? What is a preference?
• Utility: pleasure, what is useful, happiness, well-being.

• Is the utilitarian committed to maximizing happiness of individuals directly? A utilitarian focused on promoting utility, might still acknowledge that promoting human happiness is mostly about protecting conditions for an individual's autonomous pursuit of happiness. Consider cases: When does promoting the greater good involve letting people make their own decisions vs. managing or regulating an issue centrally?
• Conditions for the pursuit of happiness: Order, stability, opportunity, education, health, rights, liberty.
• Issue of protection of rights in utilitarian thought.

• Preferences:

• An indirect way to solve the problem of lack of agreement about goods. Let's maximize opportunities for people to express their preferences. Positive: pushing the question of the good life to the individual. Negative: High levels of individualism may reduce social trust. Lack of action on opportunities to reduce suffering.
• But sometimes we ought to override preferences: Thought experiment: Returning a gun to an angry person. Is the angry person's preference one that has to count? People "prefer" to live in a way that is heating up the planet!
• Cultural contradictions in our preferences: we prefer health, but we also "prefer" to eat the western diet, smoke things, and drink alcohol. Which preferences should the utilitarian focus on? Some preferences are based on bias or prejudice.

Group Discussion: Assessing Utilitarianism

• Consider applying utilitarianism to different kinds of moral problems (from interpersonal ethics to public policy questions). Identify three situations in which you would want to use utilitarianism and three situations in which you would not.

Churchland C4 – “Norms and Values” – (96-110; 14)

• This chapter is about how the reward structures in the brain work similarly for social and non-social tasks. This gives us a glimpse of the neurobiology of everyday ethics. Getting norms and values right (learning them, showing them in your behavior, calling others out, moral shunning) involves the same reward system as non-social tasks, like finding a job or any search problems (getting a good deal on something, etc.)

• 100: The knowledge domains for social and non-social tasks are distinct. (Social knowledge tells me whether to make noisily slurping noises while eating noodles. Other knowledge helps me know that I should wait to split my wood till it is dry.

• Applies to emotionally negative situations, like giving negative appraisal. For this, we use empathy. (More on empathy soon. You can think of it both as a way of acquiring knowledge about others’ experience and maintaining social bonds during emotionally negative situations (physical and mental suffering, failures to meet expectations, etc.).

• Churchland’s take on the Ultimatum Game research findings. Typically, we say this research shows that we are not strictly rational as Responder. But, Churchland suggests there might be a “social rationality” . Also culturally variable. P. 105. Cites Henrich, market integration may be a variable (measured as: how much of your food do you get from the store).

• Really complicated Ultimatum Game research. roughly, norm changes are affected by both conscious and unconcscious (Sys 2 and 1) neural processes. Fashion as example of relatively unconscious cultural process. Norms that have changed this way: breastfeeding, recycling, sexually orientation.

• What is happening in the brain during moral experience? We are getting rewarding or not based on lots of social knowledge and cues from others.

9: SEP 24. Sub-unit on Empathy 1

Assigned

• Sapolsky C14 – “Feeling Someone’s Pain…” – (521-535, 542-552; 24) – biology of empathy

In-Class

• Empathy basics: Defining it, relationship to "personal preference networks", and "empathy gym".
• Upcoming Optional Assignment: "Pumping Empathy". Like Happiness and Wisdom course exercises.
• More cute videos - Theory of Mind - False belief test. [10]

Giving Peer Criticism

• Some thoughts on helpful peer commenting:

• You are only asked to write two or three sentences of comments, so choose wisely! Your back evaluation score will be assessed on this.

• Giving the kind of criticism that you would want to consider if it were your paper.

• Give gentle criticisms that focus on your experience as a reader:

• "I'm having trouble understanding this sentence" NOT "This sentence makes no sense!"
• "I think more attention could have been paid to X NOT "You totally ignored the prompt!

• Wrap a criticism with an affirmation or positive comment

• "You cover the prompt pretty well, but you might have said more about x (or, I found y a bit of a digression)"
• "Some interesting discussion here, esp about x, but you didn't address the prompt very completely ...."

• General and specific -- Ok to identify general problem with the writing, but giving examples of the problem or potential solutions.

• I found some of your sentences hard to follow. E.g. "I think that the main ...." was a bit redundant.
• I thought the flow was generally good, but in paragraph 2 the second and third sentence seem to go in different directions.

Sapolsky, Behave, C 14, (521-535, 542-552; 24)

• starts with "exposure to an aversive state" -- we call it empathy, but what is that?

q1: When does empathy lead us to actually do something helpful?

q2: When we do act, whose benefit is it for?

• sympathy -- feeling sorry for someone's pain. But could also convey distance or power diff. pity.
• empathy -- includes a cognitive step of understanding the cause of someone's pain and "taking perspective"
• compassion -- S. suggests this involves empathy plus taking action.

• Emotionally contagious, compassionate animals.

• we are 'overimitative' - chimp / kids study524
• mouse studies -524- alterations of sensitivity to pain on seeing pain; fear association seeing another mouse exp fear conditioning. Mouse depression ensues! research suggesting mice respond proportionally and to social group (cagemates).
• Consolation: lots of species engage in consolation, chimps show third party consolation behavior, no consolation behavior in monkeys (another reason not to trust monkeys) -- prairie voles!
• 526: rats, amazing rats -- US/them behaviors, some flexibility. review the details.

• Emotionally contagious, compassionate children

• 527: describes mechanism of empathy: early emo contagion in kids may not be linked to cognitive judgement as later, when Theory of Mind emerges. Neural activity follows this progression. “As the capacity for moral indignation matures, coupling among the vmPFC, the insula, and amygdala emerges.” Perspective taking adds other connections.

• Affect and /or Cognition?

• Affective side of things.

• Some neurobiology: the ACC - anterior cingulate cortex - processes interoceptive info, conflict monitoring, (presumably cog. dissonance). susceptible to placebo effect. ACC activates when our internal and external “schemas” of the world are amiss.
• Importantly, ACC activates on social exclusion (Cyberball game), anxiety, disgust, embarrassment, but also pleasure, mutual pleasure. (ACC activation is maybe a good proxy for the state that empathy and compassion address: We help each other settle our ACCs down.). Empathic responses involve our ACC, which is activated by your pain.

• ACC also involved in action circuits. Oxytocin, hormone related to bonding. Block it in voles and they don't console. Awwww!

• How does self-interested "alarm" system of the ACC get involved in empathy? Sapolsky's hypothesis 530: Feeling someone's pain can be more effective for learning than just knowing that they're in pain. Empathy may also be a self-interested learning system, separate from helping action. Maybe not a “moral emotion” until we use it that way.

• Cognitive side of things: How do we bring judgements about desert and character to bear on empathic responses? Chimps do. They only console victims. Reason allows us to shut down empathic responses.

• One of Sapolsky’s weirder analogies at 532 re: the militia leader.
• Cognition comes in with emotional pain, judgement abstractly represented pain (a sign), unfamiliar pain. (Takes more cog resources to process others' emo pain.) Also with Thems. 533.
• socioeconomics of empathy 534: wealth predicts lower empathy. Less likely to stop for pedestrians. the wealthy take more candy! (This can be primed by asking test subjects to make upward or downward comparisons prior to the choice event.)
• especially hard, cognitively, to empathize with people we don't like, because their pain actually stimulates a dopamine response! Empathy is part of our preference network behaviors!

• The Core Issue (in Empathy): Actually doing something.

• S resumes the topic of the 1st half of the chapter. Empathy can be a substitute for action. "If feel your pain, but that's enough." In adolescents (chapter 6) empathy can lead to self-absorption. It hurts to feel others pain when your "you" is new.

• 543: research predicting prosocial action from exposure to someone's pain: depends upon heart rate rise, which indicates need for self-protection. 543: "The prosocial ones are those whose heart rates decrease; they can hear the sound of someone else's need instead of the distressed pounding in their own chests." (Echoes research showing less prosocial behavior to strangers under cognitive load, hunger condition, social exclusion, stress. Block glucocorticoids and empathy goes up.)

• Research on Buddhist monks, famously Mathieu Ricard (digress). without Buddhist approach, same brain activation as others. with it, quieter amygdala, mesolimbic dopamine activation - compassion as positive state. (Mention hospice, compassionate meditation.). Ricard reports “a warm positive state associated with a strong prosocial motivation.” (Very much like the experience of hospice volunteering.)

• Evidence from “empathy training” of similar change in neural activation.

• Doing something effectively

• empathy disorders and misfires: "Pathological altruism"; empathic pain can inhibit effective action. Doctors and others need to block empathy to have sustainable careers.

• Is there altruism?

• 2008 Science study: we predict spending on ourselves will increase happiness, but only altruistic uses of the money did so in the study.

• S suggests that given the design of the ACC, and the abundant ways the social creatures get rewards from prosocial reputations (reputation, debts to call in, extra benefits in societies with moralizing gods), maybe we shouldn't be looking for "pure" altruism. (recalls that belief in moralizing gods increases prosocial behavior toward strangers.) some evidence charitable people are raised that way and transmit the trait through family life. 548

• reminder of Henrich on "moralizing gods" and “contingent afterlives”. Probably helped humans become comfortable in urban environments.

• Empathy and reputational interests - Research subjects in brain scanner given money and option. Dopamine response depended upon presence of an observer.

• Final study of the chapter. 2007 Science, test subjects in scanners, given money, sometimes taxed, sometimes opp to donate. Hypothesis: If one is purely altruistic, you would expect identical dopamine responses. Follow results 549:

• a. the more dopamine (pleasure response) you get in receiving unexpected money, the less you express in parting with it - either voluntarily or not.
• b. more dopamine when taxed, more dopamine when giving voluntarily. Seems to identify a less self-interested person. Could also be "inequity aversion" - we sometimes just feel better when a difference is eliminated.
• c. more dopamine when giving voluntarily than taxed.

• In the end, Sapolsky thinks empathy is still a puzzling product of evolution. Altruism and reciprocity are linked however, so maybe we should stop scratching our heads about "pure altruism".
• Seems to endorse the idea that altruism (compassionate empathy) is trainable -- like potty training, riding a bike, telling the truth! So don't forget your workouts at empathy gym!

10: SEP 26. Sub-unit on Empathy 2

Assigned

• Reiss C4 – “The Seven Keys of Empathy” – (43-61; 18) – Empathy training model
• Reiss C5 – “Who’s In, Who’s Out” – (61-71; 10) – Empathy and groupishness, empathy and moral judgement.

In-Class

• Optional practicum on empathy Empathy_Gym_Practicum_-_Optional_Assignment#Empathy_Gym_Practicum

11: OCT 1. Unit Three: Roe, Dobbs, and the Search for Basic Liberties

Assigned

• Kahn Academy, "The Fourteenth Amendment and equal protection" [11]
• From Roe to Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization [12]
• Alfino, "Interpretation, Political Orientation, and Basic Liberties in the Dobbs Decision" (1-13)
• Supreme Court of the US, "Excerpts from the Dobbs Decision," (1-13)

Kahn Academy, "The 14th Amendment and equal protection"

• Section 1: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

• prohibitions by Federal gov't to potential state actions. Restates 5th ammentdment as applying to states, not just feds.
• "equal protection clause"

• Historical context

• 1868 - after civil war, 13th abolished slavery, 14th responding to "black codes" - statutes that repressed rights of recently emancipated African Americans. [13]
• Supreme Court opinion in Plessy v Ferguson: 1896 - separate train car travel. equal but separate is OK! doesn't violate the 14th amendment. (The textbook example of how stare decisis can't be absolute. Widely viewed as a shameful decision.) Reversed by Brown v Board of Education. Separate is not equal. 1954. Took decades to make progress enacting this decision.
• 14th Amendment key to civil rights arguments. Sexual equality in the workplace. Also pro-life arguments (liberty of the unborn). Quotas in higher education (recent cases pending Summer '23).

SCOTUS Brief, Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization

• June 2022. Mississippi Gestational Age Act. 15 week abortion limit. Conflict with Roe and Casey.

• Majority decision:

• 5 of the 6 (not Roberts) voted to overturn Roe and Casey. Roberts wanted a more moderate approach - allow 15 week bans.
• Stare Decisis - 5 reasons for overruling. Revisits Roe - invoked complicated argument from several amendments. Casey affirms Roe, but focuses only on 14th am. Abortion rights not found in text or tradition (originalism).
• Claims not to impact anything but abortion, which involves potential life. Left standing other decisions that seem to depend on Roe. Contraception, same sex relationships. Thomas went further, court should reconsider "due process" cases. Rec alternative approach.
• Roberts concurrence: Urged more restraint. Throw out the "viability standard" (digression) Accept the Mississippi limit

• Minority decision:

• Major claims

• 1. Majority decision takes rights away from women if they are pregnant.
• 2. Roe and Casey support a long line of settled cases on privacy, private choices about family matters, sexuality, and procreation. (In a way, Thomas might agree, but want to reconsider those.) 50 years of reliance.

Supreme Court, Excerpts from Dobbs (1-13)

• Majority Decision

• Background and context of Roe as departure from history of country. Liberalization was occurring but Roe cut it off. Presents Casey as disputed opinion, not really an endorsement of Roe. Casey was a partial overruling of Roe.
• p. 5: Major statement of ruling. ....not in history or tradition... (new, originalist, standard for "unenumerated" rights)
• Long evidentiary argument to support the major premise about history and tradition. Draws conclusion p. 7/25.
• Discusses Plessy as example of overturning stare decisis.
• Robert's concurrence: p. 11/7: Throw out the viability standard

Alfino, "Interpretation..." main points (1-13)

• Basic Intuitions about liberty and abortion:

• Not unreasonable to say life begins with conception
• Also, unreasonable to deny that liberty and autonomy are constrained without a right elective of abortion.
• Abortion rights is a problem of understanding what basic liberties are. Start there.

• The Dobbs decision:

• The majority determined indirectly that elective abortion isn't a constitutional right by applying an originalist approach to determining unenumerated rights. That approach is in contrast to the "living document" approach of the minority (and the jurisprudence of privacy of the past 4-6 decades. They left open the possibility that the right could be legislated as a statutory right or prohibited.

• Originalism - Unenumerated rights must be part of the history and tradition of the country. Without this constraint judicial opinions are too subjective. Interpreting a contract requires finding language in the contract that speaks to the immediate issue.
• Living document - The meanings of words like "liberty" and "autonomy" change over time. The Framers and Ratifiers intended us to update the meanings of basic terms in light of experience. (Justice Kagan: "We're all originalists." see p. 9 Alfino). Many of our decisions do require applying new meanings or cases not envisioned by the Framers.

• Political Orientation Issue -- In light of our study of the nature of morality, we can't miss the fact that these different approaches to interpretation reflect fundamentally conservative and liberal political orientations. How should we take that into account if finding a solution to conflicts over basic liberties?

Small Group Discussion

• On our initial dive into the Dobbs decision, we now see that the Court engaged the broad question: "How do we interpret "unenumerated rights". In that sense the decision was about more than abortion. More like, "How do we update the social contract (as embodied in the constitution) when new liberties arise?" One group advocates and "originalist" approach while the other advocate a "living document" approach. In a small group discussion, consider what you find appealing or negative about these approaches. Keep a list. You may also want to consult the list of sample laws for next class discussion.

12: OCT 3.

Assigned

• Tribe, Lawrence. "Deconstructing Dobbs" (1st half, 1-8)
• Supreme Court of the US, "Excerpts from the Dobbs Decision," (13-29)

In-class

• Finding our language for Basic Liberties

Lawrence Tribe, “Deconstructing Dobbs”, NYRB, Sept 22, 2022

• Concerns: 10 year old rape victim in Ohio; criminal penalties for doctors, no IVF, Texas style enforcement, criminalizing abortion seeking? Point: Dobbs is creating lots of uncertainty in the law.

• The jurisprudence:

• Roe and Casey had created settled law, contra majority.
• Majority makes Roe and Casey look like isolated precedents, abberations, but not so.
• Criticism of the court's treatment of the 9th amendment:

• 9th: enumeration of rights isn’t exhaustive. problem of "unenumerated rights". Constitution says they exist, but can't list them. Invites "living document" approach. see p. 3.
• But the Majority just say that they don't find abortion among the unenumerated rights referred to by 9th am. Tribe thinks that's an odd claim to make since the 9th just says any (unspecified) rights not enumerated are still reserved to the People.

• Majority decision doesn't say why compelling pregnancy isn't a violation of liberty.
• The court has found unenumerated aspects of other rights, extending 1st am for example.
• Agrees with dissent that travel rights could be impacted, not withstanding Kavanaugh's claim. p. 5
• Reviews the approach to liberty of contract in Lochner Era: SC used to strike down min wage laws on grounds of "liberty of contract".
• Agrees with the dissent that merely saying abortion is different from other rights supported by Roe and Casey (like contraception and same sex marriage) isn't sufficient because they are clearly analogous. p. 6
• Key argument against the decision at p. 7: Dobbs doesn't recognize fetus as a legal person yet allows it's interests to supersede the interests of the legal person who gestates it. Tribe quotes from his one arguments in Roe v Wade that the development of the fetus is continuous and does not offer a clear distinction between potential and actual life.

Supreme Court, Excerpts from Dobbs (13-29)

• From the dissent: Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.

• Opening claim at 13, Roe/Casey engaged in a balance of interests recognizing difference in moral viewpoint.
• In practice, after Casey, states were allowing states to impose some restrictions before viability (but not a "substantial obstacle", prohibition after viability, protecting maternal health after viability.
• Claims that Dobbs: allows state to compel gestation even in cases that endanger maternal health, or cases of rape and incest, severe fetal abnormalities (ex. Tay-Sachs disease). Also, potential for states to prohibit travel, possibility of Federal ban (which means states don't have the right).
• The decision "curtails the rights of women and status as free and equal citizens." Potentially includes other rights: contraception, marriage...
• Basic liberties: 17 “protecting autonomous decision making over the most personal of life decisions.”

• Historical record: 19th century criminalization of abortion was short term change, common law not so harsh on “pre-quickening” abortion. (21).
• The ratifiers of the 14th am were all men. They did not consider women to be equal members of the society. Since we do, this undermines aspects of their thinking.
• On interpretation: "living document" argument (24); reviews history of using the 14th to strike down miscegenation laws, allow gay marriage. response to conservative concerns 25. Evolution of meaning of "liberty" still tied to constitutional principles. (It won't be "anything goes".)
• Dobbs majority lowers the test of an abortion law's constitutional legitimacy to "rational basis" (lowest standard -- basic liberties use "strict scrutiny"). rational basis standard may ignore maternal health, allow travel restrictions, prevent medical abortion. 28

Finding the language of basic liberties

• For John Stuart Mill, the language of basic liberties starts with freedom of conscience, thought, and discussion. But that's not enough. You also have to be able to live your life according to your own way of thinking, without interference from church, state, or any other coercive power.

• In practice, specific areas of our lives seem to be the focus of liberty, so the "language of basic liberty" might include the way we talk about these area. The integrity and privacy of our bodies, the ability to make decisions about what happens to and in my body. By extension, the privacy of my intimate relationships. But the ability to live my identity publicly requires some toleration of my choices and my identity. Of course, others have freedom of conscience as well. So they may think what they want about me, but enjoyment of basic liberty involves a commitment not to treat others unequally because of our differences.

• Freedom of Conscience, Liberty of thought, Freedom of Expression (and worship).

• These are pretty well understood in our culture, but there are still plenty of cases. Examples from interpersonal ethics. Examples from societal and public policy perspectives.

• Body, Bodily Autonomy, and Physical Intimacy:

• In a free society, you should expect to have a great deal of control and decision-making about your body, your health, and intimacy. Some of these liberties are covered by your due process rights, which place rules on the condition under which you can be incarcerated, especially prior to a trial. But many other bodily autonomy rights are not specifically enumerated as basic liberties. How do you respond to the following hypothetical constraints on liberty? Some you may find easier to locate your response than others. Note that. Try to describe your reaction, including reasoning.

• Examples: Which of these laws would violate a "basic liberty" (something that should not be decided by majority rule?) Which of these are easy and which more complicated? Can you think of more examples?

• A law allowing discrimination against women for hiring to jobs deemed too hard for women.
• Pumping a person’s stomach for drugs as part of a criminal investigation.
• Forced sterilization, forced reproduction.
• A law prohibiting vasectomies or requiring men to reverse them.
• A law allowing anyone doubting a student athlete’s eligibility for a team sport to demand “genital inspection” (actual proposed law, tabled).
• A law prohibiting you from receiving gender affirming care from a physician.
• A law prohibiting tattoos.
• A law forcing a person to get an abortion.
• A law requiring end of life medical care against a person’s wishes. (Note diffs among states.)
• A law requiring blood donations.
• A law prohibiting same sex marriage and intimacy or contraception.
• A law requiring you to notify the government when you travel or restricting travel.
• A law requiring you to register with the government to access social media or when you rent a hotel room.
• A law requiring cis-gender conforming dress and behavior in public.
• A law allowing police or others gov't representative to do a "wellness check" on you.
• A law allowing the gov't to remove weapons from your possession on reports of erratic or disturbing reports about you, including disturbing social media posts.
• A law requiring employer's to pay a minimum wage, regulate contracts, etc.

Some “maybe nots”. Maybe these would not violate basic liberties. With these items (assuming you agree), try to develop language for saying why liberty is not violated by the law. If you disagree, try to express your reasons.

• Maybe not: A law legalizing very addictive and deadly drugs.
• Maybe not: Limiting access to dangerous biological agents or radioactive materials.
• Maybe not: Laws regulating explosives and bomb making materials, including surface to air missiles.
• Maybe not: A law decriminalizing sex with minors.
• Maybe not: A law allowing someone to choose to become an indentured servant or slave.
• Maybe not: A law allowing first responders to restraint or detain or medicate a person in a mental health crisis from harming themselves.
• Maybe not: A law prohibiting private companies from imposing appropriate workplace attire rules, and confidentiality agreements.
• Maybe not: A law prohibiting public nudity.

13: OCT 8.

Assigned

• Tribe, Lawrence. "Deconstructing Dobbs" (2nd half, 9-17)
• Alfino, "Interpretation, Political Orientation, and the Basic Liberties in the Dobbs Decision" (12-end)

In-class

• How to see your score on SW1. [14]

• Some basic data on abortions from Pew [15].

• Comparing gestational limits by country.[16]. Note: This is from a right to life group, but I have seen similar data elsewhere.

Tribe, "Deconstructing Dobbs" 2nd half (p. 8-12)

• Tribe thinks only a religious view of the embryo supports this view. "Republican form of government" seems antithetical to a theocracy. Other evidence that the court is reflecting a preference for Christian thought in reading the 1st amendement. (Note: Alabama judge in IVF case invokes religious language in decisions. [17]

• Tribe sees elements of a "tyranny of the minority" in Dobbs, but also in Kennedy v Bremmerton (religious fball coach). He also thinks that the fact that 3 of the justices were appointed by a president who lost the majority vote is relevant.
• Tribe also feels the court Majority is being inconsistent in its interpretive theory in the case of Bruen, which treats the right to concealed carry of guns as grounded in the 2nd amendment, even though the types of guns did not exist in our "history and traditions".

• In the remaining 2-3 pages Tribe extends his argument against the conservative court by objecting to other putatively radical decisions it has made.

More "language of basic liberties"

• In addition to your liberty to control your body, bodily autonomy, and intimacy, we recognize (by statute and judicial opinion) basic liberties to control some personal information and to direct the upbringing of your children (parental rights) and other protections for family life. At a practical level, parental rights often involve schooling, which is local in our society. Still, cases reach the Supreme Court.

• Personal Information and Privacy Examples

• A law requiring you to share your browsing history with the government.
• A law requiring you to share your medical records with the government.
• A law requiring you to send a full frontal nude picture of yourself to the government every 5 years.
• A law allowing anyone to discover your bank account balances.
• A law requiring you to explain your reasons for divorce to a judge (before “no fault”divorce).
• A law conferring a “right to be forgotten” (to have internet information about you deleted). This is a right guaranteed in the European Union.

• Family and Parental Rights Examples

• A law prohibiting parents from exempting their kids from some sex education programs.

• But maybe not: A law allowing parents to exempt their kids from hearing basic public health information, including information about sexually transmitted diseases.

• A law requiring family members to testify against each other.

• But maybe not: A law preventing the government from checking on child welfare and acting on serious problems, including removing children from their parents’ care.

• A zoning ordinance prohibiting grandparents from living with their families (actual controversy).
• A zoning ordinance prohibiting polyamorous households in a neighborhood. (!)
• A law prohibiting home schooling.
• A law prohibiting parents and their children from receiving gender affirming care.

• But maybe not: A law allowing parents to chose any elective surgery they wish for their kids.

Planning your SW2: Organizing your thoughts on Basic Liberties and Abortion Rights

• Consider the following questions as you prepare to write about Basic Liberties and Abortion rights

• Is there a constitutional basic liberty (or liberties) at stake in the abortion rights issue? Use your "language of basic liberties" to express this or to say why there isn't one.
• If there is a right to elective abortion, how should we think about it?

• 1. As a balance between the liberty interests of the fetus/baby and the host/mother?

• possible balancing points: Conception (some pro life), "Clear opportunity" (gestational limits/ Roberts), Viability (Roe/Casey)

• 2. As a majoritarian issue -- any law expressing a "rational basis" may be constitutional

• 3. A new constitutional amendment --

• Argument strategies:

• Determine that abortion rights is "more like" other matters that are or aren't basic liberties.
• For prolife: Begin with some form or personhood for the fetus and then consider competing liberty claims.

SW2: What are Basic Liberties (800 words)

• Stage 1: Please write an 800 word maximum answer to the following question by Monday October 14th, 11:59pm.

• Topic: Drawing on resources from this unit and your own reflection, devote the first part of your essay (150-200 words) to these questions: What is your theory of basic liberties? What makes something a basic liberty and why are they important? Then, in the second part, apply your view about basic liberties to the abortion question, taking into account our work in this unit. How would you have decided Dobbs based on your view of whether abortion is a constitutionally protected basic liberty? Be sure sure to address the strongest arguments for a view opposing yours and your response. You must consider the liberty interests of both parties.

• Writing Advice for SW2 : You are being asked to give and consider different arguments in this paper. Be sure you are giving both the “what and the why. The “what” is descriptive content. The “why” is reason-giving (argument).

• Advice about collaboration: Collaboration is part of the academic process and the intellectual world that college courses are based on, so it is important to me that you have the possibility to collaborate. I encourage you to collaborate with other students, but only up to the point of sharing ideas, references to class notes, and your own notes, verbally. Collaboration is also a great way to make sure that a high average level of learning and development occurs in the class. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to NOT share text of draft answers or outlines of your answer. Keep it verbal. Generate your own examples.

• Prepare your answer and submit it in the following way. You will lose points if you do not follow these instructions:

1. To assure anonymity, you must remove your name from the the "author name" that you may have provided when you set up your word processing application. For instructions on removing your name from an Word or Google document, [click here].
2. Format your answer in double spaced text, in a typical 12 point font, and using normal margins. Do not add spaces between paragraphs and indent the first line of each paragraph.
3. Do not put your name in the file or filename. You may put your student ID number in the file. Always put a word count in the file. Save your file for this assignment with the name: BasicLiberties.
4. To turn in your assignment, log into courses.alfino.org, click on the "1 SW2 - Points" dropbox.
5. If you cannot meet a deadline, you must email me about your circumstances (unless you are having an emergency) before the deadline or you will lose points.

• Stage 2: Please evaluate four student answers and provide brief comments and a score. Review the Assignment Rubric for this exercise. We will be using the Flow and Content areas of the rubric for this assignment. Complete your evaluations and scoring by TBD, 2023, 11:59pm.

• To determine the papers you need to peer review, identify your animal from the email you received. Then find your animal in the animal list at the bottom of that email. Review the next four animals after yours, looping to the top if necessary.

• Use this Google Form to evaluate four peer papers. Submit the form once for each review.

• Some papers may arrive late. If you are in line to review a missing paper, allow a day or two for it to show up. If it does not show up, go back to the key and review the next animal's paper, continuing until you get four reviews. Do not review more than four papers.

• Stage 3: I will grade and briefly comment on your writing using the peer scores as an initial ranking. Assuming the process works normally, most of my scores probably be within 1-2 points of the peer scores, plus or minus.

• 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: [18]. Fill out the form for each reviewer, but not Alfino. You must do the back evaluation to receive credit for the whole assignment. Failing to give back-evaluations unfairly affects other classmates.

• Back evaluations are due TBD, 11:59pm.

14: OCT 10. 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

• 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. [19]

• 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 [20]

• 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:

• It may be bigotry to think less of someone because they have a different political orientation than you.

Implications from this research for how we interact with others on moral and political values questions - Small Group Discussion

• In your groups, consider some of the following questions:

• Should we be more careful about how we interact over political orientation (compare to other identity issues)?
• Is it bigotry to tell someone or imply to someone that they shouldn't be conservative or liberal?
• Should we consider new conversational strategies (and values) to accomodate the new research?
• In light of this research, what is the best way to get someone with a different political orientation than you to agree on your issue commitment?

Conversational Strategies for Engaging Political Difference

• A big problem that this unit leaves us with is, "How do we interact with people with different matrices and different experiences, especially concerning political value differences, when we hold our own views with conviction and sense of their truth? In other words, how do we deal with the Paradox of Moral Experience?

• Why this is so difficult...

• We often unintentionally (and, for some people, intentionally) create "cognitive dissonance" in a discussion, leading people to find ways to stop the pain, rather than listen to the issues. This can escalate.
• We don't always have reasons for our convictions, but, as we know from the dumbfounding research, we "confabulate". We confuse intuitions with reasoned conviction. This can lead us to "pile on" arguments, thinking they are persuasive apart from the intuitions (moral matrix) that support them. But if you don't have those intuitions, the "pile on" can feel aggressive.
• We don't all react the same way when our views are criticized. (Remember Socrates' attitude here. Noble but difficult to achieve.)

• 1. Three Basic Strategies:

• A. Explore differences gently. Monitor your vital signs and those of your interlocutors.
• B. Find common goals or things to affirm. (Example of landlord interaction last semester.)
• C. Model exploratory thought. (How do you do that, specifically?) See sympathetic interpretation below.
• These strategies obviously move you in different directions in a conversation, but they can all be used together to manage "dissonance" and tension in a discussion.

• 2. Practice Sympathetic Interpretation

• In general, sympathetic interpretation involves strategies that mix "identification" (peanuts for the elephant) with "critical engagement" (rational persuasion, expression of value differences)
• Try to understand where a view is "coming from". Ask questions.
• Restate views, checking for fairness.

• 3. Other miscellaneous strategies (many contributed by students):

• Cultivate diverse relationships if possible.
• Avoid pejorative labels.
• Views can change even if orientations don't. Focus on views, not orientations.
• Accept differences that won't change (validate them in others, as you would other differences), focus on pragmatics and cooperation.
• Humor, if possible. Self-effacing humor can set the stage.
• Acknowledge physio-politics in the discussion. Give people "permission" or space to "out" themselves as libs and cons.
• Acknowledge your own orientation and expect it to be respected.
• Don't "sugar coat" differences. (Be true to yourself.)

Argumentative and Rhetorical Strategies for Engaging Political Difference

• Acknowledge partial truths in opposing views, and weaknesses in your own view.
• Present your issue commitment as something that should appeal to someone with a different political orientation.

  • Practice "strategic dissimulation" (controversial for some). "I'm still working out my views here..." when you really have pretty well worked out views, even one's you are proud of and think to be true (Paradox of Moral Experience)

• Practice "strategic self-deprecation" - Acknowledge knowledge deficits or evidentiary weaknesses in your view as a way of inviting a more critical discussion.
• Use verbal cues that indicate (if possible) that views you disagree with are "reasonable" and/or "understandable". That could mean:

• 1. The view is reasonable, even if you disagree. Preface your disagreement by acknowledging this.

• Example: "Reasonable and well-informed people disagree on this..."... "Well, your in good company..."

• 2. The view seems unreasonable, but you focus on some intuitions that support it, even if you don't share these intuitions.

• Example: I can see how/why someone would feel this way..., but...

• 3. The view seems unreasonable and false to you, but it is one that many people hold.

• Example: Acknowledging that the view is widely held without endorsing it. You can also "deflect" to the complexity of the problem or human nature...

15: OCT 15.

Assigned

• Haidt C6 – “Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind” – (123-127; 4) – moral foundations theory
• Haidt C7 – “The Moral Foundations of Politics” – (128-153; 25) – moral foundations theory

In-Class

• Haidt's Moral Foundations Questionaire (MFQ) research for Moral Foundations Theory (MFT)
• Argumentative and Rhetorical Strategies for Engaging Political Difference

Haidt, Chapter 6, "Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind"

• 123: Moral Foundations Theory (MFT)

• Modularity in evolutionary psychology, centers of focus, like perceptual vs. language systems. Sperber and Hirshfield: "snake detector" - note on deception/detection in biology/nature. responses to red, Hyperactive agency detection.

• See chart, from shared folder: C F L A S: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation

• Work through chart. Note how the "adaptive challenges" are some of the things we have been reading research on.

• Original vs. current triggers, 123 Reason/Intuition

• Small group discussion: Try to find examples from everyday life of events do or would trigger each of these foundations. Consider either real cases of people you know and the things they say or examples from general knowledge, or even hypothetical examples. For example:

• You and your friends all worry about COVID cases, but some more than others. Might be observing the Care/Harm trigger, or Sanctity/Degradation.
• You see a parent speaking very harshly to their toddler in a store. The toddler is crying their eyes out.
• You and your friends all occasionally enjoy risqué humor, but you are uncomfortable listening to people talk about intimate things like sex casually. Maybe you have a different sanctity trigger.
• You hear someone talk uncharitably about someone who sees them as a good friend. You are triggered for disloyalty.
• You and a co-worker agree that your boss is a bit full of himself. You find yourself pushing back, but your co-worker just ignores his boorish behavior. You have different triggers for authority and subversion.
• You like Tucker Carlson, but then you see that one of his pro-Putin shows is being run on Russian TV along with Trump’s and Pompeo’s praise for the warmongering dictator. It feels like betrayal.

• Focus on both ways that we are all triggered and ways that we are differentially triggered.

Haidt, Chapter 7, "The Moral Foundations of Politics"

• Homo economicus vs. Homo sapiens -- column a b -- shows costs of sapiens psych. commitments "taste buds"
• Note on Innateness and Determinism: "first draft" metaphor; experience revises - pre-wired not hard-wired. innate without being universal. (Note this is the same anti-determinism disclaimer we got from Hibbing & Co.)
• Notes on each foundation:

• Care/Harm -- evolutionary story of asymmetry between m/f interests/strategies in reproduction, attachment theory (read def). current triggers. Baby Max and stuffed animals -- triggers.

• Implicit theory about "re-triggering" note red flag. unexplained. Consider plausibility.

• Fairness/Cheating -- We know we incur obligation when accepting favors. So,... Trivers and reciprocal altruism. "tit for tat" ; equality vs. proportionality. Original and current problem is to build coalitions (social networks) without being suckered (exploited). Focus on your experience of cooperation, trust, and defection (which could just be declining cooperation). Public goods game research also fits here. Libs think of fairness more in terms of equality, conservatives more about proportionality.
• Loyalty/Betrayal -- Tribalism in story of Eagles/Rattlers. liberals experience low emphasis here; note claim that this is gendered 139. sports groupishness is a current trigger. connected to capacity for violence. Liberals can come across as disloyal when they think they are just being critical. Note current culture conflicts over confederate symbols and statues fits here.
• Authority/Subversion -- Cab driver story. Hierarchy in animal and human society; liberals experience this differently also; note cultural work accomplished by the "control role" -- suppression of violence that would occur without hierarchy. Alan Fiske's work on "Authority Ranking" -- suggest legit recognition of difference and, importantly, not just submission. Authority relationships are a two way street (maybe esp for conservs?). Tendency to see UN and international agreements as vote dilution, loss of sov. (Digressive topic: Should we mark authority relationships more?)
• Sanctity/Degradation -- Miewes-Brandes horror. Ev.story: omnivores challenge is to spot foul food and disease (pathogens, parasites). (Being an omnivore is messy. One should not be surprised to find that vegetarians often appreciate the cleanliness of their diet.) Omnivores dilemma -- benefit from being able to eat wide range of foods, but need to distinguish risky from safe. neophilia and neophobia. Images of chastity in religion and public debate. understanding culture wars. The ability to “sanctify” something (bodies, environment, principles) is an important current trigger.

• Some examples from current political bumper stickers. [21]

16: OCT 17.

Assigned

• Haidt, C8 - "The Conservative Advantage," (155-163; 8) - MFQ research supporting MFT.
• Hibbing C2 – “Getting into Bedrock with Politics” – (33-56; 23) – political orientation v political issues, Bedrock Social Dilemmas research.

In-Class

• Unit 2: Moral Psychology worksheet posted.

Hibbing, et. al. Predisposed Chapter 2

• Begins with allegations that universities are left-biased. Points out counterexample in Russell. Students can be more radical than even lefty faculty. City college story. 34ff: ironically its most lasting intellectual movement was neoconservatism.

• Point of story:

• 1) Colleges' political orientations have little predictable effect on their students. (Think about this in relationship to Gonzaga.)
• 2) Politics and political beliefs are fungible, change dep on time and place. No discussions these days of Stalin-Trotskyism. Or ADA, which conservatisms opposed. True, issues and labels change, but, acc to Hibbing et al, adult humans do not vary in orientation, politics is, at its core, dealing with a constant problem, invariable. Found in "bedrock social dilemmas" (BSDs).

• Back to Aristotle

• "Man" is by nature political. -- Politics deep in our nature. But A also speculated that town life, while natural, was not original. An achievement of sorts, not wholly natural.
• Evidence: GWAS (Gene wide association studies) studies suggest more influence from gene difference on political orientation than economic prefs.
• Politics and Mating: Political orientation is one of the top correlate predicting mate selection. (39). We do look for diff personality traits in a partner, but not when it comes to pol orientation (or drinking behavior and religion!). Considers two objections: mates become similar over time or the correlation is an effect of the selection pool "social homogamy" But no sign of convergence of orientation over time of relationship (but views on gender roles tend to diverge! Nota bene!). Studies controlling for demographic factors undermine second objection.

• Politics is connected to willingness to punish political difference. (Which helps explain our sensitivity to "political prosecution".) 40-41.

• Differences Galore?

• Need to separate issues, labels, and bedrock social dilemmas.
• Issues arise naturally in the society, but can also be "promoted" by actors and parties.
• Labels distinguish groups contesting issues. They organize approaches to issues by orientation. Practically, political parties do this, but also media. Labels and parties shift over time, presumably as they compete for voters (or, "package them".)
• ”Labels are simply the vocabulary employed to describe the reasonably systematic orientations toward issues that float around a polity at a given time.” 41
• Label "liberal" - today means mildly libertarian, but liberal economic policy isn't libertarian at all (involves income transfer). Mentions historical origin of Left/Right. Generally, liberals are more about equality and tolerance, but communists can be authoritarian. Generally, conservatives focus on authority, hierarchy, and order (more than libs), but they often defend rights in ways that make common cause with liberals (protections from the gov't, free speech).

• Conclusion they are resisting: (43): political beliefs are so multidimensional and variable that left and right don't have any stable meaning. Ideology is fluid, but there are universals (regarding BSDs).

• Commonality Reigns! Political Universals

• Bedrock social dilemmas (BSD): "core preferences about the organization, structure, and conduct of mass social life" 44
• BSDS: leadership, decision-making, resource distribution, punishment, protection, and orientation to tradition vs change.
• Questions associated with BSDs: How should we make decisions? What rules to follow? What do we do with rule violators? Should we try something new or stick with tradition?
• Predispositions defined: political orientations that are biologically instantiated. these differences are more stable than labels and issues.
• Example of conceptual framework at work: attitudes toward military intervention. tells the story of changing conservative views of intervention, Lindbergh and the AFC. Late 20th century conservatives were interventionists (commie domino theory), but early century conservatives were isolationists. These changes make sense in relation to the bedrock challenge of dealing with external threats. Shifting analysis of threats can change policy 180 degrees. 48: Pearl Harbor!
• Example 2: Conservatives softening on immigration after electoral defeats in 2012. Early politics leading to DACA? Conservatives still consistently more suspicious of out groups. (heightened threat detection)
• Note the possibilities: Same view of issue, different ideologies expressing different orientations (Vietnam). Same orientation expressed in different ideologies and different positions on issues (Conservative isolationism before/after Pearl Harbor).

• Key point in the theory is that these "bedrock dilemmas" occur once cities become too large for people to know each other. Interesting point: We had to use principles to express ourselves about these BSDs because we couldn't influence each other directly.

• "Society works best when..."

• Bold thesis: looking for universality as: consistent differences across time and culture. Example: Optimates and populares in Ancient Greece.
• Left and right have deep associations. left handed suspect.
• History of research on connection between core preferences on leadership, defense, punishment of norm violators, devotion to traditional behavioral standards, distribution of resources. Laponce. Haidt's MFT.
• Look at the 4BSDs in relations to Haidt's MFT:

• 1. Adherence to tradition. (Neophobia/philia)
• 2. Treatment of outgroups and rule breakers (cooperation, defection, threat) (C, F, L)
• 3. Role of group/individual (freeriding, self-interest, social commitment) (F, L)
• 4. Authority and Leadership (Legitimate authority and hierarchy) (A)

• "Society works best Index" 2007 research "Predicted issue attitudes, ideological self-placement, and party identification with astonishing accuracy" .6 correlation. Pursuing international research with SWB. Note this is "synchronous" research. A snapshot of both BSD and Issue orientation. We will see similar empirical support for the MFT in Haidt, C8.

Haidt, Chapter 8: The Conservative Advantage

• Hadit's critique of Dems: Dems offer sugar (Care) and salt (Fairness), conservatives appeal to all five receptors. Imagine the value of "rewriting" our own or opposing ideologies as Haidt imagined doing. Dems should appeal to loyalty and authority more. Neglect may be ommission and underrepresent Dems (recall discussion of labels and issues. We could add "values".)

• Republicans seemed to Haidt to understand moral psych better, not because they were fear mongering, but triggering all of the moral moral foundations. Equalizer metaphor.

• Measuring Morals

• The MFQ: consistency across cultures; large n;

• 162: Correlations of pol orientation with preferences for dog breeds, training, sermon styles. You can catch liberal and conservative "surprise" in the EEG and fMRI.(similar to early Hibbing reading).

• What Makes People Vote Republican?

• biographical note about tracking Obama on left/right triggers. Message on parental resp, but then shift to social justice, global citizenship, omitted flag lapel pin.

• 164: Haidt's argument for replacing "old story" of political difference: there's something wrong with conservatives! Note reactions to his essay: some libs/conserv found it hard to establish a positive view of their "opponents". Haidt has implicit critique of Libs by saying that organic society can't just be about 2 foundations. Experience with his essay. follow.

• Mill vs. Durkheim - responses to the challenge of living with strangers in modern society. Individualism vs. Organic society. Haidt’s essay triggers lots of political venom. From that response, however, Haidt noticed that he was missing a foundation: Fairness as proportionality. You reap what you sow. The fairness foundation mixed fairness as equality and fairness as proportionality.

• 6th Moral foundation: liberty and oppression: taking the "fairness as equality" from Fairness and considers it in terms of Liberty/Oppression. [Some discussion here. Note relation to Authority/Leadership in Hibbing. Equality here means social equality and social hierarchy. When do we expect equal treatment? When do we tolerate hierarchy? When to we rebel. Similarity to Authority/subversion, but more than legitimacy of one authority figure, rather social hierarchy.

• The Liberty / Oppression Foundation

• ”The desire for equality more closely related to psychology of liberty / oppression that reciprocal altruism.

• Evolutionary story about hierarchy.

• Original triggers: bullies and tyrants, current triggers: illegit. restraint on liberty.
• Evolutionary/Archeological story: egalitarianism in hunter gatherers, hierarchy comes with agriculture.
• Emergence of pre-ag dominance strategies -- 500,000ya weapons for human conflict (and language to complain about bullies and tyrants) takes off. This changes the strategic problem. Parallel in Chimps: revolutions: "reverse dominance hierarchies" are possible.

• Cultural Evo Theory on cultural strategies toward equality: Societies make transition to some form of political egalitarianism (equality of citizenship or civic equality). We've had time to select for people who can tolerate political equality and surrender violence to the state. (Got to mention dueling here.) Culture domestics us. "Self-domestication".

• ”The liberty/oppression foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of living in small groups with individuals who would, if gen the chance, dominate, bully, and constrain others.

• Liberal vs. Conservative triggers on Liberty/Oppression:

• Liberals experience this in terms of universalistic goals like social justice, abuse of the power of the most fortunate. Oppressed individuals.
• Conservatives triggered more by group level concerns. The nanny state is oppression, taxation is oppressive, globalism is a threat to sovereignty.

• 'Fairness as Proportionality’

• After mortgage crisis recession of 2008 some like Santelli thought it unfair to bail out banks and borrowers. This is really a conservative version of fairness as proportionality, which shares some features of the "reciprocal altruism", such as necessity of punishment.

• Public Goods games (again). Setup. 1.6 multiplier. Still, best strategy is not to contribute. altruistic punishment can be stimulated (84% do) even without immediate reward. cooperation increases. 84% paid to punish because we are triggered by slackers and free riders.

• In the research on Liberty / Oppression, Haidt and others find that concerns about political equality track Lib/Oppression, so fairness is about proportionality.

• Summary: Liberals have emphasize C, F, Lib while conservatives balance all six. Libs construe Fairness in more egalitarian ways and have diff emphasis for Liberty/Oppression. Many liberals and conservatives have a hard time forming a positive image of each other, but when you think about this, it sounds like something to work on. In light of this research and theorizing, one could see that as a character flaw or unsupported bias.

Moral Psychology Unit Assessment

• Our Unit on Moral Psychology began on February 8 with learning on System 1 and 2, Churchland's chapter 4, "Norms and Values", and our study of empathy over two classes. Then we took a break for Dobbs and returned to the unit on February 29 with Churchland's Chapter 5, "I'm just that way." The unit finishes this week with Haidt's Moral Foundations theory (MFT), his MFQ research, and Hibbing's theory of Bedrock Social Dilemmas.

• Here is the google form this this assessment. It will be due on the Friday after Spring Break, March 22nd, at midnight.

17: OCT 22 Unit Four: Justice and Justified Partiality.

Assigned

• Hidden Brain, "Playing Favorites: When kindness toward some means callousness toward others"
• Rawls' Theory of Justice. Watch both:

• 16 minute video focused on Rawls: [22].
• 6 minute video, PBS series: [23]

In Class

• Is there a limit to partiality to kin?

Introduction to Justified Partiality Unit

• A typical question for thinking about social justice is, "What do I owe strangers?". We've mentioned the social contract, or even the constitution, as a place where this set of values (expectations) is realized, but there are some other avenues to justice that we explore in this unit.

• Some concepts:

• You owe strangers a duty of justice - something they can make a claim upon you for - (Examples) or
• You can also owe someone an informal or civil duty of interpersonal fairness/justice - you can't take me to court for not showing this sort of fairness or just treatment, but if you are on board with impersonal honesty, impersonal trust, and pro-sociality, you probably accept this duty at some level. (Examples)

• You can think of our approach in this unit as an indirect way of addressing the question of these two sorts of justice duties by starting with a different question:

• "What are the limits (if any) of partiality to family, intimates, friends?" (Your preference network)
• Personal Partiality - the legitimate preferences and treatment we show to friends, family, and intimates.

• Today's class is focused on "personal partiality," the kind that shows up in our interpersonal social relationships. The next class will focus on "impersonal altruism", which shows up in our commitments, if any, to benefit strangers, especially strangers in our society, but in some cases, globally.

• Three big questions:

• 1. What are some the social functions of personal preferential treatment? (Draw in material from podcast)
• 2. Could our networks of preferential treatment be the effect of and also promote injustice?
• 3. What principles or considerations might lead to you recognize a duty of interpersonal justice? (that is, should you direct some resources (time, money, in-kind aid) outside your preference network? (We need additional resources for Question #3)

Hidden Brain, "Playing Favorites"

• Intro

• Expectations for unique attention from one's beloved. We'd rather an inferior unique message than a message shared with others. We want partiality. (Think about cases in which someone shows you a simple preference -- offering to pay for coffee, give you a ride somewhere, just showing you attention. It's wonderful!)
• How does partiality fit with a desire for justice as equal treatment? Can partiality cause injustice?

• Segment 1: Carla's Story

• Discrimination research: IAT - Implicit Association Test - Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard) one of the researchers on IAT.
• Mahzarin Banaji and Professor Carla Kaplan (Yale English at time of story). Also a quilter. Friends in the 80s, among the few women at Yale. Story of injury to Carla. She gets preferential treatment because she is a professor, rather than because she was a quilter. Class based.
• Is it discrimination if you are given a preference? [Imagine a system of preferences given to those we know. Could such a system support systemic injustice?] Someone decides to show you "special kindness" -- above and beyond the ordinary. Language of discrimination based on "commission". But what about omission? Hard to know if you didn't get preferential treatment. Yikes! Carla got to see both what it was like to be treated same and different.
• Most injustices of "omission" are invisible.

• Story by Mahzarin about interview from former student journalist from magazine the professor didn't respect. Suddenly, the in-group information about being a Yaley was enough to trigger a preference. Preference networks in Ivy leagues schools. But also Gonzaga!!! We actively cultivate a preferential network for you! Because we care about you!
• "Helping those with whom you have a group identity" is a form of modern discrimination, acc to Mahzarin.
• Interesting feature of favoritism -- You often don't find out that you didn't get preferential treatment.
• Favoritism doesn't get as much attention as discrimination.

• Can you avoid favoritism?
• Could be based on "green beard effect" same school, etc.

• Segment 2: Dillon the Altruist 16:00 minutes.

• What would it be like to try to overcome favoritism.
• Story of Dillon Matthews. Tries to avoid favoritism. Middle school story. Utilitarian primer: Singer's argument about helping others in need. Thought experiment: Saving a child from a pond ruins your suit. Utilitarian altruism.
• Singer's Principle: If you can do good without giving up something of equal moral significance, you should do it.
• "Give Well" - documented charity work. (One of many sources that can assure you that your money did something good. Other examples: Jimmy Carter's mission, Gates' missions. If you had contributed to such a cause, you would have been effective.)
• Hannah’s model: Value the person in front of you. Then move out to others. Courtship with Dillon involves debate over these two approaches: Partiality justified vs not justified. Debating moral philosophy on a first date! Wow! It doesn't get any better than that.
• Effective altruism movement. The most good you can do. Evidence based altruism. Vs. Hannah: Focused on family, friends, your neighborhood, city. Parental lesson. Dinner together.
• Utilitarian logic. Equal happiness principle. Dillon not focused on preference to people near him, but on effectiveness of altruism. (Feel the rationality, and maybe the unnaturalness of this.)
• Dillon donates a kidney to a stranger. Hmm. Not giving his kidney felt like hoarding something. Hannah felt her beloved was taking an unnecessary risk. "Being a stranger" made a difference to her. Audio of Dillon’s recovery. Hmm. Dillon honored by Kidney Association.
• The Trolley Problem again, this time from Joshua Greene himself!! Watch "The Good Place".
• What if the person you had to sacrifice was someone you loved, your child. Dillon might do it. Dillion would do it. "They are all the heroes of their own stories..." Dillon would sacrifice Hannah. Hannah might sacrifice Dillion just know that's what he would want that, but no. She wouldn't. Dillion jokes that he might kill himself after killing his child.
• Greene: She recognizes that what he would do is rational. He's willing to override it, but he might not be able to live with himself for doing that. (Elephant and rider.)

• Segment 3: Neurobiology of Preference. 33:15 minutes.

• Naturalness of preference. Evolutionary background: Preference promotes cooperation. Suite of capacities. A package. Don't lie, cheat, steal...
• ”Morality is fundamentally about cooperation” (Greene): Kin cooperation....Cooperation among friends... reciprocity...semi-strangers (same religion. friend of kin. friend of friend of kin. Friends!
• Moral concentric circles. How big is my "Us"? What is the range of humans I care about and to what degree?
• Greene's analogy of automatic and manual camera modes. (Two systems. Automatic (elephant) and Deliberate (rider).) Difficult decisions might require manual mode.
• Manual mode: dlPFC (activated in utilitarian thought) (high cog load). Automatic -- amygdala. Snakes in the grass. Thank your amygdala. Point: We need both systems. We need lying, cheating, and stealing to be pretty automatic NOs!
• List: Easy calls: sharing concert tickets with a friend. Buying dinner for an intimate partner. Giving a more valuable gift to one person than another. Harder: Figuring out whether to donate money to help people far away. How much?
• Crying baby scenario. Inevitable outcomes seem to matter here. Brain wrestles, as in experience. vmPFC (evaluates/weighs)
• Lack of Tribal identity might tilt us toward rule based ethics. Equal treatment. Automatic systems not designed for a world that could help strangers 10,000 miles away.
• Loyalty cases: men placing loyalty to men above other virtues. Assumptions about family relationship. Do families sometime impose on your loyalty (can be disfunctional)? [Recent example of the Jan 6 insurrectionist who threatened his family not to rat him out. They did.] The "worth being loyal to" part is sometimes unexamined. [recall the passenger dilemma]
• Example: Spending lots of money on a birthday party.
• Back to Dillon: Acknowledges limits. Liver story. Bits of liver. It grows back. Partners not so much.
• Mazarin’s story about giving to alleviate Japanese disaster. We can retriever.
• — Giving Well — you really can save lives.
• Closing point by Joshua Greene. If you ran into a burning building and saved someone, it would be a highpoint of your life. Why not consider the same outcome heroic even if it doesn't involve a burning building?

Rawls Theory of Justice

• 16 minute video focused on Rawls: [24].
• 6 minute video, PBS series: [25]

• PBS short video on Rawls
• Justice as fairness - Ancient Greeks: harmony. Range of goals: liberty, caring for needs, etc.
• Justice is about distribution of goods. “Distributive justice”. Examples: equality, needs, merit (getting what you deserve), Rawls- Justice is fairness. Response to natural inequalities. This is a form of needs based justice. Life is unfair, justice is a remedy for that.
• Nozick (Libertarian) objects: Wilt Chamberlain thought experiment. Unjust to even out the playing field. As long as we don’t get our stuff by unjust means, we deserve our stuff.
• Negative rights v positive rights. “Freedom from interference” v “Right to some goods”

• ”Then and Now” video

• Rawls’ Theory of Justice 1972
• Responding to utilitarian views of justice. Criticism of utilitarianism. Might not protect rights sufficiently. Slavery example.
• Rawls want to mix a rights view with distributive justice. Rights are not directly utilitarian (though possibly indirectly)

• Original Social Contract tradition. Another Enlightenment philosophical product! See Social Contract wiki.

• Social contract tradition. Original position. What rules and principles would it be rational to choose?

• Rawls' basic method: Principles of justice should be chosen by following a kind of thought experiment in which you imagine yourself not knowing specific things about your identity and social circumstances. Adopting this special stance is what Rawls calls the "veil of ignorance" (parallel in Social Contract tradition)
• Original Position in Rawls' thought: Choosing principles of justice under a "veil of ignorance" (simple intuition about fairness: How do you divide the last piece of cake?

• Note how this realizes a basic condition of moral thought: neutrality, universalization, fairness.

• In the original position:

• You still know: human psychology, human history, economics, the general types of possible situations in which humans can find themselves.
• You don't know: your place in society, your class, social status, for tu in in natural assets and abilities, sex, race, physical handicaps, generation, social class of our parents, whether you are part of a discriminated group, etc.

• Note Rawls' argument for choosing things you don't know. He considers them "morally arbitrary." You don't deserve to be treated better or worse for your ethnicity, talents, health status, orientation, etc. Recall historically arbitrary differences like noble birth that we used to treat as morally significant.
• A conservative theorist might object. If a healthy person can earn more money and the freedom to earn money is a matter of moral consequence, then maybe health isn't morally arbitrary? On the other hand, you might be hard pressed to claim that you “deserve” more money because you had healthier genes. For Rawls, it might still be just for you to earn more, but you should also acknowledge that you are benefiting from “morally arbitrary” features of your existence while others are suffering from morally arbitrary deficits.

• So, what principles would it be rational to choose?

• Rawls claims we would choose the following two principles

• 1) Principle of Equal Liberty: Each person has an equal right to the most extensive liberties compatible with similar liberties for all.
• Basic liberties 11:46. Play. Freedom from: right to vote, speech, assembly, freedom of thought, property, from arbitrary arrest, from discrimination. Positive: Opportunities, basic education. (Egalitarian about rights.)
• 2) Difference Principle: Social and economic inequalities should be arranged so that they are both (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged persons, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of equality of opportunity. (Welfare principle for distribution of goods.). “Maximin” strategy maximizing the minimum possible position. Based on a risk calculation. (Note: people have different risk tolerance. Could be a criticism.)

• The core intuition behind Rawls' approach is that some things are "morally arbitrary". The veil is an attempt to exclude them.

18: OCT 24.

Assigned

• Introduction to Capabilities Approach [26], Sabine Alkire [27]
• Read, Martha Nussbaum, C2, The Central Capabilities (17-45; 28)

In-class

• "From Partiality to Justice - Justice in an Evolutionary Context"
• "How cultures commit impersonal or structural injustice."
• A continuum of justice positions (good for thinking about PP1!)

Small Group Discussion: Is there a limit to kin partiality?

• 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.

• 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:

• A. You and your partner retire with about 1 million dollars, a paid off house, and good health insurance.
• B. You have all of the conditions in A, but 2 million dollars in net worth.
• C. Same as B, but 8 million dollars.

• For all three scenarios, assume that all indications suggest continued growth of your assets. You are also "aging well"!

• 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.)

• Data on household net worth at retirement

From Partiality to Justice - Justice in an Evolutionary Context

• A basic definition of Justice: Matters of justice concern expectations that can be the basis of a claim by others upon us.

• Traditional Examples: equal treatment under the law, protection of rights, non-discrimination. Note that these are largely formal commitments, not commitments to material goods.

• More recently argued: disaster relief, health care, care for people with disabilities, early childhood care, guaranteed basic income.

• You can also make a claim of injustice against someone who defames you or cheats you on a contract. This might be a civil claim rather than a criminal complaint.

• Approaching justice in an evolutionary ethics context: We are by nature partial to ourselves, our kin, and intimates and friends. They benefit and support us in many ways. This is your personal preference network (PPN). You don't really need to justify your partiality to your PPN. It follows that you should use your resources to support your PPN. But you might have good reasons (self-interested or duty based) to allow claims of justice that will cost you resources (usually in the form of taxation). Here's a short list:

• A criminal justice system to protect rights and enforce the law.
• A system of education.
• A social safety net (disaster relief, but maybe also disability insurance, health care, early childhood care)
• A duty to promote "material rights," not just formal rights (freedoms that require resources, as in capability theory).
• A duty to prevent loss of human dignity

• Some quick information on the "cost" of different theories of justice.

How Cultures commit "impersonal or structural injustice"

• 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.
• Main Claim: Cultures allow humans to "normalize" claims that legitimate conduct not perceived as unjust, but later determined to be unjust.

• Think of examples of cultural ideas related to justice that were considered normal, but have since been shown to be incorrect:

• Some races are superior to others.
• Some cultures are superior to others.
• Race is not just a political category, but biologically real.
• The US can't compete at soccer. Well...
• Women can't do math and science.
• Women shouldn't do strenuous exercise. Etc....

• 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.)

• 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.

• 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.

• Point: From the standpoint of a formal justice model, you might not see an injustice, but if you ask about differential life outcomes and capabilities for Northern and Southern Italians, you might see an injustice.

Martha Nussbaum, C2, The Central Capabilities

• note on the references to Vasanti from the previous chapter.

• Capabilities Theory - approach to social justice that focuses on what people in a society can do or be. (This a short of material freedom - Sen's major work was Development as Freedom. Note how a development economist looks at things.) Rather than thinking about justice as fairness in the distribution of economic goods, capabilities theory sees the measure of social justice in a society in terms of how well they support basic human capabilities.

• 20: Capabilities are kinds of freedoms. They are both internal and external. (Example: Internal: Ability to ride a bike vs. External: having a bike and a place to ride it. "Combined capabilities" are both internal and external.

• People don't only deserve to have their capabilities realized only if they are smart or can afford it. Capabilities theory takes in the range of "innate capabilities" that people have, including cognitive and other disabilities.

• Capabilities theory isn't about "making" people function, but rather about giving people real options. A real option includes both the internal and external conditions for the capabilities.

• 26: problem of how to treat "options" that people might choose that damage their own capabilities: risky sports, drugs, selling organs.

• 29: Nussbaum adds a duty of dignity to the theory. This might help justify restricting options that are self-abasing (allowing oneself to be servile or live in squalor). With treatment of animals it might eliminate breeding of dogs against health, or banning cock fights or dog racing.

• 33: The List -- Health, Safety, Education, Social connection, Absence of fear or stress (note upcoming Sapolsky chapter on Stress and SES), Affiliation, recreation, autonomy.

• Note how abstract this list is, but also how it would allow a social justice critique that wouldn't just be about income transfer (Rawls).

19: OCT 29.

Assigned

• Libertarianism in Six Minutes
• Libertarianism wiki See for historical detail.
• Sapolsky, Chapter 17, “The View from the Bottom” from Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Recommended p. 353-383. If you don’t have time for the whole chapter, read from 362 to 383.

In-Class

• Justice is Expensive
• Imagining the Just Society
• PP1 assigned

Justice is Expensive

• We've spoken about the cost of extending obligations to strangers already. $260 billion to make disability benefits a reality for 10 million Americans, mostly strangers. California is planning to spend $6 billion on the homeless.

• Tax rates for wealthy countries that have more extensive social justice measures approach 45% of GDP.

• Income tax is only part of the tax revenue of a modern state, but consider this comparison. As a professor, my salary is nominally taxed at 24%, but my effective tax rate is only 16%. If I worked in Italy for the euro equivalent of my salary, it would be taxed at 43% (nominally). Italians also allow for deductions, so I'm guessing the effective tax rate would be about 33%? About double. And then many of the goods in stores will have a VAT tax that could be 20%. But then poverty is very low, everyone has health care, etc.

Libertarianism as a moral and political theory

• Libertarianism in Six Minutes (notes)

• Historical look: Libertarianism comes out of radical emancipatory politics.

• 17th century resistance to oppressive conditions. “Rent seekers”. Payne. "Those who pay taxes & those who live on taxes."
• Similar to socialism and capitalism, a view about what is fair.
• "Libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists,[6] especially social anarchists,[7] but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists." (from wiki).

• US libertarianism closer to free market capitalism vs. European meaning is more socialist. (Note: Political ideas can take multiple forms in relation to conservative/liberal.)

• Assumption of natural harmony among productive people with liberty of contract. Laws limited to protection and protection of natural rights. Anything more violates the "Non-aggressive principle". No regulation of market. Low social spending - people are responsible for themselves and their families. Taxes are presumed to be coercive and confiscatory.
• Conservative libertarian theorist, Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia: "Night watchman" state. (Not so close to anarchy, except consistent with strong sense of public order.)

• Problems identified in Thought Monkey Youtube:

• No libertarian candidates on the national stage in two party state.
• No successful libertarian states. No one's tried.
• Monopolies, poverty. (We have extraordinarily high inequality right now.)
• Doesn’t solve conflicts bt “Rentier” and propertyless. (Consider current inflationary rental markets.)
• No guarantee that you won’t “bleed out in the street” for lack of healthcare.
• Non-aggression principle unlikely in free market. Markets can be quite aggressive. Putting people out of their homes. Eviction.
• Assumes increase in wealth produces increase in happiness (Easterlin paradox - comes up in Happiness class)
• Environmental concerns require collective action, libertarians have idealistic response: people will buy from sustainable companies with coercion.

• Summing up:
• (US conservative) Libertarianism: fundamental concern with human freedom understood as avoidance of coercion; minimal state; some morals legislation - often anti-abortion; no redistribution of income or wealth. Strong concern with equality of liberty and avoidance of oppression, understood as forced labor.

• Basic intuition for conservative libertarianism: Taxation (beyond minimal state functions) is a form of forced labor. Only legitimate for a narrow range of goals that we mutually benefit from, such as defense.

• (US Liberal) Libertarianism: Also focused on freedom, especially regarding respect for identity differences and private behaviors (favors decriminalization/legalization of drugs), but retains some of the original left-wing concerns of socialism. ::*Liberal Libertarianism has a more material interpretation of rights.

• Liberty includes "bodily autonomy" - control of reproductive choices, choices about whom to be intimate with
• Are you really free if you are living on the street?
• Are you really free if you are discriminated against?
• Are you really free if you work full time and can't afford to take care of basic needs?

• To be fair, conservative libertarians have responses to these challenges: Charity, persuasion, voluntary methods.

• Basic intuition for liberal libertarianism: Government isn't the only source of coercion. Abstract negative liberty (freedom from coercion) doesn't full describe liberty. Positive liberty requires protection for specific behaviors and choices.

Sapolsky, Chapter 17, “The View from the Bottom” 353-383

• Example of social epidemiology in practice. [28]

• tension between reductive biology which focuses on immediate mechanisms of disease and illness and social or behavioral medicine, which looks at socio-political causes of illness.

• Famous pioneer in social medicine: Rudolph Virchow -- noticed in 1847 Typhus outbreak that disproportionately affected people living in poor social conditions.

• Focus of the chapter on how social rank (SES- socio-economic status) is a determinant of health and mortality.

• Pecking Orders Among Beasts with Tails

• wide range of animals engage in dominance hierarchies -- hens, baboons -- examples of types of dominance behavior. Subordinate male baboons have elevated resting glucocorticoid levels. Chronically activated stress levels predict a range of other physiological disregulation, including cholesterol, testosterone, immune response, etc. Stress related disseases.

• On the other hand, low rank in a dominance hierarchy in many species does not result in a chronic stress response. Ex: marmosets, wild dogs, and dwarf mongooses (359). Why? Short answer: in some species being low ranked isn't such a bad deal and being dominant is stressful. Typical factors that decide this question: being harassed by dominant members and being denied social support predict health effects from dominance. Stable dominance hierarchies also matter (for humans this would mean not expecting to get out of a low SES status).

• Do Humans have Ranks?

• Need to distinguish dominance from aggression. A Type a personality can be aggressive without being dominant. Studies of corporate hierarchies suggest top execs "give ulcers rather than get them". It's the middle managers who are stressed - responsibility without control. Sapolsky is a bit skeptical of these studies (363), especially as most of human history has been, we think, unhierarchical. (Hunter-gatherers were likely egalitarian.)

• The question of dominance among humans is also hard to assess because we are complicated. You can have low status and high stress at your job, but high status from church or community engagement. We also think about our challenges is diverse ways. (You may be far from winning the Bloomsday race, but having a great time.)

• One place Sapolsky is not skeptical about: being poor is a huge health risk.

• Socioeconomic status (SES), stress, and disease

• Description of poverty stress factors p. 364.

• Poverty also limits coping strategy resources (frequent crises, lack of social support, few resources in general). Poverty reduces personal choices for outlets for stress and limits personal safety (the poor experience crime more than high SES people).

• Only a few studies, but they support this claim. Montreal study: low-SES kids have double circulating glucocorticoids as high SES kids.

• Health risk from poverty is the biggest effect in behavioral medicine. Cardiovascular disease, resporatory disease, ulcers, rheumatoid disorders, psychiatric disorders, some cancers, infant mortality and mortality from all causes. Low SES predicts low birth weight (which has life long effects). Could be a 5-10 year difference in life expectance depending upon the country. Nun study (367)

• Puzzle of Health Care Access

• You would think access to health care would explain the difference, but only part of it. SES gradient in England worsening in spite of universal health care. You might suspect that people don't get treated equally in the health system (Carla's story!).

• But also, it's a "gradient". Marmot study used British Civil service ranking and found a gradient by job status. 4x great carido risk from low SES.

• The SES gradient exists for diseases not sensitive to health care access. juvenile diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, for example. (369).

• Risk factors and protective factors

• Poor people smoke more, eat less well, don't exercise as much, have less adequate heat in winter, more exposure to crime. Being poorly educated is a big risk factor, because it can affect your understanding of risks and ways to protect yourself (the poor are less likely to wear seat belts). These are risk and protective factors. Controlling for these factors may only account for about 1/3 of the SES gradient.

• You might think living in a wealthy country is a protective factor. One study of wealthies 1/4 of countries showed no relationship between wealth and health of citizens.

• Stress and the SES gradient

• Sapolsky thinks psychological factors, such as stress, may be part of the explanation for the SES gradient.

• 1. Poor have higher stress levels.
• 2. The SES gradient tracks stress related diseases.
• 3. Not clear what the competitor explanation would be, if not stress.

• Being poor versus feeling poor

• Newer research on "subjective poverty" not just actual SES status, but also how one perceives their SES status. Research question for subjective poverty 374. Subjective SES predicts health outcomes better than objective SES.

• Subjective SES is also about education, income, and occupational position, but also includes satisfaction with one's standard of living and feeling financial security about the future.

• Poverty v Poverty amid Plenty

• Wilkinson research (375): Income inequality increases the effect of the SES gradient. Other research compared most and least egalitarian states in the US (New Hampshire v Louisiana), finding 60% higher mortality rate. Canada / US comparisons also show an "inequality" effect, esp interesting as Canada is a bit less wealthy overall than US. (The inequality effect is less apparent within highly egalitarian societies.)

• The most relevant comparison in subjective SES is to your immediate community. Could be that modern life makes for more comparisons outside of community as we see more of how others' live.

• Technical issue (377)

• You might wonder if correcting for inequality simply makes wealthy people less healthy and poorer people more healthy. But the Wilkinson research suggests that lower inequality improves health across SES.

• How does income inequality and feeling poor translate to bad health?

• Research on "social capital" -- def at 378. read ("civic participation, volunteerism, safety" "trust, reciprocity, lack of hostility, heavy participation in organizations for common good") . Kawachi research: high inequality predicts low social capital. General Trust Question (378). Kawachi argues that reciprocity requires equality, while dominance is inequality. Can't have high income equality and high social capital

• Inequality in a society also predicts high crime rates (even better than poverty does), which visit low SES citizens more.

• Spending on public goods - transit, safety, clean water, schools, health care -- reduces effects of inequality. In unequal society, wealthy have disincentive to support public goods spending as they depend less upon it. (pause for examples and application to current US politics.) Comparisons of Eastern block countries after fall of Soviet Union -- high income equality, but differential access to public goods. And US: high wealth, high inequality, low social capital. Unprecedented health disparities.

• Why is the stress - disease connection so variable in primates, but so consistent in humans. Sapolsky speculates that agriculture may be the difference. Agriculture may have invented poverty.

Imagining the Just/Good Society

• Think of this “checklist” as a kind of experiment in triggering your intuitions (the elephant) on “what a just society looks like”. You still need to develop reasons for the vision you come up with. It’s new for me, so I don’t know how successful it will be in teaching, but here it is:

A Checklist for imagining the just society.

• Track your agreement with each of the items below. This might help think about how you imagine justice. Whether you find yourself agreeing with the items or not, try to use your reactions to tell yourself something about your image of justice. In some cases, you might agree with an item, but not see it as a matter of justice. For each item, assume you are referring to a wealthy society, like the United States.

• A. Basic Formal Justice and Equality. These are likely to be in everyone’s list. In a just society,

• …the constitution guarantees equal rights and protects the due process rights of all citizens.
• …the administration of justice promotes non-discrimination and enforces all laws related to equal opportunity and non-discrimination.
• …there are laws against discrimination.
• …opportunities are based as much as possible on merit.

• B. Material rights, Moral arbitrariness, and Social justice. Some of these items involve human rights, some involve morally arbitrary traits or conditions. In a just society,

• …it should not be possible to work a full time job and become homeless.
• …it should not be possible to work your whole life and retire to absolute poverty.
• …kids always have enough to eat, a safe place to live, and appropriate care.
• …the society has an interest and obligation for child welfare.
• …the quality of a public primary and secondary education does not depend upon the class and wealth of the school's students.
• …we agree to pay for the public education of others’ kids.
• …post secondary educational opportunities are not limited by personal income or wealth.
• …some bad outcomes, like those leading to disability and inability to work, are insured by the society.
• …some bad outcomes, like natural disasters and failures of government, are insured by the society.
• …old age poverty is prevented, possibly by a Social Security model.
• …your “basic quality of life” should not be determined by arbitrary things like genetic lotteries and accidents.
• …income and wealth inequalities can be a threat to social justice because they can weaken our commitments to each other. A just society is one in which people have stable and strong bonds.

• C. Justice in a Free Society You may think of justice as serving a conception of a free society. A just society protects liberty. In a just society,

• …our mandatory (e.g., through taxation) social obligations would be limited to formal justice (A above), common defense, public order and safety, and some practical matters, like infrastructure planning.
• …the protection of liberty is seen as a form of social justice, because free people renounce coercion from government or each other.
• …everyone is responsible for their own success or failure.
• …your basic quality of life depends upon your own efforts, plus the voluntary charity of others.
• …you are free to choose to help others achieve happiness or not. Justice is not necessarily about happiness.

A continuum of justice positions

• One very straightforward way to approach PP1 is to arrange the theories of justice we have been considering on a continuum. In this case the continuum is based on "thin" v "thick" theories of justice. A thin theory commits you to less and has a lower "burden of proof" while a thick theory demands a stronger set of expectations (values).

• We will fill in notes in class, but here are some of the main resources we have for PP1.

• Formal theories of justice as a framework of formal rights.

• Justice not so much about outcomes as it is about fair rules. Whatever happens as a result of fair dealing (inequalities, homelessness, poor health outcomes) may be unfortunate, but not necessarily unjust. Private charity is the best response to unfortunate outcomes.
• All of the following views embrace the idea of formal justice.

• Libertarianism - Justice as "non-coercion"

• The just society has a minimal state because large government are inevitably coercive, either because they tax at levels that result in a kind of wage slavery or because they interfere with people's lives in other ways.
• Private charity is the best response to unfortunate outcomes.

• Rawls. -

• The way to determine the principles of justice is from behind the veil of ignorance, where you do not know many things about your fortunes that are morally arbitrary to you. An assumption here is that your life should not be worse off for morally arbitrary factors.
• 1. Egalitarian about rights and liberties (includes formal justice).
• 2. Justifies some inequality by Difference Principle, but uses redistribution of income to maximize the conditions for the worst off.

• Capabilities view. Amartya Sen.

• Capabilities are possibilities for choice that affect well-being. Promoting capabilites is not about promoting happiness directly (as in strong well-being approaches), but about realizing choice and freedom.
• For Sen, capabilities enable "functionings" that realize human freedoms.

• Strong Well-Being Approaches

• Utilitarian - think Dillon. Just societies maximize well-being. The "why" involves the equal happiness principle.
• Some Happiness Economists - Use SWB measures instead of GDP to guide policy. The "why" involves getting a more accurate measure of utility or SWB.

• Socialism / Communism

• Socialism with free market: Markets are good for promoting liberty and free choice, but they can create inequalities that become exploitative. In an important sense, the wealth of a country is a communal good that should serve the interests of the people in the society, but there is nothing inherently unjust about some inequality. Justice requires the state to intervene and take other measures to guarantee equity.
• Communist: Stronger, Marxian, critique of market as essentially exploitative. A just society treats it's productive wealth as a communal asset, to be distributed in an egalitarian manner to meet human needs and social goals.

PP1: "What Do We Owe Strangers" Position Paper: 1000 words

• Stage 1: Please write a 1000 word maximum answer to the following question by TBD, 2024, 11:59pm.

• Topic: What do we owe strangers in our society, as a matter of justice? Consider the various approaches to justice we have been discussing and whether, why, and in what ways we should go beyond the "personal preference" we show friends and family and obligate ourselves to strangers in our society. Consider theories of justice which focus on formal rights and liberty, as well as theories that argue for more substantive or material rights and more material conceptions of freedom, like capabilities, or well-being. Are structural conditions, such as stress and SES relevant to the discussion of justice? Be sure to develop your own view (with both a "what" and a "why") using course resources and examples. Show why some other views are not appealing to you.

• Keep in mind:

• You are answering this prompt in the "first person," but you are giving reasons for your view and, implicitly, recommending it as a standard. Give reasons that you feel should appeal to a wide range of people in your society and across political orientation.
• Your readers will not necessarily share your view, so you should say why your position should be acceptable to someone with a different point of view. You will not be assessed on which view (within a wide range) of justice you adopt, but on the quality of your writing and reasoning, and your focus on the prompt.
• You should assume that any obligations you have to strangers are contingent upon adequate resources (national wealth and personal wealth). You do live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but you may not be personally obligated to help strangers if you are struggling to survive. (Philosopher's generally believe "ought implies can" - you aren't obligated to do something you can't do.)
• For this prompt you are only considering Justice to strangers in your society, the US.

• Advice about collaboration: Collaboration is part of the academic process and the intellectual world that college courses are based on, so it is important to me that you have the possibility to collaborate. I encourage you to collaborate with other students, but only up to the point of sharing ideas, references to class notes, and your own notes, verbally. Collaboration is also a great way to make sure that a high average level of learning and development occurs in the class. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to NOT share text of draft answers or outlines of your answer. Keep it verbal. Generate your own examples.

• Prepare your answer and submit it in the following way. You will lose points if you do not follow these instructions:

1. To assure anonymity, you must remove your name from the the "author name" that you may have provided when you set up your word processing application. For instructions on removing your name from an Word or Google document, [click here].
2. Format your answer in double spaced text, in a typical 12 point font, and using normal margins. Do not add spaces between paragraphs and indent the first line of each paragraph.
3. Do not put your name in the file or filename. You may put your student ID number in the file. Always put a word count in the file. Save your file for this assignment with the name: "ObligationsToStrangers".
4. To turn in your assignment, log into courses.alfino.org, click on the "PP1 - What do we owe strangers" dropbox.
5. If you cannot meet a deadline, you must email me about your circumstances (unless you are having an emergency) before the deadline or you will lose points.

• Stage 2: Please evaluate four student answers and provide brief comments and a score. Review the Assignment Rubric for this exercise. We will be using the Flow, Content, and Logic areas of the rubric for this assignment. Complete your evaluations and scoring by TBD, 2024 11:59pm.

• To determine the papers you need to peer review, open the file called "#Key.xls" in the shared folder. You will see a worksheet with saint names in alphabetically order, along with animal names. Find your saint name and review the next four (4) animals' work below your animal name. If you get to the bottom of the list before reaching 4 animals, go to the top of the list and continue.

• Use this Google Form to evaluate four peer papers. Submit the form once for each review.

• Some papers may arrive late. If you are in line to review a missing paper, allow a day or two for it to show up. If it does not show up, go back to the key and review the next animal's paper, continuing until you get four reviews. Do not review more than four papers.

• Stage 3: I will grade and briefly comment on your writing using the peer scores as an initial ranking. Assuming the process works normally, most of my scores probably be within 1-2 points of the peer scores, plus or minus.

• 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: [29]. Fill out the form for each reviewer, but not Alfino. You must do the back evaluation to receive credit for the whole assignment. Failing to give back-evaluations unfairly affects other classmates.

• Back evaluations are due TBD, 2023.

20: OCT 31. Unit Five: Cultural Evolution

Assigned

• Henrich Prelude and C1 – “WEIRD Psychology” (21-58; 37) – literacy and neuroplasticity, Protestantism and literacy, WEIRD cultural psychology, individualism complex, guilt and shame, conformity, patience, impersonal honesty, passenger dilemma, trust, impersonal prosociality, intentionality, analytic thinking.

In-Class

• Joe Henrich [30]
• Cultural Evoluation as a layer of theory. What is culture?

Henrich, Prelude and C1 - "WEIRD Psychology," from The Weirdest People on Earth"

• Prelude: Your Brain has been modified by culture

• Example of how reading alters brains. "Literacy thus provides an example of how culture can change people biologically independent of any genetic differences."
• The ‘letterbox’ in your brain
• Literacy in Western Europe - a “cultural package” that includes abilities, but also attitudes toward education, technologies of literacy like printing.
• Note how a “culture of literacy” can cut across other cultures. Right hemisphere bias in facial recognition common to university students across cultures.
• 1517: Protestantism requires literacy. "sola scriptura"
• Showing causal relationship with "quasi-experimental" method "For every 100 km traveled from Wittenberg, percentage of Protestants dropped 10%. Like a "dosage". Also drove female literacy and public education.
• Also seen in literacy rates of Catholic and Prot missionaries to Africa: Protestant missions produce more literacy.
• Point of his book, “The WEIRDEST People in the World,”: WEIRD psychology is the result of a set of cultural adaptations promoted by the Catholic church.
• The movement of “sola scriptura” led to an explosion of literacy, which had numerous cultural effects, but the bigger story of how we became WEIRD starts with the Catholic Churches’ “Marriage and Family Plan” (Chapter 1).

• Chapter 1: WEIRD Psychology

• WEIRD: individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. Tends to look for universal categories, analytic. patient, takes plesure in hard work, sticks to imparial rules or principles, guilt vs. shame

• Major Claim: WEIRD psychology is a product of 600-1000 years of the Catholic Church's modification of our psychology through its "Marriage and Family Plan".

• Really, who are you?

• "Who Am I? task by culture
• Mapping the Individualism Complex vs. Kin-based institutions

• Might be obligated to avenge a murder,
• Prohibited from marrying a stranger / privileged to marry mother’s brother’s daughters.
• Responsible to carry out expensive ancestor rituals.
• Liable for family members crimes.
• Note the italicized moral terms. Moral culture changes with sociocentrism/individualism, as in Haidt.

• Contrast on p. 28. In the Industrial World "everyone is shopping for better relationships." Read specific contrasts.
• Hofstede's scale for measuring individualism/sociocentrism -
• Economic prosperity and Individualism may be in two way causal relationship.
• Note caveats to this research on p. 31. 1. As with physio-politics, not say one cultural package is objectively better than another. [Arguably, individualism and markets got us to the crisi of climate change.] 2. As with physio-politics, the categories mask numerous continuous differences.

• Cultivating the WEIRD self

• Research showing individualists cultivate "consistency across relationships" vs. kin-based "consistency within relationships”.
• Dispositionalism - seeing people's behavior as anchored impersonal traits that influence actions across contexts. The Fundamental Attribution Error (33) is a bias of WEIRD people, not a universal cognitive bias. WEIRD people suffer more from cognitive dissonance because of the type of consistency valued in WEIRD culture.
• Guilt vs. Shame
• Conformity - Solom Asch's experiments in which confederates give incorrect answers to test conformity. WEIRD cultures show lowest conformity. 37-38.

• Marshmallows Come to Those Who Wait

• "Discounting" as a measure of patience - "temporal discounting" widely researched through "choice" studies: "Would you rather X now or X+Y later?" Patience correlated with better socio-economic outcomes. Larger construct: "self-control" "self-regulation - Marshmallow studies. [31]
• Impersonal Honesty --

• UN Diplomats' parking violations research. Natural experiment on existing parking violations. Volume of tickets correlates with country's standing on "corruption index".
• Impersonal Honesty Game, like the Matrix research from Ariely, normed against probability of each die roll. Also correlates with corruption index. (results at p. 44). "quintessentially WEIRD experiment as there is no person affected by the dishonesty. In some cultures, you would be criticized for not taking advantage of the experiment to help your family.

• Universalism and Non-relationalism -- Research using the "Passengers Dilemma" -- does your friend have a right to expect you to lie to help him evade a parking fine? related results: willingness to give insider information, lie about medical exam to lower insurance rates, write a fake review of a friend's restaurant. Measures also importance of impartial rules
• Trusting Strangers - "Generalized Trust Question" (GTQ) survey instrument. measures impersonal trust vs. trust in relationship based networks. Norway: 70% Trinidad 4-5% Interesting variation in the US. Northern Italy 49% Sicily 26%. [Interesting discussion of forms of trust. Countries can report high trust on the GTQ, but it may not be impersonal trust. To get at that you have to ask specifically about trusting strangers.]
• Impersonal Prosociality roughly, "how we feel toward a person who is not tied into our social network" - correlated with national wealth, better government, less corruption, faster innovation.
• Obsessed with intentions -- Bob/Rob and Andy vignette research. The "Bob" condition involves intent. Barrett and Laurence research. Focus on intentional dishonesty correlates with WEIRD culture. Independent research on Japanese (less focused on intentions), suggests that other factors about Japan's culture affect outcomes.
• Analytic vs. Holistic thinking. Triad Task. (read 53) Abstract rule-based vs. Functional relationship. Analytics focus on rules, types, continuity. Example: Would you match "rabbit" with "carrot" or "cat"? Possible that even some of the Mapuche's "analytic" answers had holistic reasoning. pig/dog pig/husks. Also, attention and memory studies: East Asians remember background/context better that WEIRD people. Americans track the center of attention.
• WEIRD also have great endowment effect, overestimate our talents, self-enhance, enjoy making choices.
• Summary table on p. 56.

• Henrich's larger argument:

• The Catholic Church, through it "Marriage and Family Plan" (started around 600 a.d.), started the process that made us WEIRD. See Henrich, C14, "The Dark Matter of History" for summary of the book's argument. (In shared folder.)
• Movement from kin and clan based European culture, to "voluntary associations (guilds, charter towns, universities) drove the expansion of impersonal markets, and spurred the rapid growth of cities.
• Key elements of the Church's "Marriage and Family Plan"

• Monogamous marriages only
• No kin marriage
• No arranged marriage
• Neolocal residence (married couples move out of parents' house)
• Inheritance by testament
• Individual property
• No adoption

21: NOV 5.

Assigned

• Henrich C4 – “The Gods are Watching. Behave!” (123-152; 29) – Dictator game, “god-priming” research, moralizing gods, Big Gods and the random allocation game, hell, free will, and moral universalism.

In-Class

• Talking about Religion in a Naturalist Context.
• Designing a Religion with Cultural Evolution in Mind.

Talking about Religion in a Naturalist Context - Some caveats

• Naturalism and the Supernatural

• Methodological principle - “Whatever else might be true…”

• The beauty and importance of faith commitments.

• Belief in supernatural beings is on the decline. In light of the real work religious culture has done for humans (acc to cultural evolutionists), this is a critical problem.

Henrich C4 – “The Gods are Watching. Behave!”

• Major explanatory model for evolution of religious culture (128-133):

• Three forces may help explain the evolution of belief in supernatural beliefs:

• 1 - the power of cultural learning over personal experience (cf. Churchland and Tomasello). Likely adaptive - humans who could take on cultural norms outcompeted others.

• 2 - some of our cognitive capacities - e.g. “mentalizing abilities” facilitated belief in the supernatural. Cognitive traits like empathy favor religious belief among women and ethnicities with high empathy, big brains can imagine non-existent objects (like theoretical objects and alternative futures) - bias toward dualism, mind / body. Culture on mind/body switches 130.

• 3 - intergroup competition helps explain specific difference among religions and the emergence on “moralizing Gods” (Big God religions). Big God religions out competed Local God religions.
• Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDs) play a role in enhancing religious commitment. (E.g. martyrdom) “costly and hard to fake commitments”.

• Big God v Local God religions

• Local God religions (131) hunter gatherer gods are partially human, not always moral, not Omni-
• Big God religions - Gods have concerns about human behavior and punish immoral behavior, surveil us, omni-potent, omni-present. More likely in pastoralist and agricultural societies.

• Major theses supported by evidence in this chapter:

• Religions vary in the types of gods they believe in. Local god religions v Big God religions, but also note change over time within a religion: OT God v NT God
• The wide range of religious belief (from Local Gods to Big Gods) have diverse effects on fitness.
• Big God religions support large cities.
• Big God religions improve prosocial norm compliance, impersonal fairness, and other cooperative social behaviors.
• Big God religions support more impartiality to distant co-religionist distant strangers. 137
• Gods typically want certain things that are also fitness enhancing. 133
• Local God religions may still promote food sharing and pro sociality in smaller groups.
• The Big God religions of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and (later) Islam all support beliefs in contingent afterlives, free will, and moral universalism. (Note relevance for our last unit.)

• Evidence for these theses.

• God primes — 123: test subjects primed with religious terms give more in the Dictator Game (impersonal fairness). But these effects only work for religious folks and toward religious benefactors.
• Secular primes might be equally powerful and work for both believers and non-believers. 125
• God primes in everyday life - Muslim call to prayer, porn consumption.

• In the evolution of religion toward Big God religions, we find God caring about many of the things that affect cooperation and group cohesiveness: Adultery (and paternity), norm compliance (through monitoring and punishment). Suggests connection with evolution.

• Study to test claims about cooperative power of Big God religions 134. Henrich & others created a measure of relative God-size and then found test subject across this spectrum. Test subjects allocated coins to either an anonymous co-religionist in distant village or either themselves (Self game) or a local co-religionist (Local Coreligionist game). Result: When people believed their God would punish bad behavior they were less biased against distant co-religionists. Similar results using Dictator game.

• Study to assess claims about Big God religions and scaling up of societies in large cities with complex dependencies (cooperation). 141. Watts et al used data from pre-Western contact societies (and their gods) to estimate probability of scaling up. Close to zero prob for societies with non-punishing gods. 40% with.

• Evidence on belief in: 147-148

• Contingent afterlife - >economic prosperity and <crime. Belief in heaven but not hell doesn’t help.
• Free Will - <less likely to cheat on math test. Read at 148.

Designing (or Redesigning) religion for the 21st century

• Cultural evolution of religion suggests that religions played (and may still play) a big role helping cultures meet evolutionary challenges that depend upon values (cooperation, norm compliance, impersonal prosociality, impersonal honesty, trust, etc.)

• But religious belief is on the decline. Also, many of the positive effects from religion only extend to co-religionists (sectarianism). This wasn’t a problem when societies were religiously homogeneous, but they aren’t now. Add to this: we have new cooperative challenges like climate change and global resource use

• What is the future of Big God religions? Do we still need punishing gods? How have religions already changed in the last few millennia? (OT —> NT gods, de-emphasis on Hell, etc.). Laudato Si!

• Questions:

• Should we be thinking about a new direction for religions, perhaps toward ecumenism or syncretism, or should we be looking beyond religion for other beliefs that would help us “scale up” cooperation? Is there a way around the groupishness of religion? Could a secular or humanistic commitment to human dignity and universalism motivate people today?

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.

23: NOV 12.

Assigned

• Henrich C14 -- "The Dark Matter of History"

In-Class

• How does Cultural Evolution help us critique our culture? How does this critique help us solve problems better?

Critiquing Cultural Values

• We tend to think of our cultural histories as events that happened to other people a long time age. But in light of cultural evolution, we might add that these events and histories also shape our thinking and assumptions. Sometimes we might think we are arguing about an issue when we are really just showing our cultural commitment to some norms. By learning to see cultural norms in terms of their adaptive or non-adaptive effects, we might change the way we argue about values that are really embedded in our culture.

• A critical cultural narrative might start with something you notice about your culture that you really like or don’t like. Then maybe you notice that this thing you like about your culture is also involved in a dysfunctional aspect of your culture. You could also start a critical cultural narrative by travelling or having an identity in two very different cultures. When you switch between cultures, you inevitably find things about each that you like and maybe even see as adaptive and promoting of flourishing.

• By engaging in critical cultural narratives, you gain a deeper appreciation of the things that you “own” about your culture, but also some critical distance to see how cultural adaptations are often connected to positive and negative outcomes. In stead of arguing that your cultural norms are “the right ones”, you might come to seem them in terms of their differential effects, positive and negative.

• Here are a couple of prompts to help you generate your own critical cultural narratives.

• A. A good thing in my culture that is connected to a bad thing about my culture.

• Template: I like value-X about my culture, but X also seems involved in disfunction-Y.

• Examples:

• I like the individualism in my society, but that also seems to be one of the reasons we don’t take care of each other.
• I like the idea of “self-responsibility” in our culture, but it seems involved in blaming the homeless and justifying their neglect.
• I like the way US culture promotes college education, but we don’t show much respect or concern about people who do trades or very physically demanding work.
• I like the way US culture places low barriers to economic development, but, compared to cultures that practice more zoning and planning, many of our cities and towns are ugly and shapeless.

• B. A cultural problem and a conjecture about the cultural causes.

• Template: My culture has a problem with Y, probably because Z.

Examples:

• My culture has a problem with racism, probably because we enslaved people for 400 years.
• My culture has high incarceration rates, probably because we focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation.
• My culture has a problems with “deaths from despair” (suicide, drug overdoses, etc.),probably because we are so individualistic and that involves leaving people on their own.
• My culture has a problem with mass shootings, probably because we don’t address mental health very well.

• C. Using knowledge of other cultures to assess your own.

• Template: When I learn about other cultures, it makes me wish my culture could….

• Examples:

• When I learned how Italians value food, it makes me wish my culture could.
• When I see people in another culture joking about politics and having thoughtful political discussion, it makes me wish my culture could.

Henrich C14 -- "The Dark Matter of History"

• Cultural changes bodies. Cooking culture, for example.

• ”The cultural evolution of psychology is the dark matter that flows behind the scenes throughout history.” 470.

• Recapping the argument of the book:

• Kinship and religion have been the focus - two big forms of culture that have mattered.
• Evolution of universalizing religions. Competition among religions.
• The Church’s Marriage and Family Plan.
• Further implications for the “emergence of rights, personal accountability, abstract principles, universal laws, and the centrality of mental states.” “Growth of representative governments, constitutional legitimacy,…”

• Biogeographic explanations: Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. Explaining global inequality. The “lucky latitudes”. Agrees with Diamond, but argues that these effects diminished by 1000-1200ce.

• CE help us understand why cultures with long agrarian traditions don’t modernize easily (even if their people want it). 477-478.

• CE helps us see that it wasn’t wealth that fueled market behavior in Europe. Nobles held the wealth but weren’t the innovators in markets.

• Gene-culture interactions in emergence of lactose tolerance. Cultures’ that focused on dairying techniques that didn’t require lactase-alleles (yogurt and some cheeses) didn’t change their populations gene pools, but other dairying cultures did. Prevalence of alleles that continue lactase production beyond weaning flipped from 20% yes / 80% no to opposite.

• Evidence that cultural effects overpower genetic effects in educational attainment within a culture. Frequency of genes influencing formal education declining even as formal education grows. Shows that it’s a cultural effect.

24: NOV 14. Unit Six: Moral Responsibility and Criminal Justice

Assigned

• Radio Lab Episode on Blame and Moral Responsibility
• Article abstract, "Klüver–Bucy syndrome, hypersexuality, and the law"

In-class

• Some basics of the moral responsibilty and free will discussion

Introduction to philosophical problems with Moral Responsibility and the Law

• Basic Questions:

• 1. Do we praise people for things that they don't deserve credit for and blame people for things that are not their fault?
• 2. Is our concept of moral responsibility (and all of the behaviors and institutions based on it) wrong somehow? Is it out of sync with ideas about free will, what we know about the brain, and the causes of crime?
• 3. What exactly do we mean when we say, "You are responsible for that"? Start a list. Causal, moral, both, neither. Do you find yourself referencing some idea of a "normally competent person"? When would you also hold someone responsible for becoming a normally competent person? What sorts of conditions make is more or less likely that you will become a normally competent person?
• 4. If we clarify our understanding of moral responsibility, will we still approach criminal punishment with retributive intent?

• Some concepts for thinking about moral responsibility:

• Moral Responsibility - The idea that people can be held responsible, in some fashion, for their actions. Two main kinds of moral responsibility are "desert-based or "moral desert" moral responsibility" (db-MR) and "accountability moral responsibility" (accountability).

• Moral desert Responsibility (db-MR) -

• Def: You "morally deserve" something because you did (or failed to do) something that you knew you were expected to do or not do. It follows that you areblameworthy and deserving of punishment. Typically, retributive punishment - pain (from fines or incarceration) proportional to offense. (You can also talk about "deserving" something good...)
• You might deserve blame for failing any of a wide range of expectations. Expectations can come from friends and family, from social norms, or from the law. Examples: Your partner expects you to call if you are late for dinner (they should accept responsibility), you deserve to be treated civilly by others, you worked a shift and deserve to be paid. You failed to observe the speed limit and you deserve a ticket.
• Difficulties arise when we consider "excuses" and "limiting conditions". You're late for dinner because you helped save someone's life or because your alcoholism led you to a bar. You have Kluwer-Bucy syndrome.

• Accountability Moral Responsibility -

• If we just want to understand why someone failed in their responsibility and, importantly, whether they will do it again, we might ask them to give an "account" of their behavior and thinking ("What were you thinking!?") Giving an account of someone as having done or failed to do things we normally expect of others can be done quite apart from holding someone blameworthy (as in in desert-based MR). This might be an important distinction if you become a skeptic about moral responsibility as a result of this unit. Accountability MR is typically focused on understanding potential threats to society from an offender and, where possible rehabilitating offenders. Accountability MR may include accepting restrictions on one's liberty, from incarceration to probationary restrictions.

• Main PointYou can still have accountability MR without db-MR. Is accountability enough? Why/why not?

• Moral desert can be contrasted to what you deserve just because of your status, as in rights. This is also called "moral standing".
• Moral desert can also be contrasted with "morally arbitrary" (recall Rawls). So, we would say you do not deserve praise or blame for things that are "morally arbitrary": things you did little or nothing to achieve (like an inheritance), things about you that were just your good fortune (good impulse control, a good noodle, athletic ability, at ease in social life...) or deficits and challenges that you have that you did nothing to deserve (having epilepsy, a substance abuse problem, anger issues, etc.). Some philosophers will say that you don't deserve to be blamed for things that are morally arbitrary. That would be a reason to prefer “accountability responsibility”.

• Free will and responsibility -- Most people would agree that if we cannot freely will our actions, we cannot be held responsible for them. But what sort of free will is required? Is normal choosing (neurologically described) free will or do we have to break with the causal fabric of the universe! (Libertarian Free will). If the world is deterministic, everything has been "decided" (Including basketball games!). Does that mean there is no free will, or just that it might not be what we think it is?

Radio Lab Episode on Blame and Moral Responsibility

• Segment 1: Story of Kevin and his wife, Janet. Kevin is arrested for child pornography.

• 15 years earlier. Epilepsy seizures returned after surgery two years earlier. Can't drive so he meets Janet from work, who drives him to work. Romance... Still more seizures. Another surgery. Music ability in tact. But then his food and sexual appetites grew, played songs on the piano for hours. Disturbing behavior. Really disturbing behavior.

• Reporter tries to get at who it was who did it. Kevin claims compulsion. Downloads and deletes files.

• Orin Devinsky: Kevin’s neurologist. Testified in court that it wasn't Kevin's fault.

• Neurological dive: deep parts of our brain can generate weird thoughts, but we have a "censor". Maybe Kevin lost that part of his brain. Observed in post-surgery monkeys.

• Lee Vartan, prosecutor -- Can't be impulse control. Porn at home, but not at work. He must have known that it was wrong. But Tourette's can be circumstantially triggered even though it is clearly neurological. Poignant exchange with Janet about staying in the relationship. Could you have stayed in the relationship? Kluwer-Bucy. Months before sentencing. Medication makes him normal, but eliminates his libido. 5 yrs. - home arrest. Judge acknowledges prosecutor's point. How does the legal system assign blame when you are sometimes “in control” and sometimes not? She adds: You could have asked for help. (Reflect on this a bit.) 24 months federal prison 25 months of house arrest. 2008-2010. Do you agree with prosecutor's Vartan's point? The Judge's additional point? Why or why not? Consider other fact patterns / cases. Are there cases where "could have asked for help" doesn't carry weight? This one? What would your sentence have been, especially in light of the anti-libido meds? (Short group discussion on questions in bold.)

• Segment 2: Blame - person or brain. (26:30 mins)

• Nita Farahany - neurolaw professor (law and philosophy!). Might be lots of cases. One count: 1600 cases from 1% sampled. (Counter-argument: Isn't this just like blaming everything else for what you do wrong? Isn't it too easy?). Thought experiment: Imagine a deaf person, who can’t hear a child in burning building. You wouldn't hold the deaf person liable for the death of the child. "Emotional inability" would also be damage to a physical structure (as in the ear).

• David Eagleman, Neuroscientist - Makes critical point: Neuroscience isn't so precise. Like looking at earth from space. New technologies may show us how experience is written in our brain. (Back to Descartes: mind is the ghost in the machine.) Slippery slope, the brain is always involved. Even healthy brain. Blameworthiness might be the wrong question. Person vs. biology doesn't really make sense anymore. The "choosey part” of the brain (the homunculus! - Explain: Sapolsky will make fun of this idea.) 36:00 minutes. Funny exchange. Self-modification comes up. The choosey part is also part of the brain. One system. Raises possibility that all decisions are determined.

• Claim from Eagleman: Legal system should drop moral blame. Adopt utilitarian approach. Predict recidivism. Point system exists for sex offenders. Better than people’s "unguided judgement" (50% accurate). Point system and algorithm: 70%. Currently there is appearance bias for example from juries. [Mention controversies over sentencing algorithms [32].

• A point system might be very predictive, but it might involve convicting someone of a future crime. Would it be? Would that be ok?

• Nita Frahany - Blame might serve social function of articulating norms.

• Segment 3: Dear Hector / Dear Ivan

• Bianca Giaever (radio producer who did the story on Hector) - Hector Black, 86. Hector's backstory - WWII vet, Harvard, joins civil rights movement in Atlanta, moves South, adopts Patricia, a neglected child who lived nearby. Patricia's story (becomes a beautiful and productive person), college, adopts kids -- Patricia is murdered (strangled) and raped by Ivan Simpson. Hector feels retributive impulse. Ivan confesses. Hector considers whether he wishes the death penalty for him, decides no. Hector's statement at sentencing. Writes a letter of forgiveness to the murderer, which starts correspondence. Is it important that Ivan doesn’t forgive himself? Ivan's story - son of schizophrenic mom, adopted, horror. Ivan abused. Mom tries to drown Ivan and two other children.

• Ivan tells the original story of Patricia's murder. Burglary. Drug use. Returns to Patricia’s house. Conversation with Patricia. Didn’t originally intend to kill her. Patricia give him food. Gets high on crack. Ivan hears a voice that sometimes comes to him. Commits the murder. Can't make sense of it. Wants death penalty.

• Do we still blame Ivan Simpson the same way? Hector tells his story. Many letters exchanged. A strange bond. Hector has self-doubts about his behavior toward Ivan - sending care packages to Ivan???. (Maybe he's just a weird guy or is he on to something?) How do you evaluate Hector’s approach to Ivan?

• Does Ivan's story change your view of the kind of threat he poses -- one from choosing evil/failing a responsibility vs. compulsion?’’’

25: NOV 19.

Assigned

• Sapolsky, Chapter 16: Biology, the Criminal Justice System, and (Oh, Why Not?) Free Will (580-613) (Part One 580-598)

Sapolsky, Chapter 16: Biology, the Criminal Justice System, and (Oh, Why Not?) Free Will

• Discusses professional interaction between biologists and legal scholars that may have started “neurolaw”. Conferences, Innocence Project (350 exonerated, 20 from death row). Sapolsky focusing on narrow range of topics, exclusions p. 582.( science in courtroom, min IQ for death sentence, cognitive bias in jurors, cognitive privacy)

• Cites his liberal credentials, but claims he’s not taking a liberal stance.

• 583: Historic example of scientific evidence disrupting criteria for guilt in witches trials, mid-16th century. Older women might not be able to cry. Liberals, is S’s view, focus on making small adjustments (not prosecuting older women with failing tear ducts), but he’s going big:

• Radical claim: Current criminal justice system needs to be replaced. (Must be said, this is also a liberal reform.)

• Three Perspectives on Free Will

• 1. Complete free will; 2. No free will; 3. Somewhere in between.

• No one now disputes that we sometimes are not free (epilepsy example). Problem is how to think about it. Sometimes it’s not “him” but “his disease”. Sapolsky will be critical of the idea that you can make this separation.

• Yet medieval europe tried animals for guilt. (Sounds weirder than it is. Just imagine it's about the act, not criminal intent.) Ok, it's still pretty weird... Inference: We don’t have complete conscious control of our actions.

• Drawing Lines in the Sand 586

• S Endorses a broad compatibilism = Free will is compatible with determinism..
• But most people talk like “libertarian dualists”, what he calls “mitigated free will”. Sapolsky will try to show that this view doesn’t hold up, in part because it depends up arbitrary use of a “homonculus” to explain things.

• 1842: M’Naghten. Rule at 587. Mentally ill murderer. Many objected to his not being found guilty. John Hinckley. Again, many objected. Law passed restricting insanity defense in federal crimes.

• "Mitigated free will" homunculus view: (read at 588. Funny, but that is how many people think.) We all more or less think this way and then the problem of responsibility comes down to figuring out what to expect from the homunculus. Note his humorous/sarcastic description of it. What is it capable of or should have been capable of. This is our "folk psychology" of free will.

• Age, Maturity of Groups, Maturity of Individuals

• 2005 case Roper v. Simmons. Age limit of 18 on executions and life terms. Follows debates on this. 590.
• 2010 and 2012 cases on rehab for juvies. age related bounds on free will (in the justice system).

• Brain damage to rationality as a criterion
• Morse: critic of neuroscience in courtroom, but allows for ”grossly impaired rationality”. [Note: The law is mostly interested in "rationality" not free will.]

• Some views Sapolsky finds hard to accept:

• Gazzaniga’s view: FW is an illusion, but we should still punish. Responsibility is a social level concern. (This view makes more sense than Sapolsky sees.)
• Deliberate actions are "free" - doesn't make sense of brain processes.

• Time course of decision making.

• Disputes about the maturity of adolescents: APA has spoken both ways in court: not mature enough for criminal resp., but mature enough to make an abortion decision. Might be contradictory unless you think that the immaturity affects impulse control more.

• Causation and Compulsion

• You might defend mitigated FW by distinguishing causation from compulsion: not everything that causes us to act is a compulsion, but for some, it is.

• Works through example of schizophrenic hearing voices. Not all cases would be compulsion. "If your friend suggests that you mug someone, the law expects you to resist, even if it's an imaginary friend in your head." On the other hand, some say that act might be “caused” by this voice. “Thus, in this view even a sensible homunculus can lose it and agree to virtually anything, just to get the hellhounds and trombones to stop.” 593

• Starting a behavior vs. halting it.
• Libet experiment, 1980s, EEG disclosure of “readiness potential” — activity measured before conscious awareness of will. .5 second delay might just be artifact of experiment design. Time it takes to interpret the clock. Libet says maybe the lag time is the time you have to veto the action your body is preparing you for (“free won’t”)

• Sapolsky’s view is that these debates reflect a consensus about the interaction of biology and free will, whatever that is.

• ”You must be smart” vs. “You must have worked so hard”

• research of Carol Dweck, 90s, saying that a kid worked hard to get a result increases motivation.

• 596: we tend to assign aptitude to biology and effort and resisting impulse to free will. Sapolsky seems very skeptical that we can justify assigning character (impulse control anyway) to non-biological factors (fairy dust). Read at 598.

• Conclusions: “worked hard/must be smart” are equally grounded in our physical nature.

• Some evidence that pedophilia is not freely chosen or easily resisted.

• Chart showing how we divide things between biology and “homuncular grit”. — Long list of ways out biology influence the items on the right. (Note that this applies to Kevin in the Radio Lab episode, “Blame”.)

• Like Eagleton in our podcast, Sapolsky is saying that all of these efforts to defend “mitigated free will” fails because both sides of these distinction are part of the same physical world. There is no humunculus.

Small Group Discussion on Will Power and "Homuncular grit"

• Evaluate Sapolsky's chart on p. 597 showing how we divide "biological stuff" from "homuncular grit". How far do you go in accepting his criticism of the distinction. (read below chart). Are there reasons for thinking we have a “homunculus” that isn’t biological? Does this lead you to reevaluate your agreement with the prosecutor in Kevin's case?

• What is the "source" (what are the sources) of "will power"? When you "find" willpower or marshal your personal resources to meet a challenge, is there a "who" who is deciding that or is there just a competition in your head based on all kinds of things, including perceive rewards and perceived risks? Do you need a homunculus to have will power?

Some philosophers' arguments and thought experiments on moral responsibility

• Are you a moral responsibility skeptic? A couple of interesting philosophical arguments and thought experiments will help you decide:

• From Peter Strawson, summarized here in Waller, Against Responsibility:

• If one is to be truly responsible for how one acts, one must be truly responsible for how one is, morally speaking. To be truly responsible for how one is, one must have chosen to be the way one is. But one cannot really be said to choose (in a conscious, reasoned fashion) the way one is unless one already has some principles of choice (preferences, values, ideals etc.) in the light of which one chooses how to be. But then, to be truly responsible for one’s having those principles of choice, one must have chosen them, in a reasoned conscious fashion. But that requires that one have principles of choice. And thus the regress. (pg. 29, Waller)
• Strawson's argument suggests the "impossibility" of moral responsibility.

• Mele’s Intentional Self-Modification Argument

• Mele seems to accept the idea that in order to be responsible for how one acts, one must be responsible for how one is at the time of action. But he takes exception to Strawson’s claim that in order to be responsible for how one is, one must have chosen to be that way. He thinks there are cases of intentional self-modification that allow an agent to be responsible for what they do, without involving an infinite regress of choices. He makes his case by first developing the following thought experiment:
• The Case of Betty: Betty is a six-year-old girl who is afraid of the basement in her house. She knows that no harm has come to anyone, including herself, who has entered the basement. But she is still afraid. Nevertheless, she recognizes that her fear is “babyish” and takes steps to overcome come it. She starts to make periodic visits to the basement, staying slightly longer each time until she no longer feels afraid. After following this method for a few months, she loses her irrational fear.
• Mele's Intentional self-modification argument suggests that we can be held responsible for our actions because we have powers of self-modification.
• But! Now imagine Benji, also afraid of the basement. He doesn't try to conquer his fear or tries and fails. How would you know if Benji deserves to be blamed for his failure?
• Maybe Betty is a "chronic cognizer" and Benji is a "cognitive miser". Are these traits they for which they have "moral desert"? Some people are not persuaded by Mele's argument. How far can "self-modification" go to make up for doubts about moral responsibility?

Two Positions about punishment that might follow from your small group discussion

• 1. There is “homuncular grit” and it’s not biological. We all possess it in equal amounts and therefore we can hold everyone equally responsible for their conduct.

• Supports a retributive view: Moral Responsibility and Deserved Punishment. Moral responsibility can be desert based since it is almost always your “moral failure” when you break the law. (Except for a small range of “mitigating circumstances”). You can be guilty and deserve punishment.

• Implications for CJ system: Punishment is about inflicting deserved pain proportional to the offense (retributive punishment goes with desert-based MR). The pain of prison may or may not be part of the punishment.

• 2. It’s biology all the way down. (Meaning, you and your development, and the adv/disad of privilege.) We all possess different amounts of “grit” and motivation. Unlike the humucular grit view, we are not all equally competent agents, even after excluding the mentally ill. We all have different biological traits that are relevant to determining our compliance with expectations.

• This position may better support an Accountability and Penalties View. Society must enforce standards (through laws and regulations), but this mostly involves penalties and interventions. Penalties are less about desert-based punishment than deterring rule breaking. Speeding tickets and the threat of loss of liberty are effective ways of encouraging compliance. Society is also entitled to self-protection. This needn't involve blaming people for their rule breaking, only holding them accountable. Because people may fail their responsibilities for a variety of traits and causes that are morally arbitrary to them (less impulse control, abusive childhood experiences, etc.), we should not focus on "desert" but on understanding, prevention, and self-protection.

• On non-retributive views, moral responsibility just means “you have an obligation to meet the standards”. No need for desert-based judgement or punishment. Penalties and interventions are enough. You can be judged to have failed to meet the standard and face consequences. If penalties don’t work or the social threat is great (e.g. murder, repeat offenses), you might lose your liberty. (It may also follow from this view that we must treat you well in confinement.)

• Implications for CJ system: Non-retributive methods may include prison, but we ought to seek the least confining approach to deterring and rehabilitating. Prisons shouldn’t be unsafe and unhealthy places.

26: NOV 21.

Assigned

• Sapolsky, Chapter 16: Biology, the Criminal Justice System, and (Oh, Why Not?) Free Will (580-613) (Part Two 598-613)

• Over the next few classes, try to watch some of these:
• Some videos/websites about prisons and incarceration:

• Prison Policy Initiative Prison Policy Initiative]: A good up-to-date overview of prison facts and some popular myths about the US prison system. Updated to 2023!
• The Atlantic, data visualization on incarceration of African Americans [33]
• Data visualization on mass incarceration. [34]
• Norwegian prison, [35]
• US Supermax prison, “Red Onion” [36]
• ”When kids do hard time,” Wabash Prison, [37]

In-class

• Some limits on Ultimate Moral Responsibility: Trying not to be the inquisitor.
• How can anyone be a compatibilist?
• How should we treat people who make mistakes?

Some arguments against Ultimate Moral Responsibility

Lines of argument regarding individual moral responsibility:

• 1. Strawson's Impossibility Argument.

• We cannot be "ultimately" responsible for how we are. What follows from his argument?

• 2. Mele's Self-modification argument and the "Benji" response.

• We can self-modify, but some of our ability to do that is not up to us.

• 3. Growth of Knowledge argument - Sapolsky (604-605)

• The more we learn about human behavior, the harder it is to make retributive punishment and "end in itself".

Lines of argument at the social and cultural levels:

• 1. Knowledge of the social determinants of crime and dysfunctional behavior.

• The more we know (also a growth of knowledge argument) about SES and the "epidemiology of crime" the harder it is to blame people absolutely and, hence, retributively.

• 2. Cultural evolution and the evolution of the idea of free will.

• While we feel certain about free will, that certainty might also be a product of cultural psychology (Henrich).

How Can Someone be a Compatibilist? Or, Agency Views of Free Will

• Agency as a source of causal powers for normally competent individuals

• Even if determinism is true, normal human beings have agency. Agency is a causal power. The ability to control ourselves and affect the world around us.
• Agency includes our ability to "do what we want"; even if we lack ultimate powers to determine what we want.
• Free will may be something like "doing what I want to do" and having wants and desires that are "mine."
• Agency is our capacity to control outcomes and take ownership of some of actions.
• A normally competent agent (NCA) can learn the expectations of their society and conform to them.

• Note: We often talk about an action being "ours" even when we say we are determined or influenced to do that action. Perhaps physics is the wrong place to look for free will?

• Problem: What sort of approach to punishment does this compatibilist picture support?

• One line: Well, if it's really your wants and desires that you're acting on, and you chose them, then you can be db-MR for failures.
• Another line: It's fine to say that your actions were "yours," and that's a good reason to knock on your door if you break the law, but that doesn't mean you chose. You may have "taken ownership" of the causal forces that made you the way you are, but they still did make you this way and not some other way.

Ordinary Language and Free Will

• Free will looks less mysterious if you focus on our "agential capacities," rather than determinism. Consider these "ordinary language" statements. How is "choosing" and "free will" being used differently in each case? Is this way of talking "compatible" with determinism?:

• I may choose to take up painting as a hobby.
• My grandmother had a big influence on me and that's why I chose to become a doctor.
• I cannot choose to become a concert violinists at this point in my life.
• I can choose whether or not I get ready for class.
• I have no choice, I have to turn you in to the police.

• I can't choose not to love you, but I can't see you any more.
• I've decided I don't love you any more. (aww...)

• Parent to child: You can do anything you put your mind to. (Yeah, right.)
• Parent to child: You need to try harder.
• Parent to (older) child: You're doing fine. Just keep that up.

Sapolsky, Chapter 16: Biology, the Criminal Justice System, and (Oh, Why Not?) Free Will (580-613) (Part Two 598-613)

• But does anything useful actually come of this?

• Grounds for skepticism about using neuroscience in the courtroom: Stephen Morse. Neurolaw sceptic, ok with M’naugton, but thinks cases are rare. Reviews valid criticisms he makes: 1. Juries might overvalue neuroscience images, 2. Descriptive vs. Normative.

• Morse supports a strong distinction between causation and compulsion. Causation is not itself an excuse. But Sapolsky argues that this still involves walling off a “homunculus” and that’s not plausible.

• Acknowledges an apparent problem. Neuroscience typically can’t predict individual behavior very much. Fictional exchange with prosecutor. 600

• Explaining lots and Predicting Little

• But is the lack of predictive power a problem in the argument? S. works through some cases in which probability of prediction decreases, but no less likely that it could be a case of compulsion. 601

• 602: Important methodological point: There's no less biology in the leg fracture vs. the other disorders, but level of biological explanation is different. Leg fractures are less connected to culture. Behavior is multifactorial and heavily cultural. (Oh god, another Henrich digression. Free will has a history.) Example: how much does biology predict depression? Factors are diverse biological mechanisms, including cultural factors. (But, point is, someone can be disable by depression, just like the leg fracture.)

• Marvin Minsky, “Free will: internal forces I do not understand”. Sapolsky adds “yet”.

• Growth of Knowledge argument: Neat charts showing historic trend to connect social behavior and biology in research journals. 604-605.

• If you still believe in mitigated free will:

• Case of Dramer and Springer and the spiritual explanation for epilepsy. Biblical version with Jesus.
• Sapolsky imagines an Inquisitor (witch burner). Must be puzzled occasionally by fact pattern. Mom has epilepsy.
• Growth of knowledge argument 607-608. read list. How will they view us?: Most likely option is that our kids will look at us as idiots about moral responsibility and culpability.

• 608: practical outcomes. Not about letting violent criminals free. On the biological view, punishment can’t be an end in itself (restoring balance). Retributive punishment is an end in itself.

• Brain imaging suggests culpability judgements activate the cool and cognitive dlPFC, but punishment judgements activate more emotional vmPFC. “A frothy limbic state”. Makes sense that punishment is costly. But we need to overcome our attachment to punishment. It is involved in a lot of unjustified suffering.

• Recaps the transition we've made with epilepsy 610.

• Car free will. A kind of reductio argument.

Mistake/Accident Cases

• Generally, we don't hold people equally blameworthy for mistakes and accidents as for intentional wrongdoing.

• Kimberly Potter - police officer who mistook her taser and gun, killing a citizen.
• Amber Guyger - the police officer, off duty, who mistook her neighbor, Botham Jean, for an intruder and killed him.
• A man has a heart attack / epileptic attack while driving and kills a pedestrian. (Consider variations.)
• A man is working two jobs to support a family, nods off at the wheel and kills a pedestrian.
• A man knows his car is close to a dangerous malfunction. When it occurs, he loses control and kills a pedestrian.
• The tragic case of the man who left his baby in a hot car.

Small Group Discussion

• Does a focus on "agency" do a better job of capturing our intuitions and evidence about free will?
• What view of moral responsibility does an agency model support?

27: NOV 26. Reading Day - We will not meet this Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but you do have readings.

Assigned

• Dennett, What is Free Will? 6 minute video [38]

• Cavadino, Michael and James Dignan. "Penal policy and political economy". (17)

• Some videos/websites about prisons and incarceration:

• Prison Policy Initiative Prison Policy Initiative]: A good up-to-date overview of prison facts and some popular myths about the US prison system. Updated to 2023!
• The Atlantic, data visualization on incarceration of African Americans [39]
• Data visualization on mass incarceration. [40]
• Norwegian prison, [41]
• US Supermax prison, “Red Onion” [42]
• ”When kids do hard time,” Wabash Prison, [43]
• Inside a Finnish prison and Finnish prison reform. [44]

• This second video shows several prisons in Finland that seem even more humane than those shown in the video about Norway's prisons. The video discusses their "open prisons," which provide prisoners with their own cars and allow them to leave for various activities. They also provide education, teaching the inmates technology skills and other things.

• Wandsworth Prison in UK. [45], [46]

• These last two videos are about Wandsworth Prison, one of the largest prisons in the United Kingdom. This is a foreign example of a prison that is more similar to the circumstances in the United States. The videos discuss overcrowding, understaffing, corruption, inmates' self-harm, and a major drug problem inside the prison.

• View of prisoner care at ADX Supermax in Colorado. [47]

• Tax rates by country.[48]
• Crime rates by country [49]
• Homicide rates by country [50]

Dennett, What is Free Will?

• Interviewer poses the question, “If everything is determined, how can we have free will?
• Dennett: Free will isn’t just hard to reconcile with determinism, but also indeterminism. [If the universe is “indeterminate” that still doesn’t help us to think about being the origin of our actions. Indeterminacy is randomness.] We want to be the one’s determining our actions.
• History of the question: People look to physics to think about FW, but should be thinking about biology. Key: FW is a biological level phenomenon. [That means it exists at the level of the organism and its intentions, not the cellular or physical level.]
• ”Our actions are determined but not inevitable.” Inevitable mean “unavoidable”. But we have gotten really good at “avoiding.” Anticipation, corrective measures.
• ”You can change what you thought the future was going to be, into something else.” [I think this sounds puzzling if you don’t remember that we have causal agency. Determinism doesn’t mean we are like a billiard ball on a pool table, only subject to forces.]
• Physics level vs. Biological level.
• ”We also need to give up absolute blame and responsibility, but there is still responsibility. “We are determined” to control our future and hold each other accountable for doing that.

Cavadino, Michael and James Dignan. "Penal policy and political economy"

• Huge increase in US incarceration rate since 1970s. 5x, highest in the world.

• Two claims:

• Diffs in penalty likely to continue in spite of globalization
• One reason for this is that penality tracks political economy. (Think of it as a "local mental adaptation" in American culture -- like our libertarianism or our "car culture" mentality or our "suburban" mentality.)

• Starts with an overview of the influence of the US on global penal policy. To the extent that US exerts influence on other countries to move in a neo-liberal direction there may be "penal convergence". Also, incarcertation systems are one of our global exports! "correctional imperialism"

• Some elements of the US "justice model" (retributive punishment and retributive deterrence) travel faster than others. "3 strikes" and "zero tolerance"

• In Europe, the European Convention on Human Rights is influential. Moved Russia away from capital punishment. Example of global influence.

• Political Economy and Penality

• 441: Table: Typology of political economies and their penal tendencies.

• Neo-liberal. Example: US. Free market capitalism, individualism, minimal welfare state. Social exclusion (442) - acceptance of underclass with lower access to market goods. High inequality. Tracks this also in UK, Australia, and NZ (443).

• Conservative corporatism National interest groups integrated into political governance. Great welfare protections, but allows for class difference and some inequality. Also, still valuing church institutions. “Christian democrats” for example. Example: Germany in 2008 recession reinvests in industrial modernization and worker skills. Netherlands a borderline case between this and “Social dem corporatism”

• Social democratic corporatism More egalitarian and secular. Sweden. Strong trade union movement, more egalitarian social insurance than Germans.

• Oriental corporatism Japan, for example. “Corporate paternalism” High job security, structured pay scale to life stages. Welfare is more employer based obligation. Some neo-liberal influence after WWI, but more egalitarian than US.

• Let's review some of the connections the authors make in their discussion. (bring in crime rates)

• Table 2: Political economy and imprisonment rates. (447)

• Is neo-liberalism "criminogenic"?

• Possibly: Evidence that unequal societies with weak community relationships suffer from worse rates of crime. 447. Social exclusion reduces social cohesion.

• Interesting: Weak link bt crime rates and imprisonment rates. More to do with “cultural attitudes toward deviant and marginalized fellow citizens”

• Some possible mechanisms: Neo-liberal societies have high social exclusion: labor market and CJ failures treated similarly. The authors suggests a "feedback loop" here: the socially excluded confirm the neo-liberal narrative.

• By contrast, Corporatist and social dem states are inclusionary, have a communitarian ethos. (Less likely to intervene, less likely to ask citizens, “Are you alright?” Old MRFW news example [51]

• Beckett and Western (2001) and others claim that high welfare spending correlates with low incarceration (except Japan). Also, economic inequality predicts high incarceration rates.

Some Ways of Responding to Rule Breakers

• Retributive punishment / retributive deterrence.

• Requires very strong concept of MR (db-mr) and FW to be just. Retribution is justified by "moral desert". It can also involve "social exclusion" -- making it hard for offenders to vote or hold a job. One can also advocate for a punishment dimension as a deterrence. Even if it is not wholly deserved, punishment deters bad behavior.

• Utilitarian models of punishment: General principle: Goal of penal system is to reduce harm to public and offender.

• Versions include: Rehabilitative approaches, Restorative justice. These models can overlap and tend to assume that crime has natural causes that can either be mitigated through preventative welfare measures (see below) or through rehabilitation, confinement, and/or monitoring.

• Accountability and Interventions

• Distinguishing retributive punishment from "penalties and interventions". Punishment is about pain. Penalties (like speeding and parking tickets) might also hurt, but they can be justified not only on utilitarian grounds, but also more simply as ways of making the standards for behavior clear and reminding us of them, e.g. promoting accountability. Interventions include conditioning liberty (staying out of jail) on getting help with a problem, suspending privileges like driving on better behavior, working with offenders to create a "plan" to avoid recidivism. Using social science knowledge about the patterns of our behavior to offer solutions. Technology (leg braclets and geo-location) and options for medications (libido killers) are also morally controversial in terms of consent, but might be preferable to more painful methods.

• Prevention -- Interventions "before the fact"

• Some Utilitarians might argue for approaches to rule breakers that work from a Public Health-Quarantine Model, Community welfare model (crime is a kind of welfare issue, also for communities). (For example, the difference between reducing speed with traffic engineering and "nudges" (signs showing your speed), rather than tickets. Addressing demographic variables that predict some crimes: low SES, for example.

• Grounding punishment in the consent of the punished.

• Consider responses you might have to causing a harm to others. "Thanks! I needed that!" "I understand there will be consequences..." But what kind?
• Try the "veil of ignorance" approach to finding just principles of punishment. (see below)

Using Rawls to think about Punishment

• Recall our theories of punishment from last class. Here are two thought experiments to help you sort out your views on punishment:

• 1. Imagine you are in the original position in Rawls' theory. You don't know if, when the veil is lifted, you will be a crime victim, criminal, or neither. Moreover, you don't know if you will live in a crime prone area, have good parents, and other factors that affect criminal behavior, like Socio-economic Status (SES). But you do know everything we currently know about the causal factors (both social and individual) that produce crime. You also know how victim's families feel and how you would feel if you were a victim of crime.

• Here are three choices you might make. Does one sound better than the other two? Is there a fourth?

• A. Contractors would choose a retributive punishment system, much like the current US system.
• B. Contractors would choose a "public health model", more like corporatist cultures (Cavadino & Dignan).
• C. Contractors would choose a "dual system" allowing for mix A and B. (Maybe using the tort concept.)

• 2. Faculty sometimes talk about how "punitive" the grading systems in our courses need to be. This can pit "softies" vs. "toughies". As with the moral responsibility and punishment issue in the criminal justice system, some faculty (toughies) worry that if they don't give more C, D, and F grades, students will become lazy. They also might believe that a higher level of performance would occur if we put students in fear of failing the course. (!) However, other faculty (softies) have the feeling that many differences in student performance are "baked in" prior to the first day of class and grading is largely "sorting" the same people over and over again. We need to give students good information about their performance, but we don't need to make harsh final judgements. If this is true, praising and blaming students more severely than needed to motivate the work seems undeserved. Softies sometimes acknowledge the "free rider" problems with their view. Do you find yourself agreeing with one group of faculty over the other? How punitive do we need to make a particular process for it to work? What are the variables? Do you have an analysis? How would you want your kids graded?

PP2: Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Punishment Position Paper

• Stage 1: Please write an 1500 word maximum answer to the following prompt by TBD, 2024, 11:59pm. There will be no peer review process for this paper, but you will receive comments from me along with your grade.

• Topic: In this unit, we have explored different ways to think about free will/agency, moral responsibility, and punishment. We've looked at arguments for "moral responsibility skepticism," critiques of our ordinary ideas about free will, and the justification of our culture's approach to punishment. Draw on these resources as you also develop your own view, with supporting reasons, of free will and responsibility and how we should approach crime and punishment. For example: Are there important reasons to retain retributive approaches? How should we take into consideration the growing body of knowledge about biological influences on our behavior? Do cultural comparisons of correctional systems tell us anything useful about our own?

• Advice about collaboration: Collaboration is part of the academic process and the intellectual world that college courses are based on, so it is important to me that you have the possibility to collaborate. I encourage you to collaborate with other students, but only up to the point of sharing ideas, references to class notes, and your own notes, verbally. Collaboration is also a great way to make sure that a high average level of learning and development occurs in the class. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to NOT share text of draft answers or outlines of your answer. Keep it verbal. Generate your own examples.

• Prepare your answer and submit it in the following way. You will lose points if you do not follow these instructions:

1. To assure anonymity, you must remove your name from the the "author name" that you may have provided when you set up your word processing application. For instructions on removing your name from an Word or Google document, [click here].
2. Format your answer in double spaced text, in a typical 12 point font, and using normal margins. Do not add spaces between paragraphs and indent the first line of each paragraph.
3. Do not put your name in the file or filename. You may put your student ID number in the file. Always put a word count in the file. Save your file for this assignment with the name: FWMRandPunishment.
4. To turn in your assignment, log into courses.alfino.org, click on the "3 - Position Paper #2: FW, MR and Punishment" dropbox.
5. If you cannot meet a deadline, you must email me about your circumstances (unless you are having an emergency) before the deadline or you will lose points.

27: DEC 3.

Assigned

• Greg Caruso and Daniel Dennett, "Just Deserts" [52].

Caruso & Dennett, "Just Deserts"

• This dialogue allows you to see how a moral responsibility sceptic (Caruso) and a compatibilist (Dennett) might disagree about moral responsibility. Dennett defends a pretty strong view of moral responsibility but doesn’t think he’s a retributivist. Caruso defends a strong skeptical view of moral responsibility and thinks Dennett is still hanging on to retributivism.

• Caruso: What we do and the way we are is ultimately the result of factors beyond our control. [No Ultimate Resp. thesis - NUR]
• Dennett: [Seems to defend "mitigated free will" but instead of the humunculus, we are in “control” by virtue of the natural developments that produce an NCA.] Some people have mental disabilities that makes them not responsible, but normal people are morally responsibility and deserve praise or blame. Need to distinguish between causation and control. There are causal chains that turned you into an autonomous, self-controlling agent. [e.g. A normal person with a normal upbringing. The "normally competent agent" - NCA]. If you are an NCA, then it’s you who did it, and you can be blamed and (non-retributively) punished.

• Caruso: No problem with NCA, who is "responsive to reasons". NCAs are autonomous and have control. But they don't possess the characteristics that would justify "basic desert" responsibility [What we are calling "db-MR"]. People don't deserve to have "something bad happen to them just because they have knowingly done wrong". Totally "backward looking". Retributivism overlaps with consequentialism (Punishing people might reduce harms and therefor achieve utilitarian ends) but the distinctive difference is that retributivist thinks punishment is justified in itself, by desert. I don't because of NUR. There may be "forward looking" reasons to keep certain systems of punishment and reward, like "incapacitating, rehabilitating and deterring offenders" [what we've been calling "penalties and interventions"]

• Dennett: I too reject retributivism, along views of free will [libertarian] that support it. [This will be a major point of dispute between them.] But there is a "backward looking" justification for punishment: [read example of promise breaking]. "deserving of negative consequences". This is something autonomous people accept as a condition of political freedom. Analogy of sports penalties. They can be deserved. Argument against NUR: So what? We grow into our autonomy. [So Dennett’s position seems to be that we deserved to be blamed for our conduct, but not in ways that trigger retributive punishment. So, desert-based MR without retribution.]

• Caruso: [Are you sure you're not a retributivist, DD?] Isn't "deserving negative consequences" retributivism? The consequentialist benefits of punishment don't require "desert" [but just MR as "accountability" -- You did it, maybe on purpose...]. There are good [forward looking] reasons to keep penalties. [References the "moral luck" literature from Nagel.] Luck doesn't "even out", SES affects brain development, educational inequalities....[In a word, lucky privileged people.]

• Dennett: I'm using the "every day" sense of "deserve". I want to avoid "case by case" considerations of MR. You are "entitled" to the praise you get from good things and the "criticism, shame, and blame" from breaking the law. I'm still for criminal justice reform -- shorter sentences, no death penalty, rehab and reinstatement.

• Caruso: It doesn't help to appeal to the everyday sense, since that includes retributivist beliefs -- 1. backward-looking; 2. just deserts, and that's what we are trying to figure out (e.g. you're begging the question). If you say that the murderer deserves to go to prison for "a very long time" irrespective of future consequences, you are a retributivist. [ Think "strike back".] Example of Einstein. We can "attribute" things to Einstein.... You do offer a "forward looking justification for backward looking MR" [Roughly, we don't get the benefits of a stable society without punishing people in the "moral desert" sense.] But that's an empirical question; it's not justified by "moral desert" but only if the consequences follow.

• Dennett: Non-retributive punishment (visiting negative consequences on people because they deserve it) is justified in part by the need to promote "respect for the law" [connect to Henrich] Cites Hobbes.

• Caruso: [a bit frustrated] You say you're baffled that I don't see that you are not a retributivist, but you said that earlier that there are "backward looking" justifications for punishment based on desert. But when you elaborate that, it's all about forward looking justifications. [We're better off punishing.] Cites the "public health argument" from his book. Focusing on backward looking punishment keeps us from looking at the social causes of crime. Obama quote. [Note connection with Cavadino: We're looking at neo-liberal ideology....]. Claims society won't fall apart in the Hobbesian sense.

Traditional vs. Naturalist Approaches to Free Will

• The traditional philosopher's approach:

Whether we have free will or not depends upon our answers to two metaphysical questions:

• "Is determinism true?" and "Are we exceptions to it?". Specifically, does causation permeate nature?
• Libertarians believe that when we act freely, we are exceptions to the the "first cause" (like God, by the way) in a chain of actions. In other words, humans are exceptions to determinism.

• Big Implication of traditional view: At least part of us (the homunculus) is absolutely free. Biological stuff can override our freedom only in case of force or compulsion.

• By contrast, The "naturalist" approach (biologists, cultural evolutionists, and most philosophers) assumes we are products of nature. As far as we know, we are caused to be how we are. But that doesn't mean we can't be responsible for our behavior, just that there are natural limits to human responsibility. These limits are found by understanding agency and paying attention to how cultures shape the idea of free will (Henrich).

• What we have, in normal circumstances is "agency." Agency is "an ability to act in the world and to make myself accountable to others." I do this by conforming my behavior to the idea of a "normally competent agent." Having human agency means that I am determined (by biology and training) to be accountable for values that help us get along together, to "evade" bad outcomes. But, as we have already said, as a biological capacity, agency varies quite a bit by person and circumstance.

• Naturalists want us to pay attention to how we actually talk about Free Will. This will help us understand the culturally shaped concept of FW and the way biology and environment pose real limits to our freedom.

• Big implication of naturalist view: Agency is about "degrees of freedom". We are not all equally free. Environments and our own biology and upbringing can constrain our freedom. On this view, free will is not a property most of us have completely (binary), but related to our actual competency in controlling our choices. NCAs can control their choice and are morally responsible for their conduct, but it's a "range concept" (true by degrees, not binary).

Dennett's Naturalist view in Freedom Evolves

• The Standard Argument for Incompatibilism that our Folk Psychology encourages. (Should we resist?)

• If Determinism is true, everything is inevitable.
• If everything is inevitable, the future has no real possibilities. (No "open futures")
• If everything is inevitable, you can't blame someone for not doing otherwise than they did. (No "alternative possibilities.")
• If you can't blame someone for their actions, then there is no MR and retributive punishment is unjust.

• If you are like most people, you will not accept this argument. And you shouldn't. The question is, who has a better solution? Naturalists suggest that our folk psychology is confusing us about the consequences of determinism, maybe because it wasn't designed for these kinds of questions. So their solution is to give an analysis of the implications of determinism that makes room for free will and to show how "freedom and free willing" might arise from nature.

• Rethinking Determinism. Here are three key challenges to the standard argument for incompatibilism (above) from naturalists:

• 1. Determinism doesn't make things inevitable.
• 2. There are real present and future possibilities in a determinist world, just not the "open futures" of folk psychology.
• 3. Freedom evolved in us in nature.

• In other words, the naturalist thinks free will and freedom (and some version of responsibility, if not retributive punishment) are possible in a deterministic world with no "open futures". As we will see, part of the strategy is to show just how complicated we are, to be creatures who engage in inquiry and use knowledge to avoid back outcomes and create good ones. So, we might be "Determined (by nature) to improve the future!".

• Where does all that improvement show up? In culture, but only if things go right. As we know from our studies this semester, "going right" in culture means benefiting from cooperation and acquiring cultural "packages" of mental adaptations that address the basic dilemmas of social creatures like us. Ultimately, surviving and thriving.

• So that's where we're headed. Now let's look at the naturalist's analysis in a little detail.

• 1. Determinism doesn't make things inevitable.

• Artificial Life research models how design can emerge from a set of artificially defined "creatures" moving in a completely deterministic manner, as in a video game. (Nerdy digression: Artificial life models can create "touring machines," which means they can solve computational problems, like how do I avoid being eaten today.) Some creatures in nature develop "avoidance capabilities". The birth of "evitability"! Not so implausible that nature designed us to be good "avoiders". We also have circuits for rewards and searching!

• 2. There are real present and future possibilities in a determinist world, just not the "open futures" of folk psychology.

• If something can be "determined to change" then it has, in a sense, an "open future." (Still not the folk psychological one exactly.) In us, meta-cognitive and social processes feed into our decision making, allowing us to re-evaluate the "weights" we give to different possibilities.

• The way we actually think about possibility when we are engaged in inquiry is compatible with determinism.

• Analysis of: "I could have made that putt." Makes sense if you mean "If the world hade been slightly different. In inquiry, and with our big brains, we imagine possible worlds in which the wind didn't blow or I wasn't thinking about my taxes while making the putt. But it doesn't make sense to say, "No, I mean that I could have made the putt in this world!", because you didn't.

• We create real possibilities in the present and future by using reason to replay scenarios and approach them differently. Examples: Improving your social skills, academic skills. If it feels like your "in charge", well, you are. All of these causal forces intersect with you and you happen to have a brain.

• 3. Freedom evolved in us in nature.

• If freedom means avoiding bad outcomes and having lots of real possibilities in your life (travel, universities, medicine, leisure), then it might be possible to account for that in a deterministic world.
• The evolution of freedom happens through the evolution of the socially evolved behaviors and structures we've been studying. Cooperation, culture, accumulated knowledge, complex societies supporting lots and lots of education provide us more freedom than our ancestors.
• Obvious example: Without vaccines we would be less free.
• Complete this sentence: "We'll be freer when we __________." End gun violence, address climate change, reduce crime...
• Contrast with traditional concept of free will: binary, metaphysically opaque. Evolved freedom admits of degrees. Lots of potential implications for responsibility and punishment.
• Implication: We are not all equally free. Freedom is powerful and fragile.
• Implication: You can hold normal people responsible for their behavior. Ironically, you could say that the more competent an agent you are the more you might deserve to be blamed for failing in your responsibilities. But there's no justification of absolute responsibility here. You can hold people responsible because they are designed to be responsible, but if they fail, you can't say they made "lib FW choice" to fail.

More Prison Video

• This is What It’s Like to Spend Your Life in Prison [53]

This is a short video listening to the experiences of men who are serving life in Angola Prison, Louisiana. Many of these men are elderly and have not seen the outside world or their families in decades. One man couldn’t even recognize a camera because he has been locked away for so long. Many of these men have committed terrible crimes like murder but they claim they have changed and grown. There are more than 50,000 prisoners nationwide facing life without parole. It costs about $70,000 per aging inmate which is billions in taxpayer money per year. These men have already served lengthy sentences and have lived most of their lives in prison. Many of these men were teenagers when they committed their crimes and now they want a second chance to redeem themselves, prove they’ve changed, and receive their freedom once again.

• 13th - Netflix Film [54]

• 13th is a feature film documenting how our incarceration system is deeply rooted in racism and slavery. The rise of our prison population over the past decades can be attributed to seeing people of color, mainly black people, as dangerous criminals. Capitalism also plays a pivotal role in the incarceration system as keeping more people in prison funds corporations like ALEC, further perpetuating the cycle of imprisonment. Movements like the war on drugs targeted black communities, putting more of these ‘dangerous criminals’ behind bars for what were mostly low-level drug offenses while white people were only given a slap on the wrist for the same or worse possessions. Slavery and other racist stereotypes and movements have led to our prison population increasing by over 500% since 1970, causing about 1/3 of black men to face imprisonment in their lifetimes.

28: DEC 5. Course Conclusion

Assigned

• Churchland, "What's Love Got to Do With It?"

Churchland, P. C7 “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”

• story of Dali Lama’s famous round tables from the 90s. (Also, my first philosophy professor, Owen Flanagan was in this group.)

• Point: Buddhist ethics not “rule based” like most Western ethics thought. Rule Purveyors v Wisdom seekers.

• Rule based - Utilitarian, Kantian, Rawlsian. Not successful - moral decision making is about “constraint satisfaction” not exceptionless rules. Some of the constraints: time, predictions, values.

• Three Sources of rule based ethics: Religion, Reason, Rules

• Religion - problems of different religions, the Euthyphro problem (153).
• Reason - Morality is separate from nature. Reasoning separates us from natural inclinations, which are non-moral. Kant. Can’t base morality on non-contradiction. Utilitarians - also thought they’d found the one true principle of morality in the principle of utility. But they don’t really motivate the idea that we should promote everyone’s happiness. Our natural partiality to kin and friends is a problem for utilitarian.

• Should we be trying to base morality on impartial rules? Ought implies can. Utilitarians run afoul of this when they ask us to favor 20 orphans over our 2 kids.

• Utilitarians also fail to give us a guide to evaluating consequences, even though they offer a consequentialist rule. Consequences will be evaluated differently based on background beliefs. A hermit v. An entrepreneur, for example. Utilitarian “math” can specific the option that maximizes utility, but that often runs rough over other values (see list and 163). (You can commit crimes in the name of happiness promotion. - Blackburn) (Stalin sure did.)

• Churchland’s main argument - The problem with rule purveyors is that they reduce morality to one constraints that needs to be satisfied, whereas morality is typically about satisfying many constraints. When you look at how decision making really works in the brain, it’s more complex.

• The neurobiology of decision making suggests that it involves “case based reasoning”. Lot of considerations: facts of the case, but also implications of different actions, constraints of prior value commitments, opinions of others, culture, etc.

• Cites mammalian precursors to morality - consoling a friend, cooperating, sharing, reconciling, punishing. Animal studies of oxytocin spikes before and after conflict.

• Thesis: “I have come to view the prospect of a clear, simple rule or set of rules… as undermined by the reality of social life.” 167.

• Habits, such as virtue ethics counsels are important ways of simplifying the contstraint satisfaction process. If your default is “act with kindness” you might have an efficient bias.

• Morality for humans

• Churchland’s definition of morality is roughly compatible with our defines of values: …shared attitudes and practices that regulate individual behavior to facilitate cohesion and well being among individuals and groups.” 169.

• Inuit example - (pre-agriculture (or mixed)) - v - Hammurabi’s code - (post agriculture). Most of our time as a species is more like the Inuits.

• Voice of conscience - anecdotes also about culture and conscience. Culture affects how we describe what we feel. (In my work: Culture as a way of seeing some problems “as” and not seeing.). Thinking here about how social norms are instantiated in our neuro-biology.

• The Joy of Being Biological

• Contrasts the biological with “mainstream” views like religion or reason as the source of morality. (Note: She’s missing Henrich and cultural evolution. “Whatever else is true…” religions culture is still a source of norms.).

• At the close, she wants to trigger appreciation of the brain and how we’ve underestimated the power of reward learning. 86 billion neurons. Mamma mia! Add in connections, 10,000 per neuron, and you are off to the races!

• nice point: The neurobiology guarantees differences. Nice Marcus Aurelius quote. Read.