Situating Moral Psychology Flashcards
(36 cards)
Distal psychological processes
evolved adaptations related to morality
Proximal psychological processes
Social norms, both prescriptive and proscriptive
Presently, how is the field of moral philosophy organized?
Into two groups: normative ethics and meta-ethics
What is normative ethics?
The oldest tradition in moral philosophy
Deep inquiry and thorough analysis into what it means to live “the good life” (in a moral sense, not a hedonistic sense).
Concerned with deriving moral principles; is prescriptive and proscriptive.
what are the 4 theories in normative ethics?
Utilitarianism
Categorical imperative
Social contract
Ethical egoism
Normative ethics is characterized by three things:
- Rationality
- Impartiality towards individual/group interests
- Emphasis on logical analysis, over descriptive or empirical analysis of actual behaviour
Ethical egoism
Each person ought to do whatever will best advance their own interests.
This does precludes duty to others, but it does not necessarily mean instant gratification, constant hedonism, or being completely disinterested in others’ welfare. Things that may be immediately gratifying may be disastrous in the long run. Sometimes our self interests align with others’.
Dr. Ellard mentions in his notes that psychological egoism has deep roots in economics and psychology as well…
Act utilitarianism
We ought to do whatever will promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number
Categorical imperative
Argues for a completely rationale derivation of absolute moral rules, that one should never violate.
When acting, ask yourself if that act would be acceptable if it were to become a universal law (ie. if everyone did it).
What is meta-ethics concerned with?
Meta-ethics is concerned with understanding the nature of moral phenomena, but not necessarily coming to moral conclusions.
What are some examples of meta-ethical questions?
What do terms like “good”, “bad”, “right”, and “wrong” mean?
What is the nature of moral judgement, is it universal or relative?
How can we know when something is right or wrong?
Social contract - what it is, basically, and who originated the theory
The right act is what people can agree on for their mutual benefit.
Thomas Hobbes
What epistemological rift lies between moral philosophy and moral psychology?
People who study moral philosophy believe that we can’t derive knowledge about what SHOULD be, or how people ought to act, from merely our knowledge of what is, or how people already behave in their everyday lives. Essentially, the is/ought problem.
(@Laura, @Garrett, is this a good explanation? Thots? I asked “what epistemological rift” because it’s like…how do we derive our knowledge of what should be, or from what?)
David Hume’s Is/Ought problem, aka Hume’s Guillotine
1: Sam is stealing money from work.
2: Losing money by theft causes harm to Sam’s employers.
3: (One ought to not cause harm to his employers.)
4: Therefore, Sam ought to stop stealing money from work.
Hume argues that we cannot just infer “ought” statements from “is” statements. In the above example, premises 1 and 2 don’t necessarily lead to premises 3 and 4, a jump was made. Hume argues that the the “ought” determinations must be severed from statements of fact, hence the guillotine metaphor.
This drives a wedge between normative ethics and science, including psychology, because sciences are usually abt drawing conclusions from facts
G. E. Moore’s Naturalistic Fallacy
The assumption that anything that is naturally occurring is good
concepts of good and bad are often constructs with no necessary links to the natural world.
Arguments against naturalistic fallacy (by Stephen Pinker)
Naturalistic fallacy is the basis of social Darwinism
Social Darwinism = belief that helping the poor and sick hinders the process of natural selection
Belief that we shouldn’t help those people bc we want to promote natural selection
results in the fallacious belief that practices that have been natural to many cultures, in many eras, must be good. But examples of these things include adultery, infanticide, and cannibalism. Just because they occur in the natural world doesn’t mean that they’re good
Leads to romanticized beliefs about nature: dung beetles recycle dung to benefit the ecosystem, lions kill prey out of mercy, mice feel no pain when cats eat them
N.fal also leads to romanticized belief that humans can’t harbour desires to kill, rape, lie, or steal
What was the consequence of the is/ought distinction??? For the study and development of normative ethics?
Normative ethics, for a long time, ignored developments in the natural sciences including psychology
although this is less and less the case now!!!!
(IDK IF THIS WAS A USELESS CARD I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS NEAT TO KNOW)
Our more modern interpretation of Hume and Moore
They were right to an extent—evidence from the natural world is unlikely to result in /optimal/ universal moral principles
but they both rested their arguments about moral principles on their assumptions about psychology and human nature
Also, apparently on the ethical behaviour of moral philosophers has been conducted. They tend to endorse moral principles more than non-moral philosophers, but the rate at which they abide by those principles is no different than anyone else
(Wonder what study this was? Lol)
When can moral psychology, and our knowledge of how humans behave, inform meta-ethics? We discussed these examples in class, I’ll list them here.
Meta-ethical question: what is good/bad/right/wrong?
- humans have instinct about disgust, eg. Incest taboo
Meta-ethical question: is moral judgement universal or relative?
- certain principles appear more universal than others, eg. Reciprocity!!!
Meta-ethical Q: How could we know if something is right/wrong?
- psychology has made many contributions here
- we know that moral judgements are relatively made in a vacuum, most judgements are in some sense relative.
- for example, social psych tells us that a critical source of comparison is the actual, or assumed behaviour of others.
- is it wrong to cheat? Yes, but lots of people do it. Some people may think “it’s stupid not to when others are obviously doing so” eg speeding 10km
Therefore, moral psychology can be viewed as a type of ethical naturalism. [this is not a question, nothing on the back of this card]
:)
Ellard’s lecture notes first examine Latimer’s death from a moral philosophy perspective and then from a moral psychology perspective.
First, name 3 arguments against Latimer’s murder from a moral /philosophy/ perspective.
- Sanctity of life
- Discrimination against handicapped people
- Slippery slope argument
Descriptions of arguments:
Latimer case and moral psychology:
Name the meta-ethics issues and normative ethics issues that the moral psych perspective raises
Meta-ethics:
- Problem of suffering of children
- Frame of reference phenomenon - which includes the problems of empathy and just deserts
Normative ethics:
- normative ethics’ assumptions of rationality and impartiality are challenging from a psych perspective
- this includes the problems of counterfactual thinking and emotions as datalink
Latimer case and moral psychology:
/Describe/ the meta-ethics issues and normative ethics issues that the moral psych perspective raises
Meta-ethics issues:
- Suffering of children
- witnessing of, or knowing about, the suffering of innocents is extremely upsetting to people. This visceral reaction makes inevitably influences people’s judgements.
- would people react as strongly if he had killed his wife, say if she had ALS? Would people react as strongly if he killed an old person?
- or if the person was a criminal on death row? Many people are opposed to abortion but believe in the death penalty
- when it comes to sanctity of life, everyday moral judgement suggests that sanctity depends on WHO’s life we’re talking about. - Frame of Reference
- the trial judge gave Robert Latimer a very lenient sentence, then the Supreme Court judge overruled it and gave him a 25 year prison sentence!
- Why did this happen? Probably because of the emotional distance from the evidence!
- trial judge and jury had direct in-person experience at Robert Latimer’s trial. Supreme Court judge did not
- empathy and just deserts: psych research has demonstrated that the extent to which we identify, and feel empathy for, both victims and perpetrators significantly affects our moral reactions.
Normative ethics issues:
- normative ethics aims to arrive at conduct principles through rationality and impartiality, but bias research shows that impartiality is unattainable!
- psych can shed light on how irrational factors affect our judgements
- emotionally charged features of situations: people tend to use their emotions as data. Do people empathize and identify more with Tracy or Robert
- counterfactual thinking: what hypothetical alternatives to Robert Latimer’s actions can people think of? The extent to which people consider these counterfactual alternatives affects their judgements
- Those who judged Latimer harshly probably imagined that the alternative of managing Tracy’s pain was better
Define deontological ethics and consequentialism
Deontological ethics: following rules such as “do not lie” or “do not kill”, and rules must be followed at all times.
Consequentialism: more focused on consequences of events rather than following any rule to the letter
