Group items tagged

"I urged that we be realistic about reasoning and recognize that reasons persuade others on moral and political issues only under very special circumstances. "Reason is far less powerful than intuition, so if you're arguing (or deliberating) with a partner who lives on the other side of the political spectrum from you, and you approach issues such as abortion, gay marriage or income inequality with powerfully different intuitive reactions, you are unlikely to effect any persuasion no matter how good your arguments and no matter how much time you give your opponent to reflect upon your logic. "I never said that reasons were irrelevant. I said that they were no match for intuition, and that they were usually a servant of one's own intuitions. Therefore, if you want to persuade someone, talk to the elephant first."

Moral quandaries often pit concerns about principles against concerns about practical consequences. Should we ban assault rifles and large sodas, restricting people's liberties for the sake of physical health and safety? Should we allow drone killings or torture, if violating one person's rights could save a thousand lives? We like to believe that the principled side of the equation is rooted in deep, reasoned conviction. But a growing wealth of research shows that those values often prove to be finicky, inconsistent intuitions, swayed by ethically irrelevant factors. What you say now you might disagree with in five minutes. And such wavering has implications for both public policy and our personal lives. Philosophers and psychologists often distinguish between two ethical frameworks. A utilitarian perspective evaluates an action purely by its consequences. If it does good, it's good. A deontological approach, meanwhile, also takes into account aspects of the action itself, like whether it adheres to certain rules. Do not kill, even if killing does good. No one adheres strictly to either philosophy, and it turns out we can be nudged one way or the other for illogical reasons.... Regardless of whether you endorse following the rules or calculating benefits, knowing that our instincts are so sensitive to outside factors can prevent us from settling on our first response. Objective moral truth doesn't exist, and these studies show that even if it did, our grasp of it would be tenuous. ...But we can encourage consistency in moral reasoning by viewing issues from many angles, discussing them with other people and monitoring our emotions closely. In recognizing our psychological quirks, we just might find answers we can live with.

"Rational deliberation is not a switch to be thrown on or off. It is a process, and therefore many of its effects would have to be measured over time. Tellingly, the participants in Haidt's original harmless taboo studies study had little time to deliberate. But as other studies have suggested when people are given more time to reflect, they can change their beliefs to fit the evidence, even when those beliefs might be initially emotionally uncomfortable to them. "To engage in democratic politics means seeing your fellow citizens as equal autonomous agents capable of making up their own minds. And that means that in a functioning democracy, we owe one another reasons for our political actions. "Giving up on the idea that reason matters is not only premature from a scientific point of view; it throws in the towel on an essential democratic hope. Politics needn't always be war by other means; democracies can, and should be places where the exchange of reasons is encouraged. This hope is not a delusion; it is an ideal - and in our countdown to November, one still worth striving for."

'Haidt's lone hero among the great philosophers - David Hume - points out, there is a logical gap between what is done (descriptive ethics) and what ought to be done (normative ethics). Haidt acknowledges that his concern as a psychologist is overwhelmingly descriptive. But he says almost nothing about how to connect his work with the compelling normative questions of human life. Engaging with the extensive philosophical discussions of Hume's distinction between "is" and "ought" could help fill this major gap in Haidt's account of ethics.'