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utsfl:classroom:seminars:pbh310 [2024/03/27 06:40] – minor edits, but need to restart Firefox and don't want to lose this balleyne | utsfl:classroom:seminars:pbh310 [2025/02/12 16:12] (current) – [Part 2: Six Taste Receptors] fixed a typo balleyne | ||
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For a guide through the field of moral psychology, I'm going to turn to Jonathan Haidt - whose name you'll see all over the Wikipedia article on [[wp> | For a guide through the field of moral psychology, I'm going to turn to Jonathan Haidt - whose name you'll see all over the Wikipedia article on [[wp> | ||
- | (I first encountered Jonathan Haidt' | + | (Share some of my 2020-2024 journey |
- | I'm going to pull out the core insights from Haidt' | + | I'm going to pull out the core insights from Haidt' |
===== Part 1: The Elephant and the Rider ===== | ===== Part 1: The Elephant and the Rider ===== | ||
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* More on the particular moral feelings in part 2, but for now, let's think about the method here: intuitions first, reasoning second | * More on the particular moral feelings in part 2, but for now, let's think about the method here: intuitions first, reasoning second | ||
- | ==== The Elephant and the Rider ==== | + | ==== Elephants Rule ==== |
Through much of his research, Haidt found that: **Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.** He sums this up with his analogy of the elephant and the rider. | Through much of his research, Haidt found that: **Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.** He sums this up with his analogy of the elephant and the rider. | ||
Line 43: | Line 43: | ||
{{youtube> | {{youtube> | ||
- | Jonathon | + | Jonathan |
> On February 3, 2007, shortly before lunch, I discovered that I was a chronic liar. I was at home, writing a review article on moral psychology, when my wife, Jayne, walked by my desk. In passing, she asked me not to leave dirty dishes on the counter where she prepared our baby's food. Her request was polite but its tone added a postscript: "As I have asked you a hundred times before." | > On February 3, 2007, shortly before lunch, I discovered that I was a chronic liar. I was at home, writing a review article on moral psychology, when my wife, Jayne, walked by my desk. In passing, she asked me not to leave dirty dishes on the counter where she prepared our baby's food. Her request was polite but its tone added a postscript: "As I have asked you a hundred times before." | ||
> | > | ||
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It's the **moral flash** I want you to recognize, your moral intuitions. This is your elephant. | It's the **moral flash** I want you to recognize, your moral intuitions. This is your elephant. | ||
- | Think about your own experience, talking to other people, but more importantly, | + | Think about your own experience, talking to other people, but more importantly, |
In study after study, Haidt finds that moral judgment is far from a purely cerebral affair in which we're consciously reasoning (the rider), but actually "moral judgment is mostly done by the elephant." | In study after study, Haidt finds that moral judgment is far from a purely cerebral affair in which we're consciously reasoning (the rider), but actually "moral judgment is mostly done by the elephant." | ||
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:!: Haidt talks about the application of the social intuitionist model for moral persuasion: | :!: Haidt talks about the application of the social intuitionist model for moral persuasion: | ||
- | > The social intuitionist model offers an explanation of why moral and political arguments are so frustrating: | + | > The social intuitionist model offers an explanation of why moral and political arguments are so frustrating: |
**Therefore, | **Therefore, | ||
Line 96: | Line 96: | ||
And this leads into the second half, on how we can apply further lessons from moral psychology on how to be persuasive to other people' | And this leads into the second half, on how we can apply further lessons from moral psychology on how to be persuasive to other people' | ||
- | ===== Empathy for Elephants | + | ===== Part 2: Six Taste Receptors |
The first principle in moral psychology is that " | The first principle in moral psychology is that " | ||
- | < | + | < |
- | FIXME I need some key images and graphs: the moral matrices from Part III, maybe the graphs from Part II as a warm up to that... | + | ==== Beyond WEIRD Morality |
- | + | ||
- | FIXME combine parts II and III into a second half, where Part II is descriptive and Part III is prescriptive (in parts of the pro-life application) | + | |
- | + | ||
- | ==== The Six Taste Receptors ==== | + | |
- | === Beyond WEIRD Morality === | + | |
Jonathan Haidt rights as a secular liberal, breaking out of his liberal university bubbles and broadening his understanding of moral psychology by developing a better understanding of the broad range of human moral reasoning, rather than only the narrow range he was accustomed to and familiar with before. | Jonathan Haidt rights as a secular liberal, breaking out of his liberal university bubbles and broadening his understanding of moral psychology by developing a better understanding of the broad range of human moral reasoning, rather than only the narrow range he was accustomed to and familiar with before. | ||
Line 115: | Line 110: | ||
He opens Part II like this((p. 111-112)): | He opens Part II like this((p. 111-112)): | ||
- | > I got my Ph.D. at McDonald' | + | > I got my Ph.D. at McDonald' |
> | > | ||
> But what I didn't expect was that these working-class subjects would sometimes find my request for justifications so perplexing. Each time someone said that the people in a story had done something wrong, I asked, "Can you tell me why that was wrong?" | > But what I didn't expect was that these working-class subjects would sometimes find my request for justifications so perplexing. Each time someone said that the people in a story had done something wrong, I asked, "Can you tell me why that was wrong?" | ||
Line 132: | Line 127: | ||
**The second principle in moral psychology is that there' | **The second principle in moral psychology is that there' | ||
- | === Moral Foundations Theory === | + | ==== Moral Foundations Theory |
After breaking out of the WEIRD matrix, Haidt and his team starting doing a ton of research on what came to be known as [[wp> | After breaking out of the WEIRD matrix, Haidt and his team starting doing a ton of research on what came to be known as [[wp> | ||
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* e.g. Chastity as a virtue of purity, vs "your body may be a temple, but mine's an amusement park" bumper sticker | * e.g. Chastity as a virtue of purity, vs "your body may be a temple, but mine's an amusement park" bumper sticker | ||
- | + | ==== Three vs Six ==== | |
- | FIXME need better definitions and understanding, | + | |
- | === Three vs Six === | + | |
Conclusion((p. 212-214)) - maybe just read the bolded part, but use the matrices image to visualize while explaining: | Conclusion((p. 212-214)) - maybe just read the bolded part, but use the matrices image to visualize while explaining: | ||
Line 169: | Line 162: | ||
> **Liberals have a three-foundation morality, whereas conservatives use all six. Liberal moral matrices rest on the care/harm, liberty/ | > **Liberals have a three-foundation morality, whereas conservatives use all six. Liberal moral matrices rest on the care/harm, liberty/ | ||
+ | This is the second principle in moral psychology: **there' | ||
- | ===== The Hive Switch ===== | + | So what do we do then with these findings to be more effective pro-life activists? **We need to keep these taste receptors in mind as we speak to elephants** (e.g. why do we focus so much in the pro-life message on care/harm and liberty/ |
- | Morality binds and blinds. We are 90 Percent Chimp and 10 Percent Bee. | + | |
+ | Finally, we turn to the third principle in moral psychology to develop deeper empathy, and learn a few more lessons that are relevant for heart apologetics and for the pro-life movement more broadly. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Part 3: The Hive Switch ===== | ||
+ | <note warning> | ||
+ | |||
+ | In Part III of the book, Haidt explores a lot of studies and a lot of evolutionary biology to make the point, from a descriptive, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The chimp part makes sense, as we share like 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. But bees? | ||
+ | |||
+ | While our similarities to chimpanzees can explain a lot of our selfishness from an evolutionary biology perspective, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Haidt tells the story of the burst of patriotism he experienced in the wake of 9/11, despite being an unpatriotic liberal((p. 219)): | ||
+ | > In the terrible days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I felt an urge so primitive I was embarrassed to admit it to my friends: I wanted to put an American flag decal on my car. | ||
+ | > | ||
+ | > The urge seemed to come out of nowhere, with no connection to anything I'd ever done. It was as if there was an ancient alarm box in the back of my brain with a sign on it that said, "In case of foreign attack, break glass and push button." | ||
+ | > | ||
+ | > But I was a professor, and professors don't do such things. Flag waving and nationalism are for conservatives. Professors are liberal globetrotting universalists, | ||
+ | > | ||
+ | > After three days and a welter of feelings I"d never felt before, I found a solution to my dilemma. I put an American flag in one corner of my rear windshield, and I put the United Nations flag in the opposite corner. That way I could announce that I loved my country, but don't worry, folks, I don't place it above other countries, and this was, after all, an attack on the whole world, sort of, right? | ||
+ | |||
+ | This switch into group mode, Jonathan Haidt calls The Hive Switch. We are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee. He says, "we are selfish primates who long to be part of something larger and nobler than ourselves." | ||
+ | * religious experience/ | ||
+ | * awe in nature | ||
+ | * a sports stadium | ||
+ | * a rock concert | ||
+ | * a meaningful and challenging experience that builds community (like a summer internship or tour) | ||
+ | |||
+ | FIXME example: https:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | Collective ritual - Haidt says that human beings are // | ||
+ | |||
+ | When this hive switch is activated, this leads to the third principle in moral psychology: **morality binds and blinds.** That is, the Hive Switch //binds// us together in community. But, it also //blinds// us beyond the in-group. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Binding ==== | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | On community-building | ||
+ | * Muscular bonding in warfare (acting as a unit in a whole), but also sports and raves, etc | ||
+ | * Oxytocin simply makes people love their in-group more | ||
+ | * Ways to nudge everyone' | ||
+ | * **Increase similarity, not diversity.** [connect with religious idea bundling] To make a human hive, you want to make everyone feel like a family. So don't call attention to racial and ethnic differences; | ||
+ | * **Exploit synchrony: | ||
+ | * **Create healthy competition among teams, not individuals.** As McNeill said, soldiers don't risk their lives for their country or for the army; they do so for their buddies in the same squad or platoon. Studies show that intergroup competition increases love of the in-group far more than it increases dislike of the out-group. Intergroup competitions, | ||
+ | |||
+ | But also, critical, on how we form our political ideologies and identities, Haidt breaks this down: | ||
+ | > Innate does not mean unmalleable; | ||
+ | > 1. Genes Make Brains: sensation-seeking / openness to experience vs threat sensitivity | ||
+ | > 2. Traits Guide Children Along Different Paths: | ||
+ | > (a) Dispositional traits: broad dimensions of personality that show themselves in many different situations and are fairly consistent from childhood through old age | ||
+ | > (b) Characteristic adaptations: | ||
+ | > 3/c. People Construct Life Narrative: The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor, and among the most important stories we know are stories about ourselves... a bridge between a developing adolescent self and an adult political identity | ||
+ | |||
+ | e.g. grand unified narratives of liberalism or conservativism from the book FIXME maybe skip | ||
+ | Liberal: | ||
+ | > Once upon a time, the vast majority of human persons suffered in societies and social institutions that were unjust, unhealthy, repressive, and oppressive. These traditional societies were repehensible because of their deep-rooted inequality, exploitation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Conservative: | ||
+ | > Once upon a time, America was a shining beacon. Then liberals came along and erected ane enormous federal bureaucracy that handcuffed the invisible hand of the free market. They subverted our traditional American values and opposed God and faith at every step of the way... Instead of requiring that people work for a living, they siphoned money from hardwokring Americans and gave it to Cadillac-driving drug addicts and welfare queens. Instead of punishing criminals, they tried to " | ||
FIXME idea bundling... binds and blinds is idea bundling... right? | FIXME idea bundling... binds and blinds is idea bundling... right? | ||
- | FIXME there' | ||
- | FIXME points | + | ==== Blinding ==== |
- | * How political teams form, how people gravitate | + | FIXME :!: BLINDING |
- | * For pro-life activism | + | |
- | * First, there' | + | p. 334 A study to try to saw ahot a " |
- | * Second, there's a lot of wisdom | + | > Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretnding |
- | * We need to understand how abortion advocates may be thinking, working off different moral foundations, | + | > If you don't see that Reagan is pursuing positive values |
- | * We also need to understand how abortion advocates may see //us// if they misunderstand our moral foundations, | + | |
+ | e.g. Michael Feingold, a threater critic for a liberal newspaper the *Village Voice:* | ||
+ | > Republicans don't believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Lessons ==== | ||
+ | So, we can learn how teams form, and how people gravitate to the left or right. And we can learn wisdom | ||
+ | |||
+ | But for being effective communicators | ||
+ | * We need to understand how abortion advocates may be thinking, working off different moral foundations, | ||
+ | * (ie. people don't hold different beliefs and worldviews because they' | ||
+ | | ||
+ | |||
+ | Dale Carnegie uses a quotation from Henry Ford: | ||
+ | >> If there is one secret of success it lies in the ability to get the other person' | ||
+ | > | ||
+ | > It's such an obvious point, yet few of us apply it in moral and political arguments because our righteous minds so readily shift into combat mode. The rider and elephant work together smoothly to fend off attacks and lob rhetorical grenades of our own. The performance may impress our friends and show our allies that we are committed members of the team, but no matter how good our logic, it's not going to change the minds of our opponents if they are in combat mode too. If you really want to change someone' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Conclusion ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The three principles of moral psychology: | ||
+ | - Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second - the elephant and the rider | ||
+ | - There' | ||
+ | - Morality binds and blinds - the Hive Switch (90 percent chimp, 10 percent bee) | ||
+ | |||
+ | These are the foundations of heart apologetics. In being effective communicators and apologists, we can not solely speak to the rider - we need to speak to the elephant, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, and be sensitive to human moral psychology if we want to be persuasive, especially across vast ideological and political worldview divides. |