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utsfl:classroom:seminars:pbh310 [2025/02/11 11:49] – Fixed spelling for JVM spelling balleyneutsfl:classroom:seminars:pbh310 [2025/02/12 16:12] (current) – [Part 2: Six Taste Receptors] fixed a typo balleyne
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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, reflect on yourself and your own moral psychology. What happens when you hear these words: vaccines, evolution, climate change, transgenderism, abortion, condoms, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, COVID-19, immigration, guns. What I want to to feel is the //elephant// - that strong affective response, the "gut feeling."+Think about your own experience, talking to other people, but more importantly, reflect on yourself and your own moral psychology. What happens when you hear these words: vaccines, evolution, climate change, transgenderism, abortion, condoms, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, COVID-19, immigration, guns. What I want you to feel is the //elephant// - that strong affective response, the "gut feeling."
  
 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." For example, they hooked people up to fMRI scanners and presented them with trolley problem type moral dilemmas, and it was the emotional processing part of the brain that immediately lit up //and// that corresponded with the moral judgments made - not the conscious, cerebral logical part of the brain. 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." For example, they hooked people up to fMRI scanners and presented them with trolley problem type moral dilemmas, and it was the emotional processing part of the brain that immediately lit up //and// that corresponded with the moral judgments made - not the conscious, cerebral logical part of the brain.
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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: _Moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog._ A dog's tail wags to communicate. You can't make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can't change people's minds by utterly refuting their arguments. [...] If you want to change people's minds, you've got to talk to their elephants. You've got to use links 3 and 4 of the social intuitionist model to elicit new intuitions, not new rationales.+> The social intuitionist model offers an explanation of why moral and political arguments are so frustrating: //Moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog.// A dog's tail wags to communicate. You can't make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can't change people's minds by utterly refuting their arguments. [...] If you want to change people's minds, you've got to talk to their elephants. You've got to use links 3 and 4 of the social intuitionist model to elicit new intuitions, not new rationales.
  
 **Therefore, if you want to change someone's mind about a moral or political issue, //talk to the elephant first.// If you ask people to believe something that violates their intuitions, they will devote their efforts to finding an escape hatch - a reason to doubt your argument or conclusion. They will almost always succeed.** **Therefore, if you want to change someone's mind about a moral or political issue, //talk to the elephant first.// If you ask people to believe something that violates their intuitions, they will devote their efforts to finding an escape hatch - a reason to doubt your argument or conclusion. They will almost always succeed.**
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 The first principle in moral psychology is that "intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second" - the elephant and the rider. Now, we'll take a look at the second principle to better understand other people, and the third principle for guidance on how to be effective at reaching them. The first principle in moral psychology is that "intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second" - the elephant and the rider. Now, we'll take a look at the second principle to better understand other people, and the third principle for guidance on how to be effective at reaching them.
  
-<del>(Jonathan Haidt is writing as a secular liberal who went on a journey from breaking out of the matrix, becoming more aware of his own biases, and broadening his understanding of moral psychology to better understand and appreciate people with different ideological perspectives. The journey for most of us is a bit of the reverse, so I won't be following exactly his journey in the book, but the lessons he learned applied in reverse.(</del>+<del>(Jonathan Haidt is writing as a secular liberal who went on a journey from breaking out of the matrix, becoming more aware of his own biases, and broadening his understanding of moral psychology to better understand and appreciate people with different ideological perspectives. The journey for most of us is a bit of the reverse, so I won't be following exactly his journey in the book, but the lessons he learned applied in reverse.)</del>
  
 ==== Beyond WEIRD Morality ==== ==== Beyond WEIRD Morality ====