What are the two ways of thinking about of morality?
- Normative Theories
- Positive Theories
What are Normative theories?
What you should and shouldn’t do
- Domain of philosophy
What are Positive Theories?
How people actually make moral decisions
What is Heterodox Academy?
Organisation that is aimed at ideological diversity with itself.
Is there potential for ideological bias in psychology?
Yes, 95% of social/personality psychologists liberal or
moderate
What are the potential negative outcomes of having a ideological bias?
- Can influence scholarship:
- Choice of topics
- Framing of findings
- May not see things obvious to someone with
another perspective
What is Moral Foundations Theory?
An attempt to understand how people make moral judgments in a way that’s inclusive of lots of different kinds of moral judgments that people make.
What are the 5 moral foundations that the moral foundations theory came up with?
These 5 things are what contribute to someone’s thought process when judging whether something is right or wrong.
Harm
- Protect vulnerable people: children, elderly, etc.
Fairness
- Prevent cheating, ensure people contribute equitably
Authority
- Deference to those higher in hierarchy
Ingroup Loyalty
- Support own group in competition with others
Purity
- Avoid contamination
Within the moral foundations theory what is the binding foundations?
Elements of foundation that bind groups together.
Includes:
* Authority
* Ingroup Loyalty
* Purity
What is found to be the case for conservatives and liberals when it comes to the moral foundations theory?
- Conservatives more concerned with the binding foundations
- Liberals are more concerned about the other 2 foundations (Harm & Fairness)
Critiques/Limitations of the Moral Foundations Theory?
- Other cultures endorse other values
- e.g. Iran has 6th called Quirat (guarding women - veils)
- Additional foundations?
- Liberty: freedom
- All reducible to harm/care?
- The Dyadic morality theory
- Lacks theoretical background (is just data-driven factor analysis)
- not replicable in all countries
What is Dyadic morality?
There are two components and harm is the basis of our moral judgements
The Moral Agent: Person causing harm (e.g. Polluter)
The Moral Patient (Victim): Thing/Person experiencing harm (e.g. mother earth)
What is the issue with the Fairness foundation?
There are two different meanings of fairness
- Equality: Everyone receives equal amounts
- Equity: Everyone receives proportional amounts based on production (e.g. Messi gets paid to play vs trash kid gets nothing)
What is Sacredness?
- A sacred value is one you believe to be essentially priceless
e.g. Life—would you kill for $1 million? –> no = sacred value
However if you do it for $10 million it isn’t sacred - you just have a high price.
Conservative and Liberal differences in Sacred values?
Conservatives more likely to consider some values sacred
* Military
* Authority
* Religion
* Sexual taboos
Liberals more likely to consider other values sacred
* Environment
* Vegan foods
* Racism
* Sexism
What are Taboo Tradeoffs?
Trading something for a sacred value
e.g. Is it OK to pay $400 for a child?
OR Is it OK to sell a child for $400?
* NO, Don’t even think about it!
* Taboo to trade money/goods for sacred values
- Strong blame, dislike of people who take money to violate
sacred values
e.g. Traitors—sacrifice country for money - Pondering a taboo tradeoff is bad
- Must reject immediately
Tragic Tradeoffs?
When forced to trade one sacred value for another
* Doing a tragic trade-off is not very blameworthy
* As both options were terrible
- However deciding too quickly is blameworthy
e.g. Which of your two children will die? - Correct answer: “I could never choose…”
- Incorrect answer: “Jimmy. That’s a no-brainer!“
What is shown by Israel/Palestine about sacred values?
- Both sides were willing to compromise sacred right to land if other side acknowledged their rights and apologized
- Neither side was willing to compromise sacred right to land for money
Respect and moral issues?
- Many moral issues are a matter of treating people with respect
- Make them feel heard
- Make them feel respected
Moral Dumbfounding
- People judge that some things (like incest and cannibalism) are wrong, but are often dumbfounded when asked to generate good reasons why
What is it called to control ones-self?
self-regulation
What types of self-regulation are there?
- Self-presentation (how you present yourself to others)
- Progress toward goals
- Avoid temptation (impulse control)
Self-Regulation failure and examples?
- Extremely common
e.g. : - Concentrating in class
- Playing videogames instead of studying
- Acting on road rage
What is self-regulation failure associated with?
Major health/social problems
* Eating behavior
* Drug and alcohol consumption
* Sexually transmitted diseases
* Domestic abuse
