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Saturday, December 21, 2013

6 Surprising Findings About Good and Evil

From Mother Jones, moral psychologist Joshua Greene and author of the recent book "Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them", presents "6 Surprising Scientific Findings About Good and Evil". Some of the more salient points for this audience:
  • According to Greene, while we have innate dispositions to care for one another, they're ultimately limited and work best among smallish clans of people who trust and know each other.
  • "We have gut reactions that make us cooperative," Greene says. Indeed, he adds, "If you force people to stop and think, then they're less likely to be cooperative."
  •  We also keep tabs and enforce norms through punishment; in Moral Tribes, Greene suggests that a primary way that we do so is through gossip. He cites the anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who found that two-thirds of human conversations involve chattering about other people, including spreading word of who's behaving well and who's behaving badly. Thus do we impose serious costs on those who commit anti-social behavior.
  • [J]ust as we're naturally inclined to be cooperative within our own group, we're also inclined to distrust other groups (or worse). "In-group favoritism and ethnocentrism are human universals," writes Greene. What that means is that once you leave the setting of a small group and start dealing with multiple groups, there's a reversal of field in morality. Suddenly, you can't trust your emotions or gut settings any longer. "When it comes to us versus them, with different groups that have different feelings about things like gay marriage, or Obamacare, or Israelies versus Palestinians, our gut reactions are the source of the problem," says Greene.

His conclusion:

Based on many experiments with Public Goods Games, trolleys, and other scenarios, Greene has come to the conclusion that we can only trust gut-level morality to do so much. Uncomfortable scenarios like the footbridge dilemma notwithstanding, he believes that something like utilitarianism, which he defines as "maximize happiness impartially," is the only moral approach that can work with a vast, complex world comprised of many different groups of people.

But to get there, Greene says, requires the moral version of a gut override on the part of humanity—a shift to "manual mode," as he puts it.
***
To be more moral, then, Greene believes that we must first grasp the limits of the moral instincts that come naturally to us. That's hard to do, but he thinks it gets collectively easier.

Maybe one of the quickest way we can do that is to stop using gossip (i.e. public shaming) as a blunt instrument enforcement mechanism for misplaced social (not really even moral) enforcement (see also Duck Dynasty scandal).

23 comments:

  1. But who benefits from a more rational society?

    An emotionaly compromised is a golden goose to those who know which strings to pull. Almost every part of our government and media would need to be restructured to accommodate a logical population.

    Now where's the fun in that?

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    1. A balance between utilitarianism and gut instinct ( intuitive knowledge) is best. When these both can be assessed you will get the best results.

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    2. Hopefully when one shares intimate emotions with someone they believe they can trust, they are not compromising themselves. This is part of learning 'who you can trust' in life. 'Who's in your tribe'.?

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  2. Public shaming isn't going to go away because it lets people feel superior.

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  3. what about the good side of public shaming? for example, cheating on a spouse is usually emotionally damaging to the spouse. if the threat of gossip discourages someone from cheating on his or her spouse, isn't that a good thing? now, you might say that the threat of public shame is only helpful to the faithful spouse and unhelpful to the prospective cheater. but cheating rips apart families. it hurts the children and the faithful spouse. if you're making a cost/benefit analysis here, cheating hurts more people than being faithful. so in this case, doesn't public shaming serve an important function? the reasoning obviously changes if children aren't involved. in order for the foregoing to be valid, you would have to argue that cheating hurts the cheater. i don't know if it does.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Somewhat relevant:

    Normopathy

    Psychiatric theorist Christopher Bollas invented the idea of normopathy to describe people who are so focused on blending in and conforming to social norms that it becomes a kind of mania. A person who is normotic is often unhealthily fixated on having no personality at all, and only doing exactly what is expected by society. Extreme normopathy is punctuated by breaks from the norm, where normotic person cracks under the pressure of conforming and becomes violent or does something very dangerous. Many people experience mild normopathy at different times in their lives, especially when trying to fit into a new social situation, or when trying to hide behaviors they believe other people would condemn.

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    1. This is funny,laughing! Normopathy, what's next. Love it!

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    2. neat. interesting hearing the flip side. And I agree, what king of "sense of self" or "personality does one have conforming to these society social norms. maybe that'ts why I find it hard to attach to neurotypicals and easier to attach to the non NT's. And seeing remarkable abilities - and the beauty of neuro diversity.

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    3. Unburdened,
      Normopathy happens to people who have a history of walking around without their masks in places that is rife with prejudism/stupidity/self-righteousness. It’s a reminder that masks are valuable things. It comes just right before someone realizes that certain people never…well, forget it. Have fun, it’s our weekend!

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    4. Normopathy, is being totally shocked with someone else’s cold cruel view of you, and saying what the…. Stop! No more non-sense!

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    5. Normopathy, happens when wolves dress as sheep, preying on a limping one-previously damaged by them- and telling others that they are there for the “good” of the sheep.
      Like always, knowing nothing, assuming a lot, and doing their "good" stuff over and over and over! Normopathy, happens naturally in these situations.

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    6. Shhhhutup.

      Normopothy is zigzagging just to chase tails bec you donr want to go home

      Delete
  6. I think feelings that come from stomach -guts feelings- are not reliable, even in 100% brain damaged patients. However, if you formed these decision-making routs before the age of 5, then there is not much hope for you.

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    Replies
    1. You all really need to start having some fun, lighten up, it's the weekend!

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  7. ME,

    Your comments on this subject are a great example of how someone with NPD sees the world. Your solutions are always based on the whole world changing, but not you. Instead of one man from Duck Dynasty changing, an entire society should change. This is even more apparent when you try to compare your Axis II diagnosis to Asperger's. "The world has sympathy and acceptance for Asperger's, therefore, the world should have sympathy for and accept me".

    This is the self-delusional part of your diagnosis that has to change in order for you to see a change in how the world accepts you.

    MelissaR

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    1. *like*

      to be fair, M.E. has put a lot of effort into changing herself, but the last month or so of posts have been about "societal failures"...

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    2. Mellisa, you are like a barnaclle on ME now pissed off you got adhered to the rock.

      Good for you I say

      Autonomy all the way for you.

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  8. Some kind of "immediate gratification", for me! I’ve been so good so far.

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  9. I agree with MelissaR. That attitude struck me as soon as I read the post. The synopsis also projects a lot selfish traits onto non disordered people which I do not think are true. I for one innately care for people and animals well beyond my immediate social circle. Even the thought of human suffering on a global scale makes me sad and hurt and propels me to take action to do something about it.

    Also, I thought it relevant that the underlying premise has been completely ignored in the synopsis.

    One of Greene's central findings was that humans have an empathy default mechanism, and that empathy is what enables us to operate and co-operate.

    How can a sociopath then deviate, or posit an argument that the world (taking into account M E posted for this audience) should deviate from that norm? Greenes findings (even if I was to accept them and I don't) require a combination of moral instincts (based on default empathy mechanism) together with his version of utilitarianism. It is NOT suggested by Greene that empathy/moral instincts be ignored altogether in favour of this versions of utilitarianism, but rather that moral instincts can only do so much.

    This is a dangerous post for this kind of audience because yet again it allows a socio to entirely absolve him or herself of personal responsibility.

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  10. Scorpios think with their guts, its their cerebral center. Cooperative? Hm, well I once met one in a dream that was really a great "we"-creator; that (dream)dude sure was thinking about other stuff than himself..

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  11. I wonder, does the author of this site see any relevance to using extreme intellect to justify and develop a sense of morality, caring for others, and possibilities for settling a sense of unconditional love? I mean, ultimately, one must set for themselves that they must maintain their own existance in order to be a productive member of society. Am I forgetting the extremely misunderstanding nature of a sociopath and how their cuiosity dwells into things they should already know (like what will happen if I pull their hair?) and this is too far beyond them?

    I was born with no feeling, but I really already know what will happen when I do some things other people say are bad to them. I learned ultimately my chances of survival are maximized as I am only doing what others are saying are good acts to them. Maximum survival is my goal.

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    1. I wish to make one interjection to myself. Is it possible that sociopaths are incapable of dissolving their sociopathy because they assume, deep down, everyone is like them?

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