Moral Future-Thinking: Does the Moral Circle Stand the Test of Time?

Law, K. F., Syropoulos, S., et al. (2023, August 10). 

PsyArXiv

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/c75ny

Abstract

The long-term collective welfare of humanity may lie in the hands of those who are presently living. But do people normatively include future generations in their moral circles? Across four studies conducted on Prolific Academic (N Total=823), we find evidence for a progressive decline in the subjective moral standing of future generations, demonstrating decreasing perceived moral obligation, moral concern, and prosocial intentions towards other people with increasing temporal distance. While participants generally tend to display present-oriented moral preferences, we also reveal individual differences that mitigate this tendency and predict pro-future outcomes, including individual variation in longtermism beliefs and the vividness of one’s imagination. Our studies reconcile conflicting evidence in the extant literature on moral judgment and future-thinking, shed light on the role of temporal distance in moral circle expansion, and offer practical implications for better valuing and safeguarding the shared future of humanity.

Here's my summary:

This research investigates whether people normatively include future generations in their moral circles. The authors conducted four studies with a total of 823 participants, and found evidence for a progressive decline in the subjective moral standing of future generations with increasing temporal distance. This suggests that people generally tend to display present-oriented moral preferences.

However, the authors also found individual differences that mitigate this tendency and predict pro-future outcomes. These factors include individual variation in longtermism beliefs and the vividness of one's imagination. The authors also found that people are more likely to include future generations in their moral circles when they are primed to think about them or when they are asked to consider the long-term consequences of their actions.

The authors' findings reconcile conflicting evidence in the extant literature on moral judgment and future-thinking. They also shed light on the role of temporal distance in moral circle expansion and offer practical implications for better valuing and safeguarding the shared future of humanity.

Overall, the research paper provides evidence that people generally tend to prioritize the present over the future when making moral judgments. However, the authors also identify individual factors and contextual conditions that can promote moral future-thinking. These findings could be used to develop interventions that encourage people to consider the long-term consequences of their actions and to take steps to protect the well-being of future generations.

Fast optimism, slow realism? Causal evidence for a two-step model of future thinking

Hallgeir Sjåstad and Roy F. Baumeister
PsyArXiv
Originally posted 6 Jan 20

Abstract

Future optimism is a widespread phenomenon, often attributed to the psychology of intuition. However, causal evidence for this explanation is lacking, and sometimes cautious realism is found. One resolution is that thoughts about the future have two steps: A first step imagining the desired outcome, and then a sobering reflection on how to get there. Four pre-registered experiments supported this two-step model, showing that fast predictions are more optimistic than slow predictions. The total sample consisted of 2,116 participants from USA and Norway, providing 9,036 predictions. In Study 1, participants in the fast-response condition thought positive events were more likely to happen and that negative events were less likely, as compared to participants in the slow-response condition. Although the predictions were optimistically biased in both conditions, future optimism was significantly stronger among fast responders. Participants in the fast-response condition also relied more on intuitive heuristics (CRT). Studies 2 and 3 focused on future health problems (e.g., getting a heart attack or diabetes), in which participants in the fast-response condition thought they were at lower risk. Study 4 provided a direct replication, with the additional finding that fast predictions were more optimistic only for the self (vs. the average person). The results suggest that when people think about their personal future, the first response is optimistic, which only later may be followed by a second step of reflective realism. Current health, income, trait optimism, perceived control and happiness were negatively correlated with health-risk predictions, but did not moderate the fast-optimism effect.

From the Discussion section:

Four studies found that people made more optimistic predictions when they relied on fast intuition rather than slow reflection. Apparently, a delay of 15 seconds is sufficient to enable second thoughts and a drop in future optimism. The slower responses were still "unrealistically optimistic"(Weinstein, 1980; Shepperd et al., 2013), but to a much lesser extent than the fast responses. We found this fast-optimism effect on relative comparison to the average person and isolated judgments of one's own likelihood, in two different languages across two different countries, and in one direct replication.All four experiments were pre-registered, and the total sample consisted of about 2,000 participants making more than 9,000 predictions.

‘But you can’t do that!’ Why immoral actions seem impossible

Jonathan Phillips

Aeon

Originally posted September 29, 2017

Suppose that you’re on the way to the airport to catch a flight, but your car breaks down. Some of the actions you immediately consider are obvious: you might try to call a friend, look for a taxi, or book a later flight. If those don’t work out, you might consider something more far-fetched, such as finding public transportation or getting the tow-truck driver to tow you to the airport. But here’s a possibility that would likely never come to mind: you could take a taxi but not pay for it when you get to the airport. Why wouldn’t you think of this? After all, it’s a pretty sure-fire way to get to the airport on time, and it’s definitely cheaper than having your car towed.

One natural answer is that you don’t consider this possibility because you’re a morally good person who wouldn’t actually do that. But there are at least two reasons why this doesn’t seem like a compelling answer to the question, even if you are morally good. The first is that, though being a good person would explain why you wouldn’t actually do this, it doesn’t seem to explain why you wouldn’t have been able to come up with this as a solution in the first place. After all, your good moral character doesn’t stop you from admitting that it is a way of getting to the airport, even if you wouldn’t go through with it. And the second reason is that it seems equally likely that you wouldn’t have come up with this possibility for someone else in the same situation – even someone whom you didn’t know was morally good.

So what does explain why we don’t consider the possibility of taking a taxi but not paying? Here’s a radically different suggestion: before I mentioned it, you didn’t think it was even possible to do that. This explanation probably strikes you as too strong, but the key to it is that I’m not arguing that you think it’s impossible now, I’m arguing that you didn’t think it was possible before I proposed it.

The article is here.

Pornography and the Philosophy of Fiction

John Danaher
Philosophical Disquisitions
Originally published February 9, 2017

Here are two excerpts:

Pornography is now ubiquitous. If you have an internet connection, you have access to a virtually inexhaustible supply of the stuff. Debates rage over whether this is a good or bad thing. There are long-standing research programmes in psychology and philosophy that focus on the ethical and social consequences of exposure to pornography. These debates often raise important questions about human sexuality, gender equality, sexual aggression and violence. They also often touch upon (esoteric) aspects of the philosophy of speech acts and freedom of expression. Noticeably neglected in the debate is any discussion of the fictional nature of pornography and how it affects its social reception.

That, at any rate, is the claim made by Shen-yi Liao and Sara Protasi in their article ‘The Fictional Character of Pornography’. In it, they draw upon a number of ideas in the philosophy of aesthetics in an effort to refine the arguments made by participants in the pornography debate.

(cut)

The more important part of the definition concerns the prompting of imagination. Liao and Protasi have a longish argument in their paper as to why sexual desire (as an appetite) involves imagination and hence why pornographic representations often prompt imaginings. That argument is interesting, but I’m going to skip over the details here. The important point is that in satisfying our sexual appetites we often engage the imagination (imagining certain roles or actions). Indeed, the sexual appetite might be unique among appetites as being the one that can be satisfied purely through the imagination. Furthermore, the typical user of pornography will often engage their imaginations when using it. They will imagine themselves being involved (directly or indirectly) in the represented sexual acts.

The blog post is here.

What explains the rise of humans?

Yuval Noah Harari
Ted Talk
Posted on June 20, 2015


Seventy thousand years ago, our human ancestors were insignificant animals, just minding their own business in a corner of Africa with all the other animals. But now, few would disagree that humans dominate planet Earth; we've spread to every continent, and our actions determine the fate of other animals (and possibly Earth itself). How did we get from there to here? Historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests a surprising reason for the rise of humanity.

Can We Resolve Quantum Paradoxes by Stepping Out of Space and Time?

By George Musser
Scientific American Blog
Originally posted June 21, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

As is evident from von Baeyer’s article, quantum theory truly challenges us to think outside the box—and, in this case, I submit that the box is spacetime itself. If this seems farfetched, consider the eloquent point made by physicist and philosopher Ernan McMullin:

“Imaginability must not be made the test for ontology. The realist claim is that the scientist is discovering the structures of the world; it is not required in addition that these structures be imaginable in the categories of the macroworld.”

Only if we face the strange non-classical features of the physical world head-on can we have a physical, non-observer-dependent account of our reality that solves longstanding puzzles such as the problem of Schrödinger’s Cat.

The entire blog post is here.