It’s not only political conservatives who worry about moral purity

K. Gray, W. Blakey, & N. DiMaggio

psychce.co

Originally posted 13 July 23

Here are two excerpts:

What does this have to do with differences in moral psychology? Well, moral psychologists have suggested that politically charged arguments about sexuality, spirituality and other subjects reflect deep differences in the moral values of liberals and conservatives. Research involving scenarios like this one has seemed to indicate that conservatives, unlike liberals, think that maintaining ‘purity’ is a moral good in itself – which for them might mean supporting what they construe as the ‘sanctity of marriage’, for example.

It may seem strange to think about ‘purity’ as a core driver of political differences. But purity, in the moral sense, is an old concept. It pops up in the Hebrew Bible a lot, in taboos around food, menstruation, and divine encounters. When Moses meets God at the Burning Bush, God says to Moses: ‘Do not come any closer, take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ Why does God tell Moses to take off his shoes? Not because his shoes magically hurt God, but because shoes are dirty, and it’s disrespectful to wear your shoes in the presence of the creator of the universe. Similarly, in ancient Greece, worshippers were often required to endure long purification rituals before looking at sacred religious idols or engaging in different spiritual rites. These ancient moral practices seem to reflect an intuition that ‘cleanliness is next to Godliness’.

In the modern era, purity has repeatedly appeared at the centre of political battlegrounds, as in clashes between US conservatives and liberals over sexual education and mores in the 1990s. It was around this time that the psychologist Jonathan Haidt began formulating a theory to help explain the moral divide. Moral foundations theory argues that liberals and conservatives are divided because they rely on distinct moral values, including purity, to different degrees.

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A harm-focused perspective on moral judgments related to ‘purity’ could help us better understand and communicate with moral opponents. We all grasp the importance of protecting ourselves and our loved ones from harm. Learning that people on the ‘other side’ of a political divide care about questions of purity because they connect these to their understanding of harm can help us empathise with different moral opinions. It is easy for a liberal to dismiss a conservative’s condemnation of dead-chicken sex when it is merely said to be ‘impure’; it is harder to be dismissive if it’s suggested that someone who makes a habit of that behaviour might end up harming people.

Explicitly grounding discussions of morality in perceptions of harm could help us all to be better citizens of a ‘small-L liberal’ society – one in which the right to swing our fists ends where others’ noses begin. If something seems disgusting, impure and immoral to you, take some time to try to articulate the harms you intuitively perceive. Talking about these potential harms may help other people understand where you are coming from. Of course, someone might not share your judgment that harm is being done. But identifying perceived harms at least puts the conversation in terms that everyone understands.

The info is here.

Here is my summary:

The authors define purity as "the state of being free from contamination or pollution."  They argue that people on both the left and the right care about purity because they associate it with safety and well-being.

They provide examples of how liberals and conservatives can both use purity-related language, such as "desecrate" and "toxic." They propose a new explanation of moral judgments that suggests that people care about purity when they perceive that 'impure' acts can lead to harm.

The corporate responsibility facade is finally starting to crumble

Alison Taylor

Yahoo Finance

Originally posted 4 March 20

Here is an excerpt:

Any claim to be a responsible corporation is predicated on addressing these abuses of power. But most companies are instead clinging with remarkable persistence to the façades they’ve built to deflect attention. Compliance officers focus on pleasing regulators, even though there is limited evidence that their recommendations reduce wrongdoing. Corporate sustainability practitioners drown their messages in an alphabet soup of acronyms, initiatives, and alienating jargon about “empowered communities” and “engaged stakeholders,” when both functions are still considered peripheral to corporate strategy.

When reading a corporation’s sustainability report and then comparing it to its risk disclosures—or worse, its media coverage—we might as well be reading about entirely distinct companies. Investors focused on sustainability speak of “materiality” principles, meant to sharpen our focus on the most relevant environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues for each industry. But when an issue is “material” enough to threaten core operating models, companies routinely ignore, evade, and equivocate.

Coca-Cola’s most recent annual sustainability report acknowledges its most pressing issue is “obesity concerns and category perceptions.” Accordingly, it highlights its lower-sugar product lines and references responsible marketing. But it continues its vigorous lobbying against soda taxes, and of course continues to make products with known links to obesity and other health problems. Facebook’s sustainability disclosures focus on efforts to fight climate change and improve labor rights in its supply chain, but make no reference to the mental-health impacts of social media or to its role in peddling disinformation and undermining democracy. Johnson and Johnson flags “product quality and safety” as its highest priority issue without mentioning that it is a defendant in criminal litigation over distribution of opioids. UBS touts its sustainability targets but not its ongoing financing of fossil-fuel projects.

The info is here.

EPA’s top air policy official steps down amid scrutiny over possible ethics violations

The Washington Post
Originally published June 26, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

Less than one month after joining the EPA, Wehrum met with two former clients at his old firm without consulting in advance with ethics officials, even though they had cautioned him about such interactions. That same month, Wehrum participated in a decision that appeared to benefit a former client, DTE Energy, in which then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a memo stating that the agency would not be “second guessing utilities” when they projected whether they would need a few federal permits after expanding their operations.

Wehrum, who heads the air and radiation office at the EPA, acknowledged both incidents in an interview with The Post but said he had determined that he did not violate federal ethics rules.

“I have, from day one, tried to be absolutely strict and assiduous as to what I do about complying with my ethical obligations,” Wehrum said, “because it doesn’t do me any good, and it doesn’t do the agency any good, to be doing things that people see as unethical.”

Still, the fallout from reporting on Wehrum’s ties to his former firm and the utility industry by The Post and other outlets — including Politico, the New York Times and E&E News — has continued to reverberate. The Utility Air Regulatory Group, a group of power companies that paid Hunton Andrews Kurth millions in membership dues, disbanded earlier this year.

Wehrum’s decision to leave is the second high-profile EPA resignation in the past year. Last July, Pruitt stepped down after facing probes by Congress, the EPA Office of Inspector General and the Office of Special Counsel for his management and spending practices.

The info is here.

Can We Reimagine Our Approach To Treating Disease?

Siddhartha Mukherjee
TED Talk
Posted December 22, 2017

When it comes to medicine, one rule of thinking has generally prevailed: Have disease, take pill, kill something. But physician Siddhartha Mukherjee says treatment should take a broader approach.

How rational is our rationality?

Interview by Richard Marshall
3 AM Magazine
Originally posted March 18, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

As I mentioned earlier, I think that the point of the study of rationality, and of normative epistemology more generally, is to help us figure out how to inquire, and the aim of inquiry, I believe, is to get at the truth. This means that there had better be a close connection between what we conclude about what’s rational to believe, and what we expect to be true. But it turns out to be very tricky to say what the nature of this connection is! For example, we know that sometimes evidence can mislead us, and so rational beliefs can be false. This means that there’s no guarantee that rational beliefs will be true. The goal of the paper is to get clear about why, and to what extent, it nonetheless makes sense to expect that rational beliefs will be more accurate than irrational ones. One reason this should be of interest to non-philosophers is that if it turns out that there isn’t some close connection between rationality and truth, then we should be much less critical of people with irrational beliefs. They may reasonably say: “Sure, my belief is irrational – but I care about the truth, and since my irrational belief is true, I won’t abandon it!” It seems like there’s something wrong with this stance, but to justify why it’s wrong, we need to get clear on the connection between a judgment about a belief’s rationality and a judgment about its truth. The account I give is difficult to summarize in just a few sentences, but I can say this much: what we say about the connection between what’s rational and what’s true will depend on whether we think it’s rational to doubt our own rationality. If it can be rational to doubt our own rationality (which I think is plausible), then the connection between rationality and truth is, in a sense, surprisingly tenuous.

The interview is here.

Budgets are moral documents, and Trump’s is a moral failure

Dylan Matthews
vox.com
Originally published March 16, 2017

The budget is a moral document.

It’s not clear where that phrase originates, but it’s become a staple of fiscal policy debates in DC, and for very good reason. Budgets lay out how a fifth of the national economy is going to be allocated. They make trade-offs between cancer treatment and jet fighters, scientific research and tax cuts, national parks and border fences. These are all decisions with profound moral implications. Budgets, when implemented, can lift millions out of poverty, or consign millions more to it. They can provide universal health insurance or take coverage away from those who have it. They can fuel wars or support peacekeeping.

What President Donald Trump released on Thursday is not a full budget. It doesn’t touch on taxes, or on entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or food stamps. It concerns itself exclusively with the third of the budget that’s allocated through the annual appropriations process.

But it’s a moral document nonetheless. And the moral consequences of its implementation would be profound, and negative. The fact that it will not be implemented in full — that Congress is almost certain not to go along with many of its recommendations — in no way detracts from what it tells us about the administration’s priorities, and its ethics.

Let’s start with poverty.

The article is here.

It’s time society discussed the ethical issues raised by the gene revolution

Linda Geddes
The Guardian
Originally posted June 11, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

Since the method was first published in 2012, CRISPR has swept through the scientific community. On Wednesday, the US National Academy of Sciences published a report on the transformative potential of one such application: genetic engineering technology called gene drive. Mosquitoes are currently being engineered with “gene drives” that could render female offspring sterile and potentially wipe species of mosquitoes off the planet .

The technology could also be used to eliminate invasive species such as Japanese knotweed or to reverse herbicide resistance and make agriculture more productive. Until now, such efforts have been stymied because in changing an organism’s DNA, you are reducing its ability to survive and reproduce, meaning the changes are eventually weeded out by natural selection. Gene drives overcome this by ensuring the changes are passed to all offspring. The technology could irreversibly alter entire ecosystems. Another potential application of CRISPR is growing human organs in pigs to meet the demand from transplant recipients. Already, genetically altered pig embryos have been injected with human cells, which it is hoped will develop into pancreases that could be transplanted into humans without the risk of rejection by the immune system.

The article is here.