The self is moral

We tend to think that our memories determine our identity, but it’s moral character that really makes us who we are

By Nina Strohminger

Aeon Magazine

Originally published November 17, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Recent studies by the philosopher Shaun Nichols at the University of Arizona and myself support the view that the identity-conferring part of a person is his moral capacities. One of our experiments pays homage to Locke’s thought experiment by asking subjects which of a slew of traits a person would most likely take with him if his soul moved to a new body. Moral traits were considered more likely to survive a body swap than any other type of trait, mental or physical. Interestingly, certain types of memories – those involving people – were deemed fairly likely to survive the trip. But generic episodic memories, such as one’s commute to work, were not. People are not so much concerned with memory as with memory’s ability to connect us to others and our capacity for social action.

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Why does our identity detector place so much emphasis on moral capacities? These aren’t our most distinctive features. Our faces, our fingertips, our quirks, our autobiographies: any of these would be a more reliable way of telling who’s who. Somewhat paradoxically, identity has less to do with what makes us different from other people than with our shared humanity. 

The entire article is here.

Podcast Episode #7: The Moral Self, Moral Injury, and Moral Emotions with Dr. Strohminger can be found here.

Denying Problems When We Don’t Like the Solutions

By Duke University
Press Release
Originally published November 6, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

A new study from Duke University finds that people will evaluate scientific evidence based on whether they view its policy implications as politically desirable. If they don't, then they tend to deny the problem even exists.

“Logically, the proposed solution to a problem, such as an increase in government regulation or an extension of the free market, should not influence one’s belief in the problem. However, we find it does,” said co-author Troy Campbell, a Ph.D. candidate at Duke's Fuqua School of Business. “The cure can be more immediately threatening than the problem.”

The study, "Solution Aversion: On the Relation Between Ideology and Motivated Disbelief," appears in the November issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (viewable here).

The entire article is here.

Psychologist in "Kids for Cash" Scandal Surrenders License

By Roger DuPuis
The Times Leader
Originally published November 12, 2014

The psychologist brother-in-law of disgraced former Luzerne County judge Michael T. Conahan has given up his license for “gross incompetence, negligence or misconduct” carrying out his past work evaluating juveniles in the county court system, state officials said Wednesday.

The Pennsylvania Board of Psychology said Frank James Vita, of Dorrance Township, “grossly deviated from ethical and professional standards” after reviewing 76 of the cases he had handled.

Vita once was linked to the county’s “Kids for Cash” judicial scandal in a civil suit that alleged he conspired with Conahan and fellow former judge Mark Ciavarella to perform evaluations that led to juveniles being incarcerated in facilities in which the judges had a financial interest.

The entire article is here.

Moral Injury Is The 'Signature Wound' Of Today's Veterans

Interview with David Wood
NPR
Originally posted November 11, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

On the best therapy for treating this "bruise on the soul"

The biggest thing that [the veterans] told me was that they're carrying around this horrible idea that they are bad people because they've done something bad and they can't ever tell anybody about it — or they don't dare tell anybody about it — and may not even be able to admit it to themselves.

One of the most healing things they have found is to stand in a group of fellow veterans and say, "This is what happened. This is what I saw. This is what I did," and to have their fellow veterans nod and say, "I hear you. I hear you." And just accept it, without saying, "Well, you couldn't help it," or, "You're really a good person at heart."

But just hearing it and accepting it — and not being blamed or castigated for whatever it was that you're feeling bad about. It's that validating kind of listening that is so important to all the therapies that I've seen.

The entire article is here.

Why I Am Not a Utilitarian

By Julian Savulescu
Practical Ethics Blog
Originally posted November 15 2014

Utilitarianism is a widely despised, denigrated and misunderstood moral theory.

Kant himself described it as a morality fit only for English shopkeepers. (Kant had much loftier aspirations of entering his own “noumenal” world.)

The adjective “utilitarian” now has negative connotations like “Machiavellian”. It is associated with “the end justifies the means” or using people as a mere means or failing to respect human dignity, etc.

For example, consider the following negative uses of “utilitarian.”

“Don’t be so utilitarian.”

“That is a really utilitarian way to think about it.”

To say someone is behaving in a utilitarian manner is to say something derogatory about their behaviour.

The entire article is here.

‘Utilitarian’ judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good

By G. Kahane, J. Everett, Brian Earp, Miguel Farias, and J. Savulescu
Cognition, Vol 134, Jan 2015, pp 193-209.

Highlights

• ‘Utilitarian’ judgments in moral dilemmas were associated with egocentric attitudes and less identification with humanity.
• They were also associated with lenient views about clear moral transgressions.
• ‘Utilitarian’ judgments were not associated with views expressing impartial altruist concern for others.
• This lack of association remained even when antisocial tendencies were controlled for.
• So-called ‘utilitarian’ judgments do not express impartial concern for the greater good.

Abstract

A growing body of research has focused on so-called ‘utilitarian’ judgments in moral dilemmas in which participants have to choose whether to sacrifice one person in order to save the lives of a greater number. However, the relation between such ‘utilitarian’ judgments and genuine utilitarian impartial concern for the greater good remains unclear. Across four studies, we investigated the relationship between ‘utilitarian’ judgment in such sacrificial dilemmas and a range of traits, attitudes, judgments and behaviors that either reflect or reject an impartial concern for the greater good of all. In Study 1, we found that rates of ‘utilitarian’ judgment were associated with a broadly immoral outlook concerning clear ethical transgressions in a business context, as well as with sub-clinical psychopathy. In Study 2, we found that ‘utilitarian’ judgment was associated with greater endorsement of rational egoism, less donation of money to a charity, and less identification with the whole of humanity, a core feature of classical utilitarianism. In Studies 3 and 4, we found no association between ‘utilitarian’ judgments in sacrificial dilemmas and characteristic utilitarian judgments relating to assistance to distant people in need, self-sacrifice and impartiality, even when the utilitarian justification for these judgments was made explicit and unequivocal. This lack of association remained even when we controlled for the antisocial element in ‘utilitarian’ judgment. Taken together, these results suggest that there is very little relation between sacrificial judgments in the hypothetical dilemmas that dominate current research, and a genuine utilitarian approach to ethics.

The entire article is here.

Psychologists to Review Role in Detainee Interrogations

By James Risen
The New York Times
November 13, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

For years, questions about the role of American psychologists and behavioral scientists in the development and implementation of the Bush-era interrogation program have been raised by human rights advocates as well as by critics within the psychological profession itself. Psychologists were involved in developing the enhanced interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency. Later, a number of psychologists, in the military and in the intelligence community, were involved in carrying out and monitoring interrogations.

The entire article is here.

Moral Psychology as Accountability

By Brendan Dill and Stephen Darwall
[In Justin D’Arms & Daniel Jacobson (eds.),  Moral Psychology and Human Agency:  Philosophical Essays on the Science of Ethics  (pp. 40-83). Oxford University Press. Pre-publication draft. For citation or quotation, please refer to the published volume.

Introduction

When moral psychology exploded a decade ago with groundbreaking research, there was considerable excitement about the potential fruits of collaboration between moral philosophers and moral psychologists. However, this enthusiasm soon gave way to controversy about whether either field was, or even could be, relevant to the other (e.g., Greene 2007; Berker 2009). After all, it seems at first glance that the primary question researched by moral psychologists—how people form judgments about what is morally right and wrong—is independent from the parallel question investigated by moral  philosophers—what is in fact morally right and wrong, and why.

Once we transcend the narrow bounds of quandary ethics and “trolleyology,” however, a broader look at the fields of moral psychology and moral philosophy reveals several common interests. Moral philosophers strive not only to determine what actions are morally right and wrong, but also to understand our moral concepts, practices, and  psychology. They ask what it means to be morally right, wrong, or obligatory: what distinguishes moral principles from other norms of action, such as those of instrumental rationality, prudence, excellence, or etiquette (Anscombe 1958; Williams 1985; Gibbard 1990; Annas 1995)? Moral psychologists pursue this very question in research on the distinction between moral and conventional rules (Turiel 1983; Nichols 2002; Kelly et al. 2007; Royzman, Leeman, and Baron 2009) and in attempts to define the moral domain (e.g., Haidt and Kesebir 2010).

The entire paper is here.

Why the Right to Die Movement Needed Brittany Maynard

By Keisha Ray
Bioethics.net
Originally published November 12, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Choice

In life many choices are not our own, but how we live our life is our choice. Maynard did not choose to have cancer invade her brain, but she did choose how to live her life after her diagnoses. After her diagnosis, Maynard remained doing the activities that had always made her life fulfilling—traveling, volunteering, and spending time with family and friends. Maynard made an informed choice to not let brain cancer kill her. She made the decision to choose how her life ends. And that’s one of the major aims of the right to die movement—that terminally ill patients ought to be able to choose how long they live with their disease and whether their disease will be the cause of their death. Disease takes away so many choices and puts people at the mercy of doctors, nurses, and most importantly it puts people at the mercy of their failing body. The right to die movements aims to take some of that power back.

The entire article is here.