How foreign language shapes moral judgment

By J. Geipel, C. Hadjichristidis, and L. Surian
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Volume 59, July 2015, Pages 8–17

Abstract

We investigated whether and how processing information in a foreign language as opposed to the native language affects moral judgments. Participants judged the moral wrongness of several private actions, such as consensual incest, that were depicted as harmless and presented in either the native or a foreign language. The use of a foreign language promoted less severe moral judgments and less confidence in them. Harmful and harmless social norm violations, such as saying a white lie to get a reduced fare, were also judged more leniently. The results do not support explanations based on facilitated deliberation, misunderstanding, or the adoption of a universalistic stance. We propose that the influence of foreign language is best explained by a reduced activation of social and moral norms when making moral judgments.

Highlights

• We investigated whether and how foreign language influences moral judgment.
• Foreign language prompted more lenient judgments for moral transgressions.
• Foreign language reduced confidence in people's moral evaluations.
• Violations of everyday norms were judged less harshly in a foreign language.
• Foreign language might act through a reduced activation of social and moral norms.

The entire article is here.

Can violence be moral?

Intuitively, we might think that any sort of violent act is immoral.

By David Nussbaum and Séamus A Power
The Guardian
Originally posted February 28, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Generally speaking, we think of most interpersonal violence, not just terrorist attacks, as immoral. It’s very rare that you’ll see anybody claim that hurting someone else is an inherently moral thing to do. When people are violent, explanations for their behavior tend to invoke some sort of breakdown: a lack of self-control, the dehumanization of an “outgroup,” or perhaps sadistic psychological tendencies.

This is a comforting notion – one that draws a clear boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. But according to the authors of a new book, it simply isn’t an accurate reflection of how people actually behave: morality, as understood and practiced by real-world human beings, doesn’t always prohibit violence. In fact they make the case that most violence is motivated by morality.

The entire article is here.

Are We Becoming Morally Smarter?

By Michael Shermer
Reason.com
Originally posted in March 2015 issue

Here is an excerpt:

Since the Enlightenment, humans have demonstrated dramatic moral progress. Almost everyone in the Western world today enjoys rights to life, liberty, property, marriage, reproduction, voting, speech, worship, assembly, protest, autonomy, and the pursuit of happiness. Liberal democracies are now the dominant form of governance, systematically replacing the autocracies and theocracies of centuries past. Slavery and torture are outlawed everywhere in the world (even if occasionally still practiced). The death penalty is on death row and will likely go extinct sometime in the 2020s. Violence and crime are at historic lows, and we have expanded the moral sphere to include more people as members of the human community deserving of rights and respect. Even some animals are now being considered as sentient beings worthy of moral consideration.

Abstract reasoning and scientific thinking are the crucial cognitive skills at the foundation of all morality. Consider the mental rotation required to implement the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The article is here.

On holding ethicists to higher moral standards and the value of moral inconsistency

By Carissa Véliz
Practical Ethics
Originally posted February 27, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Should ethicists be held to higher moral standards? If they commit a wrong about which they know more than others, then it is seems plausible that they do have more responsibility and should be held to higher moral standards. In many cases, however, moral philosophers appear to be on a par with non-ethicists when it comes to ethical knowledge. Most people who cheat on their spouses, for example, have roughly the same knowledge of the wrong they are committing; this includes moral philosophers, since the ethics of faithfulness is not frequently discussed in academic settings; nor is it something most moral philosophers read or write about.

The entire article is here.

A similar paper, The Self-Reported Moral Behavior of Ethics Professors, by Eric Schwitzgebel and Joshua Rust can be found here.

Enduring and Emerging Challenges of Informed Consent

Christine Grady, Ph.D.
N Engl J Med 2015; 372:855-862
February 26, 2015
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMra1411250

Here is an excerpt:

A substantial body of literature corroborates a considerable gap between the practice of informed consent and its theoretical construct or intended goals and indicates many unresolved conceptual and practical questions.  Empirical evidence shows variation in the type and level of detail of information disclosed, in patient or research-participant understanding of the information, and in how their decisions are influenced.  Physicians receive little training regarding the practice of informed consent, are pressed for time and by competing demands, and often misinterpret the requirements and legal standards. Patients often have meager comprehension of the risks and alternatives of offered surgical or medical treatments, and their decisions are driven more by trust in their doctor or by deference to authority than by the information provided. Informed consent for research is more tightly regulated and detailed, yet research consent forms continue to increase in length, complexity, and incorporation of legal language, making them less likely to be read or understood. Studies also show that research participants have deficits in their understanding of study information, particularly of research methods such as randomization.

The entire article is here.

Does religion deserve a place in secular medicine?

By Brian D. Earp
BMJ Blogs
Originally posted February 26, 2015

The latest issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics is out, and in it, Professor Nigel Biggar—an Oxford theologian—argues that “religion” should have a place in secular medicine.

Some people will feel a shiver go down their spines—and not only the non-religious. After all, different religions require different things, and sometimes they come to opposite conclusions. So whose religion, exactly, does Professor Biggar have in mind, and what kind of “place” is he trying to make a case for?

The entire article is here.

Validating vignette and conjoint survey experiments against real-world behavior

Jens Hainmueller, Dominik Hangartner, and Teppei Yamamoto
Validating vignette and conjoint survey experiments against real-world behavior
PNAS 2015 112 (8) 2395-2400; doi:10.1073/pnas.1416587112

Abstract

Survey experiments, like vignette and conjoint analyses, are widely used in the social sciences to elicit stated preferences and study how humans make multidimensional choices. However, there is a paucity of research on the external validity of these methods that examines whether the determinants that explain hypothetical choices made by survey respondents match the determinants that explain what subjects actually do when making similar choices in real-world situations. This study compares results from conjoint and vignette analyses on which immigrant attributes generate support for naturalization with closely corresponding behavioral data from a natural experiment in Switzerland, where some municipalities used referendums to decide on the citizenship applications of foreign residents. Using a representative sample from the same population and the official descriptions of applicant characteristics that voters received before each referendum as a behavioral benchmark, we find that the effects of the applicant attributes estimated from the survey experiments perform remarkably well in recovering the effects of the same attributes in the behavioral benchmark. We also find important differences in the relative performances of the different designs. Overall, the paired conjoint design, where respondents evaluate two immigrants side by side, comes closest to the behavioral benchmark; on average, its estimates are within 2% percentage points of the effects in the behavioral benchmark.

Significance

Little evidence exists on whether preferences about hypothetical choices measured in a survey experiment are driven by the same structural determinants of the actual choices made in the real world. This study answers this question using a natural experiment as a behavioral benchmark. Comparing the results from conjoint and vignette experiments on which attributes of hypothetical immigrants generate support for naturalization with the outcomes of closely corresponding referendums in Switzerland, we find that the effects estimated from the surveys match the effects of the same attributes in the behavioral benchmark remarkably well. We also find that seemingly subtle differences in survey designs can produce significant differences in performance. Overall, the paired conjoint design performs the best.

The entire article is here.

Editor's note: This research is significant when ethics educators use vignettes to help psychologists learn about their ethical decision-making process and moral beliefs.

Straight Talk for White Men

By Nicholas Kristof
The New York Times
Originally published on February 21, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

The study found that a résumé with a name like Emily or Greg received 50 percent more callbacks than the same résumé with a name like Lakisha or Jamal. Having a white-sounding name was as beneficial as eight years’ work experience.

Then there was the study in which researchers asked professors to evaluate the summary of a supposed applicant for a post as laboratory manager, but, in some cases, the applicant was named John and in others Jennifer. Everything else was the same.

“John” was rated an average of 4.0 on a 7-point scale for competence, “Jennifer” a 3.3. When asked to propose an annual starting salary for the applicant, the professors suggested on average a salary for “John” almost $4,000 higher than for “Jennifer.”

It’s not that we white men are intentionally doing anything wrong, but we do have a penchant for obliviousness about the way we are beneficiaries of systematic unfairness. Maybe that’s because in a race, it’s easy not to notice a tailwind, and white men often go through life with a tailwind, while women and people of color must push against a headwind.

The entire article is here.

Artificial intelligence could kill us because we're stupid, not because it's evil

By Andrew Griffin
The Independent
Originally published February 24, 2015

Artificial intelligence will be a threat because we are stupid, not because it is clever and evil, according to experts.

We could put ourselves in danger by creating artificial intelligence that looks too much like ourselves, a leading theorist has warned. “If we look for A.I. in the wrong ways, it may emerge in forms that are needlessly difficult to recognize, amplifying its risks and retarding its benefits,” writes theorist Benjamin H Bratton in the New York Times.

The entire article is here.