Rebecca Friesdorf, Paul Conway, and Bertram Gawronski
Pers Soc Psychol Bull, first published on April 3, 2015
doi:10.1177/0146167215575731
Abstract
The principle of deontology states that the morality of an action depends on its consistency with moral norms; the principle of utilitarianism implies that the morality of an action depends on its consequences. Previous research suggests that deontological judgments are shaped by affective processes, whereas utilitarian judgments are guided by cognitive processes. The current research used process dissociation (PD) to independently assess deontological and utilitarian inclinations in women and men. A meta-analytic re-analysis of 40 studies with 6,100 participants indicated that men showed a stronger preference for utilitarian over deontological judgments than women when the two principles implied conflicting decisions (d = 0.52). PD further revealed that women exhibited stronger deontological inclinations than men (d = 0.57), while men exhibited only slightly stronger utilitarian inclinations than women (d = 0.10). The findings suggest that gender differences in moral dilemma judgments are due to differences in affective responses to harm rather than cognitive evaluations of outcomes.
The article is here.
Friday, September 30, 2016
An Ethical Argument for Regulated Cognitive Enhancement in Adults
by Selin Isguven
Voices in Bioethics
Human enhancement consists of methods to surpass natural and biological limitations, usually with the aid of technology. Treatment and enhancement are considered to be different in that treatment aims to cure an existing medical condition and restore the patient to a normal, healthy, or species-typical state whereas enhancement aims to improve individuals beyond such a state. However, the line between treatment and enhancement remains debatable. There is no one agreed-upon definition of the normal human condition; this definition depends on factors such as time period and location, among many. In fact, the debate stems from discussions about the scope of medicine and the definition of ‘healthy.’ For some, like Norman Daniels, a healthy state is the absence of disease whereas for others, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), it is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.”[1] These two definitions of a healthy state are clearly not identical and there exist similarly differing opinions on what is considered ‘beyond’ healthy, as well.
The article is here.
Voices in Bioethics
Human enhancement consists of methods to surpass natural and biological limitations, usually with the aid of technology. Treatment and enhancement are considered to be different in that treatment aims to cure an existing medical condition and restore the patient to a normal, healthy, or species-typical state whereas enhancement aims to improve individuals beyond such a state. However, the line between treatment and enhancement remains debatable. There is no one agreed-upon definition of the normal human condition; this definition depends on factors such as time period and location, among many. In fact, the debate stems from discussions about the scope of medicine and the definition of ‘healthy.’ For some, like Norman Daniels, a healthy state is the absence of disease whereas for others, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), it is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.”[1] These two definitions of a healthy state are clearly not identical and there exist similarly differing opinions on what is considered ‘beyond’ healthy, as well.
The article is here.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
How Curiosity Can Protect the Mind from Bias
By Tom Stafford
bbc.com
Originally published 8 September 2016
Here is an excerpt:
The team confirmed this using an experiment which gave participants a choice of science stories, either in line with their existing beliefs, or surprising to them. Those participants who were high in scientific curiosity defied the predictions and selected stories which contradicted their existing beliefs – this held true whether they were liberal or conservative.
And, in case you are wondering, the results hold for issues in which political liberalism is associated with the anti-science beliefs, such as attitudes to GMO or vaccinations.
So, curiosity might just save us from using science to confirm our identity as members of a political tribe. It also shows that to promote a greater understanding of public issues, it is as important for educators to try and convey their excitement about science and the pleasures of finding out stuff, as it is to teach people some basic curriculum of facts.
The article is here.
bbc.com
Originally published 8 September 2016
Here is an excerpt:
The team confirmed this using an experiment which gave participants a choice of science stories, either in line with their existing beliefs, or surprising to them. Those participants who were high in scientific curiosity defied the predictions and selected stories which contradicted their existing beliefs – this held true whether they were liberal or conservative.
And, in case you are wondering, the results hold for issues in which political liberalism is associated with the anti-science beliefs, such as attitudes to GMO or vaccinations.
So, curiosity might just save us from using science to confirm our identity as members of a political tribe. It also shows that to promote a greater understanding of public issues, it is as important for educators to try and convey their excitement about science and the pleasures of finding out stuff, as it is to teach people some basic curriculum of facts.
The article is here.
Priming Children’s Use of Intentions in Moral Judgement with Metacognitive Training
Gvozdic, Katarina and others
Frontiers in Psychology
18 March 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00190
Abstract
Typically, adults give a primary role to the agent's intention to harm when performing a moral judgment of accidental harm. By contrast, children often focus on outcomes, underestimating the actor's mental states when judging someone for his action, and rely on what we suppose to be intuitive and emotional processes. The present study explored the processes involved in the development of the capacity to integrate agents' intentions into their moral judgment of accidental harm in 5 to 8-year-old children. This was done by the use of different metacognitive trainings reinforcing different abilities involved in moral judgments (mentalising abilities, executive abilities, or no reinforcement), similar to a paradigm previously used in the field of deductive logic. Children's moral judgments were gathered before and after the training with non-verbal cartoons depicting agents whose actions differed only based on their causal role or their intention to harm. We demonstrated that a metacognitive training could induce an important shift in children's moral abilities, showing that only children who were explicitly instructed to "not focus too much" on the consequences of accidental harm, preferentially weighted the agents' intentions in their moral judgments. Our findings confirm that children between the ages of 5 and 8 are sensitive to the intention of agents, however, at that age, this ability is insufficient in order to give a "mature" moral judgment. Our experiment is the first that suggests the critical role of inhibitory resources in processing accidental harm.
The article is here.
Frontiers in Psychology
18 March 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00190
Abstract
Typically, adults give a primary role to the agent's intention to harm when performing a moral judgment of accidental harm. By contrast, children often focus on outcomes, underestimating the actor's mental states when judging someone for his action, and rely on what we suppose to be intuitive and emotional processes. The present study explored the processes involved in the development of the capacity to integrate agents' intentions into their moral judgment of accidental harm in 5 to 8-year-old children. This was done by the use of different metacognitive trainings reinforcing different abilities involved in moral judgments (mentalising abilities, executive abilities, or no reinforcement), similar to a paradigm previously used in the field of deductive logic. Children's moral judgments were gathered before and after the training with non-verbal cartoons depicting agents whose actions differed only based on their causal role or their intention to harm. We demonstrated that a metacognitive training could induce an important shift in children's moral abilities, showing that only children who were explicitly instructed to "not focus too much" on the consequences of accidental harm, preferentially weighted the agents' intentions in their moral judgments. Our findings confirm that children between the ages of 5 and 8 are sensitive to the intention of agents, however, at that age, this ability is insufficient in order to give a "mature" moral judgment. Our experiment is the first that suggests the critical role of inhibitory resources in processing accidental harm.
The article is here.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
The Ethics of Behavioral Health Information Technology
Michelle Joy, Timothy Clement, and Dominic Sisti
JAMA. Published online September 08, 2016.
doi:10.1001/jama.2016.12534
Here is an excerpt:
Individuals with mental illness and addiction experience negative stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, distancing, and marginalization—social dynamics commonly called stigma. These dynamics are also often internalized and accepted by individuals with mental health conditions, amplifying their negative effect. Somewhat counterintuitively, stigmatizing beliefs about these patients are common among health care workers and often more common among mental health care professionals. Given these facts, the reinforcement of any stigmatizing concept within the medical record system or health information infrastructure is ethically problematic.
Stigmatizing iconography presents the potential for problematic clinical consequences. Patients with dual psychiatric and medical conditions often receive low-quality medical care and experience worse outcomes. One factor in this disparity is the phenomenon of diagnostic overshadowing. For example, diagnostic overshadowing can occur in patients with co-occurring mental illness and conditions such as cardiovascular disease or diabetes. These patients are less likely to receive appropriate medical care than patients without a mental health condition—their psychiatric conditions overshadow their other conditions, potentially biasing the clinician’s judgment about diagnosis and treatment such that the clinician may misattribute physical symptoms to mental health problems.
The article is here.
JAMA. Published online September 08, 2016.
doi:10.1001/jama.2016.12534
Here is an excerpt:
Individuals with mental illness and addiction experience negative stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, distancing, and marginalization—social dynamics commonly called stigma. These dynamics are also often internalized and accepted by individuals with mental health conditions, amplifying their negative effect. Somewhat counterintuitively, stigmatizing beliefs about these patients are common among health care workers and often more common among mental health care professionals. Given these facts, the reinforcement of any stigmatizing concept within the medical record system or health information infrastructure is ethically problematic.
Stigmatizing iconography presents the potential for problematic clinical consequences. Patients with dual psychiatric and medical conditions often receive low-quality medical care and experience worse outcomes. One factor in this disparity is the phenomenon of diagnostic overshadowing. For example, diagnostic overshadowing can occur in patients with co-occurring mental illness and conditions such as cardiovascular disease or diabetes. These patients are less likely to receive appropriate medical care than patients without a mental health condition—their psychiatric conditions overshadow their other conditions, potentially biasing the clinician’s judgment about diagnosis and treatment such that the clinician may misattribute physical symptoms to mental health problems.
The article is here.
Psychopathy increases perceived moral permissibility of accidents
Young, Liane; Koenigs, Michael; Kruepke, Michael; Newman, Joseph P.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol 121(3), Aug 2012, 659-667.
Abstract
Psychopaths are notorious for their antisocial and immoral behavior, yet experimental studies have typically failed to identify deficits in their capacities for explicit moral judgment. We tested 20 criminal psychopaths and 25 criminal nonpsychopaths on a moral judgment task featuring hypothetical scenarios that systematically varied an actor's intention and the action's outcome. Participants were instructed to evaluate four classes of actions: accidental harms, attempted harms, intentional harms, and neutral acts. Psychopaths showed a selective difference, compared with nonpsychopaths, in judging accidents, where one person harmed another unintentionally. Specifically, psychopaths judged these actions to be more morally permissible. We suggest that this pattern reflects psychopaths' failure to appreciate the emotional aspect of the victim's experience of harm. These findings provide direct evidence of abnormal moral judgment in psychopathy.
The article is here.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol 121(3), Aug 2012, 659-667.
Abstract
Psychopaths are notorious for their antisocial and immoral behavior, yet experimental studies have typically failed to identify deficits in their capacities for explicit moral judgment. We tested 20 criminal psychopaths and 25 criminal nonpsychopaths on a moral judgment task featuring hypothetical scenarios that systematically varied an actor's intention and the action's outcome. Participants were instructed to evaluate four classes of actions: accidental harms, attempted harms, intentional harms, and neutral acts. Psychopaths showed a selective difference, compared with nonpsychopaths, in judging accidents, where one person harmed another unintentionally. Specifically, psychopaths judged these actions to be more morally permissible. We suggest that this pattern reflects psychopaths' failure to appreciate the emotional aspect of the victim's experience of harm. These findings provide direct evidence of abnormal moral judgment in psychopathy.
The article is here.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Workshop on ethics of monkey research earns cheers and boos
By David Grimm
Science Insider
Originally posted September 8, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Jeffrey Kahn, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and the chair of the chimpanzee report, added that nonhuman primate research should only be conducted if it has to be conducted. “It’s not ethically acceptable to do research that is not necessary. Being ‘necessary’ is not the same as ‘worth doing.’”
That led to a debate about just what constituted “necessary” and “moral justification.” Even research that doesn’t have an immediate translation to people—like figuring out how the monkey brain works—is necessary, argued Newsome, because it could eventually lead to significant new knowledge that might improve human health. “It will be a tragedy for the world if we don’t leave room for basic science.” Most attendees seemed to agree, with some stating that not doing research on monkeys was ethically indefensible because humans would suffer down the line.
Despite that ethical debate, animal welfare groups said they were upset that science—not welfare—dominated the workshop. Of the 13 speakers, eight make their living working with nonhuman primates. The workshop also only devoted 2 minutes—instead of its scheduled 30 minutes—to public comments. “We are extremely disappointed that no animal protection groups were invited,” wrote Kathleen Conlee, vice president of animal research issues for The Humane Society of the United States in Washington, D.C., in an email to ScienceInsider. “It is clear that NIH has not followed through on what Congress requested, which was to examine ethical policies and processes.”
The article is here.
Science Insider
Originally posted September 8, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Jeffrey Kahn, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and the chair of the chimpanzee report, added that nonhuman primate research should only be conducted if it has to be conducted. “It’s not ethically acceptable to do research that is not necessary. Being ‘necessary’ is not the same as ‘worth doing.’”
That led to a debate about just what constituted “necessary” and “moral justification.” Even research that doesn’t have an immediate translation to people—like figuring out how the monkey brain works—is necessary, argued Newsome, because it could eventually lead to significant new knowledge that might improve human health. “It will be a tragedy for the world if we don’t leave room for basic science.” Most attendees seemed to agree, with some stating that not doing research on monkeys was ethically indefensible because humans would suffer down the line.
Despite that ethical debate, animal welfare groups said they were upset that science—not welfare—dominated the workshop. Of the 13 speakers, eight make their living working with nonhuman primates. The workshop also only devoted 2 minutes—instead of its scheduled 30 minutes—to public comments. “We are extremely disappointed that no animal protection groups were invited,” wrote Kathleen Conlee, vice president of animal research issues for The Humane Society of the United States in Washington, D.C., in an email to ScienceInsider. “It is clear that NIH has not followed through on what Congress requested, which was to examine ethical policies and processes.”
The article is here.
Alexithymia increases moral acceptability of accidental harms
Indrajeet Patil and Giorgia Silani
Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2014 Vol. 26, No. 5, 597
Abstract
Previous research shows that when people judge moral acceptability of others' harmful behaviour, they not only take into account information about the consequences of the act but also an actor's belief while carrying out the act. A two-process model has been proposed to account for this pattern of moral judgements and posits: (1) a causal process that detects the presence of a harmful outcome and is motivated by empathic aversion stemming from victim suffering; (2) a mental state-based process that attributes beliefs, desires, intentions, etc. to the agent in question and is motivated by imagining personally carrying out harmful actions. One prediction of this model would be that personality traits associated with empathy deficits would find accidental harms more acceptable not because they focus on innocent intentions but because they have reduced concern for the victim's well-being. In this study, we show that one such personality trait, viz. alexithymia, indeed exhibits the predicted pattern and this increased acceptability of accidental harm in alexithymia is mediated by reduced dispositional empathic concern. Results attest to the validity of two-process model of intent-based moral judgements and emphasise key role affective empathy plays in harm-based moral judgements.
The article is here.
Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2014 Vol. 26, No. 5, 597
Abstract
Previous research shows that when people judge moral acceptability of others' harmful behaviour, they not only take into account information about the consequences of the act but also an actor's belief while carrying out the act. A two-process model has been proposed to account for this pattern of moral judgements and posits: (1) a causal process that detects the presence of a harmful outcome and is motivated by empathic aversion stemming from victim suffering; (2) a mental state-based process that attributes beliefs, desires, intentions, etc. to the agent in question and is motivated by imagining personally carrying out harmful actions. One prediction of this model would be that personality traits associated with empathy deficits would find accidental harms more acceptable not because they focus on innocent intentions but because they have reduced concern for the victim's well-being. In this study, we show that one such personality trait, viz. alexithymia, indeed exhibits the predicted pattern and this increased acceptability of accidental harm in alexithymia is mediated by reduced dispositional empathic concern. Results attest to the validity of two-process model of intent-based moral judgements and emphasise key role affective empathy plays in harm-based moral judgements.
The article is here.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Can IVF influence human evolution?
Hans Ivar Hanevik, Dag O. Hessen, Arne Sunde, and Jarle Breivik
Human Reproduction (2016) 31 (7): 1397-1402 first published online April 19, 2016 doi:10.1093/humrep/dew089
Abstract
IVF, a procedure in which pharmacological and technological manipulation is used to promote pregnancy, offers help to infertile couples by circumventing selection at the most fundamental level. Fertility is clearly one of the key fitness-promoting drivers in all forms of sexually reproducing life, and fertilization and pregnancy are fundamental evolutionary processes that involve a range of pre- and post-zygotic screening mechanisms. Here, we discuss the various selection and screening factors involved in fertilization and pregnancy and assess IVF practices in light of these factors. We then focus on the possible consequences of these differences in selection pressures, mainly at the individual but also at the population level, to evaluate whether changes in the reproducing genotype can affect human evolution. The aim of the article is not to argue for or against IVF, but to address aspects of assisted reproduction in an evolutionary context.
The article is here.
Human Reproduction (2016) 31 (7): 1397-1402 first published online April 19, 2016 doi:10.1093/humrep/dew089
Abstract
IVF, a procedure in which pharmacological and technological manipulation is used to promote pregnancy, offers help to infertile couples by circumventing selection at the most fundamental level. Fertility is clearly one of the key fitness-promoting drivers in all forms of sexually reproducing life, and fertilization and pregnancy are fundamental evolutionary processes that involve a range of pre- and post-zygotic screening mechanisms. Here, we discuss the various selection and screening factors involved in fertilization and pregnancy and assess IVF practices in light of these factors. We then focus on the possible consequences of these differences in selection pressures, mainly at the individual but also at the population level, to evaluate whether changes in the reproducing genotype can affect human evolution. The aim of the article is not to argue for or against IVF, but to address aspects of assisted reproduction in an evolutionary context.
The article is here.
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