Why It’s Time To Modernize Your Ethics Hotline

Claire Schmidt

Forbes.com

Originally posted 18 Jun 21

Traditional whistleblower hotlines are going to be a thing of the past.

They certainly served a purpose and pioneered a way for employees to report wrongdoing at their companies confidentially. But the reasons are stacking up against them as to why they’re no longer serving companies and employees in 2021. And if companies continue to use them, they need to realize that issues or concerns may go unreported because employees don’t want to use that channel to report.

After all, the function of a whistleblower hotline is to encourage employees to report any wrongdoing they see in the workplace through a confidential channel, which means that the channels for reporting should get an upgrade.

But there are deeper reasons why issues remain unreported — and it goes beyond just offering a hotline to use. Today, companies need to give their employees better ways to report wrongdoing, as well as tell them the value of why they should do so. Otherwise, companies won’t hear about the full extent of wrongdoing happening in the workplace, whatever channel they provide.

The Evolution Of Workplace Reporting Channels

Whistleblower or ethics hotlines were initially that: a phone number — because that was the technology at the time — that employees could anonymously call to report wrongdoings at a company. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 mandated that companies set up a method for “the confidential, anonymous submission by employees of the issuer of concerns regarding questionable accounting or auditing matters.”

The info is here.

Free Will and Neuroscience: Decision Times and the Point of No Return

Alfred Mele

In Free Will, Causality, & Neuroscience

Chapter 4

Here are some excerpts:

Decisions to do things, as I conceive of them, are momentary actions of forming an intention to do them. For example, to decide to flex my right wrist now is to perform a (nonovert) action of forming an intention to flex it now (Mele 2003, ch. 9). I believe that Libet understands decisions in the same way. Some of our decisions and intentions are for the nonimmediate future and others are not. I have an intention today to fly to Brussels three days from now, and I have an intention now to click my “save” button now. The former intention is aimed at action three days in the future. The latter intention is about what to do now. I call intentions of these kinds, respectively, distal and proximal intentions (Mele 1992, pp. 143–44, 158, 2009, p. 10), and I make the same distinction in the sphere of decisions to act. Libet studies proximal intentions (or decisions or urges) in particular.

(cut)

Especially in the case of the study now under discussion, readers unfamiliar with Libet-style experiments may benefit from a short description of my own experience as a participant in such an experiment (see Mele 2009, pp. 34–36). I had just three things to do: watch a Libet clock with a view to keeping track of when I first became aware of something like a proximal urge, decision, or intention to flex; flex whenever I felt like it (many times over the course of the experiment); and report, after each flex, where I believed the hand was on the clock at the moment of first awareness. (I reported this belief by moving a cursor to a point on the clock. The clock was very fast; it made a complete revolution in about 2.5 seconds.) Because I did not experience any proximal urges, decisions, or intentions to flex, I hit on the strategy of saying “now!” silently to myself just before beginning to flex. This is the mental event that I tried to keep track of with the assistance of the clock. I thought of the “now!” as shorthand for the imperative “flex now!” – something that may be understood as an expression of a proximal decision to flex.

Why did I say “now!” exactly when I did? On any given trial, I had before me a string of equally good moments for a “now!” – saying, and I arbitrarily picked one of the moments. 3 But what led me to pick the moment I picked? The answer offered by Schurger et al. is that random noise crossed a decision threshold then. And they locate the time of the crossing very close to the onset of muscle activity – about 100 ms before it (pp. E2909, E2912). They write: “The reason we do not experience the urge to move as having happened earlier than about 200 ms before movement onset [referring to Libet’s partipants’ reported W time] is simply because, at that time, the neural decision to move (crossing the decision threshold) has not yet been made” (E2910). If they are right, this is very bad news for Libet. His claim is that, in his experiments, decisions are made well before the average reported W time: −200 ms. (In a Libet-style experiment conducted by Schurger et al., average reported W time is −150 ms [p. E2905].) As I noted, if relevant proximal decisions are not made before W, Libet’s argument for the claim that they are made unconsciously fails.

The summary article is here.

“False positive” emotions, responsibility, and moral character

Anderson, R. A., et al.

Cognition

Volume 214, September 2021, 104770

Abstract

People often feel guilt for accidents—negative events that they did not intend or have any control over. Why might this be the case? Are there reputational benefits to doing so? Across six studies, we find support for the hypothesis that observers expect “false positive” emotions from agents during a moral encounter – emotions that are not normatively appropriate for the situation but still trigger in response to that situation. For example, if a person accidentally spills coffee on someone, most normative accounts of blame would hold that the person is not blameworthy, as the spill was accidental. Self-blame (and the guilt that accompanies it) would thus be an inappropriate response. However, in Studies 1–2 we find that observers rate an agent who feels guilt, compared to an agent who feels no guilt, as a better person, as less blameworthy for the accident, and as less likely to commit moral offenses. These attributions of moral character extend to other moral emotions like gratitude, but not to nonmoral emotions like fear, and are not driven by perceived differences in overall emotionality (Study 3). In Study 4, we demonstrate that agents who feel extremely high levels of inappropriate (false positive) guilt (e.g., agents who experience guilt but are not at all causally linked to the accident) are not perceived as having a better moral character, suggesting that merely feeling guilty is not sufficient to receive a boost in judgments of character. In Study 5, using a trust game design, we find that observers are more willing to trust others who experience false positive guilt compared to those who do not. In Study 6, we find that false positive experiences of guilt may actually be a reliable predictor of underlying moral character: self-reported predicted guilt in response to accidents negatively correlates with higher scores on a psychopathy scale.

General discussion

Collectively, our results support the hypothesis that false positive moral emotions are associated with both judgments of moral character and traits associated with moral character. We consistently found that observers use an agent's false positive experience of moral emotions (e.g., guilt, gratitude) to infer their underlying moral character, their social likability, and to predict both their future emotional responses and their future moral behavior. Specifically, we found that observers judge an agent who experienced “false positive” guilt (in response to an accidental harm) as a more moral person, more likeable, less likely to commit future moral infractions, and more trustworthy than an agent who experienced no guilt. Our results help explain the second “puzzle” regarding guilt for accidental actions (Kamtekar & Nichols, 2019). Specifically, one reason that observers may find an accidental agent less blameworthy, and yet still be wary if the agent does not feel guilt, is that such false positive guilt provides an important indicator of that agent's underlying character.

The research is here.

On the Origins of Diversity in Social Behavior

Young, L.J. & Zhang, Q.

Japanese Journal of Animal Psychology

2021.

Abstract

Here we discuss the origins of diversity in social behavior by highlighting research using the socially monogamous prairie vole. Prairie voles display a rich social behavioral repertoire involving pair bonding and consoling behavior that are not observed in typical laboratory species. Oxytocin and vasopressin play critical roles in regulating pair bonding and consoling behavior. Oxytocin and vasopressin receptors show remarkable diversity in expression patterns both between and within species. Receptor expression patterns are associated with species differences in social behaviors. Variations in receptor genes have been linked to individual variation in expression patterns. We propose that "evolvability" in the oxytocin and vasopressin receptor genes allows for the repurposing of ancient maternal and territorial circuits to give rise to novel social behaviors such as pair bonding, consoling and selective aggression. We further propose that the evolvability of these receptor genes is due to their transcriptional sensitivity to genomic variation. This model provides a foundation for investigating the molecular mechanisms giving rise to the remarkable diversity in social behaviors found in vertebrates.

While this hypothesis remains to be tested, we believe this transcriptional flexibility is key to the origin of diversity in social behavior, and enables rapid social behavioral adaptation through natural selection, and

contributes to the remarkable diversity in social and reproductive behaviors in the animal kingdom.

A pdf is here.

When Do Robots have Free Will? Exploring the Relationships between (Attributions of) Consciousness and Free Will

Nahmias, E., Allen, C. A., & Loveall, B.

In Free Will, Causality, & Neuroscience

Chapter 3

Imagine that, in the future, humans develop the technology to construct humanoid robots with very sophisticated computers instead of brains and with bodies made out of metal, plastic, and synthetic materials. The robots look, talk, and act just like humans and are able to integrate into human society and to interact with humans across any situation. They work in our offices and our restaurants, teach in our schools, and discuss the important matters of the day in our bars and coffeehouses. How do you suppose you’d respond to one of these robots if you were to discover them attempting to steal your wallet or insulting your friend? Would you regard them as free and morally responsible agents, genuinely deserving of blame and punishment?

If you’re like most people, you are more likely to regard these robots as having free will and being morally responsible if you believe that they are conscious rather than non-conscious. That is, if you think that the robots actually experience sensations and emotions, you are more likely to regard them as having free will and being morally responsible than if you think they simply behave like humans based on their internal programming but with no conscious experiences at all. But why do many people have this intuition? Philosophers and scientists typically assume that there is a deep connection between consciousness and free will, but few have developed theories to explain this connection. To the extent that they have, it’s typically via some cognitive capacity thought to be important for free will, such as reasoning or deliberation, that consciousness is supposed to enable or bolster, at least in humans. But this sort of connection between consciousness and free will is relatively weak. First, it’s contingent; given our particular cognitive architecture, it holds, but if robots or aliens could carry out the relevant cognitive capacities without being conscious, this would suggest that consciousness is not constitutive of, or essential for, free will. Second, this connection is derivative, since the main connection goes through some capacity other than consciousness. Finally, this connection does not seem to be focused on phenomenal consciousness (first-person experience or qualia), but instead, on access consciousness or self-awareness (more on these distinctions below).

From the Conclusion

In most fictional portrayals of artificial intelligence and robots (such as Blade Runner, A.I., and Westworld), viewers tend to think of the robots differently when they are portrayed in a way that suggests they express and feel emotions. No matter how intelligent or complex their behavior, they do not come across as free and autonomous until they seem to care about what happens to them (and perhaps others). Often this is portrayed by their showing fear of their own death or others, or expressing love, anger, or joy. Sometimes it is portrayed by the robots’ expressing reactive attitudes, such as indignation, or our feeling such attitudes towards them. Perhaps the authors of these works recognize that the robots, and their stories, become most interesting when they seem to have free will, and people will see them as free when they start to care about what happens to them, when things really matter to them, which results from their experiencing the actual (and potential) outcomes of their actions.

The chapter is here.

Understanding Side-Effect Intentionality Asymmetries: Meaning, Morality, or Attitudes and Defaults?

Laurent SM, Reich BJ, Skorinko JLM. 

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 

2021;47(3):410-425. 

doi:10.1177/0146167220928237

Abstract

People frequently label harmful (but not helpful) side effects as intentional. One proposed explanation for this asymmetry is that moral considerations fundamentally affect how people think about and apply the concept of intentional action. We propose something else: People interpret the meaning of questions about intentionally harming versus helping in fundamentally different ways. Four experiments substantially support this hypothesis. When presented with helpful (but not harmful) side effects, people interpret questions concerning intentional helping as literally asking whether helping is the agents’ intentional action or believe questions are asking about why agents acted. Presented with harmful (but not helpful) side effects, people interpret the question as asking whether agents intentionally acted, knowing this would lead to harm. Differences in participants’ definitions consistently helped to explain intentionality responses. These findings cast doubt on whether side-effect intentionality asymmetries are informative regarding people’s core understanding and application of the concept of intentional action.

From the Discussion

Second, questions about intentionality of harm may focus people on two distinct elements presented in the vignette: the agent’s  intentional action  (e.g., starting a profit-increasing program) and the harmful secondary outcome he knows this goal-directed action will cause. Because the concept of intentionality is most frequently applied to actions rather than consequences of actions (Laurent, Clark, & Schweitzer, 2015), reframing the question as asking about an intentional action undertaken with foreknowledge of harm has advantages. It allows consideration of key elements from the story and is responsive to what people may feel is at the heart of the question: “Did the chairman act intentionally, knowing this would lead to harm?” Notably, responses to questions capturing this idea significantly mediated intentionality responses in each experiment presented here, whereas other variables tested failed to consistently do so. 

A pdf is here.

Binding moral values gain importance in the presence of close others

Yudkin, D.A., Gantman, A.P., Hofmann, W. et al. 

Nat Commun 12, 2718 (2021). 

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22566-6

Abstract

A key function of morality is to regulate social behavior. Research suggests moral values may be divided into two types: binding values, which govern behavior in groups, and individualizing values, which promote personal rights and freedoms. Because people tend to mentally activate concepts in situations in which they may prove useful, the importance they afford moral values may vary according to whom they are with in the moment. In particular, because binding values help regulate communal behavior, people may afford these values more importance when in the presence of close (versus distant) others. Five studies test and support this hypothesis. First, we use a custom smartphone application to repeatedly record participants’ (n = 1166) current social context and the importance they afforded moral values. Results show people rate moral values as more important when in the presence of close others, and this effect is stronger for binding than individualizing values—an effect that replicates in a large preregistered online sample (n = 2016). A lab study (n = 390) and two preregistered online experiments (n = 580 and n = 752) provide convergent evidence that people afford binding, but not individualizing, values more importance when in the real or imagined presence of close others. Our results suggest people selectively activate different moral values according to the demands of the situation, and show how the mere presence of others can affect moral thinking.

From the Discussion

Our findings converge with work highlighting the practical contexts where binding values are pitted against individualizing ones. Research on the psychology of whistleblowing, for example, suggests that the decision over whether to report unethical behavior in one’s own organization reflects a tradeoff between loyalty (to one’s community) and fairness (to society in general). Other research has found that increasing or decreasing people’s “psychological distance” from a situation affects the degree to which they apply binding versus individualizing principles. For example, research shows that prompting people to take a detached (versus immersed) perspective on their own actions renders them more likely to apply impartial principles in punishing close others for moral transgressions. By contrast, inducing feelings of empathy toward others (which could be construed as increasing feelings of psychological closeness) increases people’s likelihood of showing favoritism toward them in violation of general fairness norms. Our work highlights a psychological process that might help to explain these patterns of behavior: people are more prone to act according to binding values when they are with close others precisely because that relational context activates those values in the mind.

The research is here.

Retrieval-constrained valuation: Toward prediction of open-ended decisions

Zhihao Z., Shichun Wang, et al.

PNAS May 2021, 118 (20) e2022685118

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2022685118

Abstract

Real-world decisions are often open ended, with goals, choice options, or evaluation criteria conceived by decision-makers themselves. Critically, the quality of decisions may heavily rely on the generation of options, as failure to generate promising options limits, or even eliminates, the opportunity for choosing them. This core aspect of problem structuring, however, is largely absent from classical models of decision-making, thereby restricting their predictive scope. Here, we take a step toward addressing this issue by developing a neurally inspired cognitive model of a class of ill-structured decisions in which choice options must be self-generated. Specifically, using a model in which semantic memory retrieval is assumed to constrain the set of options available during valuation, we generate highly accurate out-of-sample predictions of choices across multiple categories of goods. Our model significantly and substantially outperforms models that only account for valuation or retrieval in isolation or those that make alternative mechanistic assumptions regarding their interaction. Furthermore, using neuroimaging, we confirm our core assumption regarding the engagement of, and interaction between, semantic memory retrieval and valuation processes. Together, these results provide a neurally grounded and mechanistic account of decisions with self-generated options, representing a step toward unraveling cognitive mechanisms underlying adaptive decision-making in the real world.

Significance

Life is not a multiple-choice test: Many real-world decisions leave goals, choice options, or evaluation criteria to be determined by decision-makers themselves. However, a mechanistic understanding of how such problem structuring processes influence choice has largely eluded standard models of decision-making. By developing a neurally grounded cognitive model that integrates semantic knowledge retrieval and valuation processes, we offer a computational framework providing strikingly accurate out-of-sample predictions of choices with self-generated options. This framework generates psychological insights into the nature and force of memory retrieval’s substantial influence on choice behavior. Together, these findings represent a step toward predicting complex, ill-structured decisions in the real world, opening up new approaches that may broaden the scope of formal models of decision-making.

The research is here.

Beauty of the Beast: Beauty as an important dimension in the moral standing of animals

Klebl, C. et al.

Journal of Environmental Psychology

Volume 75, June 2021, 101624

Abstract

Conservationists have sought to identify avenues through which to gain public support for efforts to halt the accelerating decline in animal diversity. Previous research has identified perceived internal qualities of animals that lead people to view them as deserving of protection for their own sake; that is, increase their moral standing. In two studies, we found that perceived beauty is an external aesthetic quality that leads people to attribute moral standing to animals independently from animals' perceived mental capacities associated with patiency or agency, and dispositional harmfulness, as well as other factors likely to influence moral standing. In Study 1, we found that beauty perceptions predicted moral standing independently from perceived patiency, agency, and harmfulness across a wide range of animal species. In Study 2 (pre-registered), we found that beauty causally influenced moral standing attributions to animals independently from animals’ perceived internal qualities, as well as their perceived similarity to humans, familiarity, and edibility. Our findings provide insight into another factor which contributes to the perceived moral status of animals, and therefore may help conservationists to identify the most effective ways to attract funds for conservation efforts.

Highlights

• Beauty perceptions predict moral standing attributions across a wide range of animal species.

• Beauty predicts moral standing independently from perceived patiency, agency, and harmfulness.

• Beauty causally influences moral standing attributions independently from other factors linked to moral standing.

• May help conservationists to identify the most effective ways to attract funds for the conservation of endangered species.

Conclusion

Human activities pose serious threats to the earth's biodiversity. Today, it is more urgent than ever to gain public support for conservation efforts in order to halt the accelerating decline in animal diversity. The present investigation suggests that animals' beauty leads people to view animals as having moral standing, independent from their perceived mental capacities, disposition to act benevolently, as well as their perceived similarity to humans, familiarity, and edibility. This validates conservation strategies focussing on animals' aesthetic appeals such as the use of beautiful flagship species to attract fund for a broad range of endangered species including less aesthetically appealing animals (Veríssimo et al., 2017). Our findings may help to better calibrate future conservation appeals based on the idiosyncratic qualities of animals that are the target of conservation campaigns. As such, they may contribute to identifying new avenues through which to gain greater public support for conservation efforts by making people recognize that animals have a moral status independent from human interests.

The research is here.