After Gutenberg

Subtitle: Or, The Cult of Climate Killing Personality

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“Many of the issues discussed on this bandwidth,” writes Nate Hagens, “are large, long term, and threatening.”

When giving consideration to the three primary society-wide topics of analysis and discourse: climate, energy and the economy,” Hagens sees an underlying conflict between “a cultural growth / debt imperative” and the context, a planet with finite sources and sinks. “Despite the same access to facts and considerable passage of time,” there exist widely disparate and strongly held opinions on the 3E’s.

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell and Tim Dickinson bewail the campaign by Big Oil and Big Coal lobbyists to block progress on climate policy.

This blog has reflected upon such conflict of opinion, rather aptly described by the above Rolling Stone magazine cover. It also recently expressed concern for the democratic process in these United States, or the lack thereof, as revealed by a corporate-financed effort to deny and delay efforts to mitigate global heating.

In Democracy and Moral Conflict, Robert B. Talisse writes:

Some hold that democracy is faltering because it has lost the moral clarity necessary to lead in a complicated world. Others hold that “moral clarity” means little more than moral blindness to the complexity of the contemporary world, and thus that what is needed is more reflection, self-criticism, and humility. Neither side thinks much of the other. Consequently our popular democratic politics is driven by insults, scandal, name-calling, fear-mongering, mistrust, charges of hypocrisy, and worse. Via 3 Quarks Daily

In exploring social and psychological reasons for a failure to address the urgency of our resource situation on an individual level and only at a snails pace on the governmental level, Nate Hagens focuses upon cognitive biases. And, in his treatise, considers a) why we have beliefs and how they are changed, b) our propensity to believe in authority figures, c) our penchant for optimism, d) cognitive load theory, e) relative fitness, f) the “recency effect,” and several other phenomena studied by social psychologists.

Georg Simmel (March 1, 1858 – September 28, 1918) was one of the first generation of German sociologists. His neo-Kantian approach laid the foundations for sociological antipositivism, presenting pioneering analyses of social individuality and fragmentation, and of culture, which he described in terms of historical ‘forms and contents’. He was a key precursor of urban sociology and to that extent influential in the future development of symbolic interactionism and social network analysis.

Another subscribed blog recently queried, “Should our cognitive biases have moral weight?” Consideration of the rhetorical question by blogger Aaron Swartz and subsequent commentary is worth noting…

In a classic piece of psychology, Kahneman and Tversky ask people what to do about a fatal disease that 600 people have caught. One group is asked whether they would administer a treatment that would definitely save 200 people’s lives or one with a 33% chance of saving 600 people. The other group is asked whether they would administer a treatment under which 400 people would definitely die or one where there’s a 33% chance that no one will die.

The two questions are the same: saving 600 people means no one will die, saving just 200 means the other 400 will die. But people’s responses were radically different. The vast majority of people chose to save 200 people for sure. But an equally large majority chose to take the chance that no one will die. In other words, just changing how you describe the option — saying that it saves lives rather than saying it leaves people to die — changes which option most people will pick.

In the same way that Festinger, et. al. showed that our intuitions are biased by our social situation, Kahneman and Tversky demonstrated that humans suffer from consistent cognitive biases as well. In a whole host of examples, they showed people behaving in a way we wouldn’t hesitate to think was irrational — like changing their position on whether to administer a treatment based on what it was called. (I think a similar problem affects our intuitions about killing versus letting die.)

This is a major problem for people like Frances Kamm, who think our moral philosophy must rely on our intuitions. If people consistently and repeatedly treat things differently based on what they’re called, are we forced to give that moral weight? Is it OK to administer a treatment when it’s described as saving people, but not when it’s described as not saving enough? Surely moral rules should meet some minimal standard of rationality.

This problem affects a question close to Kamm’s work: what she calls the Problem of Distance in Morality (PDM). Kamm says that her intuition consistently finds that moral obligations attach to things that are close to us, but not to thinks that are far away. According to her, if we see a child drowning in a pond and there’s a machine nearby which, for a dollar, will scoop him out, we’re morally obligated to give the machine a dollar. But if the machine is here but the scoop and child are on the other side of the globe, we don’t have to put a dollar in the machine.

But, just as with how things are called, our intuitions about distance suffer from cognitive biases. Numerous studies have shown that the way we think about things nearby is radically different from the way we think about things far away. In one study, Indiana University students did better on a creativity test when they were told the test was devised by IU students studying in Greece than when they were told it was devised by IU students studying in Indiana.

It’s a silly example, but it makes the point. If our creativity depends on whether someone mentions Greece or Purdue, it’s no surprise our answers to moral dilemmas depend on whether they take place in the US or China. But surely these differences have no more moral validity than the ones that result from Tversky’s experiment — they’re just an unfortunate quirk of how we’re wired. Rational reflection — not faulty intuitions — should be the test of a moral theory.

Comments

Alex G agrees, and reflects upon human drives for community, survival and cooperation. “The intuition to give relatively more moral on things close to you is one force that keeps communities together, and it could be argued these local communities are essential to the human condition.”

I don’t have the best words to describe this, but if you’ll allow me to wave my hands a bit: many mostly internally consistent and rational world views won’t properly explain the odd drives and wants of the human mind. They start to break down as you get close to it. If the rational world view you hold is fiercely conflicting with lots of human intuition, maybe its not taking the right axioms on as its base.

As has this blog, srid speaks to neuroanatomy as a basis for understanding such conflict. “You should be interested in exploring LeDoux’s work on emotions (particularly fear) and amygdala:”

The most significant of LeDoux’ experimentation with regard to fear is that the sensory input to the brain is split at the thalamus into two streams – one to the amygdala and one to the neo-cortex. The input stream to the amygdala is quicker – 12 milliseconds as opposed to 25 milliseconds to the neo-cortex. Less information goes to the amygdala quicker – it operates as a quick scan to check for danger.

While Raw Thoughts commentator srid challenges the author to recognize the emotional impact of moral conflict, other commentators focus upon methodological concerns:

Scott Reynen

No one in the study you described actually changed their position based on the question. Rather, different questions were posed to different groups. A subtle difference, but it points to a larger issue: intuition doesn’t necessarily lead to irrational conclusions. Quite often, intuition’s conclusions are exactly the same as those rational reflection would suggest.

Your title question, “should our cognitive biases have moral weight?” seems to have become conflated with a very different question: “should our cognitive biases have more moral weight than our rational reflection?” Answering no to the latter doesn’t really give us an answer to the former.

Anand Jeyahar

Hmm… a little far fetched and hurried conclusion…For a couple of reasons: 1.None of these studies have setup a situation of where the subjects can do the so called rational reflection… Till here it has been assumed…. both what is rational reflection and what it takes for a human to reflect rationally b4 making a decision.

Even if we all agree on Rational reflection, presuming that it is not the natural/default decision making method 4 humans(pretty standard assumption AFAIK), we need to consider the reaction time available in the situation and the time for a decision made on Rational reflection. Can’t cite a paper right now off the hand.. @Srid: Am sure that “feeling/intuitions” is considered an oversimplification..

Tom

I think the Kahneman and Tversky example is flawed, because wrong choices here do not stem from errors in moral intuition, but rather from errors in our ability to handle probabilities.

It is not that people here are not trying to be rational, it is just that they are not terribly good at it in situations that involve assessing probabilistic outcomes.

Chris Ball

It’s definitely hard to know what to do with intuitions. I think there’s an interesting paradox here; we have unreliable intuitions, so we rightly shy away from moral intuitionism, but we also have unreliable calculation of moral terms, especially when rushed, which should lead us a little way back towards acting on a set of intuitions and principles. (But not the deontological kind of principle.)

I think even the least-intuitionist person — say, a utilitarian, cognitivist, naturalist — is likely to end up answering a question like “Should I steal from this person?” with “Well, I’m opposed to that generally, so if I think I should then maybe something weird’s going on and I should think about it more…”

So, I think such a strong rejection of intuitions might be a little hasty. I’d love to read more about how we could properly use principles and intuition inside consequentialism, if anyone knows of further reading.

This blog coyly suggested to Aaron Swartz that something about moral conflict might be revealed in the possibility of a mistake, an admission thereof. Much more could be said about accountability. Suffice for now to say that our story is replete with mistakes made by cultures and their eventual collapse.

And, Jeff Goodell reminds us that Professor Hansen said there will be a quiz. Just pass / fail.

“And during the few moments that we have left, we want to talk, right down to earth, in a language that everybody here can easily understand.” (Malcolm X)

Look in my eyes, what do you see?
the Cult of Personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you wanna be ohhh…
I’m the Cult of Personality
Like Mussolini and Kennedy
I’m the Cult of Personality
the Cult of Personality
the Cult of Personality

Neon lights, Nobel Prize
When a mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You won’t have to follow me
Only you can set me free

I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face of your T.V. ohh…
I’m the Cult of Personality
I exploit you; still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three ohh…
I’m the Cult of Personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi ohh…
I’m the Cult of Personality
the Cult of Personality
the Cult of Personality

Neon lights, Nobel Prize
When a leader speaks, that leader dies
You won’t have to follow me
Only you can set you free

(Guitar solo)

You gave me fortune, you gave me fame
You gave me power in your God’s name
I’m every person you need to be ohh…
I’m, the, Cult, of, Per, Son, Al, Ity

I am the Cult of (x8)
Personality

“Ask not what your country can do for you…” (John F. Kennedy)
“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

“Living Colour | Cult of Personality” Songwriters: Calhoun, Will;Glover, Corey;Skillings, Manuel;Reid, Vernon

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future ASIN: 0618319409

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