[Vision2020] Our Inconsistent Ethical Instincts

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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March 30, 2013
Our Inconsistent Ethical Instincts By MATTHEW HUTSON

MORAL quandaries often pit concerns about principles against concerns about
practical consequences. Should we ban assault rifles and large sodas,
restricting people’s liberties for the sake of physical health and safety?
Should we allow drone killings or torture, if violating one person’s rights
could save a thousand lives?

We like to believe that the principled side of the equation is rooted in
deep, reasoned conviction. But a growing wealth of research shows that
those values often prove to be finicky, inconsistent intuitions, swayed by
ethically irrelevant factors. What you say now you might disagree with in
five minutes. And such wavering has implications for both public policy and
our personal lives.

Philosophers and psychologists often distinguish between two ethical
frameworks. A utilitarian perspective evaluates an action purely by its
consequences. If it does good, it’s good.

A deontological approach, meanwhile, also takes into account aspects of the
action itself, like whether it adheres to certain rules. Do not kill, even
if killing does good.

No one adheres strictly to either philosophy, and it turns out we can be
nudged one way or the other for illogical reasons.

For a recent paper to be published in the Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, subjects were made to think either abstractly or concretely —
say, by writing about the distant or near future. Those who were primed to
think abstractly were more accepting of a hypothetical surgery that would
kill a man so that one of his glands could be used to save thousands of
others from a deadly disease. In other words, a very simple manipulation of
mind-set that did not change the specifics of the case led to very
different responses.

Class can also play a role. Another
paper<http://static.squarespace.com/static/5014cf5ce4b006ef411a1485/t/5130e34ae4b0a32f37430f12/1362158410651/C%C3%B4t%C3%A9PiffWiller2013.pdf>,
in the March issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
shows that upper-income people tend to have less empathy than those from
lower-income strata, and so are more willing to sacrifice individuals for
the greater good.

Upper-income subjects took more money from another subject to multiply it
and give to others, and found it more acceptable to push a fat man in front
of a trolley to save five others on the track — both outcome-oriented
responses.

But asking subjects to focus on the feelings of the person losing the money
made wealthier respondents less likely to accept such a trade-off.

Other recent research shows similar results: stressing subjects, rushing
them or reminding them of their mortality all reduce utilitarian responses,
most likely by preventing them from controlling their emotions.

Even the way a scenario is worded can influence our judgments, as lawyers
and politicians well know. In one study, subjects read a number of
variations of the classic trolley
dilemma<http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com/experimental_philosophy/2005/09/the_trolley_pro.html>:
should you turn a runaway trolley away from five people and onto a track
with only one? When flipping the switch was described as saving the people
on the first track, subjects tended to support it. When it was described as
killing someone on the second, they did not. Same situation, different
answers.

And other published studies have shown that our moods can make misdeeds
seem more or less sinful. Ethical violations become less offensive after
people watch a humor program like “Saturday Night Live.” But they become
more offensive after reading “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” which triggers
emotional elevation, or after smelling a mock-flatulence spray, which
triggers disgust.

The scenarios in these papers are somewhat contrived (trolleys and such),
but they have real-world analogues: deciding whether to fire a loyal
employee for the good of the company, or whether to donate to a single sick
child rather than to an aid organization that could save several.

Regardless of whether you endorse following the rules or calculating
benefits, knowing that our instincts are so sensitive to outside factors
can prevent us from settling on our first response. Objective moral truth
doesn’t exist, and these studies show that even if it did, our grasp of it
would be tenuous.

But we can encourage consistency in moral reasoning by viewing issues from
many angles, discussing them with other people and monitoring our emotions
closely. In recognizing our psychological quirks, we just might find
answers we can live with.

Matthew Hutson <http://magicalthinkingbook.com/author/>, the author of “The
7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy,
and Sane,” is writing a book on taboos.




-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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