Friday, September 19, 2014
open Haidt thread
This thread is for questions and thoughts about the material discussed by Haidt and by us in class. Somebody say something! I know you guys find this material interesting -- a lot of it is really fascinating. There's no reason for this discussion board to be so sterile. And discussion can only help you on the exams, both because it'll help you understand the material more, and because I may be moved to include material on the exams covered in these discussions.
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I had a comment about some of Heidt's thoughts:
ReplyDeleteAt some point in the book he simply reports that he thinks utilitarianism is the right ethical view for large groups, such as governments. He does not give me much of a reason for this, but by the time he gets to the conclusion of the book he evaluates what is 'good' (on his view) about liberals, libertarians, and conservatives by the standard of how well they maximize utility for a whole society. I'm curious how Heidt justifies his evaluation at that point. That is, given all the moral psychology he has done in the rest of the book, why does he get to go on drawing perfectly normative implications by assuming a standpoint without addressing at all how THAT view meshes with his findings.
Great question! Can you direct us to some of the pages where he endorses utilitarianism? Perhaps we can learn more about his justification by closely scrutinizing what he says.
ReplyDeleteOn page 316 Heidt says: "When we talk about making laws and implementing public policies in Western democracies that contain some degree of ethnic diversity, then think there is no compelling alternative to utilitarianism."
ReplyDeleteIn his evaluation of the positive contributions of liberalism, libertarianism, and conservatism on pages 345-61 he then evaluates the benefits entirely on utilitarian terms.
Right. Well, strictly speaking he's just reporting his own thought. But one might wonder if there's anything in what he's said in the rest of the book which might possibly justify that thought. And I don't think there is. For instance, many people find utilitarianism problematic because they think it doesn't give enough weight to moral rights. Such folks think rights have a moral weight which is independent of their relevance to overall happiness. For instance, you can't just kill or enslave innocent people, even if doing so would somehow maximize happiness in the long run. That may or may not be correct, but so far as I can see Haidt hasn't given us any argument that it's a mistaken criticism of utilitarianism. And it's certainly relevant to law and public policy.
DeleteUnrelated, but:
ReplyDelete1. What happened to the study guide you said would be out by today?
2. Did you ever make a decision on whether or not to allow a note-sheet for the test?
Just a quick question about the "harmless taboo violations" examples.
ReplyDeleteCan I say that they show differences in non-derivative moralization because they are counter-examples of Turiel's argument ?
Well, I'm not sure if I'd quite put it that way, but I think you're on to something. if you wanted to go that way, you'd have to cite Turiel-style attitudes as a way in which some people moralize. And you would describe how people who moralize in that way moralize about those sorts of behaviors. Then you'd contrast that with the moralization of others regarding those behaviors, and you might then be able to show that yu've got an example of differences in non-derivative moralization.
ReplyDelete