Knowing Right from Wrong Quiz 6

Describe what "moral grandstanding" is and give an example of how it works.

"Moral grandstanding" is when we take moral positions publicly to impress an audience or avoid triggering them. Both individuals and organizations do this. Moral grandstanding creates a distorted sense of reality for group members; it gives the impression of widespread agreement, which may contradict people's private thoughts. Ex: We feel like we must condemn or condone certain things to not be kicked out of the group (cancelled). Even when we have doubts about the extremeness or black-and-whiteness of certain ideas.

**Describe how liberals and conservatives differ in their patterns of endorsement of the moral foundations (which group endorses which foundations most strongly?)

All people are concerned with not harming or oppressing others. Liberals have an individualizing morality: they endorse care/harm & liberty/oppression more than they endorse loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Conservatives endorse all 5 moral foundations more or less equally. They have competing moral priorities. So, basically, liberals endorse individualizing MFs more strongly, and conservatives endorse individualizing & binding.

Describe what we referred to in class as the yin and yang of liberal, conservative, and libertarian "wisdom" and to give examples of each type of "wisdom".

Liberal Wisdom: protect the vulnerable - liberals recognize that corporations exist to earn profits, not to protect people. Therefore, corporations require some amount of regulation. Conservative wisdom: protect the social order, avoid chaos - conservatives endorse all 6 MFs, including the group-based binding ones. A good society is an orderly society. They see social order as a miraculous and fragile achievement. Libertarian wisdom: protect free choice, markets, & speech. Basically, we need to safeguard individual wellbeing and eliminate injustice and suffering (liberal wisdom); we need to safeguard the social order and recognize that too much change too fast can lead to unintended negative consequences (conservative wisdom); regardless of what we change or how fast we change it, we mustn't try to achieve our goals at the expense of individual freedom (libertarian wisdom).

**Distinguish (in a general way) the liberal, conservative, and libertarian views on controversial social issues, such as Black Lives Matter, etc., using the three narrative lenses.

Liberal narrative lens: oppressor/victim - white officers are the oppressors, minority citizens are the victims. For abortion, abortion seekers are oppressed victims, abortion limiters are oppressors. Conservative narrative lens: order/chaos - criminals and rioters threaten the social order, police defend the social order. For abortion, abortion is a system of breakdown in traditional values. Libertarian narrative lens: freedom/choice - lawmakers who criminalize harmless activities, such as recreational drug use AND police who use force to apprehend them... are both coercive toward citizens whose autonomy and freedom of choice need protection. For abortion, all government regulation of personal choice and behavior is coercion.

Describe what naive realism means and give an example

Naive realism: it's hard to recognize the validity of the other side. Most of us naively believe that our own perspective is objective. Our inner sense is that our own perspective is the most true.

Describe what the scenario of the drowning child/UNICEF donation reveals about the influence of our intuitions on our moral decision making, and be able to describe how this observation can be explained from an evolutionary perspective.

Not saving the drowning child seems more horrible to us intuitively, because the drowning child is right there. Not helping seems unimaginable. We're more intuitively inclined to help someone in need when they're in our presence. We evolved to solve moral problems in small tribes where we interacted with people who were nearby and who we'd see again in the future.

Describe what the "proximity effect" refers to and give an example of how it works.

Physical proximity makes a huge difference in our sense of moral obligation. It's as if our sense of moral responsibility can be measured with a ruler! Our moral intuitions were not designed to be triggered by people halfway around the world who we'd never meet. CONCLUSION: there is a mismatch between our moral intuitions and the world we live in.

Describe what "the Turing Test" is and give an example of how it can apply to moral and political disagreements.

The "Turing Test" is based on the questions: 'When will machines become sentient?' Turing's answer: When they can engage in conversation with a human without being detected as a machine. Passing the Turing Test gets your opponent's elephant to lean in your direction. Riders don't win arguments without buy-in from their opponents' elephants. Other people think they're smart, so if you show that you get them, they will think you're smart too.

Explain the difference between binding and individualizing moral foundations and to list the moral foundations that belong in each category.

An individualizing moral orientation emphasizes the INDIVIDUAL as the primary focus of moral concern. In this category there is: care/harm, liberty/oppression, and fairness/cheating. The individual comes before the group. Groups exist to support individuals. A binding moral orientation emphasizes the GROUP as the primary focus of moral concern. In this category there is: loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation. Emphasize the strength & stability of groups and institutions. Individuals should be willing to "take one for the team".

(1) Give a couple of examples of how "institutionalized reason" has been applied in the real world; and (2) Describe the fundamental problem it helps to overcome

By combining the (motivated) reasoning of those who possess different biases, we are better able to find truth and solve large-scale problems. Examples: peer-review in science, checks and balances in government, and adversarial criminal justice proceedings. Institutionalized reasoning is the best-known approach for combining diverse perspectives.

Define the terms "identified lives" and "statistical lives" and describe the implications of this distinction for our moral decision making.

Identified life: a particular life whose story we learn about and are moved by. Statistical lives: those we become aware of through statistics describing large-scale social problems & suffering. We routinely allow thousands of statistical lives to be lost for lack of simple things like mosquito nets, vaccines, and clean water. Today, most problems involving the public good are statistical. But since we did not evolve to have emotional reactions to faraway problems involving statistical lives, such problems do not trigger our moral intuitions.

Describe how the liberal and conservative grand narratives each balance the importance of the individual versus the group.

The liberal grand narrative opposes oppression. The LGN is concerned with the welfare of the individual, it tends to be FOR social justice. Emphasizes Care, Liberty, Fairness; embraces social change. The LGN values universal altruism. To conservatives, the LGN seems naive, disrespectful, & dangerous. The conservative grand narrative emphasizes order, stability, and wisdom of the past. It's based on the idea that society emerged organically as people learned to bind together, suppress selfishness, and deter free riders. They have a Durkheimian way of looking at things: the group is the moral center, individuals are understood as flawed and selfish. Embrace group loyalty & parochial altruism. To Liberals, the CGN is rigid, hurtful, oppressive, & unfair.

(1) Describe what the Pew Research Center charts reveal about recent trends in the political values of liberals and conservatives in the U.S. and (2) Identify the term that is typically used to refer to this pattern

The values gap between liberal and conservative has grown over time. The patterns suggest greater divergence between the two groups over time. Increased polarization: Americans have become more polarized in their values & more negative in their judgements of the other side. AKA POLITICAL "TRIBALISM" is on the rise.