I didn't need a study to tell me this. I figured out that morality amounts to an appeal to authority, whether church or society. Ethics on the other hand, tries to work things out from first principles. Higher cognitive abilities means having greater ability to work things out from first principles. I would expect the a similar study for ethics to show a positive correlation (or possibly bimodal distribution).
>These include two “individualizing” foundations—care and equality—that focus on protecting individuals from harm and promoting fairness. The other four—proportionality, loyalty, authority, and purity—are called “binding” foundations because they support social cohesion, hierarchy, and shared values.
These six categories from this article reminded me of another article I saw recently. "The Elephant in America’s Room: How Moral Psychology Explains Our Political Civil War"
> Haidt identified several distinct “moral foundations” that operate like taste receptors for moral concerns:
Care/harm: Sensitivity to suffering and the need to protect the vulnerable
Fairness/cheating: Concerns about equality, proportionality, and reciprocity
Loyalty/betrayal: Valuing group cohesion and detecting threats to the group
Authority/subversion: Respect for legitimate hierarchy and tradition
Sanctity/degradation: Protection against contamination, both physical and spiritual
Liberty/oppression: Resistance to domination and restriction of freedom
> Sensitivity to suffering and the need to protect the vulnerable
> Concerns about equality, proportionality, and reciprocity
> Resistance to domination and restriction of freedom
Great.
> Valuing group cohesion and detecting threats to the group
> Respect for legitimate hierarchy and tradition
> Protection against contamination, both physical and spiritual
Here's where it all falls apart.
Who decides "group" membership?
Why is hierarchy and tradition so often allowed to violate the other "morals", even within the "group"?
WTF is "contamination"?
It's so easy to see the latter "morals" are just tools for tyrants. The former "morals" exclude them outright, so why does anyone accept them as being part of the same "foundation"? When I see people doing that, I feel the urge to "protect the vulnerable". I clearly see how they're giving up their equality and freedom to liars, cheats and thieves that will betray the group whenever it benefits them.
It's frustrating as hell.
The "group" should simply be "everyone", except the would-be tyrants. Guess some people just want that submissive life.
i simply find that certain values defined by this study to be immoral, and the source of much of humanities problems, namely: purity, authority, and loyalty.
it's as if the study put our political spectrum as an a priori set of truths, rather than symptomatic of the strong cultural sway what i consider to basically be the sources of social evil has.
the power and prevalence of wrongful ideology does not make it moral.
Disclaimer - I only skimmed through the linked article because I expected the selection of "values" to be biased to the point meaninglessness. Add the picture of a naked brain... can't get more cliche than that, very hard to read that kind of low quality propaganda.
In general. looking for solutions in Psychology is as dead end as it can be. Propaganda and incentives determine values and knowledge, propaganda being the prime mover, it provides the excuses for skewed incentives.
Talking about knowledge - how smart one is means little without true knowledge, which is sorely lacking in the so called "humanities". Without it, the "people with higher cognitive ability" are simply "garbage in - garbage out" generators. Well, a study of garbage can't result in anything other than garbage.
The problem is that figuring things out for yourself takes a lot of work. It’s far easier to take someone else’s pre-built moral framework.
If you have the spare energy maybe you’ll question the pre-built moral framework and thus diverge from it. (Or if the framework is insane in some important way as many moral frameworks have been throughout time —consider “Why can’t I own a Canadian”)
People who can’t or don’t want to put in the effort follow all the rules.
Thoughtful people figure out the rules they think are important to follow and how to live safely while ignoring the dumb ones.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 34.2 ms ] threadThose three just seem to mean religion.
These six categories from this article reminded me of another article I saw recently. "The Elephant in America’s Room: How Moral Psychology Explains Our Political Civil War"
> Haidt identified several distinct “moral foundations” that operate like taste receptors for moral concerns:
https://medium.com/@_X_/the-elephant-in-americas-room-how-mo...Great.
> Valuing group cohesion and detecting threats to the group > Respect for legitimate hierarchy and tradition > Protection against contamination, both physical and spiritual
Here's where it all falls apart.
Who decides "group" membership? Why is hierarchy and tradition so often allowed to violate the other "morals", even within the "group"? WTF is "contamination"?
It's so easy to see the latter "morals" are just tools for tyrants. The former "morals" exclude them outright, so why does anyone accept them as being part of the same "foundation"? When I see people doing that, I feel the urge to "protect the vulnerable". I clearly see how they're giving up their equality and freedom to liars, cheats and thieves that will betray the group whenever it benefits them.
It's frustrating as hell.
The "group" should simply be "everyone", except the would-be tyrants. Guess some people just want that submissive life.
it's as if the study put our political spectrum as an a priori set of truths, rather than symptomatic of the strong cultural sway what i consider to basically be the sources of social evil has. the power and prevalence of wrongful ideology does not make it moral.
In general. looking for solutions in Psychology is as dead end as it can be. Propaganda and incentives determine values and knowledge, propaganda being the prime mover, it provides the excuses for skewed incentives.
Talking about knowledge - how smart one is means little without true knowledge, which is sorely lacking in the so called "humanities". Without it, the "people with higher cognitive ability" are simply "garbage in - garbage out" generators. Well, a study of garbage can't result in anything other than garbage.
https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_the_moral_roots_of_...
But yeah, I don't just do what I'm told. Got kicked out of heaven for it.
If you have the spare energy maybe you’ll question the pre-built moral framework and thus diverge from it. (Or if the framework is insane in some important way as many moral frameworks have been throughout time —consider “Why can’t I own a Canadian”)
People who can’t or don’t want to put in the effort follow all the rules. Thoughtful people figure out the rules they think are important to follow and how to live safely while ignoring the dumb ones.
That is definitely not matching my experience and observations.
Also there is absolutely no way to meaningfully assess ethics of a person with a standardized questionnaire.