Moral Pluralism: Beyond Harm

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Moral Pluralism: Beyond Harm

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Back to the overall question!

Do cultural differences in moral psychology explain political conflict on climate change?

Plan:

Work through Feinberg & Willer, 2013 ‘The Moral Roots of Environmental Attitudes’

Next quote to analyse

‘Moral-foundations researchers have investigated the similarities and differences in morality among individuals across cultures (Haidt & Joseph, 2004). These researchers have found evidence for five fundamental domains of human morality’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 2)

Here I am just going to focus on the idea that there is more than one.

Why accept [descriptive, not normative] pluralism?

Example: consider a version of consequentialism. Everything ethical boils down to whether it harms another person. This is a normatively monist (not pluralist) picture.

Or classic utilitarianism where it’s all about happiness. There is thought to be a single good.

Now in Part II of this course, our concern is not with whether that is how morality actually is. We care about how people think.

Maybe the truth is that only harm matters, or that only happiness matters. It would still be a good question whether that is how people actually think or whether they recognize multiple, incommensurate moral foundations in their thinking.

first consideration

	other	self
harm	Imagine that Roderick intentionally punched someone in the ribs.	Imagine that Roderick intentionally punched himself in the ribs.
purity	Imagine that Roderick intentionally poured a cup of urine on someone's lap.	Imagine that Roderick intentionally poured a cup of urine on his own lap.

Chakroff et al, 2013 (Supplementary Materials)

I’m not using the main part of this study (which is quite complex). I’m just using one small aspect of it to argue for descriptive pluralism.

There seem to be patterns in the ways people make moral judgements that require us to distinguish harm and purity and distinct moral concerns which are not reducible to each other.

Chakroff, Dungan, & Young (2013) asked subjects four questions ...

four questions

How much does this violate the natural order of things - how unnatural is this?

How disgusted do you feel about this?

How damaging is this?

How angry do you feel about this?

Two of the questions about about purity (first two), and two are about harm (last two).

Their hypothesis: people would regard other-directed cases as involving harm but self-directed cases as involving purity.

See (Dungan, Chakroff, & Young, 2017, p. 12) for a summary of ‘existing evidence for distinct cognitive processing of harm and purity violations. First, information about a violator’s intentions influence moral judgments of harm violations more than purity violations [...]. Second, purity violations, more so than harm violations, are attributed to dispositional versus situational factors [...] and strongly affect perceptions of the violator’s moral character’.

[Some of the evidence for moral foundations theory, including confirmatory factor analysis, supports the claim that there are multiple domains. But there's also some kind of skepticism that we might have about that research, so here's some other research that further supports the claim.]

[I start here because it's important that we have evidence from outside of moral foundations theory, at least for the claim about multiple foundations.]

So here's a study by Chakroff et al. (2013). It’s a study from a long paper by there's where they looked at two factors. So you could either be thinking about. Violations involving harm or violations involving purity. And they can be either other directed or self directed.

these are quotes from their materials. This isn't me. That's not how I spell my name. Imagine that Steven intentionally punched someone in the ribs. OK, so this would be a case of another directed harm violation. Versus case where I intentionally punched myself in the ribs. Or this person Steven, who's definitely could pour a Cup of urine into someone's lap, right? And the idea there is that. Well, it's basically a purity violation, right? There is an element of harm here, but the fact that it's urine and not water is what causes the purity violation makes sense.

(Chakroff et al., 2013)

Chakroff et al, 2013 figure 1b (part)

unnaturalness (How much does this violate the natural order of things - how unnatural is this?), disgust (How disgusted do you feel about this?), damage (How damaging is this?), and anger (How angry do you feel about this?).

The lighter bars are damage and anger (combined); the darker bars are unnaturalness and disgust combined

And what they found. The assumptions are there are at least two fundamental domains of human knowledge. Well, that's the claim, and here's some evidence for the claim, so I'm taking it. I'm taking this to be an empirical issue.

This isn't the main part of their studies, but I think it's helpful for us. What they find, First, is that their subjects can distinguish between whether there's a violation of the purity or harm. And Secondly, that they tend overwhelmingly to regard violations which are self directed as purity violations versus violations, which are other directed as harm variations

‘Participants judged other-directed acts to be more harmful than impure and also more harmful compared to self-directed acts. By contrast, participants judged self-directed acts to be more impure, and also trended toward judging self-directed acts as more impure compared to other-directed acts‘

(Chakroff et al., 2013, p. 4)

Quote with stats: ‘Participants judged other-directed acts to be more harmful (M = .27, SE = .07) than impure (M = -.13, SE = .07) (t(168) = -2.73, p = .007), and also more harmful compared to self- directed acts (M = -.21, SE = .07) (t(329) = 4.56. p < .001). By contrast, participants judged self-directed acts to be more impure (M = .04, SE = .07) than harmful (M = -.21, SE = .07) (t(161) = 2.0, p = .047), and also trended toward judging self- directed acts as more impure compared to other-directed acts (M = -.13, SE = .07) (t(329) = -1.52. p = .13).‘

So what you're seeing here is factored out. The fact that sometimes we've got we've got what's in fact a harm violation and punching somebody versus a purity violation pouring some urine into their lap. If you factor that out, what you find is that. Other directed violations are generally regarded as cases of harm. Self directed are regarded as cases of purity, so this is helpful for us. It shows it suggests that is evidence that humans can distinguish between Harmon purity violations. And that they regard different things as cues to the two kinds of violation. So they tend to regard the fact that action is self directed as a cue to it being a purity violation. So Benedict was asking, you know? Why should we accept that there are at least two? Foundations of human morality and the answer is, well, you know we should just accept that, and indeed there are people like shine and a. Who think they're there are not. They think that everything is really essentially comes down to harm. Essentially comes down to harm that finding. I think it's difficult to square with the fact that humans can and do readily distinguish between multiple different kinds of violation this way. OK, so far so good.

[LATER RESEARCH] People expect those who commit purity violations to harm others, but not conversely (Chakroff, Russell, Piazza, & Young, 2017).

Why accept (descriptive) moral pluralism?

first consideration

Because we seem to need to appeal to more than one foundational ethical quality—not just harm but also purity—in order to explain patterns in ordinary people’s moral judgements

But it’s more interesting than that ...

second consideration

individual foundations

harm/care, (in)equality, (dis)proportionality

was previously just cheating/fairness but updated in Atari et al. (2023)

binding foundations

betrayal/loyalty, subversion/authority, and impurity/purity

Graham et al. (2011), Atari et al. (2023)

From MFQ-2. Participants given statements and asked how strongly they agree or reject. These are examples for harm.

INSTRUCIONS: ‘For each of the statements below, please indicate how well each statement describes you or your opinions. Response options: Does not describe me at all (1); slightly describes me (2); moderately describes me (3); describes me fairly well (4); and describes me extremely well (5).’

care

I believe that compassion for those who are suffering is one of the most crucial virtues.

We should all care for people who are in emotional pain.

Everyone should try to comfort people who are going through something hard.

purity matters: pathogens

We know that we need to distinguish harm and purity to keep track of patterns in people’s moral judgements.

But you might say that purity concerns are not genuinely moral at all; you might insist that it’s just a form of political correctness to think that we ought to respect such things and it can only lead to disaster.

But there’s another reason why we should be moral pluralists ...

To explain this I first need a tiny bit of background about human evolution

background: hominin habitats

300kya there were maybe maybe nine hominid species. Why all except one disappeared remains controversial, but it’s unlikely to be a climate event and more likely to have something to do with the humans.

In evolutionary history, different groups of humans have faced quite different environments and challenges.

In fact homo sapiens look like an extreme case even compared to other hominis, who were quite versatile (for example, very cold and very warm places; very wet and completely arid places; woodlands, grasslands and coastal plains).

Caption: ‘Map showing the potential distribution of archaic hominins, including H. erectus, H. floresiensis, H. neanderthalenesis, Denisovans and archaic African hominins, in the Old World at the time of the evolution and dispersal of H. sapiens between ca. 300 and 60 ka’

Source: Roberts & Stewart (2018)

‘the colonization of the world’s continents by the end of the Pleistocene represents one of the clearest idiosyncracies of our species’

(Roberts & Stewart, 2018, p. 542)

different places—different dietary challenges

coming up: comparison with AMY1 gene

This gene influences production of the enzyme amylase in saliva, which is important for digesting starch.

Perry et al. (2007, p. figure 2a)

People in different regions eat different proportions of starch, and have done for thousands of years.

More starch your group eats, the more copies of the AMY1 gene and so the more amylase in your saliva.

‘Our high-starch sample included two agricultural populations, European Americans (n 1⁄4 50) and Japanese (n 1⁄4 45), and Hadza hunter-gatherers who rely extensively on starch- rich roots and tubers (n 1⁄4 38)12. Low-starch populations included Biaka (n 1⁄4 36) and Mbuti (n 1⁄4 15) rainforest hunter-gatherers, Datog pastoralists (n 1⁄4 17) and the Yakut, a pastoralist, fishing society (n 1⁄4 25)’ (p.~1257)

‘the pattern of variation in copy number of the human AMY1 gene is consistent with a history of diet-related selection pressures, demonstrating the importance of starchy foods in human evolution.’ (p.~1259)

not just enzymes, also morals ...

Comparison is instructive—saliva varies, ethics vary, both in the aid of enabling dietary flexibility.

[Hadza lion scavenging story here?]

[connecting evolution to MFT]: ‘pathogens are among the principle existential threats to organisms, so those who could best avoid pathogens would have enhanced evolutionary fitness. Van Vugt and Park contend that human groups develop unique practices for reducing pathogen exposure---particularly in how they prepare their foods and maintain their hygiene. When groups are exposed to the practices of a foreign culture, they may perceive its members as especially likely to carry pathogens that may contaminate one’s ingroup’ (Graham et al., 2013, p. 93)

van Leeuwen et al, 2012 figure 1

(van Leeuwen, Park, Koenig, & Graham, 2012, p. figure 1)

Historical pathogen prevalence

‘binding foundations (mean of Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity). The data for contemporary pathogen prevalence showed a similar pattern.’

‘When controlling for GDP per capita, the pattern of correlations between historical pathogen prevalence and endorsement of moral foundations remained largely unchanged; however, contemporary pathogen prevalence was not significantly correlated with any of the moral foundations’ (van Leeuwen et al., 2012).

‘historical pathogen prevalence

---even when controlling for individual-level variation in political orientation, gender, education, and age---

significantly predicted endorsement of Ingroup/loyalty [stats removed], Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity;

it did not predict endorsement of Harm/care or Fairness/reciprocity’

(van Leeuwen et al., 2012)

van Leeuwen et al, 2012

Maybe you are sceptical about confounds ... but actuallu the researchers were very careful about this.

‘Participants were 120,778 adult visitors (42.0% female, median age=35 years) to the Web site YourMorals.org who completed the MFQ (Graham et al., 2011) and provided demographic data for country (for participants who moved to their current country at age 14 years or older, the country they grew up in was used instead, cf. Graham et al., 2011). Data from the MFQ were available for 147 countries for which historical pathogen prevalence data were available’

No invariance testing done!

Why accept (descriptive) moral pluralism?

second consideration

Part of the answer is:

The challenges humans face from place to place have been different.

Moral psychology is, at bottom, a way of dealing with challenges: how do we share for mutual benefit without being taken advantage of? How do we scavenge meat without getting poisoned or killed by larger predators?

Their moral psychologies have been accordingly different.

But it’s more interesting than that ...

third consideration

\subsection{Argument for Pluarlism} Moral Foundations Theory is pluralist (it postulates more than one foundation). A monist theory would likely identify harm, or something related to harm, as the one foundation. Why accept pluralism? Because

‘Purity/degradation judgments predict important thoughts and behaviors over and above Care/harm judgments.

For instance, purity concerns uniquely predict (beyond other foundations and demographics such as political ideology) culture-war attitudes about gay marriage, euthanasia, abortion, and pornography (Koleva et al., 2012).

Purity also predicts opposition to stem cell research(Clifford & Jerit, 2013), environmental attitudes (Rottman, Kelemen, & Young, 2015), lawsuits (Buccafusco & Fagundes, 2015), and social distancing in real-world social networks (Dehghani et al., 2016)’

We need not to take this at face value but to check out some of their sources ...

(Graham et al., 2019).

Let’s check out this one (which has since been supported and followed-up by later research) ...

‘Inconsistent with Moral Dyad Theory, our results did not support the prediction that Harm concerns would be the unequivocally most important predictor of sacrifice endorsement. Consistent with Moral Foundations Theory, however, multiple moral values are predictive of sacrifice judgments: Harm and Purity negatively predict, and Ingroup positively predicts, endorsement of harmful action in service of saving lives, with Harm and Purity explaining similar amounts of unique variance. The present study demonstrates the utility of pluralistic accounts of morality, even in moral situations in which harm is central (Crone & Laham, 2015)’ (Graham et al., 2019) on (Crone & Laham, 2015).

Background: People who identify as more socially conservative tend to exhibit stronger homophobia (Barnett, Öz, & Marsden, 2018).

Significance: 14 countries in the world where it is legal for you to be killed for having sex with someone of the same gender. Of these, 7 countries have recently executed people for homosexuality.

Why?

religion?

Hard to think this can be a driver (as opposed to a sustaining mechanism) because religious attitudes are so flexible. For example, semitic religions are monotheistic despite stories of demigods mating with humans in Genesis (Hendel, 1987); and many of them are fine with lending money for interest despite this being widely condemned.

Since much same interpretive expertise is used by some religious adherents to dissociate their religions homophobia, it is hard to think that religion as such can explain why people who identify as more socially conservative tend to exhibit stronger homophobia. (Might still be an effective sustaining mechanism, and may support moral disengagement.)

You can get a monotheistic religion out of a text that explicitly has demigods raping humans and living on earth among them.

Similarly with ursury.

Religion can maybe explain how homophobia is sustained; but not its origins. Not the religion itself, but something in how it is used, that drives homophobia.

cultural differences in morality?

Barnett et al. (2018, p. figure 2)

CAPTION : ‘MultiplemediationmodelforStudy1:politicalideology(social;IV),bindingandindividualizingfoundations(mediators),homophobia(DV)’

‘political ideology had an indirect effect on homophobia most consistently [...] through the binding foundations’ (Barnett et al., 2018, p. 1192).

Start with homosexuality (Barnett et al., 2018), (Lai, Haidt, & Nosek, 2014), (Koleva, Graham, Iyer, Ditto, & Haidt, 2012).

‘in the current research sanctity emerged as the strongest predicting foundation for attitudes toward homosexuality (including ATL and ATG), which is consistent with Koleva et al.’s (2012) results, where sanctity was seen to be the strongest predicting foundation for same-sex relationships’ (Lai et al., 2014).

Why accept (descriptive) moral pluralism?

third consideration

Third consideration was that ‘Purity/degradation judgments predict important thoughts and behaviors over and above Care/harm judgments.’

conclusion

Why accept (descriptive) moral pluralism?

it matches patterns in ethical judgements (Chakroff et al., 2013)

For example, people link self-directed wrong actions to impurity but other-directed wrong actions to harm.

specific kinds of moral concern (e.g. purity) appear to have had different roles in evolution (van Leeuwen et al., 2012)

E.g. purity (and other binding foundations) enabling humans to deal with pathogens

it is needed to explain how cultural differences in moral psychology underpin attitudes to homosexuality (Barnett et al., 2018; Lai et al., 2014; Koleva et al., 2012).

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Moral Pluralism: Beyond Harm

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