Thou hast committed - fornication: but
That was in another country;
And besides, the wench is dead.
- Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta
One of the more interesting social philosophers/psychologists practicing today is Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia. Although Haidt's chair is nominally in social psychology, his interest in what might loosely be called varieties of moral experience places him solidly in the realm of philosophy. 'Varieties of moral experience' sounds dauntingly high concept, and at the very least, too rarefied for the real world. But it really isn't. Haidt's objective is to determine just how much reason lurks underneath moral judgments. Can human beings with wildly different values actually communicate with each other? In reasoned language? Or are we doomed to sit on opposite sides of the valley and throw verbal bricks and turds at each other, like the apes in Kubrick's2001? Beneath the highfalutin' description of the concept, it's a pretty important issue. Professor Haidt's website unabashedly describes one of his objectives as 'transcending culture wars to foster a more civil dialog'. I know we all wish him good luck with that. He's going to need it.
One of Haidt's most significant articles is entitled (and linked here), 'The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail'. It appeared in the Psychological Review in 2001. The gist of the article is a recounting of a thought experiment, the object of which was to test the extent to which moral judgments are the outcome of a rational process. Let's be clear about exactly what's at stake here.
No philosophically literate person maintains the position that ethical and moral values can be derived from empirical data in the same way as scientific or factual truth. That notion, dear to the heart of ancient and medieval philosophers, that ethical and moral values can be derived from empirical experience in the same manner as scientific theory or ordinary fact, died a long, painful death over three centuries, beginning with the fiery assault by British skeptics (Hume and others) and ending at the beginning of the last century with the icy dismissal of mathematical logicians. We can verify by sense data that water boils at a given temperature at a given altitude. We can ascertain in the same way that the house of our friend is located at the corner of Elm and Main. But the moral and spiritual values by which most of us live cannot be verified (or refuted) by the same method. So how are they derived? And by what means do we come to form moral judgments? For those of us who find the specter of an unqualified moral relativism to be appalling, both intellectually and viscerally, these are pretty important questions.
So how do values originate? Where do they come from? If they aren't the same as factual judgments, what the hell are they? Here indeed is the question - and also the beginning of the rip snortin', hair pulling fights among philosophers and others. In the honeymoon days of mathematical philosophy, circa 1900-1920, the logical positivists brayed that all value judgments were alike and meaningless, that there is no difference between a moral judgment and a preference for chocolate over vanilla ice cream. However, most of us instinctively reject the notion that the revulsion against murder is in the same category as a rooting interest for a tennis player. As the century wore on, cooler philosophical heads, not to mention Adolph Hitler, put paid to the more extreme cynicism of the initial positivists.
So what is the foundation of moral values? Not to duck the issue, but this is the stuff of midnight oil and dusty tomes, mostly written in untranslatable German. Suffice it to say for now that I hold with Kant that core moral values (respect for human life and activity, and so forth) are transcendent, meaning they are part of the basic elements of human consciousness. I've obviously chosen my company well (Immanuel Kant), but the view is controversial. For his part, Haidt deals with the issue, but not with much logical rigor, more as a social psychologist than philosopher, and comes uncomfortably close, to the ice cream/murder equivalence.
However, the subject of the foundation of moral values is one for another day - a long, long day. Here and now, it is Haidt's research with the process of forming moral judgments that is the subject at hand. Given that values exist, never mind just now from whence they come, by what means do human beings form moral judgments? Is it on the basis of rational calculation, in which facts of a situation are observed, the factual findings applied to the preexisting values, and a judgment formed on the basis of this rational calculation? Or is it an intuitive leap, a quick jump to 'yippee' or 'yecch', based on a reaction that is beyond or beneath reason? That's what Haidt sought to find out.
Haidt based his thought experiment on the incest taboo, in large part (I would imagine) because it is so solidly rooted in a biological rationale. The inbreeding that can result from incestuous sexual relationships is strongly condemned for a lot of good, genetic reasons. Haidt asked his subjects to consider a hypothetical, in which a brother and sister, strongly attracted to each other, find themselves in a foreign country, far from family, friend, acquaintance, or any one who knows them. Both are of age and responsible. Neither has a commitment, legal, moral, or emotional, to any romantic partner. Both male and female have birth control methods available and use them. Under these circumstances, the siblings consummate their relationship. The subjects of the experiment were asked to evaluate their conduct morally.
What Haidt observed is that the subjects tended to react almost instantaneously to the hypothetical - 'this is wrong' - then search for reasons after the fact. In other words, the judgment was formed intuitively, not rationally. The test subjects, having instantaneously concluded that the consummation was wrong, then searched for reasons to justify that conclusion. The experiment had been set up so that concrete reasons were rather scarce (the point), which frustrated the test subjects.
From this, Haidt went on to propose that the rationalist model of moral judgment making was not accurate, and that the better approach was what he called social intuitionist. Moral judgments (a term defined in the article) are not made on the basis of moral reasoning (another term specifically defined), but on the basis of moral intuition (still another), and reasoning applied ex post facto to the judgment formed intuitively. Haidt summarized the differences between intuition and reason in a little chart, included as table 1 in the article. Rational processes are intentional and controllable, accessible and viewable, context and platform independent, and so on. Intuition is fast and effortless, unintentional and automatic, its processes inaccessible - only results enter awareness.
This is good, interesting valuable work. But in my truly humble opinion, it is flawed, though not fatally, by the strict distinction between rational and intuitive processes. The suggestion that intuition and rationality are completely distinct, the one grounded in logic and objective fact, the other arbitrary and non-verifiable, is an oversimplification to the point of profound error. The sounder view is that intuitive processes are the better angel of rationality, skimming with immense speed along the same path that calculation has to walk one step at a time. And they are definitely not inaccessible, mysterious and arbitrary. In a post I wrote a few months ago about intuition in chess, a game I know (alas!) much better than I play, I used the example of intuitive judgments made by Fischer and Botvinnik, respectively, in which intuitive assessments were justified by lengthy rational analysis. The intuition was not inaccessible, but fully available. Here's the link , in case anyone wants to revisit what I thought was a pretty good article.
Chess is a fascinating and exciting game, but it's only a game, and therefore finite. The major life decisions we all have to make (of which moral judgments are only one kind) are not finite - and THAT is the difference between chess intuition and 'life' intuition. It's not that the decisional processes are different - it's that one problem (chess) is computable, and the other is not. (I am borrowing some concepts from mathematical logic here, but they are way overdue in this context.) That's what I think Haidt missed in assessing the results of his hypothetical. He greatly magnified the oversight by putting the problem in the third person, instead of the first. In so doing, he restricted the test subjects to the calculable factors in the problem rather than the innumerable and inarticulable elements that would be considered in real life.
Calculable, rational judgments rest on solid, easily accessible ground, but they are also trivial. Knowing and being able to prove that Paris is the capital of France, or that the temperature outside is 85 degrees really doesn't change much, except my score on a quiz or the time of day when I take my daily exercise. The really profound life decisions are not calculable, either the micro personal ones - - whom should I marry? what career path should I choose? - or the macro issues of national statesmanship - should it be war or peace? what is the right balance between personal freedom and personal safety? The considerations are too subtle and diverse, and of infinite number, at least in practical effect. There is not world nor time to exhaust them all, to do a final computation. But it absolutely does NOT follow from this, that the intuitive decision process is not a rational one.
By way of a concrete example, take the decision process of a young woman considering a serious proposal of marriage. I don't want to be condemned a resolute anti-romantic here - we will assume she is in love with the young man involved. But love is only a beginning - people fall in and out of love all the time with others they would never consider marrying. More is required. So she will think through other issues implicit in a commitment for life.
This will begin with big, easily articulated stuff. He treats me well. We like many of the same things. He doesn't abuse drugs or alcohol. He has a good job and will be a good provider. We both want a big family. We are both of from the same religious background, no problem there. But the list is hardly exhaustive. She will move on to what might be called a second tier - still easily articulable. His mother and father like me. I'm sure I'll have no problems with in-laws. But his little sister detests me. Maybe over time she'll poison their attitude. I wish my dad liked him more. These begin to subdivide, in the same way a map can be infinitely segmented. His mother was a stay-at-home mom. So's his sister. I have to work outside the house. Will the two of them begin to disapprove when the children come? She will go further and further - one of his relatives is a political maniac who brings baggage to every gathering. She will think of particular incidents.He was way too flirtatious with that blonde at the theater. Can I count on his fidelity?
And on, and on, and on. Ultimately, the young woman will come to her decision in one intuitive leap - yes or no. But characterizing her decision process as emotional or whimsical is to slander both its seriousness and intelligence. Ultimately she moves beyond calculation because of an instinctive or conscious realization that the life decisions of this type, like moral judgments, are incalculable. The factors are infinite. The computational process is almost directly analogous to calculating the value of pi. No matter how much she thinks, there is still more to think about. So sooner or later she will jump to the crux - is this a perfect circle (or near enough), or not? But this intuitive jump is not irrational, but a leaping o'er, a conscious or unconscious recognition that computational methods are inadequate to the task.
The problem with the third person form in which Haidt cast his hypothetical, requiring the test subjects judge the behavior of a fictional brother and sister rather than formulate a rule for their own behavior, is that it restricted the universe of consideration of the test subjects to the concrete factors set forth in the scenario, thereby cutting off consideration of those second, third, and lower tier factors that are also factors, but not readily computable. There might have been some sound, practical reasons for not putting the issue in the first person. Some subjects might find the whole notion distasteful or even insulting. Others might turn beat red, a different sort of problem. But I will suggest a revision of the problem that would work and allow space for the test subjects a chance for a slightly more expansive response. Assume the caution about birth control and fertility remain the same.
You are one of a set of fraternal twins. Years ago, you were separated from your sister [I'll use the male version] and your family destroyed in a brutal act of war. You wandered the world for decades, an isolated outcast. One stormy night, you take refuge in a small inn. There is a woman there to whom you are instantly attracted. You begin to talk, and continue long after everyone has gone to bed. The night becomes magic, the ambiance incandescent. You have met the love of your life, the only oasis of warmth you have known in your whole life, your first and only hope. You find yourself more sexually aroused than you thought possible. You can see your new friend shares your passion. Just as you are about to consummate the relationship, you discover that she is your long, lost sister. What do you do?
(I am being a little playful here, as opera lovers will already know. The scenario presented above is freely adapted from the first act of Wagner's Die Walkure. In the actual opera, the discovery that they are twins not only does not deter the two, but spurs them on to greater passion, to music as heroically passionate as any ever written. Many of the opera's admirers have been more than a little put off by the incest, and Wagner himself was none too happy with it. But the plot is grounded in nature myth, and he had no choice.)
To be sure, many of the test subjects will respond in the same way. Sex between siblings is wrong, and that's that. (Haidt would classify these as intuitionist responses, but I don't believe that's accurate. It would be more correct to say that responders of this type aren't thinking at all, rationally or intuitionally. They are not participating in the experiment. Not every opinion expressed as a moral judgment is the result of an actual moral process.) But the responses that interest me, that Haidt did not obtain in his experiment, will go something like this
I am not going to cross this line. I am aware that all of the articulable objections have been removed. But there is more to the issue than that. This act will change me in ways I can't begin to comprehend. Violating a taboo as deeply rooted as this one will alter my conception of myself and my sister in a manner I can't imagine. It will change her as well. We will no longer be able to relate in the conventional manner of brother and sister who have not been lovers. I don't know how I will relate to her - there is no precedent. It is to journey to a strange, foreign country that I don't know at all, and with all manner of nameless peril. Just because dangers can't be described does not mean they don't exist. I choose not to do this.
Just so. I don't think anyone could in good faith characterize the speaker as irrational. His position is thoughtful, logical, and based on realistic factors. In particular, the thought processes are accessible, no at all automatic, and likely not instantaneous, three of the hallmarks of what Haidt characterized in the article as 'intutitional thinking'. Putting the hypothetical in the third person - requiring the test subject to judge a fictional couple rather than formulate his or her own rule - deprived the subject of access to the inarticulable factors, and in effect restricted him or her to the factual elements created by the tester. The result is a skewed view both of the distinction between rational calculation and intuition, and the relative importance of each.
I don't want to diminish the importance of Haidt's work, which to my way of thinking is extremely valuable. But the misunderstanding of intuition is a flaw, though not a fatal one. To express the point in the language of mathematical logic, Haidt has equated the rational decision process with computability, and consigned any process that does not aim at a computable solution to the realm of intuition, irrationality. But there are all sorts of legitimate mathematical and other rational processes that do not produce finite, computable results. The same metaphor as earlier - it is not possible to compute the value of pi, but it is possible to know what is a perfect circle. And the most difficult mathematical problem is child's play, compared to the simplest human situation.
We have reached the end. I'll close with a thought with which I'm sure Jonathan Haidt would agree. No model remotely does justice to the complexity of the process by which life judgments are made. Take your core values, throw in a dollop of cold reasoning, toss in the quick meta-rational intuition I have been describing - but then season it all with personal life experience, the phobia on the dim horizon of consciousness, even free associations - that Christmas cookie smell I always associate with good people and good times. Maybe the girl considering the marriage proposal is influenced by the fact that the church where the ceremony will almost certainly take place is small and dark, and a little scary - she's a mite claustrophobic.
But withal the flesh and blood, all the raw humanity, I think the reality is that the intuitonist process by which most people who take these matters seriously form moral judgments, is thoughtful and deliberate - meta-rational, if you will. It's a process that includes and summarizes rational calculation, rather than being in opposition to it. Endlessly complex, and endlessly fascinating.
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