morality as kluge

Based on work by:

Stephen StichJoshua Knobe Daniel Kelly

Debunking Moral IntuitionA Hodgepodge of Multipurpose

Kludges

1

Introduction

• Philosophers – and more recently cognitive scientists – have offered many accounts of the psychological mechanisms & processes underlying intuitive moral judgment

• Moral philosophers have always insisted that sometimes the outputs of those processes – people’s “moral intuitions” – are not to be trusted – though they disagree about when skepticism is

warranted

2

Introduction

• Our goal in this talk is to sketch a newly emerging newly emerging perspectiveperspective on the mechanisms underlying moral intuition …

• and to explore its implicationsimplications for the hotly debated issue of whether and when intuitions whether and when intuitions should be relied onshould be relied on

3

Introduction

• Philosophers have typically assumed that those Philosophers have typically assumed that those mechanisms were mechanisms were well designedwell designed for … for … somethingsomething

• But we now have reasons to think that But we now have reasons to think that many of many of theses mechanismstheses mechanisms are are not well designed for not well designed for ANYTHINGANYTHING

4

Introduction

Moral Psychology is a KludgeMoral Psychology is a Kludge

A hodgepodge of multipurpose A hodgepodge of multipurpose kludges!kludges!

5

Introduction

• Before explaining and defending this claim it will be Before explaining and defending this claim it will be useful to consider some of the useful to consider some of the reasonsreasons that that philosophers – both classic & contemporary – have philosophers – both classic & contemporary – have offered offered for discounting moral intuitionsfor discounting moral intuitions

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Philosophical Background

• Reflective Equilibrium Reflective Equilibrium

– Rawls’ “Decision Procedure for Ethics” (1951)

– Narrow Reflective EquilibriumNarrow Reflective Equilibrium

• Bring intuitions about

– particular cases

– moral principles

into accord

• To do this, sometimes an intuition about a particular case must be rejectedrejected

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– Wide Reflective EquilibriumWide Reflective Equilibrium

• Bring intuitions about

– particular cases

– moral principles

into accord with the rest of our beliefsthe rest of our beliefs

– including beliefs about scientific matters, history, politics – even metaphysics & semantics

• Even more of our intuitionsEven more of our intuitions about particular cases will have to be rejectedrejected

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– Evolutionary argumentsEvolutionary arguments debunking intuition

• Perhaps the most influential writer in this tradition is Peter Singer

Updated in “Ethics & Intuition (2005)

The

ExpandingCircle

Ethics and Sociobiology

Peter Singer

FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUXNew York

1981


– In The Expanding Circle, Singer focuses on nepotistic nepotistic intuitionsintuitions which maintain that, in various domains, we ought to value the welfare of our kinkin and tribesmentribesmen more than the welfare of people outside these circles

– The psychological processes leading to judgments of this sort were adaptive in ancestral environmentsadaptive in ancestral environments (and perhaps they still are)

– But once we see why we have these nepotistic & tribal why we have these nepotistic & tribal intuitionsintuitions, Singer suggests, we can also see that there is there is no good reason to use themno good reason to use them in a “decision procedure for ethics”

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– In “Ethics and Intuition” (2005) Singer develops the argument by focusing on the sort of “trolley problems” “trolley problems” that have loomed large in recent philosophical and empirical studies

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– Singer (following Greene) maintains that the neuroscientific evidenceneuroscientific evidence suggests that intuitions about the “footbridge” case are the result of our emotional reactionemotional reaction to cases in which harm is caused by the sort of harm is caused by the sort of interaction that would have occurred in interaction that would have occurred in ancestral environmentsancestral environments

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“The salient feature that explains our different intuitive judgments concerning the two cases is that the footbridge case is the kind of situation that was likely to arise during the eons of time over which we were evolving; whereas the standard trolley case describes a way of bringing about someone’s death that has only been possible in the past century or two…. But what is the moral salience of the But what is the moral salience of the fact that I have killed someone in a way that was possible a million fact that I have killed someone in a way that was possible a million years ago, rather than in a way that became possible only two years ago, rather than in a way that became possible only two hundred years ago? I would answer: none….hundred years ago? I would answer: none….

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““At [a] more general level …this … At [a] more general level …this … casts serious doubt on the method casts serious doubt on the method of reflective equilibriumof reflective equilibrium. There is little point in constructing a . There is little point in constructing a moral theory designed to match considered moral judgments that moral theory designed to match considered moral judgments that themselves stem from our evolved responses to the situations in themselves stem from our evolved responses to the situations in which we and our ancestors lived during the period of our evolution which we and our ancestors lived during the period of our evolution as social mammals, primates, and finally, human beings. We should, as social mammals, primates, and finally, human beings. We should, with our current powers of reasoning and our rapidly changing with our current powers of reasoning and our rapidly changing circumstances, be able to do better than that.” (348)”circumstances, be able to do better than that.” (348)”

What I am saying, in brief, is this. Advances in our understanding of ethics … undermine some conceptions of doing ethicsundermine some conceptions of doing ethics …. Those Those conceptions of ethics tend to be too respectful of our intuitions. conceptions of ethics tend to be too respectful of our intuitions. Our better understanding of ethics gives us grounds for being less Our better understanding of ethics gives us grounds for being less respectful of them.respectful of them.” (349)

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• AssumptionsAssumptions that SingerSinger and the friends of intuition the friends of intuition shareshare:

– The psychological system underlying our moral intuitions is well designedwell designed

– Thus there is some point point to – or reason forreason for – the intuitive moral judgments people make when the system is working properly

• Though Singer (unlike the friends of intuition) insists that the function the system is designed for is of dubious moral dubious moral importanceimportance, and thus that the intuitions are not to be taken not to be taken seriouslyseriously

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• We believe that the engine of moral intuition is not well is not well designeddesigned at all

• Far from being the sort of “elegant machine”“elegant machine” celebrated in the writings of some evolutionary psychologists, we think that it is a kludgekludge

– a cluster of mechanisms cobbled together rather cobbled together rather awkwardlyawkwardly from bits of mental machinery most of which were designed for functions that have noting to do with designed for functions that have noting to do with moralitymorality

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Kelly on Disgust

• KellyKelly has constructed a rich, nuanced, empirically supported account of the psychological mechanisms psychological mechanisms underlying the uniquely underlying the uniquely human disgust systemhuman disgust system and how that system evolvedhow that system evolved

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Daniel Kelly

Kelly on Disgust

• The Entanglement ThesisThe Entanglement Thesis– Disgust is itself a kludgeDisgust is itself a kludge – a uniquely human

emotion produced by the merger of two distinct systems

• The Co-Optation ThesisThe Co-Optation Thesis– After the merger, disgust was co-optedco-opted by

• the norm systemthe norm system• the ethnic boundary systemthe ethnic boundary system

which were central elements in the emergence of human ultra-socialityhuman ultra-sociality

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Kelly on Disgust

• Kelly assembles a vast array of evidencevast array of evidence for these theses, drawn from– neuroscience– social psychology– cognitive psychology– developmental psychology– evolutionary psychology– gene-culture co-evolution theory

• As usual, the devil is in the detailsthe devil is in the details– read the work as it appears in print

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Kelly on Disgust The Entanglement Thesis

• Disgust exhibits a puzzling array of

elicitorselicitors

which evoke an equally puzzling cluster of

responsesresponses

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• Elicitors include– FoodsFoods: dog meat, grubs, insects

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• Elicitors include– FoodsFoods: dog meat, grubs, insects– Substances associated with the bodybody: feces, vomit, spit– Organic decayOrganic decay– People and objects associated with illnessillness: a shirt once

worn by a person with leprosy – Sexual practicesSexual practices: necrophilia, incest– Some moral transgressionsmoral transgressions & transgressors: rape, torture,

child molestation– Members of low status outgroupsoutgroups: untouchables, Jews

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Some elicitors are pan-cultural





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Others are culturally local(or idiosyncratic)


• The disgust response includes Gape face (occasionally accompanied by retching) Feeling of nausea Sense oral incorporation

Quick withdrawal A more sustained & cognitive sense of offensiveness A more sustained & cognitive sense of contamination

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• How are all of these connectedconnected?

• The Entanglement ThesisThe Entanglement Thesis maintains that the human emotion of disgust is the result of the fusionfusion of two distinct mechanisms – each of which has homologous counterparts in

other species• though they have combined only in humansonly in humans

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• One mechanism (“the poison avoidance mechanismthe poison avoidance mechanism”) is directly linked to digestiondigestion– It evolved to regulate food intakeregulate food intake and protect the gut

against ingested substances that are poisonous or poisonous or otherwise harmfulotherwise harmful

– It was designed to expel substancesdesigned to expel substances entering the gastro-intestinal system via the mouth

– And to acquire new elicitorsnew elicitors very quickly• As John Garcia famously demonstrated, ingested

substances that induce gut-based distress often generate acquired aversions

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• The other mechanism (“the parasite avoidance the parasite avoidance mechanismmechanism”) – Evolved to protect against infection from pathogens and pathogens and

parasitesparasites, by avoiding them– Not specific to ingestion, but serves to guard against coming

into close physical proximityclose physical proximity with infectious agentsinfectious agents– This involves avoiding not only visible pathogens and visible pathogens and

parasitesparasites, but also places, substances and other organismsplaces, substances and other organisms that might be harboring them

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These elements of the disgust responseresponse aretraceable to the poison avoidance system




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and these are traceable to the parasite avoidance poison system





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These elicitorselicitors are traceable to the poison avoidance system





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and these are traceable to the parasite avoidance system


• One bit of evidence supporting the Entanglement Thesis is that different components of that response are on different developmental schedulesdifferent developmental schedules– Distaste & gape are present within the first year of life– Contamination sensitivity emerges significantly later

• Once the full system in in place, the components of the response are produced together – they form a nomological clusternomological cluster– Any elicitor of disgust will reliably produce all or most of those

clustered components

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• A puzzleA puzzle:– Why should the sight of a festering sore or a person with

leprosy evoke a gape face and a feeling of nausea?

• The solutionThe solution: Disgust is a kludgekludge!

• But it is kludge with features that could be readily co-opted and put to other uses as humans began living in larger groups and human ultrasocialityultrasociality emerged

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Kelly on Disgust The Co-Optation Thesis

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• The Gape Face as a SignalThe Gape Face as a Signal– As group size increased, there was an increasing need for a

perspicuous signalperspicuous signal warning of dangerous foods and risk of dangerous foods and risk of infectious diseaseinfectious disease

– In humans, the face and facial expressions provide a rich source of such social information

– The gape facegape face, which clearly has roots in the facial motions that accompany retching, was co-opted as a signalco-opted as a signal, warning others not just against toxic foodstoxic foods, but also against the presence of parasites and contagious pathogensparasites and contagious pathogens

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• Co-Optation by the Norm SystemCo-Optation by the Norm System– As group size increased, there was increased need for

complex social social coordinationcoordination

– The norm systemnorm system – whose structure we considered briefly in the 2nd Lecture – played an important role in facilitating this co-ordination

– And the disgust system had features that made it an obvious candidate to be co-opted by the norm system as it evolved

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– The S&S model suggests that compliance motivation & punitive motivation are linked to “the emotion system”

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Acquisition Mechanism

Execution Mechanism

identi

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orm

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behavio

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compliance

motivation

punitive motivati

on

emotion

systemRule-related

reasoning capacity

norm data base

r1---------- r2---------- r3---------- …… rn----------

ProximalCues in

Environment

judgment

other emotion triggers

beliefs

explicit reasonin

g

post-hoc justificatio

n


– But psychological & neurological evidence indicates that there are several separate emotion systemsseveral separate emotion systems – the disgust system being one of them

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Execution Mechanism

identi

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behavio

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infe

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norm

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compliance

motivation

punitive motivati

on

DISGUST

Rule-related

reasoning capacity

norm data base

r1---------- r2---------- r3---------- …… rn----------

ProximalCues in

Environment

judgment


beliefs

explicit reasonin

g


n

other emotion

s


– Disgust is a natural candidate to provide both compliance & compliance & punitive motivationpunitive motivation for norms that involve intrinsically disgusting matters, like the disposal of corpses & bodily wastes, and other activities that are antecedently salient to the disgust system, like eating practices

• ComplianceCompliance is motivated by making norm violating norm violating behavior disgustingbehavior disgusting & thus aversive

• Punitive motivationPunitive motivation is provided because the violator is violator is considered dirty and contaminatedconsidered dirty and contaminated and is avoided or shunned

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Execution Mechanism

identi

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orm

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behavio

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infe

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of

norm

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compliance

motivation

punitive motivati

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DISGUST

Rule-related

reasoning capacity

norm data base

r1---------- r2---------- r3---------- …… rn----------

ProximalCues in

Environment

judgment


beliefs

explicit reasonin

g


n

other emotion

s


• The norm system is thus a kludge built with kludgy partskludge built with kludgy parts– Not surprisingly, this can lead to some very quirky and quirky and

disturbing behaviordisturbing behavior

– Several recent studies have focused on the fact that the disgust systemdisgust system can be triggeredtriggered by many things that have nothing to do with normsnothing to do with norms

• but even when triggered by these non-moral itemstriggered by these non-moral items, the disgust system can have dramatic and persistent influence dramatic and persistent influence on a person’s judgments about moral issueson a person’s judgments about moral issues

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Execution Mechanism

identi

fy n

orm

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plic

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behavio

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infe

r co

nte

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of

norm

ati

ve r

ule

s

compliance

motivation

punitive motivati

on

DISGUST

Rule-related

reasoning capacity

norm data base

r1---------- r2---------- r3---------- …… rn----------

ProximalCues in

Environment

judgment


beliefs

explicit reasonin

g


n

other emotion

s


• Wheatley & HaidtWheatley & Haidt have shown that when participants are hypnotically inducedhypnotically induced to feel a brief pang of disgustdisgust when they encounter the work “often”“often” and then presented with the following scenario “Dan is a student council representative at his school. This

semester he is in charge of scheduling discussions about academic issues. He oftenoften picks topics that appeal to both professors and students in order to stimulate discussion.”

many judge that Dan is doing something wrongsomething wrong!

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• SchnallSchnall et al. have shown participants make more severe moral judgments when the judgments are made in a disgusting office:

• greasy pizza boxes • sticky chair• a dried up smoothie• a chewed up pen

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• Other studies have focused on prima facie irrational downstream consequencesdownstream consequences of the disgust system being triggered in moral deliberation

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Execution Mechanism

identi

fy n

orm

im

plic

ati

ng

behavio

r

infe

r co

nte

nts

of

norm

ati

ve r

ule

s

compliance

motivation

punitive motivati

on

DISGUST

Rule-related

reasoning capacity

norm data base

r1---------- r2---------- r3---------- …… rn----------

ProximalCues in

Environment

judgment


beliefs

explicit reasonin

g


n

other emotion

s

Downstream consequenc

es


• The Lady Macbeth EffectThe Lady Macbeth Effect

– Zhong & LiljenquistZhong & Liljenquist have shown that recalling an unethical unethical deeddeed increased the desire for products related to cleansing, like antiseptic wipes

– And that cleaning one’s handscleaning one’s hands after describing a past unethical deed reduced moral emotionsreduced moral emotions like guilt & shame

• and also reduced the likelihood that participants would reduced the likelihood that participants would volunteer to helpvolunteer to help a desperate graduate student!

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• The Lady Macbeth EffectThe Lady Macbeth Effect

– Schnall et al. Schnall et al. (unpublished) compared judgments about moral severity in two groups of participants

• One group had just used an alcohol-based cleansingcleansing gel on their hands

• The other group had just used an ordinary, non-non-cleansingcleansing hand cream

– The moral judgments of those using the cleansing gelcleansing gel were significantly less severe!significantly less severe!

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• Ethnic Boundary MarkersEthnic Boundary Markers– Boyd & RichersonBoyd & Richerson & their students have argued that

another crucial step in the development of human ultra-sociality was the emergence of mechanisms which allow people to recognize members of their own tribe or “ethnie”

• This is important because in-group members share beliefs & norms norms that facilitate coordinationfacilitate coordination

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– Since different cuisinescuisines & eating practiceseating practices are one of the more visible correlates of ethnie membership, and since disgust is heavily involved in regulating food intake, disgust was a natural candidate to be co-opted by the emerging system of ethnic identification

– Eating practices of out-groups and other readily detectable signs of out-groupsigns of out-group membership came to evoke disgustcame to evoke disgust

– And disgust came to provided a significant part of the motivation motivation to avoid out-group members

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– Though the evolutionary function of the ethnic boundary marker system was to facilitate cooperation by keeping groups apart, the kludgy solutionkludgy solution to this problem has some unfortunate consequences

– Out-group members are not simply avoided, they are also considered offensive & contaminatingoffensive & contaminating

– People who embrace different norms are often felt to be disgusting and sub-human! disgusting and sub-human!

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Kludge Meets Kass

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Kludge Meets Kass

• Leon Kass, M.D., Ph.D.

– Conservative bio-ethicist

– Chairman of the U. S. A. President's Council on Bioethics from 2002 to 2005

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Kludge Meets Kass

• In his book, Life, Liberty & the Defense of Dignity (2002), there is a chapter called “The Wisdom of Repugnance”“The Wisdom of Repugnance”

• Kass maintains that

– "in crucial cases...repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdomdeep wisdom, beyond reason's power fully to articulate it.”

– “In this age in which everything is held to be permissible so long as it is freely done, and in which our bodies are regarded as mere instruments of our autonomous rational will, repugnance may be the only voice left that speaks up to defend the core of our humanity. Shallow are the souls that Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudderhave forgotten how to shudder."

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Kludge Meets Kass

• The claims play a central role in Kass’ critique of human cloninghuman cloning

• Others have adopted the idea to argue against abortionabortion, pornographypornography & same-sex marriagesame-sex marriage

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Kludge Meets Kass

• Some philosophers, most notably Martha Nussbaum, have challenged Kass, arguing that disgust should be discounted in moral & legal deliberation because (roughly) it reminds us of our animal origins

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Kludge Meets Kass

I think Kelly’s work offers a far more

plausibleplausible &

powerfulpowerful critiquecritique

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Kludge Meets Kass

• There is no reason to think there is

wisdom in repugnancewisdom in repugnance

because

Disgust is a KludgeDisgust is a Kludge

and the psychological system that bases moral judgments on disgust is a

Kludge twice over!Kludge twice over!

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Kludge Meets Kass

Anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda often invoked the imagery and language of disgust, purity, contamination & dehumanization very flagrantly

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A poster advertising the film The Eternal Jew

Hitler described “the Jew” as “a maggot in a festering abscess, hidden away inside the clean and healthy body of the nation”

Knobe on Norms and Intentional Action

• My second example draws some elegant and exciting work by Joshua Knobe which demonstrates the way in which unconscious moral judgments – judgments which an agent may explicitly reject – can nonetheless have significant impact on a range of morally relevant intuitions

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• In his new book, Kluge, Gary MarcusGary Marcus argues that more recently evolved, computationally slow and consciously accessible mental processes – “System “System 2 Processes”2 Processes” in the currently fashionable jargon – were grafted onto older (System 1) psychological systems designed for quite different purposes

• The resulting kludgy architecturekludgy architecture accounts for many of the quirks and quirks and shortcomingsshortcomings that contemporary cognitive science has discovered

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• I think that Knobe’s workKnobe’s work provides an important & disquieting illustration of this phenomenon in the moral domainin the moral domain

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• The story begins with “the side effect effect”“the side effect effect” (aka the Knobe effect) – one of best known and most surprising finding in the emerging field of experimental philosophy

• Knobe (2003) reports an experiment in which participants were presented with a pair of almost identical vignettes

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The vice-president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, ‘We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, but it will also harmharm [helphelp] the environment.’

The chairman of the board answered, ‘I don’t care at all about harmingharming [helpinghelping] the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new program.’

They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was harmed harmed [helpedhelped].


• In the harmharm case, participants were asked how much blameblame the chairman deserved (on a scale from 0 – 6) and whether he intentionallyintentionally harmed the environment

• In the helphelp case, participants were asked how much praisepraise the chairman deserved (on a scale from 0 – 6) and whether he intentionallyintentionally helped the environment

– In the harmharm case, 82% said the chairman brought about the side-effect intentionally

– In the helphelp case, 77% said the chairman did notdid not bring about the side-effect intentionally

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• Knobe’s initial hypothesisinitial hypothesis was that people’s moral people’s moral assessment of the side-effectassessment of the side-effect plays a substantial role in determining whether they are willing to say that the side-effect was brought about intentionallyintentionally– A judgment that the side-effect is morally badthe side-effect is morally bad makes it

more likely that it will be judged to be intentionalintentional

– Though this seems incompatible incompatible with the widespread idea that judgments of intentionality are judgments about a a purely factual matterpurely factual matter, it does have an obvious rationalean obvious rationale since judgments about whether an action is intentional play a central role in determining whether an agent deserves praise or blame

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• Subsequent research showed that, if the hypothesis is understood as a claim about the effect of moral the effect of moral judgments that people consciously makejudgments that people consciously make, this hypothesis is mistaken mistaken

• The problem emerges clearly in study Knobe ran in collaboration with David Pizarro & Paul Bloom

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• Liberal university studentsLiberal university students were given Knobe-style Knobe-style vignettesvignettes in which an advertising executive approves an ad campaign which has the side-effectside-effect of

encouraging interracial sex encouraging interracial sex or placing gardenias in one’s office

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• NoneNone of the participants judged that inter-inter-racial sexracial sex (or placing gardenias) is morally morally wrongwrong

• But participants were much more inclined to say that the executive intentionally intentionally encouraged interracial sexencouraged interracial sex

• Explicit moral judgmentsExplicit moral judgments cannot explain the difference in judgments about the intention-ality intention-ality of the side-effects

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• However, (following Pizarro & Bloom) Knobe has recently proposed that perhaps participants were making non-non-conscious normative judgmentsconscious normative judgments that the behavior in the behavior in question violates a normquestion violates a norm that is made salient by the question or situation, even if it is a norm that they explicitly rejectexplicitly reject

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• The picture Knobe now proposes looks like this:

“In reaching a conscious moral judgmentconscious moral judgment, we can consider a variety of different moral norms, weigh these norms against each other, perhaps even determine that some of the norms are themselves unjustified.”

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• Non-conscious moral judgmentsNon-conscious moral judgments are formed through a much simpler (system-1 style) process

– They are formed extremely quicklyextremely quickly and therefore involve involve very shallow processingvery shallow processing

– In generating a non-conscious moral judgment, the only the only norms we consider are the ones that first come to mindnorms we consider are the ones that first come to mind. We do not searchsearch for additional norms; we do not weighweigh norms against each other; we do not ask whether any of the norms might themselves be unjustifiedunjustified.

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– Instead, we simply determine whether the behavior in the behavior in question violates any of the norms question violates any of the norms in the very limited set we are considering

– If it does, we classify it as a transgressiontransgression. It is this judgment this judgment as to whether or not the behavior is a transgression that then influences our intuitions about intentionalinfluences our intuitions about intentional action.

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• The theory predicts that the most salient norms evoked the most salient norms evoked by a given caseby a given case will be the ones used to in making intentionality judgments, even if subsequent reflection leads the agent to think that there is nothing wrong with violating the norm – or that doing so would be a very good thing.

• Here is a vignette that Knobe has recently used to test this idea

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In Nazi Germany, there was a law called the ‘racial identification law.’ The purpose of the law was to help identify people of certain races so that they could be rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Shortly after this law was passed, the CEO of a small corporation decided to make certain organizational changes. The Vice-President of the corporation said: “By making those changes, you’ll definitely be increasing our profits. But you’ll also be violatingviolating [fulfillingfulfilling] the requirements of the racial identification law.” The CEO said: “Look, I know that I’ll be violatingviolating [fulfillingfulfilling] the requirements of the law, but I don’t care one bit about that. All I care about is making as much profit as I can. Let’s make those organizational changes!” As soon as the CEO gave this order, the corporation began making the organizational changes.– 81%81% of subjects in the violateviolate condition said that he violated the

requirements intentionally; 30%30% of subjects in the fulfillfulfill condition said that he fulfilled the requirements intentionally.

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• Knobe’s theory is certainly not the last wordnot the last word on how how intentionality judgments are generatedintentionality judgments are generated– His work has inspired dozens of other researchers

• there are many studies I have not mentioned• and many others are underway

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• However, IFIF Knobe’s theory is on the right track, then intentionality judgmentsintentionality judgments are a product of a kludgy architecturekludgy architecture which can be influenced by norms and judgments which the agent– is not aware ofis not aware of, and– does not endorsedoes not endorse

• This raises serious questionsraises serious questions about the useuse of those judgments in further moral deliberationmoral deliberation, or in the lawlaw

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From Kludginess to SkepticismFrom Kludginess to Skepticism

• Both Kelly’s & Knobe’s work support the hypothesis that motivates this talk

The psychological mechanism underlying moral intuition is

A Hodgepodge of Multipurpose KludgesA Hodgepodge of Multipurpose Kludges

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• Suppose that’s right. What should we conclude about moral What should we conclude about moral intuition?intuition?

– The answer is NOTNOT that all moral intuition should be rejectedall moral intuition should be rejected• nor even that intuitions that are closely tied to kludgy features

of the mind should be rejected

– For, as Shaun Nichols has argued, some of the most admirable admirable featuresfeatures of the cultural evolution of normscultural evolution of norms – including the increased scope and acceptance of norms prohibiting physical increased scope and acceptance of norms prohibiting physical harmharm – are the products of kludgy design

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• Rather, I suggest, the right conclusion to draw is that ALL ALL moral intuitionsmoral intuitions should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticismskepticism

– The mechanisms that give rise to them may not have been may not have been well designed to do anythingwell designed to do anything

– So we should be skeptical about moral intuitionsskeptical about moral intuitions for roughly the same reason that we should be skeptical of the output skeptical of the output of a kludgy piece of computer softwareof a kludgy piece of computer software

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• Compare and ContrastCompare and Contrast

– The friends of intuitionThe friends of intuition (e.g. moral sense theorists) think the system producing them is well designed for morally admirable well designed for morally admirable goalsgoals

• though it can sometimes misfireit can sometimes misfire when conditions are unfavorable– Previous enemies of intuitionPrevious enemies of intuition (e.g. Singer) think the system

producing them has been well designedwell designed for morally problematic morally problematic goalsgoals

– We believe that the system producing them is a kludgekludge – much of it has not been well designed at all!has not been well designed at all!

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• But if we should be skeptical about all intuition, how can we go about making how can we go about making moral decisions?moral decisions?

• That’s a BIG questionBIG question & a HARD oneHARD one.– Perhaps I’ll be able to suggest an answer …

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…the next time I come to Paris

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morality as kluge

Documents

ethics intuition

introduction philosophers

discounting moral intuitions6

narrow reflective equilibrium

cases inwhich harm

oftheses mechanisms

psychological processes

decision procedure forethics