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Robbie Blasser 5/5/14 Social Phil Master’s Paper

The Three Levels of Behavioral Ethics

I. Introduction

Philosophy is a broad, complex, and abstract intellectual endeavor and, while the word

itself literally means “love of wisdom,” there are obviously many differing interpretations of

what that wisdom is and, perhaps more importantly, the optimal ways of attaining it. In the world

of academia, this has typically—though not exclusively—taken the form of scholarship, where

contemporary students study the works of the great minds of the past and then apply those works

to the issues of their particular day.

But this is, of course, not the only way to approach the discipline, and it is, by no means,

the model always employed by those aforementioned great minds of the past. Thomas S. Kuhn’s

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, published in 1962, posited that the model of acquiring

empirical scientific knowledge for humans is neither streamlined nor coherent, but rather

consists of periodic breakthroughs which irrevocably shift whatever the current paradigm of

scientific thought may be at the times in which they occur. In this model, once standard views

and forms of conventional thinking are overthrown—after their inadequacy was sufficiently

revealed, that is—by these revolutionary discoveries, creating new standard views and a new

form of conventional thinking, which are also overthrown in time as well.

And while Kuhn’s work was specifically targeted at the sciences, the fallout of the model

it establishes nonetheless affects philosophy as well, as it too has had its share of conventional

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thinking and periodic overthrows of that conventional thinking from time to time. Interestingly

enough, these philosophical paradigm shifts often seem to go part and parcel with their scientific

counterparts; the discipline has, over time, been repeatedly challenged and pushed forward by

these kinds of advances. As examples, it was not philosophy that discovered the notion of

necessary truths way back in ancient Greece, but rather mathematics; the Copernican shift and

Newtonian physics had a profound effect on many of modernity’s questions, in the general sense,

and every facet of Immanuel Kant’s thorough and impressive attempts to answer these questions,

in particular; and, in the not too distant past, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution had an utterly

devastating impact on the principle of sufficient reason. These scientific breakthroughs (as well

as others, of course) did, as Kuhn asserted, create paradigm shifts, and forced both scientist and

philosopher alike to reconsider and even reformulate what they knew, how they came to know it,

and the tools they use in working their way through it all.

I contend that we’re currently in the middle of one of these paradigm shifts, brought forth

by one of these revolutionary scientific breakthroughs. In the last few decades, behavioral

psychologists have identified a more accurate interpretation of human consciousness than the

traditional philosophical versions, in what they refer to as the dual-system model, which is 1

comprised of what they’ve also labeled to be System 1 and System 2 thinking, respectively. And

this breakthrough has profound implications for not only our sense of human identity but, more

importantly, how we both assess and execute human behavior as well. And this applies most

precisely to the branch of ethics.

These traditional versions include, but are certainly not limited to, Augustine’s “soul,” Locke’s “self,” and 1

Freud’s three levels of consciousness.

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So keeping this new model of consciousness well at hand throughout, I will present the

case that the two most important aspects of ethical decision-making are environmental sensitivity

and feedback, which come together to comprise an ethical agent’s level of situational access to 2

both the contextual ingredients of what goes into these moments (covered by the former) as well

as a nuanced understanding of what comes as a result from his or her ultimate decision (covered

by the latter). This level of situational access is the crucial determining factor of not just how

we’re to respond in a given moral dilemma but, also, what kind of response is effective or even

applicable. In other words, in order to ascertain how we should best approach an ethical issue,

we first need to know what level of situational access we’ll be privy to as the events play out

because, in cases where our access to environmental sensitivity and feedback is both abundant

and clear, ethics in the conventional sense can work quite well but, in cases where the access is

scarce and murky, this standard form becomes much more difficult and, oftentimes, practically

irrelevant, given what we now know about the dual-system model, the two systems of thought

themselves, and how they affect our ability to make moral judgments.

The seminal thrust here is that this cognitive and moral position we find ourselves in

requires ethics to be seen more behaviorally and cognitively—rather than merely intellectually or

even emotionally—and that our working sense of ethics must be tiered so as to allow the varying

degrees of environmental sensitivity and feedback to be acknowledged and channeled

appropriately, thereby creating more realistic norms that can be grounded more authentically as

well as more readily applied. Indeed, one should never approach distant or global problems that

he or she has little situational access to with nuanced, contextual responses; it’s simply the wrong

Both “environmental sensitivity” and “feedback” are borrowed terms, already found in much of the 2

psychological literature. “Situational access,” however, is my own.

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tool for the job. And of course, it works the same the other way: it would be morally obtuse to

approach intimate ethical problems with broad and generalized rules or policies; the court of

public opinion or a set of legal rulings on international justice are not wisely brought to bear on

our more personal issues.

So in the pages that follow, I will establish all three of these levels in detail, but first I’ll

obviously need to provide a rough sketch of the dual-system model of consciousness we’ll be

working with, what exactly it is that makes situational access so crucial, and how it all applies to

the three fields of ethics. This will consist of four basic arguments: 1) The discovery of the two

systems of human thought constitutes a scientific breakthrough worthy of a paradigm shift in

moral theorizing; 2) In the branch of ethics, the greatest lesson from this breakthrough is the

importance of situational access (i.e. environmental sensitivity and feedback) in both individual

decision-making as well as social policy-making; 3) This scenario prompts the need for three

levels of ethics, each distinguished from the others based upon their particular amount of

situational access, and which must be applied to their appropriate corresponding situations in

order to yield more positive—and more consistent—ethical results; and 4) It is in the service of

philosophy to incorporate these findings into its classic questions, so as to see which historical

theories hold up well in this new light and which do not, as well as simply provide the discipline

with additional and possibly even more accurate and comprehensive lenses to view its subjects.

In order to accomplish all this, I will be leaning on the work of multiple behavioral and moral

psychologists, including but not limited to Daniel Kahneman, Jonathan Haidt, and Paul Slovic,

as well as that of behavioral economist Richard H. Thaler and legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein.

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However, it also needs to be made abundantly clear here that the point of this paper is not

to attack or marginalize the work of philosophical scholarship; the historical and academic

aspects of the discipline are not to be undervalued; they are prominent and undeniable elements

of philosophy’s social and intellectual worth. The purpose here is rather to create a larger amount

of in addition to with this newer information and these fresher perspectives, not create a sense of

instead of. Just like in the empirical sciences, new advances do need to be factored into the old

constructs of philosophy. However, unlike in the empirical sciences, it is incumbent upon

students of this particular discipline to not forget the older models themselves, even when they

get disproven, overthrown, or just plain move out of favor. They constitute not only a historical

account of our emotional and intellectual progress over the generations, but also a tremendous

level of insight into how we view ourselves and approach our world even today. 3

II. The Dual-System Model

The first of the two is System 1 (S1), our capacity for fast thinking, which is most often

referred to as our intuition but also includes our perception. This system works through instant

and reflexive assessments of our current surroundings along with whatever that external stimulus

unconsciously elicits from the associative machine of memories this system has also, over the

course of our lives, established within the brain. This allows us to navigate our environments

efficiently, to make the quick decisions and do the kind of multitasking necessary to perform

It is also important to note here that one of the basic working assumptions I used in this introduction, 3

and will continue to use throughout the paper, is that the prospective reader of this piece, along with any example I employ, is already invested in ethical issues and wishes to improve his or her behavior in this regard because, if they did not, the very ideas of situational access, environmental sensitivity, and feedback probably wouldn’t matter to them in the slightest. Now, in the day-to-day reality of the world we share, of course, this assumption is clearly overly-optimistic but, within the context of this paper, it is a necessary one. So to reiterate, this work is not an attempt to persuade readers to broaden their sense of morality and/or want to improve their ethical decision-making; it presumes its reader already values these and wishes to gain greater insight into their many facets and challenges on a behavioral level.

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even the most basic tasks of a given human day, like simultaneously walking and conversing

with a friend or preparing lunch while going over the rest of that day’s schedule. In order to

achieve this, S1 creates mental shortcuts and uses resemblance far more than information. It is

also incapable of being shut off. “The main function of System 1 is to maintain and update a

model of your personal world, which represents what is normal in it. ” 4

System 2 (S2), our capacity for slow thinking, is most commonly referred to as our

reason. This process isn’t constantly activated like our S1 and is only called upon when that

system has hit an impasse it can’t negotiate with the tools currently at its disposal. When it is

called in to help, it’s only job is to focus on and handle whatever the specific problem is at that

moment; it does not multitask. It is also considerably lazy and inclined to put in only as much

effort as required to deal with the problem in front of it; then it retires to rejuvenate, before being

called upon again. An insightful way to think about this is that our S2 has a limited budget of

sorts and, from this, we pay attention. Thus, “overdrawing” from it constitutes a significant 5

mistake on our part; expecting S2 to function beyond its capabilities leads to cognitive failure.

The key takeaway from all this is that S1 is our primary interpreter of and actor in the

world around us. While we’re far more inclined to identify with our S2 abilities of reason and 6

reflection, it’s really the first system that mainly guides our behavior and influences the course of

our lives on that day-to-day level because it’s where we spend the majority of our time and take

most of our actions. And this system isn’t at all concerned with the burdens of reason or logic; its

Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, page 714

Kahneman uses this exact metaphor on page 23.5

Even if we somehow did manage to make our System 2 reason our primary interpreter and actor, it 6

would be overloaded by the avalanche of information it’d need to process in a matter of seconds. The division of labor between the two systems is what makes human living, in all its permutations, possible.

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only job is to move us through the world safely and swiftly, using whatever is in front of us along

with whatever it can grab quickly from our memory to get that done. So in fast thinking, views

never have to be consistent and beliefs don’t ever have to make sense. Since safety and efficiency

are its primary charges, it has systematic biases and fallacies that it’s prone to use in certain

circumstances in order to facilitate those charges; being “right” or “wrong,” in the traditional

sense of these words, is simply beside the point. Thus, it’s not prone to doubt. It isn’t the

business of S1 to care whether it’s mistaken unless we instantly suffer for those mistakes; then it

sits back and lets S2 handle the problem until solved. If it turns out to have been a random

aberration, S1 forgets the problem entirely and, if it doesn’t turn out to be that, S1 alters it’s pre-

existing model just enough to accommodate it and then moves on almost as if it never happened.

Again, and I must be entirely explicit here, these are the cognitive processes of your

brain; they’re how it’s wired to operate. They aren’t two distinct “selves” in any metaphysical

context and their proclivities and capabilities are not uniform across the board. So this isn’t about

universalism. Some people’s S2’s are more potent than others and that system can be improved

through training, just like most other human abilities. In other words, our brain’s wiring is

elastic, so the aggregate implications of the dual-system model are not essentialist. All of this is 7

more properly viewed as merely the breakdown of our thinking tools, the physical materials used

to do our associating and reflecting. And of course, the tools alone are never the whole story; it’s

also about how an individual uses them (and was conditioned to use them by their cultural,

communal, and familial environments, especially during his or her formative years). Moreover,

the work of behavioral psychology should never be seen as absolute, but rather as well-verified,

Certain features are essentialist, however. As in how, at any given moment, our associative machine 7

only represents active ideas; what it isn’t accessing might as well not even exist, as far as it’s concerned.

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quite common, and highly influential tendencies that we’re susceptible to in ways and at degrees

we typically don’t find comfortable. So the point isn’t to say these inclinations are inevitable; it’s

just that they can’t be ignored and yet are so often and easily underestimated.

Rationality, then, is simply one of the mental attributes our dual-system offers us, and it

too is limited and flawed. But as just stated in the previous paragraph, it can also be broadened

and honed; people can become more or less rational—and do so quite frequently—throughout

the course of their lives, depending on both the situation they currently find themselves in and

the amount of work they do or do not elect to put into the development of this capacity. However,

the dual-system model and the preponderance of research data that went into its establishment

stipulate that, no matter how often we place ourselves in situations that are conducive to this

capacity or how much we develop it, it is fallacious to claim that we are ever primarily rational

(i.e. that it’s our true nature, which we should live up to), even though this is the very assumption

that many, especially those in philosophy, tacitly or even unequivocally work with.

Therefore, the central claim of this paper when it comes to rationality is as follows: The

dual-system model of human thinking and the accumulated research which established it do not

deny our rational capacity; they simply show that it’s not nearly as influential and reliable as

we’ve come to assume it is. This means the celebrated and idealized rational-agent model which

began with Plato and was later expanded and reinforced throughout following generations—most

notably during The Enlightenment—is inaccurate; it presumes a reality that’s not actually the

case and is more correctly seen as the rational-agent fallacy. And to be clear, the traditional 8

definition of rationality I’m addressing here is threefold: 1) It is chiefly concerned with

The specific term Jonathan Haidt uses for this is “the rationalist delusion”, found on page 28 of his The 8

Righteous Mind.

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discovering that which is factually accurate; 2) It is predominantly bound by the rules of logic

and reason, if not exclusively so; and 3) It is humanity’s primary attribute. 9

To paint a more thorough understanding of this model, specifically the relationship

between the two systems, I offer Daniel Kahneman’s most complete and insightful summary:

“System 1 continuously generates suggestions for System 2: impressions, intuitions, intentions, and feelings. If endorsed by System 2, impressions and intuitions turn into beliefs, and impulses turn into voluntary actions. When all goes smoothly, which is most of the time, System 2 adopts the suggestions of System 1 with little or no modification. You generally believe your impressions and act on your desires, and that is fine—usually. ” 10

One of these exceptions though, which really helps expose the rational-agent fallacy,

comes from moments when we’re primed to react in certain ways without our explicit permission

or often even our basic awareness. In technical terms, priming refers to an increased sensitivity

to certain stimuli due to recent experience. An illuminating example of this would be asking

someone about his or her current relationship status before asking how happy they are with the

state of their life as a whole: how they answer the second question will invariably be affected by

how they answered that first one, in ways they more than likely will not comprehend at that

moment. Whether you ask it or not, the reality of their life will be unchanged, of course, but

asking will dramatically impact their current mindset, which wields a tremendous amount of

influence while they’re assessing the state of their life. And the important part to keep in mind is

that this isn’t a direct retrieval or an intentional switch; it’s actually unconscious. “Studies of

priming effects have yielded discoveries that threaten our self-image as conscious and

autonomous authors of our judgments and our choices. ” 11

“Most distinct attribute” would have been a more accurate way of saying this, for Plato and others.9

Kahneman, page 2410

Ibid, page 5511

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Notice how the previous sentence did not read “discoveries that threaten us,” only

“threaten our self-image.” The rational-agent model we use is that self-image, and it assumes—

whether passively or actively—that we’re always consciously in complete control of the views

we hold and the decisions we make, even though this has now been scientifically shown to not

always, or even consistently, be the case. And since we very much do find these results

threatening, given our covert or overt acceptance of the rational-agent model (or fluid

combination of both), we often underestimate their implications, especially when it comes to

how much they apply to us personally; they simply do not align with how we’re trained, and thus

also prefer, to view ourselves as individuals. As Kahneman states:

“You do not believe that these results apply to you because they correspond with nothing in your subjective experience. But your subjective experience consists largely of the story that your System 2 tells itself about what is going on. Priming phenomena arise in System 1, and you have no conscious access to them. ”12

What’s most significant here is that no matter how unpleasant or uncomfortable we may

find this discovery or its implications to be, it doesn’t get to be viewed as something we have an

authentic option of disbelieving. Kahneman and many other researchers have demonstrated 13

time and time again that this is a plain reality of human living, whether we wish to accept that or

not. “The main moral of priming research is that our thoughts and our behavior are influenced,

much more than we know or want, by the environment of the moment. ” 14

Moreover, when we are solely using S1, which is most of the time, not only are we not

primarily rational, but the idea of rationality itself is completely irrelevant to our S1, so much so

Ibid, page 5712

Earlier on page 57, Kahneman even explicitly states, “Disbelief is not an option.”13

Ibid, page 12814

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that the idea of thinking or behaving rationally or irrationally doesn’t even occur to us. Only

when we are deliberating with our S2 does the concept itself even come up, and then it is all we

can see. But in the light of the dual-system model, this is more properly viewed as an instinctive

overestimation, one that allows us to mistakenly overvalue our reason and tell ourselves the story

of how we are mostly rational agents—a story which will disappear as soon as we go back to our

more common S1 state, and then reappear the second we call it back with our S2. A helpful

metaphor to keep in mind with this difficult-to-grasp state of affairs is the idea that the object you

are currently looking at is only there when your eyes are open and, the instant you close them, it

disappears entirely; and your eyes are closed the majority of the time. But since it is, in fact,

always there when you open them, you have been trained to believe that it’s always there, and

the idea it might not be feels absurd. Simply put, you are offered no reason to doubt its constant 15

existence, so you rarely do. And this is precisely how it actually works when we “measure” the

reach and prowess of our sense of rationality.

And finally, it is critical to note this isn’t the only area where we see circumstances

inaccurately and then instinctively narrativize to create a sense of coherence; we don’t just do

this when it comes to constructing our own identity or assessing our lives. We actually do it quite

frequently, and it’s not a deliberate choice in most cases; our brains are simply better wired for

the purpose of processing elaborate stories than it is for the task of observing and retaining basic

information. As Kahneman states:

“Narrative fallacies arise inevitably from our continuous attempt to make sense of the world. The explanatory stories that people find compelling are simple; are concrete rather than abstract; assign a

I suppose we can refer to this as “The Problem of the Rational World.”15

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larger role to talent, stupidity, and intentions than to luck; and focus on a few striking events that happened rather than on the countless events that failed to happen. ”16

III. The Importance of Situational Access

As established back in the introduction, situational access is our level of both S2 and S1

apprehension of everything that leads up to and results from any moral judgment we make. Our

level of this is what provides us with the context and specific details of a given ethical dilemma

so, when it is abundant and clear on both ends of the decision itself, direct ethical decision-

making becomes easier. In these situations, body language, facial reactions, tone, depth of setting

familiarity, et cetera, all play significantly into our appraisals and judgment, informing them in

ways that we may not even notice, let alone describe. 17

A great example of this high level of situational access is found in familial or communal

conflicts, those in which we have a strong cognitive grasp of the world we’re currently inhabiting

as well as the persons we’re conflicting with, thus leading to great environmental sensitivity and

a receptive vantage point for feedback. If, for instance, you were to marry into a family that 18

valued sensitivity and softness when speaking to one another, while also just so happening to

come from one that instead valued direct and unfiltered honesty, you would have a daunting

ethical challenge on your hands. (Note: I strongly hold that this situation falls under the rubric of

an ethical matter, even though many would instead view it as a personal and more emotional

problem. My reasoning is it involves both awareness of one’s actions in a challenging situation

Kahneman, page 19916

This is why immersion is still and probably will always be the best way to learn languages and cultures.17

My initial assessment of this level’s cap, in terms of the amount of people it could be applied to, is one 18

hundred and fifty. This is the number that behavioral psychologists and others have set as the maximum when it comes to the human brain’s ability to create, foster, and maintain direct relationships. It is known as the Rule of 150.

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as well as a social impetus to curtail or augment those actions in order to accommodate affected

others. So while this may, in fact, be a highly intimate ethical situation, it’s an ethical situation

nonetheless.) However, you would have a notable advantage in facing that challenge, since you’d

also be in a position to attain a strong familiarity with all the ins and outs of this new emotional

network; you’d be able learn their backstory and they yours; you’d have a front row seat for

assessing the fallout of the behaviors you exhibit in all its subtle complexity; you’d be able see

and, more importantly, feel the social habitat affected by the choices you do or do not make. This

is, therefore, the most elementary of all moral situations to find oneself in; it’s ethical decision-

making in a world where situational access is both obvious and immersive.

But when situational access is lacking, on either end, we are too, in a manner of speaking.

For instance, affect is an S1 function, and it’s what gives any sensory information we receive its

initial social and ethical meaning; it’s the difference between witnessing an injustice happen in

real time versus hearing about it the next week versus reading about it ten years later. Each step

further away from the immediate act creates an increased amount of diminished sensitivity,

inhibiting our ability to feel the proper emotions in moral judgment. In the society we currently

inhabit, this more detached apprehension is typically how the enfranchised come to learn about

the oppression of others and, in a more specific example, how a man so very often becomes

aware of the inequalities faced by women and the concept of “the patriarchy.” He seldom sees it

working as it happens; he’s rarely in a position conducive to gaining a genuine understanding of

what goes into it or how its consequences have already influenced a given woman in his life; his

view of the situation is lacking in affect, along with other things.

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However, the ramifications of the oppression are not a world away; they’re often amongst

him; and so he occasionally has to deal with them. The amount of situational access in these

moments is thus mostly limited to outputs; it offers only a stunted, un-nuanced form of feedback

and an almost total lacking of environmental sensitivity. He is confronted just with the effects of

the oppression without knowing what went into them on a palpable level, in a way that affects his

personal, deeply engrained interpretation of the world directly. This places him in an odd middle

ground of sorts that many people often have a tough time negotiating: a social issue he both can’t

fully comprehend and yet can’t ignore either.

The next situational access scenario is best described as the “no level of situational access

scenario.” It occurs when we don’t have any genuine access to either the inputs or the outputs —

when we’re totally lacking in both environmental sensitivity as well as feedback. This is found in

circumstances where a choice we make has its ramifications on not just people we haven’t met

but, also, people we often don’t even know are being affected at all. An insightful example of this

would be the passive and often wasteful consumer habits of those of us who inhabit the affluent,

developed world while, at the same time, extreme global poverty ravages and even ends the lives

of millions in the developing world. And this is even further exacerbated by how, in this ever-

globalizing greater world beyond our own, we oftentimes find ourselves making consumer

decisions that actually participate in the squalor and exploitation being inflicted upon these

utterly vulnerable people, and are either only casually aware of this or not aware of it at all; the

victims are just too geographically far away from us while also having no socio-political say in

global matters and policy. And without this necessary access to the horrendous reality, the notion

that we’ll prioritize it or feel the proper emotions regarding it—so much so that they’ll transfer

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over to that day-to-day, behavioral level—is simply not feasible, no matter how much we may

“know better” or feel guilt in those rare cases when our S2 is prompted to finally reflect on the

matter. (And regardless of however we may feel about this when reading the above sentence.)

So in sum, these three wildly variant ethical situations (which will be taken up later in

much greater length and detail, of course) all require a certain amount of deliberation and action,

obviously, but they also require separate and distinct forms of that deliberation and action; not

only can they not be handled in the same way, they cannot really even be approached in the same

fashion; they are just too qualitatively different as far as the wiring of our brains is concerned.

But recognizing this is an extreme challenge for most, also because of how our brains are

wired along with the specific narratives we’re prompted by this wiring to tell ourselves about,

say, how we “care for all people the same” or how “every life is equally precious” to us, in either

an emotional or theoretical way. We mean these things when we say them, of course, but only in

rare and isolated instances will we be inclined to behave differently in order to accomplish

whatever ethical motivation we’re currently feeling or reasoning. As Kahneman states:

“The normal state of your mind is that you have intuitive feelings and opinions about almost everything that comes your way. Whether you state them or not, you often have answers to questions that you do not completely understand, relying on evidence that you can neither explain nor defend. ”19

IV. Metaethical Grounding, Norm Formulation, and Application

In order to ground my ethical assertions, I will be relying on moral psychologist Jonathan

Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory for three specific reasons: 1) It grounds our sense of morality

within human cognitive processes; 2) It factors in the dual-system model; and 3) It accounts for

Kahneman, page 9719

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the diversity of moral systems and the variance found in ethical decision-making without

resorting to the logically invalid argument of moral relativism. 20

In his book, The Righteous Mind, Haidt presents these foundations as receptors in the

human brain, likening them to the distinct taste receptors found in the tongue, and thus portrays

our sense of morality as analogous to our sense of taste. The foundations (and their counterparts)

are as follows: Care vs. Harm, Liberty vs. Oppression, Fairness vs. Cheating, Loyalty vs.

Betrayal, Authority vs. Subversion, and Sanctity vs. Degradation. Now, not all cultures will focus

on all six foundations evenly—and may even only focus on two or three exclusively—when

constructing their structure of morality, the norms that result, or the number and specific values

that are then developed to facilitate them, but this is the pool they’ll inevitably draw from;

certain foundations will be focused on much more and so certain values will be celebrated above

all others. This means another significant advantage of Haidt’s theory is it also accounts for the

reality of human disagreement.

For example, in the case of the Liberty foundation and a culture that elevates it above all

the others, that culture will come to value and celebrate shows of autonomy while discouraging

and rejecting displays of deference. However, in another culture—one that instead elevates the

Authority foundation above all others—these actions would be seen in an entirely opposite

manner: displays of autonomy would now be seen as threatening by the culture, while deferential

acts would be encouraged and rewarded. This kind of disagreement also applies to different 21

sub-cultures within a greater society, and explains why the celebrated attitudes found in a city

The statement “moral relativism is true” cannot hold logically because, if all moral considerations are 20

relative, then nothing in morality can be considered as definitively true, including that very statement.

Haidt addresses this tension specifically on page 173 of The Righteous Mind.21

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like San Francisco, for example, clash with those more prevalent in Salt Lake City, even though

both are parts of the greater U.S. society. 22

A basic description of this theory begins with the idea that, in the greater world beyond

our personal worlds—that is, the unique S1 models of “reality” we’ve each been cultivating all

our lives and are, to a tremendous degree, influenced by the surroundings we were arbitrarily

born into and/or raised in—there is no singular morality, but rather a collection of coexisting,

competing, and/or even combatting moralities, each derived and specifically alchemized from

the six moral foundations we’re all propped up and inhibited by; and that this is a fluid and

never-ending process which adapts with social and environmental changes, and so is perpetually

open to revision (though usually not too easily). In other words, there is no “one” anything in

ethics or philosophy as a whole, just as there is no comprehensive rulebook (or guidebook 23

even) ever created that directly applies to all people in all situations.

The key aspect of Haidt’s theory to grasp, however, is his claim that these foundations are

innate understandings, though he makes sure to clarify just what exactly he means when he says

“innate.” Since their introduction during The Enlightenment, the concept of innate ideas has

been hotly contested and, in its more traditional notions, it was eventually mostly refuted. But

Haidt contends that it’s not the ideas themselves that are innate; it’s rather our cognitive

machinery, which contains these moral receptors that were steadily formed through human

behavior and interaction, and then further developed in that same vein over time. His point with 24

These are admittedly extreme examples, but that’s also what makes them useful for the specific point 22

being made here: while this level of variation is present, on at least some level, in all distinct regions of the country, it’s only in the extreme comparisons that they become readily apparent.

This is a comforting myth dating all the way back to Parmenides.23

This is more in line with Leibniz’s conception of innate, as opposed to that of Descartes.24

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this is that our brains may not be hardwired for morality, but they are pre-wired for it. This is,

again, an elastic capability, allowing for environmental factors to also play a large role in shaping

how we, as members of a given culture, consider ourselves ethical and it’s in this pre-wiring

where he ascribes our metaethical basis for human morality, giving us this analogy:

“The brain is like a book, the first draft of which is written by the genes during fetal development. No chapters are complete at birth and some are just rough outlines waiting to be filled in during childhood. But not a single chapter—be it on sexuality, language, food preferences, or morality—consists of blank pages on which a society can inscribe any conceivable set of words. ”25

He goes on to cite neuroscientist Gary Marcus: “Nature provides a first draft, which

experience then revises... ‘Built-in’ does not mean unmalleable; it means ‘organized in advance

of experience.’ ” In other words, the foundations of ethics are the human being’s innate and 26

fluid proclivities to six moral foundations in order to direct and appraise human behavior within

some kind of larger whole, be it social or cosmic. I hold that this interpretation of metaethics is 27

immensely advantageous because it posits a form of grounding that can not only actually be

substantiated but, moreover, can far more readily lead to the formulation of norms that are better

suited to work with our mental tools, since they are more authentically derived from those mental

tools. Furthermore, the routine challenges of applied ethics are also better addressed in this

interpretation because it reasonably follows that norms which factor in our cognitive flaws and

limitations are thus more equipped to anticipate and counter those flaws and limitations.

However, I do need to take some time here to address more in depth the highly probable

criticism this particular version of ethical grounding appears open to: it leads to moral relativism.

Haidt, page 13025

Ibid, page 13126

Even if “social” means a collection of autonomous individuals, a morality is then developed so as to 27

direct and appraise the behavior of members in order to make sure they’re enhancing their own autonomy while respecting the autonomy of their fellow individuals.

Blasser �19

This is not so. Haidt’s theory is more about the acceptance of moral pluralism—the simple

admission that there is more than one way of perceiving an ethical quandary or constructing a

moral system—which is descriptively accurate. Haidt even addresses this in his book:

“Neither [Richard] Shweder nor I am saying that ‘anything goes,’ or that all societies or all cuisines are equally good. But we believe that moral monism—the attempt to ground all of morality on a single principle—leads to societies that are unsatisfying to most people and at high risk of becoming inhumane because they ignore so many other moral principles. ”28

So in my view, the different ways to alchemize and execute the moral foundations do not

exist in a vacuum, and they are not free from appraisal or judgment on either the individual or

collective levels. Individually speaking, assessment comes down to internal consistency (i.e. how

often and how well a person lives up to and follows through on the sense of morality they hold)

as well as external consistency (i.e. his or her willingness to keep themselves accountable to this

sense of morality just as readily as they do others). And Kahneman holds this view as well, albeit

in a far more general context and with a much more technical approach: “In decision theory, the

only basis for judging that a decision is wrong is inconsistency with other preferences. ” 29

This model of appraisal and judgment I endorse also applies to and within a particular

society: the way to assess the policies and actions of its collective body is by determining how

consistently these hold with what that community or society values—that is, how well the body’s

rulings correspond to the specific moral system that particular group derived from the

foundations they’ve elevated. And from there, it becomes a question of how well those values

and standards meet the needs of the people they represent, meaning that an ethical society is

therefore both consistent with and between its priorities, policies, and actions, as well as open to

Haidt, page 11328

Kahneman, page 37829

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revising those priorities and policies—should this ever become necessary—so that future actions

taken will better serve the interests of those they both come from and are applied to, while also

still being anchored by and consistent with these now updated priorities and policies.

Finally, this model also applies to ethical dilemmas existing between distinct societies in

this increasingly interconnected and globalized world, one in which we are perpetually further

entering a more prominent state of competition between differing cultures and their moral

systems. Appraisal and judgment in these situations becomes a question of which moral system,

or any one of its norms, works better—that is, leads to optimal results for the greatest majority of

people—when addressing contemporary cross-cultural ethical problems. Now, the ease with 30

which that sentence was written and read should not obscure the level of supreme difficulty

inherent in these kinds of appraisals and judgments, of course, but they are legitimately possible

and, more importantly, still open to that necessary ability to be revised.

As examples, entities like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were

originally designed in the closing years of World War II to increase the ease and frequency of

global economic transactions and thereby create a more interconnected and, hopefully, more

peaceful world; and, in some ways, these organizations have most definitely achieved this goal

while, in others, they most certainly have not. Despite much success amongst the Western

nations that founded them, moral issues of fairness (which obviously speaks to the Fairness

foundation), transparency (which speaks to the Liberty foundation), and even exploitation (which

speaks to both, along with the Care foundation) often plague their policies and actions when it

comes to the far less wealthy developing nations who don’t have any level of comparable

I concede I’ve basically just endorsed utilitarianism here, but only in regards to this particular situation.30

Blasser �21

representation and influence in those policies and actions. However, if these ethical issues were

to ever be addressed and improved upon —that is, if the amount of benefit for the greatest 31

amount of people, including those in the mostly impoverished developing world, was to be

increased—the state of global economic affairs would, in fact, get demonstrably better and these

entities would assuredly become more ethical. (But again, this simple sketch should not suggest,

in any way, that such reforms would come easy.)

V. Level 1 Ethics: Abundant and Clear Situational Access

Level 1 Ethics, as mentioned earlier, is the easiest to understand and explain; it’s the best

known and most assumed; it’s the one in which we have that high amount of both environmental

sensitivity and feedback; it allows for the most pervasive and lasting of changes to our ethical

views and behavior. Curiously enough, it also has a highly analogous traditional philosophical

counterpart that’s one of the oldest of all ethical theories: Aristotelian virtue ethics. Though there

are obviously a number of differences, the Aristotelian approach provides the closest classical 32

parallel because it stresses both practicality and right action for the improved living of one’s life

and the greater harmony of his or her society, as well as provides a plurality of different virtues

to be found and honed in order to make this individual and social flourishing happen. So it works

with the dual-system model in a way that strict interpretations of Mill’s utilitarianism, Kant’s

deontology, or Moore’s open-question argument don’t, because these approaches exclusively

favor narrow, excessively conceptual stances that also over-rely on our flawed ability to reason.

And according to philosopher Thomas Pogge, a demonstrative relenting in Western protectionism, an 31

end to the practice of structural adjustment, as well as the termination of both international resource and borrowing privileges, would go a long way to achieve this kind of ethical reform in and of themselves.

Like the idea that any virtue is or could ever be proven as truly “universal,” for example.32

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In an excerpt that was a part of his original manuscript—but unfortunately needed to be

removed from the final book for space constraints—Haidt even specifically asserted the

relevance of virtue ethics over those other interpretations for the reasons listed above:

“If any ethical theory can claim to be the natural, normal, default way in which human beings think about morality, it is virtue ethics. The reason for its dominance, I suspect, is that it fits so well with what we now know about moral psychology. First... only virtue ethics addresses the whole mind. Virtues can be defined in many ways, but most approaches treat them as character traits that a person needs in order to live a good, praiseworthy, or admirable life. Virtues are social skills. To acquire a virtue is to fine-tune your perceptual abilities such that you detect the relevant signals, then feel the right emotions, and then act in the right way...

This is why virtue theories always emphasize the importance of practice, training, and habit. Aristotle and Confucius even hit upon the same metaphor independently: learning to be virtuous is like learning to play a musical instrument. Both kinds of “virtuosity” require years of practice and studious attention to role models until the ear is educated and the hands move easily, almost on their own.

A second important feature of virtue ethics is that it is a buffet. Virtues are excellences of character that equip people to play their roles in society. There are many roles and many kinds of interaction, so there are many virtues. A good soldier should not cultivate the virtues of a priest; a good daughter should not cultivate the virtues of a father. And it's not just variety within each culture; each culture has its own buffet table. The virtues on display in a rice-farming culture (which requires extraordinary cooperation) differ from those held out to children in a sheep-herding culture (which requires more masculine toughness to guard one’s flocks), which in turn differ from those of an urban trading culture (emphasizing contracts and voluntary exchange). So virtue theories are pluralistic—they can’t be reduced to a single master virtue. Because people live in many different climates, economic orders, and political systems, they end up with diverse sets of moral ideals. ” 33

A specific scenario in Level 1 Ethics is the one brought up back in Sec. III: when a

person is about to marry into a family where sensitivity and indirectness are the valued virtues,

while he or she comes from one where direct honesty is the valued virtue. Again, this would be

an immense challenge for anyone to take on because it requires the mental acquisition and

behavioral assimilation of an entirely new communication approach and style, and this kind of

recalibration does not come easy. However, since the person in question here will have a great

amount of situational access, they also have a great advantage as well. So, while this may not

come easy, it still will eventually come, as long as it gets sufficient time and effort to do so.

Obviously, this quote will not be found in his book, but Haidt posted the excerpt to a webpage on the 33

book’s website: http://righteousmind.com/about-the-book-2/figuresnotesrefs/

Blasser �23

Kahneman’s highlighting of the associative elements of S1 thinking is what unlocks the

secret of how to consistently improve our behavior on this level. His work not only demonstrates

the inclinations and capacities of each system separately, it also shows the relationship that exists

between them and, in the case of developing virtues, how S2 can actually reprogram S1 so that

its associative network will come to automatically access more environmentally conducive—and

therefore more virtuous—reactions, thus eventually enabling a person to intuitively behave more

ethically in this initially difficult world without having to put forth the never-ending and tedious

effort of consciously having to remember to do it all the time. In our particular example, our

more verbally direct new addition to the sensitive family she’s about to marry into can fully train

herself to consistently behave more sensitively as well, not just act like it.

Calling back a previous quote, “The main function of System 1 is to maintain and update

a model of your personal world [i.e. the associative network mentioned above], which represents

what is normal in it.” The model is constructed by what, over time and with a sufficient amount

of frequency, becomes unconscious associations that intuitively link our conceptions of

circumstances, events, actions, and outcomes—that co-occur with regularity—to our immediate

environment; and this vast and complex network most definitely includes what we come to

instinctively consider virtues and the behaviors that best align with them. And as this network is

unceasingly formed and strengthened, it “comes to represent the structure of events in your life,

and it determines your interpretation of the present as well as your expectations of the future. ” 34

Your S2 capacity for reason, on the other hand, has the ability to monitor and regulate

this network; it can supervise S1 processes and detect any associations or intuitions which have

Kahneman, page 7134

Blasser �24

become undesirable and/or problematic in situations you currently inhabit, and then caution you

to distance yourself from them while identifying more situationally desirable and effective

replacements. In other words, it is our S2’s occasional, well-timed, well-executed, and followed-

through-on interventions in the constant formation and reformation of this associative network

which is capable of training our S1 reactions. And both Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein agree

with Kahneman in this regard: “The Automatic System [i.e. the S1 associative network] can be

trained with lots of repetition—but such training takes a lot of time and effort. ” 35

The way this process works, on a behavioral level, is that when our new-addition-to-the-

family’s S1—from here on we’ll call her Mia—comes across an external set of social stimuli, her

associative network instantly becomes aware of an attraction or concern and, through affect, even

makes an automatic ruling as to which it is before her S2 ever knew it was there; in most cases,

S2 has no idea what’s going on with S1 because it doesn’t need to. But when it comes to being

deficient in the given virtue of sensitivity the family Mia’s joining holds, this unconscious ruling

becomes a thorny prospect, especially once she gets her detailed feedback—that is, once her S2

becomes intimately aware of how the blunt behavior she’s currently exhibiting with her S1

reactions is causing her to be looked upon unfavorably by established members of the family.

Once these situational vices or even mere virtue-failings are exposed and apparent to it,

S2 must then take a more invested role in S1’s unconscious inclinations, but this effort is not

effectively made right away in one’s day-to-day living. Going back to Mia, she’s most definitely

not setting herself up for success by waiting until Thanksgiving dinner to begin addressing these

challenges and trying to reform her associative network. At that table the challenges will more

Thaler and Sunstein, Nudge, page 2135

Blasser �25

than likely come quick and come hard, and her S1 is going to react immediately with what it was

trained to do for years out of both habit and as a basic security measure. If her S2 tries, in this

moment, to train or even guide S1 more towards the situationally virtuous path identified, it’ll

almost assuredly fail because these instinctive S1 reactions are too powerful to be directed in this

defensive condition; the feedback becomes emotionally and physiologically overwhelming. So 36

all that’s left for S2 to do, then, is justify those S1’s reactions to the rest of the group, to

rationally defend itself from the unfavorable judgments it knows it’s receiving.

But when removed from these challenging and oftentimes intimidating situations—that

is, while in the emotional safety of our familiar environments—S2 can introduce the new virtue

more easily to our associative network and can even begin the process of training that network to

react differently to the potential challenges. A month or so before Thanksgiving, Mia can start

reconditioning her fast thinking by first initiating that necessary S2 awareness, follow up by

repetitiously practicing more preferable responses to the predictable stimuli with her future

husband and longstanding member of the family (who’ll obviously have much nuanced feedback

to offer and so can help her fine-tune these responses), keep monitoring this practice and noting

the feedback with her more deliberate S2, and thus be far more prepared for the challenging

situation prior to facing the challenging situation. This is slow, long, and methodical work but it

is possible and actually even inevitable; as far as our associative network is concerned, it really is

just a matter of time and effort, as Thaler and Sunstein stated.

However, it should again be noted that our S2 is not a limitless well of energy and

attention; it is naturally lazy, easy to strain, and incapable of multitasking. This means it really

As Kahneman states on page 51: “Cognition is embodied; you think with your body, not only with your 36

brain.”

Blasser �26

only works in addressing and reconditioning our S1 one issue at a time; any more than that and it

will almost certainly become overloaded and thus lead to failure. Our ethical flaws, then, must be

prioritized and this is yet another reason why Aristotelian virtue ethics is the most descriptively

applicable of all the traditional philosophical interpretations: instead of identifying a singular

abstract principle or standard for all behavior to be filtered through and judged by, which is

utterly implausible, each virtue can be worked on separately and then moved on from to the next

once it’s fully assimilated. So first, our reason recognizes the chief character deficiency of the

specific scenario and identifies the most applicable virtue needed to remedy it (which is

analogous to the Aristotelian notion of epistêmê) and then, second, it supervises the requisitely

constant training of the intuition in order to eventually make the virtuous conduct unconscious

(which parallels the Aristotelian notion of technê).

This utterly simple and yet supremely difficult two-step process within the dual-system

model is what allows for truly transformative and enduring behavioral change (so long as it is

fully followed through on, that is) but, more than that, it also demonstrates how our reason and

intuition are not just distinct and uniformly linked attributes: S2 can ensure and further develop a

better relationship between them. Once S1 has a solid grasp of the new cues, S2 can bring that

grasping to the still foreign and immersive day-to-day environment and supervise it more closely,

looking out for situations that would trigger the old ways before the new ones have had enough

time and training to totally take over, and thus brace S1 before it has the chance to associatively

react and S2 loses its higher level of influence. In our example, Mia’s S2 could recognize that the

dinner table conversation is moving towards the assessment of another family member’s life

choices and then get herself mentally ready to conduct herself appropriately as it happens, while

Blasser �27

also keeping a close eye on any and all feedback she receives. In this state, her S2 is much more

influential because it’s no longer fighting her S1 associative network; it’s now reminding it, using

the subsequent feedback as reinforcement. This is more interactive than the initial training but it

still takes time; it too is part of the necessary technê for total reconditioning.

Ultimately though, the cues will become fully engrained and retained and the associative

network will be reprogrammed, developing an intuitive grasp of environmental sensitivity to the

once foreign situations, instantly reacting more preferably to them, and doing so without needing

S2’s direct oversight. After awhile, the more sensitive—and, in this setting, more virtuous—

reactions will come as natural to Mia as the more blunt reactions that came before. And these

will hold up during future, unforeseen tests because her intuition was trained to automatically

reply aptly in this environment, and these immediate responses also apply to the unexpected.

The basic rule of thumb for genuinely lasting and transformative personal change is this

(and it works with far more than just our current subject, make no mistake): Want the change

until you make the choice to act upon that desire, keep deliberately making that choice until

you’re able to just do it more instinctively, and then keep acting on that developing instinct until

it becomes an inherent aspect of who you are—that is, an entrenched piece of your associative

network which you’ll then be able to rely on without having to think about. Or in more concise

words: Want it until you choose it... Choose it until you do it... Do it until you are it.

And what makes all of this not just possible but realistically so is the specific nature of

Mia’s ethical situation (i.e. it easily falls into the realm of Level 1 Ethics), because it’s both about

something as important to our immediate S1 world as family dynamics—so therefore we’re far

more likely prioritize it and follow through on our intentions—and it provides that optimal level

Blasser �28

of situational access, which will allow for more abundant and clear environmental sensitivity and

feedback, even if this needs to be developed with effort over time. These conditions combine to

let us genuinely reform our moral habits and even refine our ethical decision-making, which is

what makes this level as available and potentially metamorphic as it is.

VI. Level 2 Ethics: Absent Environmental Sensitivity and Diminished Feedback

This is where ethical situations begin to get a little more complicated, however. Level 2

Ethics occurs when we only have a conscious S2 understanding of the fallout to our ethical

failings, but to a much less comprehensive and contextualized degree in the absence of S1

support, and without any sufficient level of S2 or S1 understanding of the lead up. The 37

situational example of this level we’ll be using again goes back to what was introduced earlier in

Sec. III: when someone who unknowingly benefits from something like gender oppression must

later contend with the general outputs of that oppression, while having no real understanding of

what goes into it or a nuanced grasping of the consequences.

My overall goal with this second level is to initially establish three key admissions and,

eventually, three basic strategies. Each of the admissions are at least a little familiar by this point

(the first, especially, has been driven home routinely throughout the paper) but they need to be

listed here again, in order to both refresh memory and set up the strategies that will come later in

the section.

Admission 1: Human cognition, specifically the ability to reason, is much more limited and

flawed than traditional philosophy seems to want to accept. In accounting for these limitations

I have elected to ignore the opposite situation—where we have a blunt understanding of the lead up 37

without having any for the fallout—because it simply doesn’t occur with any kind of regularity. An ethical situation where we are linked to the build up, make our decision, and then have nothing to do with the aftermath just isn’t common enough.

Blasser �29

and flaws, the dual-system model is far more representative of human behavior and equipped to

deal with our larger scale socio-ethical problems.

Admission 2: Much of what we take for granted in ethics is the result of arbitrary placement in

certain environments and our arbitrary possession of certain favorable or unfavorable features

within these environments, neither of which we have any direct say in. (This admission is 38

consistent with Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory, in that we take our particular moral systems

and their values for granted because they’re the ones we’re exclusively brought up with, which

means we’ll not only naturally favor them but, moreover, we’ll also intuitively apply them to

others, even when these people do not share them and even when our S2 knows better while

deliberating on the matter because this deliberation only occurs a fraction of the time.)

Admission 3: We all live in personal worlds, to a certain degree. These worlds are made up of

our distinct associative network that includes our memories, intuitions, emotions, and values that

no one else will have 100% access to; and thus the rules and expectations of these worlds

literally apply fully to no one else but us.

One of Haidt’s points, borrowed from psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, is that the most

sophisticated form of moral reasoning tends to come from a person imagining an approximate

representation of someone else’s S1 world with his or her own S2, and then viewing that other

person’s situation from this perspective. And as far as our distant Level 2 relationships are 39

concerned, this practice is far easier to do when they’re more egalitarian because, pragmatically

speaking, if we’re equals on at least a few rungs of the greater social ladder we both fall on, then

This admission’s closest strictly philosophical counterpart is Marxist and/or Feminist Standpoint Theory.38

Kohlberg refers to this as role-taking, but it’s more commonly known as the ability “to get over yourself.”39

Blasser �30

I’ll have at least some level of genuine access to your S1 world to build my approximate

representation off of and you with mine; I’ll be able to better imagine your opinions and connect

with your perspectives without too much cognitive strain, which corresponds to the amount of

effort my brain is wired to favor. But the more distant relationships we share that are rooted in

hierarchies of status and influence, on the other hand, often lead to us having no real level of

access to the S1 worlds of those on variant rungs, thus resulting in an increased amount of mental

effort needed to establish even a sense of basic familiarity that we are, again, not inclined to put

in unless given an urgent reason to do so, which doesn’t often present itself. Noted examples of 40

this include an affluent person telling an impoverished one to just “get a job”—not realizing how

much more difficult or complicated this can be for someone not in his or her position—and it’s

also what lies at the heart of the classic “Management vs. Front Line” feud found in so many

workplaces (easily summed up as the “So what do you do all day?” debate).

But here’s a quote that both accurately describes and brings meaningful insight to the

problem: “It’s a truism that people act worse in groups than they do as individuals... this truism is

mostly untrue. Most of the time people act better in crowds than they do as individuals; it’s just

that when this is true, we take it for granted, and when it is not true, we notice it. ” This speaks 41

directly to the inherent and inextricable flaws within our unceasing S1 perceptions as well as the

limitations of our S2 deliberations in Level 2 Ethics for this reason: The stimuli we are most

prompted to recognize is grossly incomplete because we’re wired to recognize the minority and

let the majority blow by us without paying attention. In other words, we typically don’t notice

Haidt goes into this with more detail on pages 8 and 9 of The Righteous Mind.40

This is a quote from famed statistician Bill James, found in this article: http://grantland.com/features/41

the-connection-fan-inmate-behavior/

Blasser �31

those on wildly disparate rungs of the social ladder than ourselves, unless they do something

while in our company we don’t really comprehend, which intuitively leads us to the conclusion

that they’re extremely or even entirely different from us, even in situations when this is not the

case. Therefore, we not only don’t have a level of access to the environmental sensitivity, but the

feedback we get from the outputs is almost always distorted and, oftentimes, just flat out wrong.

Within our specific example of social oppression, what this means is that we’re cut off

from the detailed realities and contextual decision-making of those in (what seems to us like)

qualitatively different situations and environments, whether these persons lie above or below us

on the hierarchy. And this leads to an unfortunate social predicament: In the more abstract

manner we so often encounter it, the ways in which an enfranchised person comes to view and

feel towards social oppression, along with their subsequent stated positions on it, are not always,

or even usually, consistent with their actual choices and behavior in moments when they must

actively or passively contend with the effects of that oppression. And this isn’t primarily because

he or she is a hypocrite or secret villain but rather because, when facing the difficult questions of

oppression, they’re really answering different ones without realizing it. In psychology, this is

called a heuristic, which is “a simple procedure that helps find adequate, though often imperfect,

answers to difficult questions. ” The most common form of this is switching the difficult 42

question with an easier one, and not really knowing we just did that. In this light, a concern

heuristic emerges, which really places a spotlight on the rational-agent fallacy when it comes to 43

this level of ethics, in general, and the issue of the unaware beneficiary’s unintended role in

Kahneman, page 9842

Neither Kahneman nor Haidt use this exact term. Like “situational access” before, it is my own.43

Blasser �32

social oppression, in particular. In short, the question “How much do I care about the plight of

this oppressed demographic?” unconsciously becomes “How bad do I feel about their plight

right now, for the moment I’m being prompted to consider it?” The latter is the specific question

we’re probably answering, but it convincingly feels to us like it’s the answer to the former.

Our hope then, on a reflective moral level, becomes that our more rational S2 will engage

so we can see the oppression more intently, become more willing to accept whatever passive (or

even covertly active) role we have in perpetuating it, and then glean an effective and morally

sound course of action to ending both... but this is also not typically the case. Moral reflection

and self-criticism are S2 functions, yes, but in the context of the associative attitudes we hold and

the behaviors we’ve already done, S2 is still an apologist for S1 much more than it’s a critic; as

far as our emotions and histories are concerned, it’s more an “endorser rather than an enforcer. ” 44

Remember, our S2 only gets called in to deal with an immediate problem and, in the case of the

concern heuristic, that problem is often our guilt for the existence of the oppression and any role

we may have in it, not the oppression or our role themselves; this is what our ability to reason is

trying to satisfy, like a lawyer defending a client. 45

Attempting to fix the actual problem eliciting the guilt, on the other hand, requires a

substantial increase of awareness and effort in our day-to-day living, which combine to create a

massive level of work for us that we are, quite simply, not in a feasible position to put in, given

our more personal and intuitive responsibilities of family, career, community, et cetera. And since

that enormous amount of work means we’re more than likely not going to make the necessary

Kahneman, page 10344

Haidt uses this exact metaphor on page 67 of The Righteous Mind.45

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changes in our behavior to address the guilty feelings, our S2’s job becomes justifying our

present course in order to assuage those feelings so we can get back to our genuine priorities as

fast as possible and without distraction. We can resist these powerful tides, of course, but this is a

long and tiresome process; this too requires a lot of work. And again, our S2 is lazy and limited.

For the third time, I call on one of the seminal quotes of this entire paper: “The main

function of System 1 is to maintain and update a model of your personal world, which represents

what is normal in it.” These are indeed personal worlds, complete with those aforementioned

intuitive priorities, and this is crucial to keep in mind with this second level of ethics because it

highlights the central dilemma inherent to it: This personal world is our main lens when viewing

the greater one we all share—it’s the primary mechanism interpreting and assigning relevance

and meaning to what we’re encountering beyond our own private realities—while it applies to

literally no one else than us. Now, the reason why this isn’t as much of a problem in Level 1

Ethics is because, again, when you’re sharing an immediate environment with others, the effects

of this dilemma get mitigated by your similar lenses/experiences but, when you don’t, the effects

often lead to serious collective problems, especially when two people from disparate settings find

themselves disagreeing on a greater social issue that affects their worlds differently. 46

“Most of society’s arguments are kept alive by a failure to acknowledge nuance. We tend

to generate false dichotomies, then try to argue one point using two entirely different sets of

assumptions, like two tennis players trying to win a match by hitting beautifully executed shots

from either end of separate tennis courts.” This particularly revelatory quote on our social—and

The gun control debate is perhaps the greatest example of this, in that it usually affects those from rural 46

and suburban settings one way and those from urban settings in a wholly different fashion. And yet we still live in a national society that requires one set of laws to apply fully to both barely related scenarios.

Blasser �34

then oftentimes ethical—predicament comes from musician and comedian Tim Minchin, stated

during his commencement address at the University of Western Australia back in 2012, and I 47

believe it amply highlights the “my S1 world vs. your S1 world” impasse sketched in the

previous paragraphs. What it directly speaks to is that, given this cognitive reality the great

majority of us are subjected to, the reason why the preponderance of these social debates, with

overwhelming consistency, end up going nowhere is actually rather simple: You cannot debate 48

life experiences and what they come to mean to the individual.

And speaking for myself, as a straight white male in contemporary American society, this

is what makes the notion of social privilege so difficult for me to grasp, let alone readily accept.

The phrase refers to sets of built-in advantages a person is automatically given for the living of

their life from the greater social environment they inhabit, simply because they arbitrarily happen

to be a member of some societally-favored demographic within that environment—advantages

those outside this demographic will be given no amount of access to, and typically cannot even

earn over time. However, as previously demonstrated, these privileged persons are rarely

prompted to notice their privilege, because it is already an engrained part of their associative

network; the invisibility is, to a certain extent, an inevitable byproduct of S1 world construction

for someone in their position. 49

It can be viewed in its entirety here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoEezZD71sc47

Note: That once in a while moment when these failures don’t occur is when one person reaches a 48

genuine insight into the other’s world. And to be perfectly clear, I am not downplaying the importance of these moments; they exist and are often incredibly emotionally powerful when they occur. They’re also, however, the exception to the rule; they do not occur in most cases and with any level of consistent regularity. And that’s what this paper is concerned with: gaining a certain amount of consistent regularity.

I would also argue that this invisibility is an inherent component to the privilege itself. When privilege 49

becomes apparent, it usually turns into guilt.

Blasser �35

As a parallel example, the presence of the word trauma in our vocabulary is the result of

an immense level of privilege. To experience one means the affected person has lived a life

where the great majority of it was so consistently positive that a singular supremely damaging

event is now standing out to them in a psychologically unshakeable way; it was so outside the

norm and terrible in comparison to his or her routinely pleasant life thus far that it has negatively

imbued their psyche to a depth that’ll take years to work out, if ever at all. Conversely, there are

other people in other areas of our society and world—and especially in earlier times—that would

instead perceive what we call “traumas” to be the basic, day-to-day living of their lives; the word

itself isn’t even in their vernacular. This is why it’s such a privilege for us to be able to use it,

even when describing the awful experiences of our past; in this respect, we in the 21st century

developed Western world are fortunate to get to have traumas in our lives.

But of course, if you were to say that to someone in this situation, who’s just undergone

one of these major traumas... well... how do you think that would go? How do you imagine he or

she would receive this perspective on what just happened to them? Telling someone the horrible

thing they just endured, which shook his or her entire sense of reality to its very foundation, was,

in large part, a product of social privilege simply isn’t empathetically or respectfully feasible.

And to presume for a second that you’ll be able to convince them of this is rather ridiculous.

That’s the main reason why many in the “straight white male” demographic (or anyone

else who’s got two or even one of the three) often get so upset or defiant when their privilege is

pointed out or even argued for: in any person’s S1 world, they’ll assuredly have difficulties

they’ve experienced and challenges they’ve overcome and, when you tell them they’re socially

privileged, you’re, in a way, telling them those difficulties weren’t real or those challenges

Blasser �36

weren’t actually all that challenging, which almost none of their subjective experience could

even be able to corroborate. And on an emotional level, you’re also basically telling them that

what they went through was fake; that what seemingly felt so hard wasn’t; and, following the

previous analogy, that their traumas weren’t really that bad.

As an exercise, I want you to take a moment here to really imagine what this would feel

like: to be told your experiences aren’t what you thought they were; that whatever you’ve gone

through doesn’t matter as much as you believe; that any sense of hardship you encountered was

no big deal. How would this not, at least partially, undermine your sense of accomplishment or

cheapen how you feel about your life itself? I submit there’s no one who’s instinctively going to

take any of this well; it’s quite threatening. Moreover, it’s also an impotent argument, far more

often than not, because, again, we can’t intellectually debate our life experiences and what

they’ve come to mean to us with another and expect it to go anywhere. S1 worlds just count for a

lot more than even the most abundant evidence and rigorous reasoning, given our wiring.

Of course, this isn’t intended to be an excuse for participating, even indirectly, in the

oppression of others either; it’s not saying inaction in the face of widespread and systemic social

inequality is now made totally acceptable; it’s merely sketching out the common situation many

of us find ourselves in a descriptively accurate way. The purpose is to show the nature of the

problem and why genuine steps to remediation are so elusive—that is, why it seems like people

almost never see their incredibly advantageous position or take compensatory action on these

matters—despite what many will routinely and sincerely claim when asked (unless they are

somehow personally affected by the systemic oppression in question).

Blasser �37

But of course, we ethically-inclined persons will still tell ourselves our more subjectively

representative stories about how much we care and how important ideas like “Justice and

Fairness For All!” really are to us when we’re actively considering them with our S2. And this is

also part of our wiring; it’s not simply that willful delusion or rank hypocrisy it’s so often painted

as. I call your attention back to another important quote mentioned earlier in this paper:

“Narrative fallacies arise inevitably from our continuous attempt to make sense of the world. The explanatory stories that people find compelling are simple; are concrete rather than abstract; assign a larger role to talent, stupidity, and intentions than to luck; and focus on a few striking events that happened rather than on the countless events that failed to happen.”

This means, on a literal level, the part of you that behaviorally experiences the day-to-day

living of your life is not the same part that reflects on those experiences later on, and it’s most

definitely not the same part that explains and justifies those experiences to others. In the social 50

arena, this is perhaps the great ramification of our dual-system brain: It allows for two clearly

counterintuitive, but still totally genuine, realities to reside within us at the exact same time,

usually without us ever realizing it. And it’s why Admission 1 cannot be overstated enough.

Which brings us to the strategies—strategies that, again, can only be employed correctly

once we’ve thoroughly made all three admissions, because each of the strategies addresses these

admissions. And this is most notable with the first.

Strategy 1: The trick with understanding the actions and perspectives of those to whom you

seemingly can’t relate is in training yourself to assume there’s an ocean behind every stream;

that every singular behavior you observe or opinion you hear probably has a mountain of

Kahneman even named this phenomenon on page 381 of his book, referring to them as our 50

experiencing self and our remembering self, respectively; the former is the part of us that voicelessly works us through our day-to-day lives, while the latter decides on and develops our memories of those experiences. But again, just as before in our establishment of S1 and S2 thinking, it needs to be noted that these two “selves” are not metaphysical entities; they too are derived from our cognitive wiring and processes.

Blasser �38

context, experience, and information behind it, to which you will initially have no real level of

access.

Again, in Level 2 Ethics, our S1 is not in a position to have a sufficient level of working

associative familiarity with these contexts, experiences, and bodies of information, and our S2

will not be inclined to notice and/or consider them properly on the infrequent occasions when

they unexpectedly come across our path. Therefore, we have to condition ourselves to assume

their existence while accepting that we don’t have any genuine level of access to them.

Another thing we need to keep in mind and incorporate with this trained assumption is it

applies to everyone—not just people from foreign countries, not just the homeless, not just

marginalized groups. It applies to every human being we encounter in every scenario, no matter

how uncomfortable, offensive, or even grotesque we may find it; it’s just those we know and

share environments with will be less inclined to exhibit these inherent and inevitable variances to

us at notable degrees, so the problems that would otherwise probably be derived are mitigated in

these cases. (And we’ll also have Level 1 Ethics to apply to them.)

So the first thing that should be done in Level 2 situations is learn to make this attitude

our “default setting.” We must train ourselves, our S1 associative networks, to assume the greater

world around our private one in this way, and most especially in social situations where we have

the least amount of access to environmental sensitivity. And this training can and needs to be

done in the exact same manner we employ when developing a new virtue in Level 1 Ethics (i.e.

Want it until you choose it... Choose it until you do it... Do it until you are it.); it’s the bridge

between the two. We have to accept that, in this level of ethics, we’ve already been passively

trained by the incomplete and inaccurate stimuli of our situational/subjective experiences, and

Blasser �39

then use both that knowledge and the repetition our associative network requires to sufficiently

counter it in that truly lasting and transformative manner we’ve established.

Strategy 2: You must also train yourself, in the exact same manner as in the first, to take more

time with these situations—as much as you can, where and when you can.

Part of our brain’s wiring is that it’s heavily inclined to jump to conclusions, and this is

one of those S1 shortcuts which can be quite helpful for us in certain situations. As Kahneman

states: “Jumping to conclusions is efficient if the conclusions are likely to be correct and the

costs of an occasional mistake acceptable. ” But when it comes to understanding and conducting 51

ourselves around those from backgrounds to which we don’t have a substantial level of access,

this isn’t a wise course of action, especially the more unfamiliar the situation and the higher the

stakes. What this means for us is that, much of the time, the most ethical thing to do in these

moments—when we have the option open to us, that is—is nothing. Sit and listen; soak it in; get

acclimated. In Level 2 Ethics, the proper moral judgment is often no judgment at all.

An insightful analogue to this is found in economics: research and deliberation are not

necessary when it comes to going to the dry cleaners or buying a sandwich, as examples; these

are frequent experiences that we therefore have much information about and aren’t all that

consequential. So when we see a $20 sandwich or hear that we need to wait two weeks for our 52

clothes, we’ll immediately know something is up and easily take our business elsewhere. But

when it comes to decisions on a retirement plan or a home loan, however, these are choices we’ll

only make maybe once or twice in a lifetime, involve a complex world we don’t have much

Kahneman, page 7951

This analogy is taken from Chapter 4 of Thaler’s and Sunstein’s Nudge.52

Blasser �40

experience with, and have huge stakes for the security of our economic futures. So these are the

situations where we need to train our associative network to both recognize when they occur—

giving us the opportunity to bring in our more careful and thorough S2—and also just flat out

assume there’s far more going on here than we’re in a position to realize and understand.

This is referred to in psychology as framing, and it has many different elements which

have everything to do with what we’ve discussed throughout this paper: the amount of

familiarity with the environment, the details of the specific situation, and the level of access to

the consequences, especially. And it also has everything to do with what we’re in an epistemic

position to know, how we come to view, and the ways in which we conduct ourselves around

diverse social groups to whose backgrounds we do not have much access.

As someone who was raised Catholic in a 21st century U.S. environment, for example,

I’m in a position to know the ins and outs of Christianity but “Islam” is mostly just a word to me,

one I’m cognitively inclined to fill with unverified meaning by dumping all the distant, un-

nuanced, and decontextualized stories I hear about this religious practice. And what’s critical to

grasp here is that, given our wiring and S1 functions, I can’t consciously stop this process from

happening. I can’t turn off my S1 system; I can’t authentically place myself in a position to really

learn this lifetime’s worth of information and context while still honoring the intuitive priorities

of my immediate S1 world; I can’t quickly assimilate this mountain of data and understanding

into my associative network, or even likely wrap my reason sufficiently around it, in a certain

situation just because I may really want to. But I can train myself to recognize it’s there and that

I’m just a person who’s not in an epistemic position to know it, and then take more time on the

rare occasions when I do come across it.

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These first two strategies are thus primarily concerned with each of us as individual

knowers of and actors in the greater world around us, and with good reason: improved ethical

living almost always begins with a change in how we conduct ourselves in the greater society

around us (because those who wait for external circumstances to align more with what they’re

already doing are not all that prone to see these undesirable behaviors become desirable in their

lifetimes; in statistical terms, it’s a low-percentage shot). However, leaving the matter entirely

there would be inadequate because this second level of ethics is still about social interactions,

even if they’re usually limited to brief output encounters. And moreover, as we’ve already seen,

the fact that they are limited in this way is precisely what makes them so challenging.

Case in point, as I’ve further developed this approach and shared it with others for the

purposes of getting my necessary feedback, I came across people who expressed difficulties in 53

accepting it, and this was especially true for those I spoke with who felt strongly that they’d been

marginalized by the society we share. For them, the very idea of having to train themselves to be

aware of the backgrounds and contexts of those they felt were oppressing them was deeply

offensive, and was even considered by a few to be insulting. And I understand this but, 54

nevertheless, the extreme probability remains that if we refuse to speak to diverse people in their

own metaphorical language (or even their own literal language, for that matter) on any level, or

even attempt to, we will talk past or overwhelm them, and they’ll eventually tune us out or just

plain shut down conversationally; their S1 associative network—their primary interpreter and

actor—simply will not be in a position to comprehend the interaction and their S2 will only be

Practice what you preach, of course.53

Rather, I understand that I don’t understand.54

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able to try translating for so long before the cognitive strain involved exhausts its limited

capacity.

Cross-culturally speaking, the trap of thinking we’re oftentimes placed in, of “you don’t

know what my reality is like and never presume you could ever learn because that’s arrogant,”

may be technically true, but it’s also unhelpful; by definition, it keeps us exactly where we are

and prevents us from making any kind of inter-cultural ethical progress, other than the basic

acceptance that we all have distinct and unique backgrounds that must be respected. To create a

more harmonious society, and thus pave the way for increased human flourishing, we will

eventually need to make at least some kind of effort with those we don’t normally or easily

connect with socially, even if this effort is made from our disparate and limited points of view,

and even if this involves those we have justifiable reasons for resenting; we still need to be able

to share what we’ve intuitively come to value and believe, as well as create opportunities for

others to do the same with us, even if—and especially when—it results in disagreement. Without

this, that reveal of more cross-culturally conducive social norms and values mentioned back in

Sec. IV is not plausible, and any reasonable chance of consciously improving the greater society

we share will mostly dissolve away. This brings us to our third and final strategy.

Strategy 3: Within the typical parameters of day-to-day societal living, avoid direct conflicts 55

whenever possible in output-only social interactions, and provide respect, openness, and even a

sense of emotional warmth to those you disagree with when these conflicts do occur; the trick

here is to make them feel safe so they don’t instinctively put up their embodied S1 defenses. 56

Obviously, egregiously violent or destructive actions need to be exempt from this.55

This strategy was lifted from pages 48 and 49 of Haidt’s The Righteous Mind.56

Blasser �43

And while this may, at first glance, seem like your basic, garden-variety request for

people to be nicer to each other, it most definitely isn’t; given the dual-system model we’ve been

using, in general, and the three key admissions with this level of ethics, in particular, it’s more of

a pragmatic necessity. Make no mistake, while this does have profound emotional implications,

it’s a basic strategy, posited here for the purpose of effectiveness when dealing in these kinds of

situations by providing improved human interaction amongst those without much access to each

other’s subjective realities. And as a basic strategy, it supersedes the potential issue of indirectly

condoning any view or behavior we’ve taken great exception with, so the possibility that we may

find the opinions or actions of another abhorrent isn’t to be ruled out; it’s just that the strategy

still holds if we wish to address and try to persuade our subject to replace those opinions or

behaviors, and/or prevent them from spreading to others.

The bottom line is that even personal paradigm shifts are almost never successful when

that person is in S1 defense mode, even though that is so easily where our bodies and minds will

take us when we are challenged, and especially when it comes to the merits of our culture, the

values we’ve been conditioned to hold, or the threatening idea that our trials and tribulations are

a figment of our privileged imaginations. In Level 2 Ethics, what we have to keep in mind is that,

no matter how good our points are or how skilled we are at delivering them, if we close off our

targets with hostility and/or a refusal to meet them on their level, we simply will not be able to

get anything through; their S1 will be in that reactive or stunted state, and their S2’s primary job

in those situations is merely to justify whatever position it’s holding on so tightly to, using

anything it can to do so. The plain fact of our cognitive wiring is that the optimal way to get any

given person to see your views and even adopt your means is by demonstrating to him or her that

Blasser �44

these views and means are better than, or at least preferable to, their own. And the odds of this

happening when they’re feeling misunderstood, judged, and/or attacked are incredibly low.

This is precisely why we shouldn’t handle or even approach these situations in the same

direct and nuanced manner that we do in Level 1 Ethics. While this error is both easy to make as

well as understand, it is almost always a case of us failing to recognize our incomplete and

inaccurate perceptions and attitudes, and thus consistently sets the table for social and even

ethical mistakes and/or oversights on our part, even when we’re fueled by the best of intentions.

And while we can’t really blame someone for succumbing to their cognitive shortcomings in

ethical situations which don’t amply allow for that person to significantly improve upon them,

we can, however, hold them responsible for “believing they can succeed in an impossible task. ” 57

So if we were instead to take that well-intentioned fuel and apply it more appropriately...

if we were to admit our cognitive flaws and limitations to ourselves, accept that what we take for

granted can and often does fail to apply to others, and realize everyone we come across has their

very own distinct S1 world just like we do... and if we were then willing to train ourselves to

assume there’s so much more to those other private models than we’re even capable of realizing,

take as much time as we can to let them at least sink in some when it’s available to us, and treat

even their most disagreeable of opinions and offensive of behaviors with openness, empathy, and

respect ... then consistent socio-ethical advancements—those that are legitimately progressive 58

as well as realistic—could be arrived at with much greater success and regularity.

Kahneman, page 24157

Just as with the development of virtues in Level 1, each of these strategies will need to be developed 58

mostly one at a time, however, in order to accommodate our easily taxed and incapable-of-multi-tasking S2. That’s why I numbered them in the order of what I’ve determined to be the most crucial to the least; this too is a matter of priority.

Blasser �45

VII. Level 3 Ethics: The Total Lacking of Situational Access

The third level of ethics is, not surprisingly, the most difficult to grasp in any kind of

intuitive or emotional fashion—and the only one of the three that provides little opportunity for

any kind of significant training—because it offers almost no amount of situational access

whatsoever, either in the lead up or fallout to our moral judgments and actions. This is the level

we have to employ in ethical matters that are so far removed from our day-to-day living that

we’re either totally unaffected by them or allowed—and sometimes even prompted—to feel that

way.

The applicable example for this level brought up back in Sec. III was that of extreme

poverty in the developing world, and it works quite well for our purpose of illustrating Level 3

Ethics because it both has no substantial amount of influence on our S1 associative network (for

those of us in the industrialized/affluent Western world, that is) and its direct consequences are

almost never brought to our doorstep, so our S2 will rarely be activated by even decontextualized

social outputs. However, it also constitutes a stunningly egregious moral failing on all our parts

to allow this to go on year after year after year, especially because it is, in large part, something

we actually tacitly participate in, due to our passive consumer habits and how they incentivize,

and thus reinforce, the economic policies in place that result in the deaths of millions of people—

which includes millions of children under the age of five—every single one of these years. In

other words, it’s an issue we assuredly possess a sense of normative obligation towards while,

simultaneously, have little in the way of policies in place or even suggestions available for

guiding our ethical decision-making, resulting in the great majority of us taking almost no action

to satisfy those normative obligations. This calls back the great ethical predicament of our dual-

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system brain we established in the previous section: it allows for two counterintuitive but still

genuine realities to be found within us at the exact same time, usually without us realizing it.

Paul Slovic perhaps most understands why we fail to connect our actions and institutional

policies to the horror of systemic global poverty, in that he is generally considered the leading

researcher on the psychology of affect. In both his original solo piece Psychic Numbing and

Genocide as well as his later and expanded collaborative effort with David Zionts, Andrew K.

Woods, Ryan Goodman, and Derek Jinks called Psychic Numbing and Mass Atrocity, he explains

that, in affectively distant ethical situations like genocide and world poverty, our odds of having

the proper kinds of emotional responses—that is, ones that are genuinely reflective of the

obligations we’re so certain we hold and care deeply about—actually be elicited are really very

low; there just isn’t enough awareness on our part for what occurs or any sufficiently notable

consequences for our failure to prioritize it (on our end, of course).

S2, remember, is only called in when necessary and, when assessing far off atrocities that

have no visible bearing on our day-to-day living, it’s just not necessary. According to Slovic, in

order for affect to be optimally influential on our ethical decision-making, we need to be directly

paying attention to our subject, and there’s simply no urgent reason for us to pay attention to the

suffering of those who are thousands of miles away, regardless of how severe that suffering is.

Our stated virtuous intentions will claim we do when directly asked, of course, but we’ve already

seen how those claims don’t generally line up with our behaviors; this is almost always the

concern heuristic in action.

And in the case of mass atrocity, without that direct need to pay attention, a need to not

pay attention, oddly enough, emerges: in order for us to live in the psychologically unfettered

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manner we’ve grown accustomed to in the Western world, the distressing knowledge of mass

suffering in far less fortunate places is better swept under the cognitive carpet, especially when

we find ourselves indirectly involved in it. For Slovic, this means we “retreat to the twilight

between knowing and not knowing ” and, while this retreat can feel quite troubling when we’re 59

initially prompted to consider it, it does help explain why our seemingly horrendous indifference

in the face of so much destitution and death continues to roll on; indeed, “the foibles of imagery

and attention impact feelings in a manner that can help explain apathy toward genocide. ” To 60

put it simply, we can’t feel millions of lives or deaths, no matter how brutal those deaths might

be; we can’t even comprehend them. There’s that unavoidable diminished sensitivity to our

psychophysical functions: the higher the magnitude of death, the more difficult it becomes to

detect changes or value the preservation of one, two, or even a thousand or so more.

Slovic reappropriates Kahneman’s economic model of prospect theory in order to make

his points, specifically in how it diverges from what was, until the point of its creation, the

standard model of utility theory. In doing so, he creates a kind of prospect morality, to be

similarly juxtaposed to our conventional utility morality, as represented by the fallacious but 61

still commonly accepted rational-agent model. And as with Kahneman’s original theory, this new

focus is no longer on how we, as ethical agents, should view things like the value of human life

but rather in how we typically do. “A major element of prospect theory is the value function,

which relates subjective value to actual gains or losses. When applied to human lives, the value

function implies that the subjective value of saving a specific number of lives is greater for a

Slovic, Psychic Numbing and Genocide, page 8359

Ibid60

Just like with the use of “situational access” and “compassion heuristic” earlier, these are my terms.61

Blasser �48

smaller tragedy than for a larger one. ” In other words, because of the cognitive reality of 62

diminished sensitivity, we value each life less the more lives are lost.

What becomes apparent once we understand this diminished sensitivity and the “prospect

morality” it paints is that people are far more likely to help those suffering when it comes to

single and identifiable life, without aggregating them or using any form of statistics at all. Slovic

even goes so far as to point out actual cases where a single child within a famine is provided with

more aid than the victims of the entire famine in general. And these individual cases aren’t due to

a random fluctuation or extreme iteration; they are representative of a systematic psychological

failing. The former is all done solely through S1 affect by presenting a singular suffering person

in front of another and allowing that person’s emotions to guide them, unencumbered by the

more incoherent statistical data. When S2 is activated in moments like this, it actually tends to

reduce the amount of aid given to the identifiable victim because it circumvents these far more

affective (and effective) responses. And Kahneman readily stipulates all this: “System 1 is much

better at dealing with individuals than categories. ” 63

Slovic postulates, then, that the activation of S2 thinking could instead help more with

how we come to value suffering in these affectively diminished aggregates as presented through

statistics but, as we found before in Level 2 Ethics, this doesn’t turn out to be as easy as one

might suspect; his research instead shows that S2 thinking alone and without qualification is not

enough to increase what or how much we value in situations such as these. This is crucial to

understand because it means getting people to think critically about human suffering, when it

Slovic, Psychic Numbing and Genocide, page 8562

Kahneman, page 32963

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comes to immediate individuals or distant groups, is generally a waste of time as far as eliciting

the necessary affect and thus fostering actual aid is concerned, and much more so here than with

our earlier example of gender oppression. This diminished sensitivity applies even to cases

where one child in need became two: each suffering child elicits more sympathy and receives

more aid on their own than they do together; in fact, they more than double it, which means a

diffusion of emotion occurs with an increase of just one more person. Slovic’s point with this,

quite literally, is that “our capacity to feel is limited ” whether or not S2 is engaged. 64

The key point to understand in this “prospect morality” is that the more people are

suffering, the less likely we are to care about them, even while knowing better when our S2

deliberates on the matter or while actively preaching the opposite; this understanding really helps

explain the apathy and inaction so constantly associated with mass atrocities. And while Slovic is

only specifically targeting genocides and never really mentions world poverty in his work, I

contend that all his points about the lacking of affect and the collapsing of compassion under the

weight of meaningless numbers in the former not only hold in the latter, but actually become

much more applicable. At least when it comes to genocides, there are singular and striking events

that attract some initial attention, no matter how confoundedly they’re interpreted or how quickly

that attention fades. Yet with world poverty? There are no events of any kind really, only

systemic perpetuation; there’s no active violence to capture and circulate to promote emotional

reactions, only a passive and almost invisible violence that occurs every moment of every day.

This has been demonstrated by the once powerful Sally Struthers-style commercials that

have been used for so long they’ve now become just another part of our basic routine of flipping

Slovic, Psychic Numbing and Mass Atrocity, page 864

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through channels. All we have to do to get acclimated to something once seemingly so foreign is

encounter it more often; this is the downside of our associative network’s susceptibly to

repetition. And it furthers shows why Level 1 Ethics are so out of place in these affectively

distant ethical quandaries: The same reiterations required for sufficient remediation in the former

are also the very thing that’s fostering such incredible apathy in the latter, resulting in a state of

affairs that makes it even harder for us to care about the extremely impoverished than we already

more than likely didn’t in the first place.

What facilitates this whole scenario is our total lack of situational access; without any

levels of environmental sensitivity or feedback to work with, it simply becomes unfeasible to

overtly expect or even covertly assume that we’re fully capable of handling even the most

obviously destructive and unjustifiable of moral deficiencies in the direct and conventional

manner the rational-agent model and “utility morality” mistakenly presume. In short, the

situation requires an alternative approach, one that factors in the dual-system model, and thus

works with our cognitive failings, so as to prevent them from becoming ethical failings.

Libertarian paternalism, a socio-political approach to governance, health, and economic

policy established by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein—most notably in their book

Nudge—fits quite well in this role. It factors in our cognitive flaws and limitations, preserves

freedom of choice for the individual, and is primarily concerned with improving the design of

those choices, so as to make them conducive to more healthy, efficient, and even ethical

decisions. As Thaler and Sunstein state:

“A nudge, as we will use the term, is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. To

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count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid. Nudges are not mandates. Putting the fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not. ” 65

Just like with Kahneman, Haidt, and Slovic before them (in the specific context of this

paper, of course), these authors hold that, when it comes to our choices and especially to our

forecasts, humans don’t just err often: we do so systematically, with consistently exhibited

biases, fallacies, and heuristics. But they also do not wish to merely describe this state of affairs

and then simply leave it there: while they hold that psychological realities like status quo bias,

behavioral inertia, and the instinctive appeal of default options are incredibly influential on our

decision-making, they also demonstrate how this influence can be channeled constructively and,

more importantly, that this can be done in such a way that allows for the reflective and deliberate

ability of free choice contained in our S2 to be respected, even when the odds of it actually being

used are really very low. “By properly deploying both incentives and nudges, we can improve

our ability to improve people’s lives, and help solve many of society’s problems. And we can do

so while still insisting on everyone’s freedom to choose. ” 66

Libertarian paternalism holds that, because of our mental machinery, we can never really

avoid externally influencing the decisions of others or having our own influenced (i.e. that we’re

actually capable of ever being truly value neutral in any given situation.) Nudges, as a matter of

descriptive fact for Thaler and Sunstein, are unavoidable; it’s just that, in the preponderance of

cases, they’re mostly unintended. This specifically applies to governments, yes, but it also

applies to all areas of social living, and it can be harnessed for manipulative purposes, harnessed

for the purpose of trying to improve individual and even group decision-making, or entirely

Thaler and Sunstein, page 665

Ibid, page 866

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ignored (at the risk of creating a social dilemma that may not be so easy to ignore later on down

the road). In other words, if we are, in fact, wired to accept or at least favor the default option in

an unclear and complex decision, then why not make that default option as beneficial as possible

to as many people as possible? Why not take the time and spend the energy to make it a good

one? As the authors state: “People will need nudges for decisions that are difficult and rare, for

which they do not get prompt feedback, and when they have trouble translating aspects of the

situation into terms that they can easily understand. ” And as we saw earlier with Slovic’s work, 67

these conditions certainly apply to how those of us in the affluent West indirectly handle our

affairs with the global impoverished—the choices we often make that unintentionally affect the

most vulnerable on our planet in the most negative of ways.

As a close and insightful analogue, Thaler and Sunstein present the policy of presumed

consent in the case of organ donation. In short, there are countries with a surprisingly high

percentage of organ donors and those with a drastically lower level. The difference? Framing the

option as an “opt in” or “opt out.” Instead of explicitly asking their citizens to be an organ donor,

countries like Austria, which boasted a 99% rate of organ donation in 2003, give their citizens

the opportunity to opt out of being one. This simple switch in how the same choice is framed is

dramatic: Germany, on the other hand, elected for the “opt in” approach, and their rate of organ

donation floundered at 12%. This move of alternative framing speaks directly to covering our

non-attuned S1 and our lazy S2—along with our general resistance towards not going out of our

way to challenge the status quo—and, in so doing, it creates a much more generous and ethical

society, in terms of providing aid to the vulnerable, while still ensuring an individual’s personal

Ibid, page 7467

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sovereignty by allowing them their choice. And I strongly contend that the way in which we

view something like organ donation perfectly parallels the ways in which we approach world

poverty, in that they’re both about distant problems we typically don’t feel much affect towards

except when brought face-to-face with them which rarely ever happens. Therefore, it provides

for us the most apt current model of addressing and countering the latter in a manner that will

hold in more cases and with a greater degree of regularity.

Placing a box on our tax forms—complemented with clear and obvious language—that

asks whether we’d like to not allow, say, 1.5% of our income to go towards ending world poverty

and protecting the lives of millions of children annually, would both ensure our liberty while re-

channeling the powerful tide of the status quo as opposed to breaking its fists trying to stand up

to it. Moreover, even if a prospective citizen was to notice the box, read through the caption, and

wish to opt out, then he or she would be making the conscious decision to not help starving and/

or sick people. In other words, if that person was to elect disregarding the plight of the millions

of adults and children suffering and dying annually, he or she will now be compelled to do so

deliberately, without having the luxurious convenience of this decision being obscured from

them; it will now be an active, not passive, choice. The “opt out” decision forces a person to 68

engage his or her S2, which means it also forces that person to reflect on their own sense of

morality, which then means that sense will now assuredly impact their decision.

After the box has made its way to the form and is either bypassed or dealt with, though,

the typical citizen would no longer need think about it; it wouldn’t consume any of his or her

However, these forms require being kept confidential for the peripheral ethical reasons of privacy and 68

social decency; no one needs to or should be shamed publicly for their decision; this is a corrupting of the necessary component of liberty that must be inherent to the “opt out” measure.

Blasser �54

attention or effort from then on and he or she could focus on the interests and causes in which he

or she has a much more personal stake; their day-to-day behavior would get to remain unchanged

at the very same time the abuses are being better addressed and compensated; there would be no

emotional fatigue or any cognitive blurring of lives and their value; this would be an idle and yet

still highly effective approach. Additionally, other and more peripheral ethical concerns like

classism or economic fairness wouldn’t need to be called into question because that box would

be on every citizen’s tax form without exception and call for the exact same percentage in all

cases; it would constitute an even distribution of opportunity and a proportionally even amount

of contribution. And by centering all consideration and aid into this one pot, the transparency and

accountability required to make sure the money is collected and dispersed both honestly and

effectively would become more readily attainable, since only one organization would need to be

created to do all this and would thus be relatively easier to monitor. 69

The major problem many people would have with this measure is, of course, also the

very same quality that makes it a superior move: it would show that a simple switch in framing

will induce a massive ethical change to our world that no amount of moral persuasion could

produce. And quite simply, we don’t like this; it makes for a terrible story. And moreover, going

back to the repeated challenges of these last two levels of ethics, it doesn’t correspond to how we

subjectively experience the world around us, and we’re just not prompted to notice the inordinate

amount of evidence aligned against our entrenched memories of these experiences.

I understand this distaste; at first glance, even I found it a little embarrassing and

unnerving. But can we really excuse ourselves from employing it (if actually ever given the

Obviously, issues like rank corruption and theft would still be on the table here but, of course, when 69

aren’t they?

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opportunity, of course) simply on account of this personal distaste? Because, to put it bluntly, if

we were to flat out reject the policy of presumed consent, in general, or the “opt out” proposal

for eradicating systemic world poverty, in particular, due to the fact that it marginalizes our

preferred notions of ourselves as rational/ethical persons or rationality/ethics as a whole, then we

would also be deciding that millions of people, including millions of children, would continue to

suffer and die every year we decide to hold out for a more satisfying ending—that is, while we

wait for solutions that better align with our more ultimately egoistic preferences. And can our S2

rationality, even when at its most potent, really be able to justify this? Can any personal or even

collective ideal really be worth that amount of suffering and death for others?

The sad fact is our wiring and cognitive capacities simply don’t provide us the necessary

tools for dealing with systemic world poverty; without any level of access to what goes into it or

the emotional power of its consequences, we’re plain ill-equipped to deal with it directly. But of

course, this doesn’t excuse us from our moral responsibilities, either. Calling back another earlier

quote, “In decision theory, the only basis for judging that a decision is wrong is inconsistency

with other preferences.” I just don’t believe a majority of the Western industrialized world would

claim the perpetuation of, and their own tacit involvement in, systemic world poverty constitutes

a preference of theirs, and so it follows that immediate and bona fide steps to eradication, or at

least remediation, should be enacted. I submit that the notions of both presumed consent and the

“opt-out” proposal not only qualify for this task, but do so quite well. What’s required, then, is a

profound reconsidering of how we view our sense of normative obligation in these distant, and

yet still appalling, ethical failures and then, hopefully, a subsequent retooling of our overall

approaches, general methods, and even particular proposals.

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VIII. Conclusion

In this paper I have made four basic arguments: 1) The discovery of the two systems of

human thought constitutes a scientific breakthrough worthy of a paradigm shift in philosophical

theorizing; 2) In ethics, the greatest lesson of this breakthrough is the importance of situational

access (i.e. environmental sensitivity and feedback) in both individual decision-making as well

as social policy-making; 3) This prompts the need for three tiers of ethics, each distinguished

from the others based upon their particular level of situational access, and which must be applied

to their appropriate corresponding situations in order to yield more positive and consistent ethical

results; and 4) It is in the service of philosophy to fold these findings into its classic questions, so

as to see which theories hold up well in this new light and which don’t, as well as simply provide

the discipline with additional and possibly even more accurate and comprehensive lenses.

Philosophy’s greatest attribute is it’s the only intellectual discipline that’s both permitted

and intended to stand back from the whole board of the human experience and examine how all

the aspects of it (e.g. art, science, religion, finance, politics, etc.) interact and overlap with each

other, while remaining distinguished from one another, and then extrapolate whatever insights or

meaning it can from those examinations. This important process is inhibited when illuminating

information is left out of consideration and only the classic paradigms and previous models are

utilized. Both the discipline, as well as the greater world beyond it, benefit when philosophers

are there to interpret the effects of these advances—and the greater amounts of information they

so often yield—responsibly and intelligibly. Philosophy, when at its most contributory, is about

finding meaning or a greater sense of understanding in the noise of human existence and then

explaining it in a way to which others can connect. That’s all a philosophical theory is.

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The three-level approach to behavioral ethics put forth in these pages is my attempt to do

this very thing with the advances made by behavioral psychology and the models and concepts

these advances have produced over the last few decades. It is all about accepting our cognitive

flaws and limitations, along with the arbitrary placement of our lives and the situated sense of

morality that so often occurs because of this placement, and then finding out how to do what we

can about that, where and when we can, in order to become more ethical persons and create more

harmonious societies—where the maximum amount of people are given ample and genuine

opportunities to prosper at the highest possible degrees—or at least try to get there. This model

intentionally steers itself away from any grandiose statements, overly optimistic “plans,” or over-

arching over-estimations of human intention magically turning into human behavior; it eschews

hollow moral rhetoric; it doesn’t value those symbolic shows of solidarity that so very often end

up dissipating into that brief collection of individual persons’ intuitive priorities a day or so later.

“The best we can do is a compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are

likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high. ” So this will 70

clearly take a certain amount of prioritization; we will have to pay more attention and put forth

substantial effort if we really want to accomplish all this, make no mistake. But our mental

machinery and the psychophysical functions that result from it force us to be selective about

when, where, and how we do this; they place upon us the responsibility of being both realistic

towards and discriminating with our ethical commitments and expectations, without abandoning

them. And the seminal theme of this work is that this is a responsibility we, as declared ethical

persons, can no longer afford to ignore.

Kahneman, page 2870

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Works Cited

1. Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking, Fast and Slow. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011)

2. Haidt, Jonathan, The Righteous Mind. (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012)

3. Sunstein, Cass R. and Thaler, Richard M., Nudge. (New York: Penguin Books, 2009)

4. Slovic, Paul, Psychic Numbing and Genocide. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 2, No. 2, April 2007, pp. 79–95

5. Slovic, Paul and Zionts, David and Woods, Andrew K. and Goodman, Ryan and Jinks, Derek, Psychic Numbing and Mass Atrocity (April 14, 2011). In E. Shafir (Ed.), The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy (pp. 126–142). NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.; NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 11-56. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1809951