The Moral Epistemology of Natural (Virtuous) Systems

Jen Cole WrightDepartments of Psychology and PhilosophyUniversity of Wyoming

Overview

• Two psychological models of moral judgment

• Piagetian/Kohlbergian model – Rationalism (what I’ll call the “MP

model”)

• Problems for the MP model• Sentimental-intuitionist model• Worry about normativity• Possible way to address this worry

– Expertise (reliable processes) approach

Piagetian/Kohlbergian paradigm

How do we gain moral knowledge?

• identification of general moral principles (MPs)– “All morality consists in a system of rules, and the essence

of all morality is to be sought for in the respect which the individual acquires these rules.” (p. 13)

• rational application of MPs to particular situations– “The [moral agent] must be able to reason formally, i.e.

he must have a conscious realization of the rules of reasoning which will enable him to apply them to any case whatsoever, including purely hypothetical cases.” (p. 47)

• “To consider ‘socialization’ or the ‘acquisition of values’ as moral education, is to consider the moral principles [moral agents] are developing (or are not developing). It is also to consider the adequacy of these principles in the light of an examined concept of the good and right (the province of moral philosophy) and in the light of knowledge of the moral processes of human development (the province of [moral] psychology).”

Kohlberg & Hersh (1977), p. 53-54.

Basic assumptions of the MP model

• Moral judgments are typically formed through moral reasoning (i.e. through the application of moral rules to particular situations).

• Particular situation: Fred is lying• MP: Lying is wrong• Judgment: Fred’s behavior is wrong

Basic assumptions of the MP model

• Moral judgments are typically formed through moral reasoning (i.e. through the application of moral rules to particular situations).

• Particular situation: Fred is lying• MP: Lying is wrong adequacy of

principles• Judgment: Fred’s behavior is wrong

adequacy of processes

Basic assumptions of MP model

• Moral reasoning is the primary cognitive “engine” behind moral development (and the acquisition of moral knowledge).– Man as (approximating) ideal rational

agent

Reasoning provides its own normative constraints.

Basic MP model

Perception of

Eliciting Situation

Belief/MP:“A is

wrong”

Moral Judgment:

“S is wrong.”

Moral Emotion

(salience/ motivatio

n)

Belief:“S is A”

Moral Action

Moral Reasoning (inferential application of MPs)

Challenges for the MP model

• The “adequacy of moral principles”– Province of moral philosophy– VE/Particularist challenge

• The “moral processes” of human judgment– Province of moral (and cognitive) psychology– Empirical challenge

Though both represent important challenges, for this talk I’ll be focusing on the latter.

Sentiment-intuitionist challenge

• Moral judgments are not (typically) the product of moral reasoning– Haidt’s research (e.g., disgust issues)– Doris’ recent attack

• Rather, they are the product of emotive intuitions, which are:– engrained (if not innate)– automatic– immediate– “gut” evaluative responses

• While such evaluations are a form of cognition (i.e. they involve an awareness of the rightness/wrongness of things that is, itself, rationally evaluable) they are nonetheless not a form of reasoning.

Haidt’s “social-intuitionist” model

• Moral judgment – “is caused by quick moral intuitions and

is followed (when needed) by slow, ex post facto moral reasoning.” (2001, p. 817)

• Moral intuition– “the sudden appearance in consciousness

of a moral judgment, including an affective valence (good-bad, like-dislike), without any conscious awareness of having gone through steps of searching, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion.” (2001, p. 818)

Basic Sentiment-Intuition model

Perception of

Eliciting Situation

Moral Intuition

(?)

Moral Judgmen

t(“X is

wrong”)Moral

Emotions (dis)

approval

Moral Reasonin

g

Moral Action

Basic assumptions

• Moral judgments are (typically) formed on the basis of an immediate (and affect-laden) evaluation to the presence of certain morally-relevant stimuli.

• Our emotive/intuitive processes are the primary cognitive “engine” behind moral development.

Unclear what moral development amounts to.

Unclear how to ground normative constraints – how does such a system provide genuine moral knowledge?

• If we take seriously the force of Haidt’s studies– People’s moral judgments look…well,

silly– Highly error-prone, unreliable processes

• Reflections of cultural and evolutionary biases

Saving normativity

• Two sticky issues to be resolved:

• First, what sorts of features are our moral judgments responding to (and why should we think they are moral)?– Don’t have time to go into this today

(though it is an important question).

• Second, in what ways are the cognitive/emotive processes reliably “tracking” these features?

Second problem first

• Consider alternative accounts of “emotive intuitions”

• Reasoning (“sloppy” or cognitive miser reasoning)– Speed through short-cuts: Heuristics

(rules-of-thumb)– Speed through automaticity: Automatized

inferences

Not really an interesting challenge to the MP model.

• Something else (non-inferential?)• Instincts/Innate “modules”• Emotions• Moral sense (reliable processes)

• perception: “Seeing as”• intuition: intellectual (conceptual) “seemings”• “know-how”

Moral judgments as the product of a “moral sense” that tracks morally relevant features in our environment

We perceive the hitting of the child as cruel (it seems cruel).

• Perception-action link (emotionally-laden) Thick moral concepts

Reliable processes

• Regardless of what moral judgments are tracking, we still need an adequate account of how they track them.

• Shafer-Landau – moral exemplars– Circularity problem with this approach– Good moral judgments moral

exemplars

• Alternative approach: Draw from accounts of (non-moral) expertise

Reliable processes

• Expertise appears to involve (at least) the following two reliable processes:

• Trained perception: – the process by which (complex) patterns

of stimuli, composing or instantiating meaningful features, are directly (non-inferentially) perceived.

• Automatic responsiveness: – the process by which engrained

(automated) motor sets or programs are activated and adapted on-line to appropriately “fit” the situational features that originally activated them.

Trained perception

• Eye tracking technology– experts in medicine, art, chess, and

cartography are much more efficient and selective in their eye movements than non-experts

– what they conclude on the basis of their perception is much more accurate

• Birders• Air traffic controllers• Perception of meaningful patterns

– Chunking and inhibition

Automated responsiveness

• Not rote habitual behaviors• Skilled behavior: flexible, dynamic, adaptable

• Golfing studies (experts vs. novices)• Dancing, skiing, and so forth• Direct elicitation of behavior by (relevant)

features in the environment

• “Automaticity in reading, speech, driving, piano playing, skating, or dancing is far more precise and accurate than the same processes would be if they were done with full conscious control.” – Bloom (1986, 74)

Conclusion

• A genuine alternative to the MP model– Relying on resources from within the

automaticity/intuitive processes literature

• Natural (virtuous) agents– Develop perceptual processes that reliably

pick out meaningful (morally-relevant) features on their environments.

– Develop action-guiding processes that facilitate appropriate responsiveness to those morally relevant features.

• expertise model

Perception of

Eliciting Situation

Intuition

“Fred’s lying seems wrong.”

Moral Judgment:

“Fred’s behavior is

wrong”)

Emotion/s (response warranted)

Moral Reasoning

Moral Action

(TP)perceiving

Fred’s behavior as wrong

(AR)