The Moral Epistemology of Natural (Virtuous) Systems

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The Moral Epistemology of Natural (Virtuous)
Systems

• Jen Cole Wright
• Departments of Psychology and Philosophy
• University of Wyoming

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Overview

• Two psychological models of moral judgment
• Piagetian/Kohlbergian model
• Rationalism (what Ill 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

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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)

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• 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.

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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 Freds behavior is wrong

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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 Freds behavior is wrong ? adequacy of
  processes

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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.

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Basic MP model
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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 Ill be focusing on the latter.

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Sentiment-intuitionist challenge

• Moral judgments are not (typically) the product
  of moral reasoning
• Haidts 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.

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Haidts 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)

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Basic Sentiment-Intuition model
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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.

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• Unclear how to ground normative constraints how
  does such a system provide genuine moral
  knowledge?
• If we take seriously the force of Haidts studies
• Peoples moral judgments lookwell, silly
• Highly error-prone, unreliable processes
• Reflections of cultural and evolutionary biases

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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)?
• Dont 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?

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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.

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• 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

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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

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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.

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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

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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)

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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.

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• expertise model