Ethical Issues and Life Choices Exam 3 Study Guide Philosophical Arguments Philosophical Argument a set of statements 1 or more designated as premises and 1 is a conclusion Deductive Validity it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false Deductive Soundness if and only if it is valid and all of its premises are true Neuroscience and Ethics Personal vs Impersonal Moral Dilemmas Personal moral dilemma the moral violation in question occurs in an up close and personal way Impersonal moral dilemma the moral violation in question does not occur in an up close and personal way so you aren t as affected Greene s results showed that judgments in response to personal moral dilemmas compared with impersonal ones involved greater activity in brain areas that are associated with emotion and social cognition Greene s Results Greene s Hypothesis Altruistic instincts are naturally selected for under the right conditions If this is right then our altruistic instincts will reflect the environment in which they evolved rather than our present environment With this in mind consider that our ancestors did not evolve in an environment in which total strangers on opposite sides of the world could save each others lives by making relatively modest material sacrifices They did evolve in an environment in which individuals standing face to face could save each others lives sometimes only through considerable sacrifice Given all this Greene thinks it makes sense that we would have evolved altruistic instincts that direct us to help others in dire need but mostly when the ones in need are presented in an up close and personal way Moral Realism vs Moral Anti Realism Moral Realism is the view that there are genuine moral facts there are objective and universal truths about what actions are right and what actions are wrong Moral Anti Realism maintains that there are no such moral facts Greene s Dubunking Explanation of Moral Realism We believe in moral realism because moral experience has a perceptual phenomenology and moral experience has a perceptual phenomenology because natural selection has outfitted us with mechanisms for making intuitive emotion based moral judgments much as it has outfitted us with mechanisms for making intuitive emotion based judgments about who among us are the most suitable mates On this view moral judgment is more like sexiness it s in the eye of the beholder Morality and Emotions The Traditional View of Emotions and Moral Judgment Emotions are antagonistic to moral judgment that is moral judgments should be made without the influence of emotions The 3 Arguments for the Traditional View discussed by Pizarro 1 Emotions are partial 2 Moral judgments should be impartial 3 Therefore emotions should not play a role in moral judgments P1 emotions are more easily aroused for things and people we care about and are absent from considerations about things we care nothing about P2 Impartiality is a critical component of justice When evaluating the actions of an individual who stole a car it should be the case that our opinion would not change if we found out that the car thief in question was your brother No matter who has committed the crime the punishment should be the same We might be inclined to be more merciful to those we care about and are close to us because of our emotion connections The bottom line If emotions are always biased toward things we care about then shouldn t our goal be to eliminate them entirely from the process of moral judgment The Master Argument for the Traditional View These three arguments combine to make a powerful argument against the role of emotions is moral judgment a Emotions are always partial arbitrary and passive b Moral judgments should be impartial well grounded and freely made c Therefore Emotions are detrimental to moral judgments and are to be avoided in moral decision making Pizarro s evidence against premise a of the Master Argument First we are endowed with the capacity to regulate our emotions and on many occasions are able to effectively induce or suppress emotional reactions through a variety of tactics Second emotions are not vacuous reflexes devoid of rational influence Rather emotions reflect our pre existing concerns making them less capricious than they may appear Third there is good reason to include emotions in the process of moral reasoning rather than defeating the reasoning process emotions can actually aid reasoning by focusing our attention and cognitive resources on the problem at hand This characteristic of emotions allows us to pay heed to features of a situation that may have escaped us otherwise Our ability to regulate these emotions is what makes us active agents in our emotional lives rather than passive bystanders The control we have over them allows us to utilize their influence to serve our moral beliefs Haidt s Social Intuitionist model of moral judgment we often have intuitions about moral cases and just attempt to come up with reasons for our judgments after the fact claims that moral judgment is caused by quick moral intuitions and is followed when needed by slow ex post facto moral reasoning 817 Moral Intuition can be defined as the sudden appearance in consciousness of a moral judgment including an affective valence good or bad without any conscious awareness of having gone through steps of searching for a conclusion Pizarro s Response to Haidt Cognitive Appraisal Control over input Cognitive Appraisal Perspective taking focusing on similarities redefining similarity Control Over the Input We all seem to have implicit attitudes that play a role in our cognitive lives But we also have the ability to modify these implicit attitudes by the situations we allow ourselves to be in One may notice implicit racist attitudes due to one s upbringing and avoid situations in which such attitudes are reinforced or decide to take an African American studies course Moral Luck Moral Luck The Control Principle When a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control yet we continue to treat him in that respect as an object of moral judgment it can be called moral luck A person can only be appropriately praised or blamed for what was under his or her control IE We blame Hitler for killing Jews because he made a decision to kill them this is something that was in his control The Four Types of Moral Luck 1 Consequential Luck Involves luck in the way one s actions and projects turn
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