Jonathan Haidt: creating imaginary victims to justify righteous beliefs

[VWdieselnightmare]

I'm listening to the audiobook of Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind for my GC book group (I know audiobooks are cheating, sorry) So far it seems to be about the psychology of belief and why people do terrible things in the name of being moral and righteous.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-righteous-mind/jonathan-haidt/9780141039169

Just come to a bit where he talks about conducting an experiment in the US and South America, among different communities and classes and languages. He found that wherever he looked, certain people (not everyone) always took a moral right/ wrong stance, even if there was absolutely no logical reason to do so. And they did it by creating victims to justify their moral response.

One of the questions that was asked was whether a woman who cut up and destroyed her national flag in the privacy of her own home with no one else to see was doing something bad. Some people said 'Well, if her neighbour had seen her do it, he might be offended, so it's bad'. The interviewer would tell them that there were no onlookers. Yet even when the interviewees recognised that their attempts to create a victim to be offended were bogus, they didn't change their minds that this was wrong of the woman.

Here I'm roughly quoting Haidt:They said things like ‘I know this is wrong but I just can’t think of a reason why.’ They seemed to be morally dumbfounded, rendered speechless by their inability to render verbally what they knew intuitively. These subjects were reasoning, They were working quite hard at reasoning. But it wasn’t reasoning in search for truth, it was reasoning in support of their emotional reactions. It was reasoning as described by David Hume — a slave to passion.

This tendency to adopt a moral or authoritarian position that can't be justified rationally seems to explain a lot of what we've seen recently with the Jo Phoenix tribunal (We are Right, She is Wrong) and the TRAs, who can't debate so just shout at us. I saw the photos from Filia with the young women outside the venue with the banner saying something along the lines that feminism that doesn't include transwomen isn't feminism. Which I'm sure they sincerely believe.Last year I listened to a Radio 4 programme recommended here about how authoritarianism is a natural trait among 30% of the population.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000y7sq

Don't know where I'm going with this, except to conclude that there is a proportion of the population that would appear to be more inclined to irrational moral, religious and authoritarian conviction that they cling to a against all rational debate. And that these are people who will never be won over by debate or logical questioning, because they are working from intuition and passion, not from rational thought. Over to people who know more to pick up the ball or put me right.

there is a proportion of the population that would appear to be more inclined to irrational moral, religious and authoritarian conviction that they cling to a against all rational debate.

Most people have no interest in critical thinking, analysis, moral reasoning, etc, because there are other things they feel more inclined towards - more extroverted activities - watching where the wind is blowing, making sure they don’t miss out on the good things, being part of a community, doing what feels good.

There’s a danger of overwhelm from all the possibilities when you start looking into all that is out there, and leads to casting around, looking or someone out there to follow who seems to know what they are doing, that ‘this is the right thing/this is the wrong thing’. So it’s part of human nature, wanting to belong, wanting to know for certain what is right and wrong to be certain of belonging to the group. This can easily spill over into authoritarianism.

It's an, every problem is a nail when all you have is a hammer, situation.

Years ago, I was reading an older, Edwardian book by an English teacher, where she was talking about the moral education of children.

One of the things she said stuck with me, which was along the lines of, it is possible to rationally justify any position you like, so long as you start from the right place. So rational thinking, in and of itself, is not enough to help people come to correct moral conclusions, or to examine their intuitions. Because what many people do, often without realizing it, is work backward. They start with their intuition or emotional response, or sometimes what they have been told is right, and they reason from the set of premises that will get them to that idea.

The way to guard against it, she said, was that people needed to know the foundational moral principles they were working from, and know why they accepted those principles, and what their implications were. And that children needed to be taught this too.

It strikes me that the people Haidt are talking about have been taught what is essentially the only really acceptable moral principle for many modern people - harm to others is bad, and so that is really the only tool they have to answer the question. Most people though do have an intuitive sense that there are other values. So they feel - there is something wrong in this instance, but they don't have any way to articulate that. So they reason back to someone being harmed, since that is the only moral principle they have intellectualized.

I'll have a go at the flag argument, and it draws from something that was in that Haidt article someone posted last week about values.

Basically, he said the left seems to only accept a few types of value distinctions as valid, the big one being, fairness/unfairness. And it is very difficult to conceptualize the flag scenario being wrong in that way.

But there are other sates of values, one of them, more often recognized by conservatives, is sacred/profane.

This is one a lot of modern liberals struggle to understand, so I will just say something about it. Essentially, for something to be sacred, it means it is set aside for a special use. It may be seen as having an inherent value of it's own, or it may be that it is set aside because doing so allows people to experience or honour something else. So a sacred space, for example, like a church, or a spot for meditation in your house, that is only used in certain ways, can about creating a space where other things intrude, where people can focus on certain things, maybe where they can do this as a group or community. And this kind of thing can apply to spaces, times, objects. There are lots of examples, some formal and others less so.

Flags can sometimes have that kind of function. They are symbols used for a special purpose, around respecting the state, or the community, a recognition of membership in a group, etc.

Sacred items though only function if people recognize their special status - that's the point of them. SO if someone is doing something that seems deliberately intended to deny that function, it seems to imply they are not recognizing what it represents, and also in some sense have a lack of respect for what it means for others.

It's a bit like someone goes into a church and dances around on the altar when no one is there, or pisses in the chalice, but cleans it out. No one knows. But there is a kind of lack of respect in that act, and almost a sense of willful destruction of respect.

Yes it is deliberately antisocial isn’t it? ‘Because I know this thing is important to someone/others I will deliberately defile it.’ That’s the ‘evil’ pleasure.

Deliberately antisocial acts are immoral, to most people, even if no one finds out about them. It’s that urge to degrade and defile.

Thinking about it, there can be three reasons for an act like cutting up a flag, urinating in a sacred chalice or dancing around on an altar:

1. The morally neutral reasons. For example, the flag is perceived as no more than the material it is made of and is being cut up to be turned into an item of clothing, someone is desperate to urinate, this person doesn’t really know the importance of the chalice to others and urinating in it seems like the least worse option, or someone doesn’t know the significance of the altar and innocently, like a child, can’t resist dancing on any plinth they come across.
2. The morally righteous reasons. For example, the flag is a symbol of an oppressive regime like the Nazi swastika, and cutting it up is a ritual to honour the dignity of the oppressed, or if the chalice and altar are the tools of hypocrites who perform public morality rituals whilst harming people in private, so their supposed sacred items are already perceived to be defiled by that harm their public use facilitates, and urinating in, or dancing on them seems morally appropriate.
3. The morally antisocial reasons. A person gets an impish glee out of defiling what is important to others, because they despise other people and enjoy the thought of the upset it would cause for its own sake.

There is a tendency for people who follow the belief that certain items are sacred, to assume that acts done for reasons 1 or 2, can only be done for reason 3.

There is a tendency for people who follow the belief that certain items are sacred, to assume that acts done for reasons 1 or 2, can only be done for reason 3.

I think the opposite of that is certainly true, there are a good many people who don't really understand #3 and seem to think it must always be #1 or 2. Or, they simply dismiss the possibility that anything could be sacred and think that idea is bad, so they think #3 and #2 are the same thing.

I'm not sure I've ever met anyone though who doesn't understand how #1 and 2 work though, and they would probably even think there are circumstances where they were valid.

Yes, My first thought; all children's stories have a moral and clear hoodies and the baddies.

It's a natural human trait which is likely to have served us well in order to build cohesive communities and then empires. Religion is the opium of the masses etc. religions are essentially about goodies and baddies. Fables and tales to teach social morals.

Democracy is for adults, where nuance and debate (free speech) has to be taught and practiced. But only some get the opportunity to do this. (And only some seem to be able to do this?)

Education is key.

Of course some empires merged the ideology with 'democracy' (or just ignored that bit) and became authoritarian or totalitarian. The ideology is used to create binary divisions and a clear goodie and baddie.

some people are clearly by their very nature (via a mix of genetics and upbringing) people who need and rely on perceived black and white values (such as blow drying hair) more than others as @Makethemostofit describes and as the research in the op demonstrates

Also, I've mentioned this before but don't have and links, apparently the most cohesive/ tribalistic age is teens and 20s whereby individuals are far more likely to follow the status quo of the group (group think) and not break ranks.

People become more independent in thinking as they get older.

It’s clear that Justin takes after his mother rather than his father. To the detriment of Canada.

Just getting my thoughts about flag destruction out there - does it also depend on one's motivation for cutting up a flag? If I'm cutting up a flag to show how much I loathe the state, that's one thing...but if I'm cutting it into strips to make bandages for people hurt in an air strike, that's quite another.

I'm not sure how that analogy works in the trans situation though.

Don't know much about Mama Trudeau.

Catching up with this v interesting line of reasoning.

The main argument against them being legal is that you would somehow be legitimising the idea that it's OK to want to have sexual relations with children

I agree with this argument and would add that it’d be not only legitimatising the idea for those using AI generated images/robots but legitimatising the idea in wider society. Pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable to do in the longer term, eroding social inhibitions. First this, then what?

Re Haidt, I disagree that it’s ‘irrational’ for people to be attracted to authoritarianism. Just because it’s based on an emotional response is not enough to qualify that attraction to be irrational.

Life is uncertain, insecure and unpredictable. A short step away from a Hobbesian world, which is everything humans have worked to reduce/remove. Under such conditions many are, not unreasonably, attracted to authoritarianism. Add moral, quasi religious righteousness, it’s a heady mix.

If you can convince people of the moral correctness then yes, you can easily get them to act as moral arbiters in their communities. We even saw that during Covid on here, with some posters almost desperate to grass up neighbours.

Interestingly, “Covid” was immediately where my mind went when I read the OP. Of course, there were far too many real victims, but the concept of the “imaginary victim” was used to police very low or no-risk behaviour.

She was a beautiful hippy child running around with the likes of the Rolling Stones in her early 20’s. Quite unlike justin’s intellectual giant of a father. Pierre had his quite significant flaws as well, but lack of intelligence wasn’t one of them.

Thanks for mentioning this book - I've just clicked at audible and started listening to it, and think it's going to be very interesting. I've just reached the part where he reports on young children being able to distinguish wrong doing that is against social convention from wrong doing that causes harm, being much more sure that the latter is wrong even if eg a teacher tells you it's ok. Which throws a strong light on why people insist that things cause harm, that some might think of as mere failures to adopt their preferred social convention.

For the sake of my own clarity I am going to reiterate what the numbers meant.

#1 - Morally neutral reasons.
#2 - Morally righteous reasons.
#3 - Morally antisocial reasons.

there are a good many people who don't really understand #3 and seem to think it must always be #1 or 2.

I think of these people as minimisers and enablers who make excuses for people doing wrong, like the women who write letters to serial killers in prison and fall in love with them.

I'm not sure I've ever met anyone though who doesn't understand how #1 and 2 work though, and they would probably even think there are circumstances where they were valid.

It is ‘groupthink’ upholding authoritarians, who always believe acts destroying or ‘defiling’ their ‘sacred’ items for reasons #1 or #2, assume those acts must only be done for reason #3. So for example, if someone felt sick and oppressed seeing a Progress Flag somewhere inappropriate, say in a chapel of rest, and tore it down and destroyed it, those who identify with the flag would imagine that person could only possible be motivated only by ‘hateful’ antisocial reasons.

People who entirely surrender their own independent thinking so they can have the good feelings of belonging to a group belief, feel only positive feelings about its ‘sacred’ symbols, insignia, rituals, items and texts. It is unimaginable to them that anyone else could think or feel neutrally or even feel negatively oppressed by them, so they assume those who don’t share those feelings are ‘haters’, ‘unclean’, ‘evil’ or antisocial.

the most cohesive/ tribalistic age is teens and 20s whereby individuals are far more likely to follow the status quo of the group (group think) and not break ranks.

This makes perfect sense from a biological level. Young people don’t yet know much, they want clear answers in a confusing world, they have a strong desire to find a sense of purpose, and find a mate, and have desperation, after witnessing the cruelty of the school playground, to be part of the ‘in crowd’.

There is evidence that that is beneficial overall, but it's hard for a lot of people to shake the feeling that the government should not be legalising something which is bad and kills people.

The govt. levies duty on alcohol and petrol.

Prohibition is a substantial failure and we accept alcohol as a substance that kills people and there are epidemiological indications that it is mostly harmful (with wide confidence intervals).

Similarly, we're increasingly aware of the impact of poor air quality. We've collectively (?) decided that this is a price worth paying and that the advantages outweigh the increased mortality and morbidity.

I write the above while aware that I had visceral revulsion to the example of the simulacrum of children for the diversion of paedophiles.

@Makethemostofit

There is a tendency for people who follow the belief that certain items are sacred, to assume that acts done for reasons 1 or 2, can only be done for reason 3.

I will point out that one possibility is that you know someone is acting out of a "morally righteous" mindset, but you don't accept the legitimacy of it.

So someone that burns the American flag out of loyalty to communism isn't just someone that enjoys vandalism of national symbols. But still, they can be viewed as taking the side of an evil totalitarian movement, and of course traitorous.

I will point out that one possibility is that you know someone is acting out of a "morally righteous" mindset, but you don't accept the legitimacy of it.

I agree. A person who is non-groupthink, non-dogmatic, will be able to look at the traitorous actions of a person following, to them, a righteous belief, and say “I know you believe you are doing the right thing, but this is unacceptable”. Truly authoritarian ‘groupthink’ people simply can’t imagine the motivations of the person who does the thing that goes against their belief. They are just ‘baddies’ (WarriorN talks about it upthread).

If you take something very common in the UK among the young - irrational hatred of Tories. It means that every decision made by a Tory is read to have cruel and punitive motivations, probably about lining their own pockets. It’s cartoonish. There’s no thought that they are just ordinary human beings who disagree about what the most practical and sensible decision would be. It’s #3 the Tories just ‘hate’ the poor, the sick, disabled, and diverse, and get a cruel pleasure our of harming them and ‘love’ only rolling around gleefully in all their own excess money.

This is such an interesting discussion.

I think one of the fundamental elements of living in a liberal democracy is that we have to accept that what is sacred to one group of people is not sacred to another, and that we cannot require that groups that have different values from us defer to our sense of what is sacred.

For example, if we hold the Union flag dear, we cannot require others not to burn it. Similarly, we cannot require them to refrain from burning our sacred books, such as the bible (or the Koran). We cannot demand of non-Muslims that they refrain from drawing pictures of Mohammed. We cannot compel people to refrain from referring to us as "he" if we prefer "she".

We might voice our disapproval of those things, but once we start making them illegal, we stop being a liberal democracy.

It is ‘groupthink’ upholding authoritarians, who always believe acts destroying or ‘defiling’ their ‘sacred’ items for reasons #1 or #2, assume those acts must only be done for reason #3. So for example, if someone felt sick and oppressed seeing a Progress Flag somewhere inappropriate, say in a chapel of rest, and tore it down and destroyed it, those who identify with the flag would imagine that person could only possible be motivated only by ‘hateful’ antisocial reasons.

Ok, yes, I see you mean in specific instances.

I think such people would understand the possibility of neutral or good reasons for acts, but in a particular instance such as the one you mention, they seem unable to see that others are anything other than willfully evil.

This seems a particularly common thought patter with GI. I think it can be found in most areas, I can think of posts here in FWR where some people seem to think that the only reason someone might think or do x, y, or z was because they were shills for the patriarchy. But that's a small number of people, among GI types, and actually I would say people who are activists around what is now called "queer" ideology, it seems a very high number. It would be interesting to figure out why.

One thing I think is a factor with all people like this is they have poor imaginations. That sounds frivolous, but the ability to imagine other people's experiences and thought processes and values makes a huge difference IMO and some can't do it at all. I also think the education system now, and particularly the type of literature students read, utterly fails to develop the moral imagination.

@RoyalCorgi

I think one of the fundamental elements of living in a liberal democracy is that we have to accept that what is sacred to one group of people is not sacred to another, and that we cannot require that groups that have different values from us defer to our sense of what is sacred.

So if someone doesn't share your own "fundamental element" here, what are you going to do?

Say that you have to be tolerant of their difference in values? So they are free to reject the fundamental elements of living in a liberal democracy?

How is it then a real "fundamental element"?

Or you are going to impose that set of values on them in some way? But isn't imposing values bad?

Say that you have to be tolerant of their difference in values? So they are free to reject the fundamental elements of living in a liberal democracy?

I think you have identified why it is so difficult! I think what you're asking is something like: if their set of values involves being intolerant of our values, do we have to tolerate their intolerance? And if we don't tolerate their intolerance, haven't we therefore undermined our claim to tolerance?

And I guess these examples have come up most frequently in relation to fundamental Islam. So, for example, say a newspaper publishes a cartoon with a representation of Mohammed, and the response of fundamentalist Muslims is to issue death threats against the cartoonist and the editor, if we then respond by prosecuting the people making the threats and sending them to jail, we are not allowing them to live according to their fundamental values.

I can't see a way around that, really, except to say that in this country, making death threats is illegal. But I can also see why you might say that response is unsatisfactory.

i

I think another interesting example of how we treat certain items as sacred is the occasion when Charlie Gilmour was sent to prison for defiling the cenotaph - which feels like a disproportionate response given that you can commit violent assault and not be sent to prison. But a lot of people were very upset by it.