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.

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.

Making general death threats doesn't seem to be illegal. Making specific death threats against an individual may be (it seems to depend if the person who is threatening has laid out a detailed and highly personalised plan).

I know that this issue is a staple of US dramas but it is turning up in discourse in the UK in re: women's rights (and has been common on Twitter/X for some time).

I believe that in the US there is a high bar for incitement of violence because of the First Amendment, but I don't know the exact limits.

In UK law I'm guessing it doesn't have to be aimed at a particular person.

I mean, this is why, in the US, it is legal to burn the flag as a public display.

It's also highly frowned upon by a lot of people, seen as antisocial, and disrespectful.

There is something of a difference between not treating something as sacred yourself, and deliberately desecrating something others treat as sacred.

We aren't very consistent about it IMO. In the US, people flip their lid now if anyone who is not a member of a First Nations group wears a feather headdress, like the ones they used to sell at school fairs. On the other hand, I remember a few years ago when that was in the news a lot, there was a designer that fashion show where the dresses were based on Byzantine style icons from the Orthodox Church. A lot of Orthodox Christians thought it was really inappropriate, blasphemous from their POV, but no one really cared.

But that came down to the same distinction as I mentioned upthread - progressives could conceptualize the former as cultural appropriation, and thereby violating the hierarchy of oppression, whereas the latter wasn't, in their minds, so there was no violation.

Sorry to have set this hare running and then dropped out. I've developed Covid and at the moment any capacity I once had for rational thought has gone.

@RoyalCorgi

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 actually wasn't so concerned with criminal acts like that, but the simple fact of holding to a different value.

The, "fundamental element of living in a liberal democracy", appears to be saying that it's not actually fundamental and we can't require that other people should accept it.

So maybe it needs more careful definition and qualification, or the principle may cancel itself out.

I will use the example of a new immigrant, and let's say they have permission to stay or citizenship.

What do you do if they say they are working to destroy your society and replace it with a theocracy, but they aren't breaking any laws at this stage?

Maybe they say that they support violent revolution at some future point, but right now they are staying peaceful.

Obviously this could apply to more than just new immigrants, but I think this makes the best example.

It's important to tolerate their different values? It's morally good to be tolerant here? It provides some practical benefit to society to be tolerant?

Imagine a hypothetical situation where there was a real threat of them being successful in a revolution. Do you stay tolerant? Or do you change laws while you still can to try to suppress the movement?

I think this touches on something people don't like to think about.

If groups are doing this within the law, you do kind of hae to allow it. It's part of liberal democratic processes.

But liberal democracy tends to require that people actually have a particular kind of formation, in terms of their education, social expectations, etc.

If all of a sudden you have a large number of people who no longer think that way potentially you have a problem. It's not the case that everyone in the world really wants that kind of society.

That being said, I think the largest danger on this front is interior - we no longer educate in a way designed to produce liberal democratic people.

I cannot for the life of me see why cutting up your national flag is wrong - though I suppose in some places it might be illegal. Doesn't bother me if someone burns, cuts up, wipes their bum with the Union Flag. It's a piece of cloth.

That's doing exactly what is explained in the OP. You haven't come up with any actual reasons why it's wrong, but because you are certain it is wrong you're adding layers of invented scenarios to make it wrong.

What?

I said nothing like I was "certain" it was wrong.

I said it could be wrong depending on motivation, so it was a bad example to use, because people could easily be interpreting the example in that kind of way.

But that's the point of the exercise - the motive is not explained. And that's what people do, they judge a behaviour based on whether or not they like or trust the person, or what their motive is, or what they beleive other people think. And then they retroactively make up a reason to justify their judgement. Motivation for the action is a mitigating factor that determines whether or not we forgive or punish a person.

That was my immediate response when I first saw Porcelina's reply, but at that point I was feeling fuzzy-headed with Covid and despite several attempts wasn't able to express myself clearly.

The point of the experiment, or certainly what the OP was talking about, was that some people are sticking with a moral position without any rational justification.

I would say that arguably there is a rational justification in play, and it's not clear that this example would mean much in an experiment.

Let's say you have given this example to a random person, and they haven't thought about it before. And they aren't even used to thinking about moral questions.

You then rule out that they can use any easy explanation of direct harm to another person.

They then can't explain themselves, but continue to think that it's wrong.

Should we expect a beginner in a subject, to be able to give a more complex type of explanation, when they are put on the spot as part of an experiment?

They are "irrational" because they can't give an immediate answer in that kind of situation?

Apparently other examples used:

https://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article/3/1/23/112379/Searching-for-Moral-Dumbfounding-Identifying

"The classic and most commonly cited example involves an act of consensual incest between a brother and sister with the use of contraceptive (Incest). Another example (Cannibal) involves an act of cannibalism with a body that is already dead and is due to be incinerated the next day..."

I took the OP to be particularly interested in the way that people use a specific type of argument - that a certain type of act they disprove of causes harm to someone.

If it's pointed out that it isn't the case, rather than considering other reasons it might be problematic, they focus only on this one kind of argument.

I think it comes out of the kind of thinking that says "do what you will if it harms none". They don't recognize any other values.

"The classic and most commonly cited example involves an act of consensual incest between a brother and sister with the use of contraceptive (Incest). Another example (Cannibal) involves an act of cannibalism with a body that is already dead and is due to be incinerated the next day..."

Or perhaps incest between same-sex siblings. It's something that most of us would instinctively recoil at but it's difficult to articulate rationally why it's wrong.

Yes, it does fail to acknowledge that there could be other justifications available, which makes you suspicious.

Yes. You can maybe look to social breakdown of important norms that keep society healthy. But that's very general.

It has more to do with a sense of proper relationships, and trespassing relational boundaries. But many people don't see things like that as having any basis as a value. That's why progressivism always seems to be wanting to remove boundaries.

Yes. You can maybe look to social breakdown of important norms that keep society healthy. But that's very general.

Good point, but perhaps they would specify that the brother and sister have become lost on an island somewhere and are removed from society.

Although they may just say, "but they aren't harming anyone so you're being silly!".

YouTube has a number of channels that offer the livestreaming or recordings of US court proceedings that are conducted over Zoom or in-person.

A recent one involved an ex-partner violating orders to keep away from the partner and former residence. At one point, he was actually zooming in, as the defendant, denying that he was entering the former residence, while in the actual residence (the room and furnishings were recognised).

The defence attorney tried the, 'just because it's the same lamp, chair, looks like the same room, you can't prove it' argument'. And then switched to, 'unlike previous occasions where it's alleged that he beat her up, cutting her face, breaking her spectacles, breaking a bone or so (less clear on this one), it's not as if the woman was home at the time so there's no harm done'.

The woman is frightened. The ex-partner breaking in terrifies her not least because he's gone through her phone and is contacting and threatening people she knows.

But, you know, if nobody's home when your break in and go through their stuff and deny it, where's the harm.

This is such a fascinating topic and one I have frequently with a family member who is a political/philosophy lecturer for whom I've bought Jonathan Haidt's books. The discussions have helped me with critical thinking.

For example, we are having problems with mass immigration and the melding of communities with such deeply held religious values. How do we get around whose values should be upheld (in law and society) and whose are downplayed to enable this inclusivity?!

Also, the same problems we're having with the trans debate, although my mind is much clearer on the outcome needed in this instance.

The book goes into the issues raised on this thread in an interesting way: I haven't finished it, but I do recommend it.

This book has been in my Amazon basket for a long time but I have never bought it because people who use Amazon are morally depraved.

Not quite sure what you're saying here, Porcelina. It seems, actually to support what Haidt was talking about: 'I know what I think/feel, and I know I'm right, but at the moment I can't explain why.'

I think a lot of people do have a sense that something is wrong, and they feel strongly about it.

But they have never been taught to think through moral questions in a clear way, and they only have one moral value, which is harm to others.

They may be correct in their intuition (though there is a good chance they may not be, or might be only partly right, because they just don't have the tools to think clearly about it.)

But if they are correct, the problem is they are correct for the wrong reasons, so to speak. Which is kind of a problem, it leads to misunderstanding why people do whatever it is, and how to stop them doing it.