[MD] Psychology supports the MOQ

[Platt Holden]

Hi All, 

Interesting article by JONATHAN HAIDT, Associate Professor of Psychology at 
the University of Virginia, where he does research on morality and emotion 
and how they vary across cultures. He  recently summarized a new synthesis 
in moral psychology with four principles. Here is the first principle that 
supports the MOQ:  (My comments in parens)

"1) Intuitive primacy but not dictatorship. This is the idea, going back to 
Wilhelm Wundt and channeled through Robert Zajonc and John Bargh, that the 
mind is driven by constant flashes of affect in response to everything we 
see and hear. (Note he says "everything we see or hear," in other words, 
the front edge of experience. Also note his use of the word "flashes," 
indicating the immediacy of affective  judgments prior to conceptions.)

"Our brains, like other animal brains, are constantly trying to fine tune 
and speed up the central decision of all action: approach or avoid. You 
can't understand the river of fMRI studies on neuroeconomics and decision 
making without embracing this principle. We have affectively-valenced 
intuitive reactions to almost everything, particularly to morally relevant 
stimuli such as gossip or the evening news. Reasoning by its very nature is 
slow, playing out in seconds. (Again, evaluation prior to thought, keyed to 
survival.)

"Studies of everyday reasoning show that we usually use reason to search 
for evidence to support our initial judgment, which was made in 
milliseconds. (Note again the immediacy again of moral judgment.) 
But I do agree with Josh Greene that sometimes we can use controlled 
processes such as reasoning to override our initial intuitions. I just 
think this happens rarely, maybe in one or two percent of the hundreds of 
judgments we make each week. And I do agree with Marc Hauser that these 
moral intuitions require a lot of computation, which he is unpacking.

"Hauser and I mostly disagree on a definitional question: whether this 
means that "cognition" precedes "emotion." I try never to contrast those 
terms, because it's all cognition. I think the crucial contrast is between 
two kinds of cognition: intuitions which are fast and usually affectively 
laden and reasoning which is slow, cool, and less motivating." (I like his 
lumping of intuition with reason under the general term, "cognition." In 
other words, cognition used as a synonym for experience.)

I think you'll find the rest of the article of considerable interest. he 
has some revealing things to say about it conservatives. It  is at:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html

Regards,
Platt