cheryl
Administrator
Staff member
Young children use reason, not gut feelings, to decide moral issues - Psyche
In the past two decades, social science has painted a pretty dour picture of the power of moral reasoning. To explain why people disagree so profoundly about ethical and political questions, pundits and scientists have claimed that humans systematically disregard evidence from experts, and that we rely on gut feelings instead of reason. If true, these conclusions have pretty serious and depressing consequences. Why should politicians rely on logic or scientific evidence, if humans rarely reason about moral and political issues? Against this backdrop, it was hardly surprising when a leading psychologist told a Washington Post columnist in 2011 that it ‘is important for the president not to be rational and fully honest’.
According to this pessimistic view, most of our moral judgments spring from automatic, unconscious and affective reactions. When we feel disgust toward someone, our disgust is what leads us to condemn their actions. Conversely, according to this theory, moral reasoning rarely shapes our moral judgments, but rather serves to justify our emotion-based judgments after the fact.
In one well-known study from 2005, researchers hypnotized participants to be disgusted by a seemingly innocuous act: a student trying to select popular topics for school debates. Participants were then asked how morally wrong the student’s actions were. Those hypnotized to be disgusted rated the action as morally worse than their peers. The researchers reported that disgusted participants were unable to provide compelling reasons for why the student’s action was wrong. Reflecting on their findings, the researchers concluded that the findings illustrated how ‘reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions’, as the philosopher David Hume wrote in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40). Indeed, if the mere feeling of disgust can lead to moral condemnation, reasoning would be relegated to a supporting role, at best.
In the past two decades, social science has painted a pretty dour picture of the power of moral reasoning. To explain why people disagree so profoundly about ethical and political questions, pundits and scientists have claimed that humans systematically disregard evidence from experts, and that we rely on gut feelings instead of reason. If true, these conclusions have pretty serious and depressing consequences. Why should politicians rely on logic or scientific evidence, if humans rarely reason about moral and political issues? Against this backdrop, it was hardly surprising when a leading psychologist told a Washington Post columnist in 2011 that it ‘is important for the president not to be rational and fully honest’.
According to this pessimistic view, most of our moral judgments spring from automatic, unconscious and affective reactions. When we feel disgust toward someone, our disgust is what leads us to condemn their actions. Conversely, according to this theory, moral reasoning rarely shapes our moral judgments, but rather serves to justify our emotion-based judgments after the fact.
In one well-known study from 2005, researchers hypnotized participants to be disgusted by a seemingly innocuous act: a student trying to select popular topics for school debates. Participants were then asked how morally wrong the student’s actions were. Those hypnotized to be disgusted rated the action as morally worse than their peers. The researchers reported that disgusted participants were unable to provide compelling reasons for why the student’s action was wrong. Reflecting on their findings, the researchers concluded that the findings illustrated how ‘reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions’, as the philosopher David Hume wrote in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40). Indeed, if the mere feeling of disgust can lead to moral condemnation, reasoning would be relegated to a supporting role, at best.