We now have a better biological and psychological understanding of our moral thinking. The idea that we should do what maximizes happiness sounds very reasonable, but it often conflicts with our gut reactions. Philosophers have spent the last century or so finding examples where our intuition runs counter to this idea and have taken these as signals that something is wrong with this philosophy. But when you look at the psychology behind those examples, they become less compelling. An alternative is that our gut reactions are not always reliable.

Joshua Greene

Categorized in : Philosophy Running Taken

When you share your moral common sense with people in your locality, that helps you to form a community. But those gut reactions differ between groups, making it harder to get along with other groups.

common-sense community people

Morality is essentially a suite of psychological mechanisms that enable us to cooperate. But, biologically at least, we only evolved to cooperate in a tribal way. Individuals who were more cooperative with those around them - could outcompete others who were not. However, we have the capacity to take a step back from this and ask what a more global morality would look like. Why are the lives of people on the other side of the world worth any less than those in my immediate community? Going through that reasoning process can allow our moral thinking to do something it never evolved to.

community people thinking

When there is a conflict, which group's sense of right and wrong should prevail? If a morality is a system that allows individuals to form a group and to get along with each other, then the challenge is to devise a system that allows different groups to get along - what I call a meta-morality.

morality different challenges

Since functional brain imaging first emerged, we have learned that there aren't very many brain regions uniquely responsible for specific tasks; most complex tasks engage many if not all of the brain's major networks. So it is fairly hard to make general psychological inferences just from brain data.

responsible psychological brain

When you are thinking about whether you have an obligation to try to save people's lives, you don't usually think, well, how close by are they? Understanding what we are reacting to can change the way we think about the problem. If, biologically, morality evolved to help us get along with individuals in our community, it makes sense that we have heartstrings that can be tugged - and that they are not going to be tugged very hard from far away. But does that make sense? From a more reflective moral perspective, that may just be a cognitive glitch.

perspective community thinking

Utilitarianism is inherently pragmatic - in fact, I prefer to call it "deep pragmatism." Humans have real limitations, obligations, and frailties, so the best policy is to set reasonable goals, given your limitations. Just try to be a little less tribalistic.

real goal trying

Milton said, ‘You can live with my family,’ ’I’ll pay for all your needs. And you can go to acting school, dancing school — whatever you want to do. I’ll make sure you’re covered.’… For about a year, she was in hiding. Nobody knew where she was. She wanted control of script approval, directing approval, take over her career and not be the dumb blond ts and a girl. Which is exactly what she hated and wanted to get away from. Milton wanted to be a producer and direct films. It’s not a secret for a photographer wanting to do that.

She was an excellent houseguest according to my mom and dad, she was never needy. She would keep to herself. She knew she had the run of the house. The guest room had its own entrance and exit. They played charades and cards. Gene Kelly, who was probably one of the greatest charade players of all time, was unstoppable. Marilyn was always like a little girl watching a master at work because when Gene Kelly did his charades, everyone would stop in awe… She loved to read and would sit quietly for hours and read books. And she loved music.

My mother had a dream, she woke up my father and was like, ‘You need to call Marilyn. You need to call her right now. I don’t know what it is, but you need to call her. They haven’t spoken — we’re talking from 57 to 62. He called her on the phone and they talked for two and a half hours. They both loved being on the phone. Milton said, ‘Look, I’m going to Paris to do a collection, I’ll be back in a month. I’ll come out and see you and we’ll spend some time together.’ Two and a half weeks by and he was still in Paris. A friend called and said, ‘Have you seen the paper? Marilyn was found dead in her home in California.’.

Milton realized what a wonderful chameleon Marilyn can be in front of the camera, they knowingly jumped off the cliff together, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

A lot of the pictures were just candids that he shot at an unexpected [time], [That occurred] during the shoot or even between when she was just sitting around and having a cup of tea or coffee or when she was casually relaxing… She was always comfortable with Milton. He wanted to take pictures of her almost as a character actress [in costume]… And these photos weren’t for a particular assignment. They were explorations… In time he got to know her in a more intimate way and she got to see herself portrayed in ways other than Hollywood style.

This is why, I think, the Republican base trusts Trump like no other.