Moral reasoning and decision making 2017

Course Organiser: Dr. Matteo Colombo Email: [email protected] Office: D 236 Website: https://mteocolphi.wordpress.com/

Course Description Why do we tip at restaurants, but never at shoe shops? Why do we find repugnant to have sex with siblings? Why don’t people wear shorts when they get married? Why do we get angry if somebody jumps a queue? Why is it more likely that people throw an empty can of coke on the street when the street is already dirty? Why, when we get up in the morning, don’t we even consider to be nudist for the day? Why did women and children aboard the Titanic were more likely to survive than males? What if a person had no social contact during the first years of her life? In this course we shall explore these types of questions by intermingling philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. Our focus will be on the psychological and philosophical foundations of judgement and decision-making in the moral/social domain.

Background Prior familiarity with the material discussed during the course is not assumed. However, students will benefit from having the following background: (1) A previous philosophy course with a substantial ethics component. (2) A previous philosophy course with a substantial component in philosophy of science. (3) At least one course in psychology or a related human science.

Learning Goals Upon successful completion of the course, you will be able:

1) To summarize, explain and compare (using specific examples) the central theories and arguments in the field of contemporary moral psychology, in particular about the relationship between moral behaviour, expectations, judgement, emotion and reason; 2) To apply your understanding and insight about current theories of social norms (e.g. Bicchieri’s Elster’s, etc.) to make sense of how people make moral decisions; 3) To formulate simple explanatory hypotheses about ordinary social behaviour and to critically analyze them; 4) To design and carry out a simple experiment to test an original hypothesis about social norms; 5) To evaluate the normative implications, if any, of findings in the cognitive sciences for problems in ethics; 6) To bring together knowledge from different sources in philosophy and cognitive science to critically unravel some topic of research in moral psychology.

Methods of assessment There are four methods of assessment for this course.

Preparation. You are expected to complete the assigned readings before class, to bring the texts under discussion to class, and to be prepared to discuss them. In particular, each week you should come to class with at least one question about the reading. You will peer mark at least two assignments by one of your class mates. You will present the results of your breaching experiment in front of the class.

Short Q-A. Every week, you must think about and formulate an interesting short question about some potentially puzzling, social/moral behaviour, in which people around them routinely engage—e.g. “Why do people shake hands?”; “Why do people pay taxes?”; “Why do people at the airport wait standing in queue at the gate for a long time before their flight is actually ready for boarding?” This question should be emailed to me by the Saturday before the class. Every week I will select one question. You are required to propose an answer to it in no more than 400 words. This answer should be emailed to me at least 48 hours before the next class.

IMPORTANT The point of this exercise is to engage you to think through, and write about ordinary social phenomena (preferably issues they find interesting, important and puzzling) in a clear, precise, concise and structured way. I shall provide details about how to approach this exercise at the beginning of the course.

Breaching experiment. You are required to write one report on a breaching experiment in no more than 2,000 words. One class in the course will be devoted to explain how you should approach this exercise.

Final essay. You are required to write an essay of no more than 2,500 words at the end of the course. The essay will be written on a topic covered during the course after my approval.

Final mark/Weight of assessment components - participation in class (15%), - the weekly short questions and answers (20%), - the report on the breaching experiment (25%), - the final essay (40%). 1

Schedule and readings

There is no official textbook. We shall work on articles, and excerpts from books. If you have troubles finding any of the readings, please email me.

31.01 Class I What’s moral psychology about? This class introduces the topic, requirements, and goals for this course.

Required reading:

* Doris, J.M. & Stich, S.P. (2006). Moral Psychology: Empirical Approaches. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2003 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-psych-emp/

OR

* Alfano, M. & Loeb, D. (2016). Experimental Moral Philosophy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). URL = .

Further readings

Hume, D.A. Treatise of Human Nature: A Critical Edition, David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (eds.), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2007. (Book 3, Part 1, Section 1 – Pay special attention to the last two paragraphs). Available in the library and online (e.g. URL: < http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4705>).

Prinz, J.J. (2007). The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Preamble: Naturalism and Hume’s Law, pp. 1-10. Available in the library.

Stich, S. & Doris J. (2005). As a Matter of Fact: Empirical Perspectives on Ethics. In F. Jackson and M. Smith, (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 114-152.

07.02 Class II What are norms? And how do they explain? What are norms? Is there any difference between moral and social norms? And how can we tell? In this lecture we tackle these questions by examining three accounts.

Required readings [email me in case you cannot find them]

* Bicchieri, C. (2006). The Grammar Of Society, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press (Ch. 1) Available in the library.

* Elster, J. (2009). Social norms and the explanation of behavior. In P. Hedström and P. Bearman (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 195-217 Available in the library.

Further readings

Beebe, J. (forthcoming). The Empirical Study of Folk Metaethics. http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jbeebe2/Beebe%20The%20Empirical%20Study%20of%20Folk%20Metaethics.pdf

Brennan, G., Eriksson, L., Goodin, R. E., & Southwood, N. (2013). Explaining norms. Oxford University Press. Chapter 1

Nado, J., Kelly, D. & Stich, S. (2009). Moral Judgments. In P. Calvo & J. Simons (Eds). The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Psychology. New York: Routledge., pp. 621-633. Preprint available online at: URL: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~stich/Publications/Papers/Moral%20Judgment%20- %20FINAL%20DRAFT%20-%20web.pdf

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Turiel, E. (1979). Distinct conceptual and developmental domains: Social convention and morality. In H. Howe & C. Keasey (Eds) (1979). Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1977: Social Cognitive Development, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 25:77-116.

14.02 Class III How can we experiment on norms? The breaching experiment Conceptual analysis and thought experiments have been the traditional methods of philosophical inquiry into the foundations of morality. Over the past decade or so, unabashedly interdisciplinary/empirical methods to the study of moral cognition have been used. This lecture introduces this “experimental wave”, with a focus on a methodology known as “breaching experiment,” which students will have to employ to design and carry out a simple study of how social norm compliance works.

Read at least one of the following:

* Bicchieri, C. & Xiao, E. (2008). Do the Right Thing: But Only if Others Do So. Journal of behavioural decision making, 21: 1-18. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

* Lisciandra, C., Postma-Nilsenová, M., & Colombo, M. (2013). Conformorality. A study on group conditioning of normative judgment. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 4(4), 751-764. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

* Milgram, S., Liberty, H. J., Toledo, R., & Wackenhut, J. (1986). Response to intrusion into waiting lines. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 683-689. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat

Further reading

Garfinkel, H. (1964). Studies of the Routine Grounds of Every- day Activities, Social Problems, 11, 225-250. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat

21.02 Class IV Existential moral psychology: Managing norm violations What maintains meaning in the face of norm violations? This lecture will focus on the ways that we find and maintain meaning in our moral experience, including the ways that meaning frameworks allow us to make sense of our social world.

Required reading

* Proulx, T., & Heine, S. J. (2010). The Frog in Kierkegaard’s Beer: Finding Meaning in the Threat- Compensation Literature. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 4/10, 889–905.

Further readings

Maddux, W. W., Adam, H., & Galinsky, A. D. (2010). When in Rome . . . learn why the Romans do what they do: How multicultural learning experiences facilitate creativity. Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 731–741.

Kierkegaard, S. (1997a). The concept of anxiety. In H. Hong & E. Hong (Eds.), The essential Kierkegaard (pp. 138–156). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1844)

Markman, K. D., Karadogan, F., Lindberg, M. J., & Zell, E. (2009). Counterfactual thinking: Function and dysfunction. In K. D. Markman,W. P. Klein, J. A. Suhr, K. D.Markman,W. P. Klein, & J. A. Suhr (Eds.), Handbook of imagination and mental simulation (pp. 175–193). New York, NY: Psychology Press

Proulx, T. & Inzlicht, M. (2012) The Five “A”s of Meaning Maintenance: Finding Meaning in the Theories of Sense-Making, Psychological Inquiry, 23:4, 317-335.

Thompson, E., & Stapleton, M. (2009). Making Sense of Sense-Making: Reflections on Enactive and Extended Mind Theories. Topoi, 28:23–30.

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07.03 Class V Three models of moral judgement: The social intuitionist model How do we judge what is right/good or wrong/bad? This lecture will focus on Jonathan Haidt’s social intuitionist model.

Required readings

* Haidt, J . (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review. 108, 814-834. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

If you have time, also read:

* Railton, P. (2014). The Affective Dog and Its Rational Tale: Intuition and Attunement*. Ethics, 124(4), 813- 859.

Further readings

Haidt, J., Koller, S. & Dias, M. (1993). Affect, Culture, and Morality, Or Is It Wrong to Eat Your Dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65: 613-28.

Haidt, J. (2007). The new synthesis in moral psychology. Science, 316(5827), 998-1002.

Haidt, J., & Kesebir, S. (2010). Morality. In S. Fiske, & D. Gilbert (Eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology, 5th Edition.

Nichols, S. (2002). Norms with feeling: Towards a psychological account of moral judgment. Cognition 84: 221–36.

14.03 Class VI Three models of moral judgement: Dual-system model How do we judge what is right/good or wrong/bad? This lecture will focus on Josh Greene’s dual-system model.

Required reading:

* Cushman, F., Young, L., & Greene, J. D. (2010). Our multi-system moral psychology: Towards a consensus view. In J. Doris, G. Harman, S. Nichols, J. Prinz, W. Sinnott-Armstrong, and S. Stich (Eds.). The Oxford handbook of moral psychology, Oxford University Press, pp. 47-71.

Further Readings

Evans, J. S. B., & Stanovich, K. E. (2013). Dual-process theories of higher cognition advancing the debate. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(3), 223-241.

Greene, J. D. (2007). The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul. In. W. P. Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), Moral Psychology, Vol. 3: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Disease, and Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Available online at URL: < http://www.joshua-greene.net/publications/>

Greene, J.D., Sommerville, R.B., Nystrom, L.E., Darley, J.M., & Cohen, J.D. 2001. “An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment.” Science 293 (Sept. 14): 2105-2108. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

21.03 Class VII Three models of moral judgement: Universal moral grammar How do we judge what is right/good or wrong/bad? This lecture will focus on John Mikhail’s universal moral grammar hypothesis.

Required reading

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* Mikhail, J. (2007). Universal Moral Grammar: Theory, Evidence, and the Future. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(4), 143-152. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

Further readings

Dwyer, S. (2006). How Good is the Linguistic Analogy? In edited by Carruthers, P., Laurence, S., and Stich, S. (eds.), The Innate Mind, Vol. 2, Culture and Cognition. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Hauser, M.D. (2006). The liver and the moral organ. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1(3), 214- 220.

Phelan, M. (2012). Review of John Mikhail’s Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls' Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/28666-elements-of-moral-cognition-rawls-linguistic-analogy-and-the-cognitive- science-of-moral-and-legal-judgment/

Ross, G. (2006). An interview with Marc Hauser. American Scientist. http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/marc-hauser

18.04 Class VIII Your breaching experiment. In this class, you will present your breaching experiment.

25.04 Class IX Abnormal moral psychology and decision-making: Autism This lecture concerns the involvement of “theory of mind” in moral behaviour with a focus on autism.

Required reading

* McGeer, V. (2008). Varieties of Moral Agency: Lessons from autism (and Psychopathy). In W. Sinnott- Armstrong (Ed.), Moral psychology, volume 3: The neuroscience of morality. Cambridge: MIT Press, 227-257. Available online at URL: http://www.princeton.edu/~vmcgeer/papers/McGeer2008VarMoralAgency.pdf

Further readings

Moran, J.M., Young, L.L., Saxe, R., Lee, S.M., O’Young, D., Mavros, P. L., et al. (2011). “Impaired theory of mind for moral judgment in high-functioning autism.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1011734108 Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

De Vignemont, F. (2007). Autism, morality and empathy. Moral Psychology volume 3: The Neuroscience of Morality, 273-280.

James, R., & Blair, R. (1996). Brief report: Morality in the autistic child. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 26(5), 571-579.

02.05 Class X Abnormal moral psychology and decision-making: Psychopathy This lecture concerns the involvement of emotion and moral judgement in moral motivation with a focus on psychopathy.

Required reading

* Borg, J. S., & Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (2013). Do Psychopaths Make Moral Judgments? In K. Kiehl & W. Sinnott-Armstrong (Eds.). Handbook on Psychopathy and Law. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 107- 128. Available online at URL: http://goo.gl/xhZ0Bw

Further readings

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Nadelhoffer, T. & Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (2013). Is psychopathy a mental disease? In N. Vincent (Ed.), Legal Responsibility and Neuroscience. Oxford University Press: 227-253.

Kiehl, K.A., & Hoffman, M.B. (2011). The criminal psychopath: History, neuroscience and economics. Jurimetrics: The Journal of Law, Science, and Technology, Summer 2011, 355-397. Available online at URL: http://www.usdistrictcourtconferencenv.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/05/Kiehl_Hoffman-Final-Proofs.pdf

Kiehl, K.A. (2008). Without morals: The cognitive neuroscience of psychopathy. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology Volume 3: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders, and Development (MIT Press, 2008).

Blair, R. J. (2001). Neurocognitive models of aggression, the antisocial personality disorders, and psychopathy.” Journal Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 71(6), 727-731. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

09.05 Class XI Socialization and “Good” Decision-Making What are the roles of socialization and social context on “good” decision-making and deliberation? In some sense, that is, good decision-making depends on and is sustained by socialization. This does not entail, however, that socialization is always conducive to good (or morally acceptable) decisions or that it always facilitates effective deliberation. This lecture explores in which sense and under what conditions “good” decision-making and deliberation depend on socialization.

Required reading

* Doris, J., and Nichols, S. (2013). Broadminded: Sociality and the Cognitive Science of Morality. In E. Margolis, R. Samuels, and S. Stich (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Cognitive Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press Preprint available online at: URL: http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com/files/dorisnicholsbroadxphi.pdf

Further readings

Harlow, H. F., Dodsworth, R. & Harlow, M. (1965). Total Social Isolation in Monkeys. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 54: 90-97. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

Solomon, M. (2006). Groupthink versus the wisdom of crowds: The social epistemology of deliberation and dissent. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 44, 28-42. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

16.05 Class XII Animal Moral Cognition The gulf between animals and humans in their capacity to abide by norms is huge. Often philosophers take for granted that language is the key to understand this chasm. Plausibly, the capacity to use language for example, seems a necessary condition for a group or an individual to propagate moral norms. This lecture explores the relationship between the possibility of moral cognition and language.

Required reading

* Rowlands, M. (2011). Animals that act for moral reasons. In T. Beauchamp and R. G. Frey (eds.). Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 547-76. http://www.academia.edu/225534/Animals_that_Act_for_Moral_Reasons

Further readings

Brosnan, S. F., & De Waal, F. B. (2003). Monkeys reject unequal pay. Nature, 425(6955), 297-299.

Churchland, P. M. (2000). “Rules, Know-How, and the Future of Moral Cognition.” In (R. Campbell and B. Hunter, eds) Moral Epistemology Naturalized, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, supplementary volume XXVI. Available online at: URL: < http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/people/clark/pubs/Rules.pdf> 6

Clark, A. (2000a). Word and action: reconciling rules and know-how in moral cognition. In R. Campbell & B. Hunter. Moral Epistemology Naturalized, Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 267-290. Preprint available online at: URL

Clark, A. (2000b) Making moral space. A reply to Churchland. In R. Campbell & B. Hunter. Moral Epistemology Naturalized, Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 307-312.

Colombo, M. (2013). Leges Sine Moribus Vanae. Does Language Make Moral Thinking Possible? Biology and Philosophy, 28: 501-521. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

23.05 Class XIII Normative Theories and Empirical Evidence. What Now? If some of the explanations of how we function in moral contexts is true, what would it follow for normative theories? This lecture will explore this question by considering possible consequences for policy-making and ethics.

Required readings

* Greene, J. (2003). From neural ‘is’ to moral ‘ought’: what are the moral implications of neuroscientific moral psychology? Nature Review Neuroscience, 4, 847–850. Available online – from the UvT Library WorldCat.

* Thaler, R., and Sunstein, C. R. (2003). Libertarian Paternalism,” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 93, 175–179. Available online at: URL:

Further readings

Appiah, K. A. (2008). Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Ch. 5).

Berker, S. (2009). The Normative Insignificance of Neuroscience. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 37, 293-329.

Gigerenzer, G. (2015). On the Supposed Evidence for Libertarian Paternalism. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1-23.

Greene, J. D. (2014). Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality: Why Cognitive (Neuro) Science Matters for Ethics*. Ethics, 124(4), 695-726.

Hausman, D., & Welch, B. (2010). Debate: To nudge or not to nudge. Journal of Political Philosophy, 18, 123-136.

Joyce, R. (2008). What neuroscience can (and cannot) contribute to metaethics.” In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology Volume 3: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders, and Development (MIT Press, 2008): 371-394. Preprint available online at: URL: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/staff/richard_joyce/acrobat/joyce_neuroscience.contributes.to.metaethics.pdf

Nagel, T. (2013). You Can't Learn About Morality from Brain Scans The problem with moral psychology. New Republic. Available online at: URL: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115279/joshua-greenes-moral- tribes-reviewed-thomas-nagel

Sunstein, C. R. (2015). Nudges, Agency, and Abstraction: A Reply to Critics. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1-19.

30.05 Class XIV Wrap up and general review of the grounds covered in the course

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