Morality/ethics: instinct vs ideology

[Bomb#20]

So how would that work if the chosen victim were a relative versus someone from another country? Are we now going to add categories for the imperative? What if you didn't know he was a relative?

I'm not following. Why would it make the slightest difference whether the guy were a relative? If you follow Kant's rule you can throw the switch but you can't throw the guy, in agreement with the widespread intuition doubtingt was objecting to, so that's a counterexample to his generalization about moral systems. But there's nothing in Kantian ethics to justify victimizing people because they're nonrelatives or from other countries or whatever. It's supposed to apply uniformly to all rational agents.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I have to admit I find advanced trolleology weird, even if fascinating.

Intuitively, I would reject both pushing the guy or diverting the trolley (and the loop, etc.), though the former seems worse to me, so I'm in the minority by the results reported in the thread, and even more so by the results reported here, where 83% of people rated Loop (a guy is used as a means to stop the trolley, but in a loop instead of pushing him) and Switch equally.

Similarly, the results for loops in this paper are quite weird to me - though other papers did find a significant difference in patterns of judgment between using a person or an inanimate object to stop the trolley; so far, it's a 2-2 tie in number of papers, as far as I know -, but then, most results are.
Even so, Loop and its variants appears to often receive much greater support than Push - yet, Push also gets close to 50% in several cases (not sure how high or low they are in most experiments).

Personally, I find these sorts of experiments a bit suspect in terms of what they can tel us, for at least two reasons:

1. What the paper I linked to above calls "unconsious realism" (e.g., the probable results, in most cases, wouldn't be what is stipulated). While the paper tries to control for it, I don't think it does a good job at that. Even if a person consciously suspends disbelief, intuitively she may not. Maybe I'm just not good at suspending disbelief. Maybe many other people aren't, either. Maybe whether most people can suspend disbelief depends on how the specific scenario is set up, which would explain some of the weirdness and the variations. Or something else.

2. Most people may not have enough time to consider the matter in a serious way. That might explain, in particular, some of the order effects (not what the paper was evaluating, but even 46%-48% rate pushing the man acceptable in those experiments; that's much lower than the rate for diverting the trolley, but still close to half). Even philosophers' judgments are often affected by order effects of that sort, it seems ( http://brown.edu/Research/Cushman-Lab/docs/schwitzgebel&cushman_2012.pdf ).

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Another interesting and weird paper (to me, anyway :

http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/Proceedings/2010/papers/0626/paper0626.pdf

In experiment 1, there are two situations (people on the trains can't affect outcomes):

I. Train C – no one on board- is going to hit train A – 5 people on board -, unless it's diverted into another track, where it will hit train B – 1 person on B.
II. Train C – no one on board - is going to hit train A – 5 people on board -, unless B – 1 person on board - is diverted into its path.

Weirdly, the experimenters contend that II is a case in which a person is used as a means, and so that the Doctrine of Double Effect correctly predicts a difference in patterns of judgments, so the judgment that diverting the train in a. is acceptable will be more common than the judgment that diverting the train is acceptable in II – which is observed.
But that's false. DDE does not make that prediction. The person on train B is never used as a means to an end. What is used as a means to an end in II. is the train.
To be fair, when discussing experiment 3, the researchers seem to realize that the person who dies is not actually used as a means to an end, though they seem to doubt that people (other) would construe it in that matter (i.e., they seem to believe “people” will believe that that's a means to an end).

Experiment 3:

3.I. There is 1 person on B, 5 on A, and B is going to hit A killing the 5, but not the one on B, who is in the back of the train. C is redirected to hit B on the back, killing one but saving 5.
3.II. There is 1 person on B, 5 on A, and B is going to hit A killing the 5, but not the one on B, who is in the back of the train. C hits B so that the passenger is pushed towards the brake system, and that kills the passenger but stops B.
3.III. C – no passengers – is going to hit A. B – 1 passenger – is diverted to stop it. Acceptability ratings are very low.
3.IV. There is one person on D, which is not moving. The intervention sends empty train C on a collision course with D. That kills the passenger, but allows C to go on and hit empty train B, which is thus preventing from hitting train A, and killing its five passengers.


Comparing all four conditions, acceptability ratings are the highest and II, slightly lower in I, lower in IV and still lower in III.
Both results and interpretation are weird to me.
Apart from their “fairly high” and “fairly low” assessments (even III got 3.76 on a 1-6 scale asking whether a person should carry out the intervention; that question is also vague, complicating interpretation to some extent, but that sort of problem seems common in trolley experiments), researchers say that both conditions I and II refute DDE, because in both cases, the person on B is used as a means to an end, but in both cases, there is similarly high acceptability.
While it's true that the results are evidence against DDE (as an account of the observed patterns, regardless of whether it's true), it's not true that in both cases, a person is used as a means to an end. Only in condition II, a person is used like that.
In 3.III, the researchers count that as a person's being used as a means to an end. But that's not true, and I don't know that the mistake will be common.

 

[Underseer]

Angra, it sounds like you have read a lot of studies on the Trolley Problem. Are you aware of any of the cross-cultural studies, and do you think they point towards an instinctive basis (at least in part) for moral choices?

Are you aware of any other studies that give us some indication of how much of our moral choices are attributable to instinct and how much attributable to conscious choice?

 

[doubtingt]

Psychologists studying this problem have come up with several. One of the more ensuring is the idea of remoteness, whereby causal proximity to the death influences the judgement. in this case the redirection of an accident onto fresh victim has less proximity to the victims than pushing the victims themselves.

Psychologists have come up with several psychological explanations for why people make these judgments, but those psychological motives are decidedly NOT principles within any moral system. IOW, in what moral system does it say "Doing something that you know will certainly kill a person is less wrong if there are mediating causal steps. Such a principle in a moral system would mean that it is less immoral to hang a man than chop his head off with an axe, or less immoral to drop a boulder on someones head than to be holding the boulder while you strike him with it. People may feel different about these but I know of no moral system that explicitly justifies them being treated as different.
Also, causal proximity was exactly my suggestion as to why people make such judgments. People who understand that mediating steps doesn't make a causal impact any less determined by the originating act are less likely to judge the scenarios as different. Most people who say these scenarios "feel" different have no idea that causal proximity is why they feel different and they probably would not claim that such a factor should make a difference in moral judgment. IOW, what appears to be a moral difference is an unconscious and unreasoned by-product of a subjectively felt difference in causal determinism due to proximity differences that are not objectively different in causal determinism.

 

[doubtingt]

I'm not sure what you mean by "moral system" in this context. Most people just have moral opinions (they don't have formal 'moral systems') and many people are of the opinion that the two scenarios are morally distinct.

Perhaps you haven't heard of the doctrine of double effect which states that you may take action which has bad side effects, but deliberately intending harm (even for good causes) is wrong? It's a principle that is sometimes used as just one of the many justifications for morally differentiating the two scenarios (it's mentioned in  Trolley Problem).

I have heard of that principle and agree that it is a common and IMO good justification for a moral distinction. If you described two scenarios that actually differed on that principle, I would judge them as morally different. The problem is that the trolley scenarios don't differ on that principle, and this isn't a matter of opinion but of fact. In both scenarios the intent is to save the 5 people. In both scenarios, the person intends to engage in a physical action that will save those people. In both scenarios the person knows that an undesired but certain byproduct of his action will be the death of the other person. Once again, the sole actual difference is the number of mediating steps between the action and the outcome, just like pushing a domino 4 dominoes before the last one that you know will fall rather then 2 dominoes before the last one that you know will fall. No difference is intent nor in causal determinism.
If it is the case that people who judge the scenarios as morally different give this principle as the justification, then what it means is that the trolley problem is merely a test of reading comprehension. Those who miscomprehend the actual scenarios described and infer a difference in intent where no basis for this inference is presented, wind up judging the scenarios in their head (which aren't those described) as morally different.

This is clearly not the case. The two scenarios indisputably describe two slightly different series of events. What I assume you meant to say is that in your opinion there is no morally significant difference between the two scenarios.

It clearly is the case. What I said is that the amount of mediating steps is the difference in the actual scenarios described. Thus, either the moral judgments are being driven by nothing more than the number of mediating causal steps despite objectively identical causal determinism (which is odd because that does not related to any moral principle including your "double effect" doctrine), or people are failing to accurately comprehend the described scenarios and are drawing unwarranted inferences about them that then produce differences in moral judgment.

 

[The AntiChris]

I have heard of that principle and agree that it is a common and IMO good justification for a moral distinction. If you described two scenarios that actually differed on that principle, I would judge them as morally different. The problem is that the trolley scenarios don't differ on that principle, and this isn't a matter of opinion but of fact. In both scenarios the intent is to save the 5 people. In both scenarios, the person intends to engage in a physical action that will save those people. In both scenarios the person knows that an undesired but certain byproduct of his action will be the death of the other person.

I'm not sure you understand the doctrine of double effect. The crucial difference is that the death of the "other person" is a necessary component of the fat man scenario if the 5 are to be saved whereas it is not in the trolley diversion scenario (if the "other person" were to notice the oncoming trolley and move out of the way to avoid injury the 5 would still be saved). This is a fact and not opinion. Whether or not you consider this difference to be morally significant is quite another matter.

What I said is that the amount of mediating steps is the difference in the actual scenarios described. Thus, either the moral judgments are being driven by nothing more than the number of mediating causal steps despite objectively identical causal determinism (which is odd because that does not related to any moral principle including your "double effect" doctrine), or people are failing to accurately comprehend the described scenarios and are drawing unwarranted inferences about them that then produce differences in moral judgment.

I'm pretty sure you don't fully understand the doctrine of double effect (DDE). If you're interested, here's a link to an article discussing this very subject:

Double Effect, Triple Effect and the Trolley Problem: Squaring the Circle in Looping Cases

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I'm familiar with a couple cross-cultural studies, but not many. They tend to show similar patterns cross-culturally. The following study finds differences in a somewhat similar scenario: http://journal.sjdm.org/12/121101/jdm121101.html (btw, in that paper, you can find references to other studies involving people from different cultures)

Still, that study too shows no significant difference in judgments on the trolley scenario (of course, if one keeps looking, it's unsurprising that there are some differences in some hypothetical scenarios, since culture often affects many beliefs, including some moral beliefs, but that's nothing we don't know already).

As to how to interpret trolley problems terms of instinct vs. culture, the lack of significant influence of culture is against the culture-based view.

On the other hand, I would be cautious about reaching too strong a conclusion from trolley problems with regard to other issues, like how similar or different different humans are in that regard. For example, while there are disagreements in several of the scenarios (with close to half saying it's not immoral, more than half saying otherwise, or about 30% saying one thing, etc), I see no good reason to think that even after debating the matter and/or thinking about it, etc., the same patterns would remain among people who are being rational.

 

[fromderinside]

I'm not following. Why would it make the slightest difference whether the guy were a relative? If you follow Kant's rule you can throw the switch but you can't throw the guy, in agreement with the widespread intuition doubtingt was objecting to, so that's a counterexample to his generalization about moral systems. But there's nothing in Kantian ethics to justify victimizing people because they're nonrelatives or from other countries or whatever. It's supposed to apply uniformly to all rational agents.

Ever hear of kin selection? If Kant didn't cover it Kant can't be used for a morality that fits reality.

All the a prioris in the universe can't fix bad reasoning.

I've always had problems with morality that's purely rational, and incorrectly so, when it is applied to a being that is mostly emotional.

 

[arkirk]

I have always regarded this "thought experiment" with disdain. Why? Because in participating in this experiment, we accept a set of options that excludes other options. In this aspect, you must accept that in all situations of this severity, there is not time to consider all the facts or modes of operating on the problem. No decision in this matter can be regarded as a rational decision because, in the crafting of the experiment, all the outcomes are absolutely circumscribed. This implies that we can be certain that all the given actions will result in certain results. By now, we should come to realize we can have that level of certainty in in very few instances.

For instance, people standing on tracks are aware they are in a dangerous place and are apt to be wary. There is always the possibility that in either situation, all 5 of the people on the track will step away before the trolly gets there. The same is true with the one lone man. If the trolley is far enough away from the potential victims that you have time to think this matter out, it is also less certain the results of your choice. If they are that far from the trolley, there are other options not allowed in the "thought experiment." If you honestly consider the situation the "thought experiment" describes, it is difficult to imagine such a set of conditions. Trolleys and rail lines are not designed to mow down people, but instead to transport people.

Regarding pushing the fat man off the bridge, might it also occur to one that the fat man may react and push you off the bridge? I think the type of "thought experiment" required to make the determination the experiment pretends to would involve five people in the hands of a madman helpless and a sixth man in the same situation. The question posed is kill one or kill five. The experiment itself is an unrealistic set of conditions if you consider the nature of trollies and people.

If the situation were that imminent, the distances would be such that one could yell and save either the five or the one. What is blatantly missing in this experiment is the uncertainty of the outcomes regardless of the decision made.

To have sufficient grasp of the actual facts in the matter would not be possible and the decision reached would not possibly be rational.

 

[Underseer]

Hey, the thought experiment is a classic and valid means of generating hypotheses in science. Those hypotheses can then be tested.

Of course, anyone who tries to use a thought experiment to prove something is missing the point.

 

[Zeluvia]

I have to admit I find advanced trolleology weird, even if fascinating.

I thought advanced trolleology was the study of internet trolls.

 

[arkirk]

This thread says ethics versus instinct. So we a left with this word instinct now interfering with our morality. What is meant by instinct is an open question. Where did this idea come from? Seeing animals doing things that are sometimes complex (like mainly long migrations to nesting grounds or feeding territories. I have a hunch some animals have some senses we do not fully understand that allow for their behaviors. I do not find any real proof there is such a thing as instinct, not unless you want to call doing things we do not understand how they are done is "instinct." That does not really add anything to morality arguments at all. For instance, does a wolf hunt because of instinct or does it do so because I is hungry. Wolf packs have a culture with leaders and followers. It is possible that this instinct idea comes from long ingrained SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS, whether we understand them or not.

Back to trolleyology...what has instinct to do with a thing that is the result of society building trolley lines, etc. We tend to develop preferences on the basis of our experience and advice given us by people we feel we can trust.

 

[fromderinside]

what has instinct to do with a thing that is the result of society building trolley lines, etc. We tend to develop preferences on the basis of our experience and advice given us by people we feel we can trust.

Everybody is working at the wrong level here. Expressed gene alliances are competing within individuals for preference. Those alliances which produce behavior that lead to a particular genotype alliance gaining advantage, reproducing, over another gene group phenotype alliance. thusly the tend to become favored since they are preferentially reproduced over the other. Yes this calculus extends to kin. So taken together expressed gene alliances within individual and related groups of individuals in interactive activities reproduce making likely that form of behavior becoming more entrenched within the genome.


Not a tough problem at all.

Sure its hard to see how one gene drives behavior.

Its not so hard to see how a group of genes might produce behaviors since they can produce a fleet of group genotypes that produce functional phenotypes. It is also reasonable to assume that genes align with other genes to produce competing functional alliances. So when push comes to shove the gene that wins is the gene that did the right thing by teaming up with other genes that produced good behavioral results. ...and here we are right back at the selfish gene.

 

[Underseer]

This thread says ethics versus instinct. So we a left with this word instinct now interfering with our morality. What is meant by instinct is an open question. Where did this idea come from? Seeing animals doing things that are sometimes complex (like mainly long migrations to nesting grounds or feeding territories. I have a hunch some animals have some senses we do not fully understand that allow for their behaviors. I do not find any real proof there is such a thing as instinct, not unless you want to call doing things we do not understand how they are done is "instinct." That does not really add anything to morality arguments at all. For instance, does a wolf hunt because of instinct or does it do so because I is hungry. Wolf packs have a culture with leaders and followers. It is possible that this instinct idea comes from long ingrained SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS, whether we understand them or not.

Back to trolleyology...what has instinct to do with a thing that is the result of society building trolley lines, etc. We tend to develop preferences on the basis of our experience and advice given us by people we feel we can trust.

In order for being a social species to be a viable survival strategy, there needs to be a standard of behavior, and it needs to be universal to the species (or at least the social group). Genetics seems to be the most obvious mechanism by which this would come to exist, but the standards of behavior are fairly complex, even for animals as simple as ants and bees.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I thought advanced trolleology was the study of internet trolls.

Nope, that is trollology, apparently studied by trollologists.

Trolleology is studied by some philosophers and some psychologists.

 

[Zeluvia]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_dysfunction

Underseer, it is very complicated. Go read the genetic related parts of this article.

 

[arkirk]

However a person's or a bee's practices and preferences are determined obviously is a result of natural selection. Tendencies for certain behaviors are no doubt genetically extended through reproduction. I do however question the notion that genes do much more than continue social tendencies and that is entirely dependent on the prevailing environmental conditions. We are losing large populations of bees today. That is because the auto-loading the genes give the individual or indeed the entire social order may not contain sufficient or perhaps the needed capabilities to survive in current environmental conditions.

In several areas on the globe, there are populations who are refugees. It is obvious to me that those refugees are where they are because the environmental conditions in their origin country became un-livable...regardless of the genetic predisposition of the people to be social. Social standards such as humans may consider are only tangentially dependent on genetics. We are alive because of genes and we have certain tendencies because of genes, but as environmental conditions change, the genetic information is carrying only the information that allowed us to survive in past conditions, and indeed some information that may be detrimental to further social human survival.

The specific conditions that are current in any society are not necessarily a good match with the genetics we have received from our ancestors. As our communication and science advance, it is obvious that this is something that has not been occurring in other terrestrial species. It is true that genetics and natural selection has produced us and our world, yet we engage in highly structured social activities which are not directly a result of genetics, but a result of our social relationships and the environmental feedback we receive. We cannot divorce ourselves from our genetics, but we can, if we choose reorganize or migrate to a location where we can reorganize for a more sustainable set of living conditions.

That is what the human race has done historically. We have had many casualties in the system of adjustment built into us by our genes. Some of the options for social adjustment (migration for example) lose their efficacy when we fill the petri dish with ourselves and our waste. This appears to be where we are heading. I feel we will not find the answers to social and environmental problems in our genes but instead in rational humanistic approaches. What I am pointing to is that our world is so changed by our presence, we need to recognize these changes and adapt our behavior as needed, and not necessarily according to some sort of hard wiring in our genes.

 

[Underseer]

Akirk you bring up good points, but our instincts are going to conflict with each other from time to time.

For instance, in any social species, you have instincts for self-preservation and instincts for helping the group that are going to be in constant conflict with each other. Individual organisms still need instincts for taking care of themselves so that the group is not overly taxed which leads to individuals favoring themselves over the group, but on the other hand there also needs to be instincts for favoring the group over the self or else being a social species doesn't work as a survival strategy.

I suspect that with bees and ants, this is not much of an issue because they are relatively simple organisms, but what happens when these two opposing instincts exist within a social species with a more powerful brain?

http://scienceblogs.com/thoughtfulanimal/2010/09/20/hints-of-moral-thinking-in-dog/

Research done on dogs and apes (chimps? I forget which ones) show that they have a sense of fairness. They keep track of each individual and how much they give to the group and how much they take from the group. If they feel that an individual takes more than they give, then they are less inclined to help that individual. If they feel that an individual gives more than it takes, then they will be more inclined to help that individual. I suspect that as this same set of experiments are conducted on other species of social mammal that we will find this same phenomenon quite prevalent. Why? Because every social mammal is juggling conflicting instincts regarding caring for the self and caring for the group.

Obviously, I don't know for certain that intelligence is the reason we see this in dogs but not ants (heck, for all I know, ants have a sense of fairness also, but I am aware of no similar research being performed on social insects). If that is the case, then it stands to reason that humans are going to have even more weirdness going on with conflicting instincts and a wider array of possible responses to such conflicts in instinct.

Another thing that brings potential conflict is culture. We are now starting to become aware of culture in other species of social mammals: standards of behavior that are unique to a particular social group and that are taught rather than the result of instinct. Perhaps there is some instinct at work here that drives social mammals to conform to group behavior, even if the behavior in question is not the result of genetics. This too would influence the role of instinct in human ethics.

 

[arkirk]

Everybody is working at the wrong level here. Expressed gene alliances are competing within individuals for preference. Those alliances which produce behavior that lead to a particular genotype alliance gaining advantage, reproducing, over another gene group phenotype alliance. thusly the tend to become favored since they are preferentially reproduced over the other. Yes this calculus extends to kin. So taken together expressed gene alliances within individual and related groups of individuals in interactive activities reproduce making likely that form of behavior becoming more entrenched within the genome.


Not a tough problem at all.

Sure its hard to see how one gene drives behavior.

Its not so hard to see how a group of genes might produce behaviors since they can produce a fleet of group genotypes that produce functional phenotypes. It is also reasonable to assume that genes align with other genes to produce competing functional alliances. So when push comes to shove the gene that wins is the gene that did the right thing by teaming up with other genes that produced good behavioral results. ...and here we are right back at the selfish gene.

Then how do square that with a polyglot nation achieving world dominance? All the major nations of the world are polyglot nations. I am not saying they are necessarily happy about that, but it is a fact. This gene idea is more like a roulette wheel than something that is preset to always produce improvement and refinement . I think it causes us to neglect analysis of common policies, both defacto and official government, and instead speak of us in genotype terms.

Which gene makes us fair? Which gene makes us kind? Which gene makes us long suffering and loyal? These things may be a product of our entire construction and not traceable to some spot on some chromosome. What makes New York New York is a product of its totality. Perhaps it is the same with people. We have these brains with billions of neurons that configure their information for themselves autonomously and without our bidding them to do so. What causes this configuration to occur? It does not occur in a vacuum. Individuals all think for themselves, even if they happen to think it wise to conform to societal norms, that decision is made in each case individually. Ideology as has been spoken of in this thread is treated as half the equation. Considering that when a person acts as a moral agent or just plain acts, that is all a person is to the world.

Sometime deep in the future, when we have a far greater understanding of how brains function in total, we may have a physiological explanation of our thinking process, but that is not now. Genetics and epigenetics cannot account for how we think, though in some cases, we get clues to how it may cause mental dysfunction. What I am trying to say here is that there really is no way to escape some kind of reasoning in favor of some kind of automatic response that is built into us. This idea is the seed of social disorder because that common referent may well be the limbic system, which essentially is irrational and more an alarm system than a planning structure.