The answer, as discussed in part l, which I posted on my blog on 2/25/2016, is a resounding no. (Please refer to Part 1 for an in- depth discussion why this is not the case; I will provide only a brief summary here.) Research has determined, on the basis of functional MRIs, (fMRIs,) that contemplation of a moral issue elicits a dual response in the brain. The first, centered in the amygdala, is an immediate "gut" reaction, which is not to be trusted. The second reaction, centered in the prefrontal cortex, involves abstract reasoning. and is considered to be a more reliable guide. This, as we have asserted, is nonsense. If one is convinced, for instance, that X is evil, one's abstract reasoning will readily find justification for this assertion, even though a thinker with a different belief system might be absolutely convinced that X is as innocent and intrinsically good as A. What determines one's response is adherence to a particular belief system--an axiom such as a form of the Golden Rule-- which cannot be derived from science; it must be assumed.
Part 1 was written partially as a basic confirmation of Tasmin Shaw's article, The Psychologists Take Power, which appeared in the February 25, 2016 edition of The New York Review of Books. In that article, Shaw discussed five books by prominent psychologists, who at least seem to assert that experts know better. They don't. Shaw informs us that at least some members of the American Psychological Association were rather easily seduced by the CIA to assist in the torture of detainees in the wake of 9/11. (Most of that assistance dealt with expert advice regarding how to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" effectively. Only a few were involved in actually torturing detainees. Money, of course, was involved, a lot of it.) Supported by centuries of evidence, the assertion that money and power often, quite often, corrupt experts and non-experts alike is undeniable. If science, specifically, if psychological expertise, can't be relied on, what can? We asserted in the first article that a form of the Golden Rule, specifically the "commandment" that one should love one's neighbor as oneself, can be relied on to judge the behavior of all human beings, whether they graduated from Harvard or not. We will discuss why this is so in Part 111; in this article we will analyze the response of some of the authors Shaw criticized, which appeared, along with Shaw's comments, in the April 7, 2016 edition of The New York Review of Books, Moral Psychology: An Exchange.
The authors of the response, Pinker and Haidt, are angry. They state, "Shaw asserts that psychological and biological facts are 'morally irrelevant' and 'can tell us nothing' about moral propositions. She insinuates that psychologists lack 'a reliable moral compass' that would equip them to oppose torture." They take this fact to be an attack against the discipline of psychology, and, especially, against adherents of Positive Psychology, developed by Martin Seligman, a system which has strongly influenced them. Feeling insulted and besmirched by Shaw's article, they respond with ad hominem insults of their own: "And she prosecutes her case by citation-free attribution, spurious dichotomies, and standards of guilt by association that make Joseph McCarthy look like Sherlock Holmes."
Ouch.
It turns out, however, that they are in basic agreement with Shaw's assertion, namely, that the discipline of psychology cannot be the source of morality. Consulting one of their colleagues, Peter Bloom, they quote him as follows: "'The fact that one cannot derive morality from psychological research is so screamingly obvious that I never thought to explicitly write it down.'" Fair enough. The authors, however, don't leave it at that. They insist that, at the very least, psychological research can help invalidate a faulty moral assertion: "Recent discoveries in moral psychology offer another point of contact. Many ethical convictions are underpinned by strongly felt intuitions that some action is inherently good or bad. Sometimes those intuitions can be justified by philosophical reflection and analysis. But sometimes they can be debunked and shown to be indefensible gut reactions, without moral warrant." (That is, with help from fMRIs.) This is patently false. Psychological research cannot determine whether a gut reaction is morally defensible or not; you need a moral philosophy to do that. Sometimes, like the innate intuitive gut reaction against incest, the more reflexive moral response seems justified indeed. One cannot imply, as the authors obviously do, that fMRIs can help determine the validity of a moral response. As the authors have stated, it is "screamingly obvious" that psychology cannot produce a moral compass, and without one, morally speaking, humans don't know where they are and are thus unable to judge the validity of a specific fMRI response.
The authors, armed with the belief that psychological research can help determine whether a moral view is defensible or not, go even farther astray. They provide historical examples of positions that psychology can help debunk by determining that they are "indefensible gut reactions." These examples include "...outrage over heresy, blasphemy, and lèse-majesté, revulsion against homosexuality and racial mixing, callousness toward slaves and animals and indifference or hatred toward foreigners."
Are these merely gut reactions? Without a moral stance, none of these prejudices can be debunked. A simple thought experiment reveals the absurdity of the authors' claim. If Dr. Pinker had been born in the nineteenth century, the analytical part of his brain would most likely be aglow with the production of many reasons why racial mixing is morally wrong. If Dr. Haidt had been born in the eighteenth century, his prefrontal lobes would almost certainly have come to the conclusion that homosexuality is a crime against nature--perhaps even punishable by death. (One can imagine, with horror, what the analytical part of their brains would have come up with if they had been alive when Leviticus was written, which among other things, prescribes the death penalty for violating Sabbath rules.)
The analytical part of the brain can be, as history has so readily proven, a "factory of idols," which Calvin correctly asserted while conveniently forgetting that his own brain was mass-producing them as well.
A good deal of the animus against Shaw contained in Haidt's and Pinker's response is the assumption that Shaw was singling out psychologists as being particularly prone to corruption. It is indeed undeniable that some members of the A.P.A. were paid enormous sums by the CIA ($81,000,000.00 to be exact) to develop and participate in a program, informed by psychological research, of "enhanced interrogation techniques," the Bush regime's euphemism for torture. Shaw makes a good case that Martin Seligman, a former president of the A.P.A. whose system of Positive Psychology was widely influential, was not innocent regarding this collusion. If some psychologists consider themselves moral experts and thus less easily corrupted by money and power, criticism, of course, is very much warranted. Money and power, however, have a high potential to corrupt us all, rich and poor, the educated and the under-educated alike. That it often takes a larger amount to bribe a professional than it takes to bribe a worker does not relativize the wrongdoings of either class. Even those who are supposed to know better frequently don't. Priests who are sexual predators; cardinals who protect them; members of the clergy who launder money for the Vatican-- these and others are notorious examples of those who preach the Golden Rule and flout it in practice. It is safe to say that psychologists are no worse and no better than the rest of us.
If morality cannot be derived from science, are human beings, who need moral principles in order to live well, lost in the wilderness without a compass? I think not. Pinker and Haidt imply--falsely, I believe--that psychology is superior to philosophy since the former prefers reality over imagination. Shaw correctly counters that "...imagination is the capacity that allows us to take responsibility, insofar as it is ever possible, for the ends for which our work will be used." This is correct as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Shaw, as a scholar of Nietzschean philosophy, knows that human beings are free to devise moral principles to live by. Nietzsche believed that the morality of Christianity was the morality of slaves; their 'superiors' could and should follow their will to power without being bound to a form of the Golden Rule. This may be true, but the history of the last century readily illustrates where this truth can lead.
I assert that that some form of the Golden Rule must be assumed as an axiom--an axiom, of course, by definition cannot be proved. More than assumed, the validity of "Love Your Neighbor as Yourself" can be intuited. Two roads lead to the highest morality, one paved with the silver of wisdom, the other paved the gold of love. As Aristotle taught in his Nicomachean Ethics, all one needs to do is to follow the examples of those who are intuitively and widely acknowledged to moral leaders. (Al-Ghazali, the great Sufi leader of eleventh century Baghdad, famously put this principle into action.)
No, one can't prove that, say, Leviticus 19, is the best moral guide. Similarly, as deconstructionists would have it, one can't prove that Shakespeare is superior to Alice Walker or that Bach is superior to Burt Bacharach. Intuition and experience, however, can convince us that some moral compasses are indeed better guides than others.
In the third part of this four-part series, I will examine why I believe Leviticus 19 to be not only the best moral guide we have, but, as we shall see, if practiced, it has psychological benefits as well.
Part 1 was written partially as a basic confirmation of Tasmin Shaw's article, The Psychologists Take Power, which appeared in the February 25, 2016 edition of The New York Review of Books. In that article, Shaw discussed five books by prominent psychologists, who at least seem to assert that experts know better. They don't. Shaw informs us that at least some members of the American Psychological Association were rather easily seduced by the CIA to assist in the torture of detainees in the wake of 9/11. (Most of that assistance dealt with expert advice regarding how to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" effectively. Only a few were involved in actually torturing detainees. Money, of course, was involved, a lot of it.) Supported by centuries of evidence, the assertion that money and power often, quite often, corrupt experts and non-experts alike is undeniable. If science, specifically, if psychological expertise, can't be relied on, what can? We asserted in the first article that a form of the Golden Rule, specifically the "commandment" that one should love one's neighbor as oneself, can be relied on to judge the behavior of all human beings, whether they graduated from Harvard or not. We will discuss why this is so in Part 111; in this article we will analyze the response of some of the authors Shaw criticized, which appeared, along with Shaw's comments, in the April 7, 2016 edition of The New York Review of Books, Moral Psychology: An Exchange.
The authors of the response, Pinker and Haidt, are angry. They state, "Shaw asserts that psychological and biological facts are 'morally irrelevant' and 'can tell us nothing' about moral propositions. She insinuates that psychologists lack 'a reliable moral compass' that would equip them to oppose torture." They take this fact to be an attack against the discipline of psychology, and, especially, against adherents of Positive Psychology, developed by Martin Seligman, a system which has strongly influenced them. Feeling insulted and besmirched by Shaw's article, they respond with ad hominem insults of their own: "And she prosecutes her case by citation-free attribution, spurious dichotomies, and standards of guilt by association that make Joseph McCarthy look like Sherlock Holmes."
Ouch.
It turns out, however, that they are in basic agreement with Shaw's assertion, namely, that the discipline of psychology cannot be the source of morality. Consulting one of their colleagues, Peter Bloom, they quote him as follows: "'The fact that one cannot derive morality from psychological research is so screamingly obvious that I never thought to explicitly write it down.'" Fair enough. The authors, however, don't leave it at that. They insist that, at the very least, psychological research can help invalidate a faulty moral assertion: "Recent discoveries in moral psychology offer another point of contact. Many ethical convictions are underpinned by strongly felt intuitions that some action is inherently good or bad. Sometimes those intuitions can be justified by philosophical reflection and analysis. But sometimes they can be debunked and shown to be indefensible gut reactions, without moral warrant." (That is, with help from fMRIs.) This is patently false. Psychological research cannot determine whether a gut reaction is morally defensible or not; you need a moral philosophy to do that. Sometimes, like the innate intuitive gut reaction against incest, the more reflexive moral response seems justified indeed. One cannot imply, as the authors obviously do, that fMRIs can help determine the validity of a moral response. As the authors have stated, it is "screamingly obvious" that psychology cannot produce a moral compass, and without one, morally speaking, humans don't know where they are and are thus unable to judge the validity of a specific fMRI response.
The authors, armed with the belief that psychological research can help determine whether a moral view is defensible or not, go even farther astray. They provide historical examples of positions that psychology can help debunk by determining that they are "indefensible gut reactions." These examples include "...outrage over heresy, blasphemy, and lèse-majesté, revulsion against homosexuality and racial mixing, callousness toward slaves and animals and indifference or hatred toward foreigners."
Are these merely gut reactions? Without a moral stance, none of these prejudices can be debunked. A simple thought experiment reveals the absurdity of the authors' claim. If Dr. Pinker had been born in the nineteenth century, the analytical part of his brain would most likely be aglow with the production of many reasons why racial mixing is morally wrong. If Dr. Haidt had been born in the eighteenth century, his prefrontal lobes would almost certainly have come to the conclusion that homosexuality is a crime against nature--perhaps even punishable by death. (One can imagine, with horror, what the analytical part of their brains would have come up with if they had been alive when Leviticus was written, which among other things, prescribes the death penalty for violating Sabbath rules.)
The analytical part of the brain can be, as history has so readily proven, a "factory of idols," which Calvin correctly asserted while conveniently forgetting that his own brain was mass-producing them as well.
A good deal of the animus against Shaw contained in Haidt's and Pinker's response is the assumption that Shaw was singling out psychologists as being particularly prone to corruption. It is indeed undeniable that some members of the A.P.A. were paid enormous sums by the CIA ($81,000,000.00 to be exact) to develop and participate in a program, informed by psychological research, of "enhanced interrogation techniques," the Bush regime's euphemism for torture. Shaw makes a good case that Martin Seligman, a former president of the A.P.A. whose system of Positive Psychology was widely influential, was not innocent regarding this collusion. If some psychologists consider themselves moral experts and thus less easily corrupted by money and power, criticism, of course, is very much warranted. Money and power, however, have a high potential to corrupt us all, rich and poor, the educated and the under-educated alike. That it often takes a larger amount to bribe a professional than it takes to bribe a worker does not relativize the wrongdoings of either class. Even those who are supposed to know better frequently don't. Priests who are sexual predators; cardinals who protect them; members of the clergy who launder money for the Vatican-- these and others are notorious examples of those who preach the Golden Rule and flout it in practice. It is safe to say that psychologists are no worse and no better than the rest of us.
If morality cannot be derived from science, are human beings, who need moral principles in order to live well, lost in the wilderness without a compass? I think not. Pinker and Haidt imply--falsely, I believe--that psychology is superior to philosophy since the former prefers reality over imagination. Shaw correctly counters that "...imagination is the capacity that allows us to take responsibility, insofar as it is ever possible, for the ends for which our work will be used." This is correct as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Shaw, as a scholar of Nietzschean philosophy, knows that human beings are free to devise moral principles to live by. Nietzsche believed that the morality of Christianity was the morality of slaves; their 'superiors' could and should follow their will to power without being bound to a form of the Golden Rule. This may be true, but the history of the last century readily illustrates where this truth can lead.
I assert that that some form of the Golden Rule must be assumed as an axiom--an axiom, of course, by definition cannot be proved. More than assumed, the validity of "Love Your Neighbor as Yourself" can be intuited. Two roads lead to the highest morality, one paved with the silver of wisdom, the other paved the gold of love. As Aristotle taught in his Nicomachean Ethics, all one needs to do is to follow the examples of those who are intuitively and widely acknowledged to moral leaders. (Al-Ghazali, the great Sufi leader of eleventh century Baghdad, famously put this principle into action.)
No, one can't prove that, say, Leviticus 19, is the best moral guide. Similarly, as deconstructionists would have it, one can't prove that Shakespeare is superior to Alice Walker or that Bach is superior to Burt Bacharach. Intuition and experience, however, can convince us that some moral compasses are indeed better guides than others.
In the third part of this four-part series, I will examine why I believe Leviticus 19 to be not only the best moral guide we have, but, as we shall see, if practiced, it has psychological benefits as well.
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