
The secret joke of Kant's soul: emotions and moral reasoning [pdf] - gwern
http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~lchang/material/Evolutionary/Developmental/Greene-KantSoul.pdf
======
jacobolus
In a legal context, Stephen Breyer makes a similar argument about the
decisionmaking process of self-professed “originalists” and “textualists” on
the Supreme Court.

Namely, that they make their decision based on their own preferences and then
later come up with a rationalization, claiming that the decision was based on
a strict principled interpretation. The rationalization then provides a
convenient excuse, letting judges disclaim responsibility for their decisions
or their effects, hide their true reasons, and deflect criticism.

2004 lecture:
[http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/b/Breyer_20...](http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/b/Breyer_2006.pdf)

Book version: [http://amzn.com/0307274942](http://amzn.com/0307274942)

~~~
brownbat
Much more at Legal Positivism:
[http://www.iep.utm.edu/legalpos/](http://www.iep.utm.edu/legalpos/)

Note however that it's not the only academic theory of judicial
interpretation, and despite its popularity, it still leaves a few gaps as a
predictive theory.

Sure, it explains why justices tend to vote along ideological lines.
Unfortunately, they often don't. Having abandoned any acknowledgment of
legislative or judicial constraints, the theory has nothing to fall back on to
explain those cases.[1]

Justices are most likely operating under multiple constraints in any given
opinion. Some of those constraints are dictated by their approach to textual
interpretation, just as some are dictated by other ideas about fairness or
social norms.

[1] Scalia's liberal opinions are a fun read. They have Scalia defending
maternity leave, asylum seekers, armed robbers, and members of the communist
youth league. Often he's marshalling the same impatient sarcasm against the
right as he more famously deploys against the left.

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bonobo3000
This is fascinating. The dilemma he poses at the end is something i have
thought about a lot -

"How far can the empirical debunking of human moral nature go? If science
tells me that I love my children more than other children only because they
share my genes (Hamilton, 1964), should I feel uneasy about loving them extra?
If science tells me that I’m nice to other people only because a disposition
to be nice ultimately helped my ancestors spread their genes (Trivers, 1971),
should I stop being nice to people? ... It seems that one who is unwilling to
act on human tendencies with amoral evolutionary causes is ultimately
unwilling to be human. Where does one draw the line between correcting the
near-sightedness of human moral nature and obliterating it completely?"

The more I overthink and let the "cognitive" part take over, the more the
question nags me. The kind of cognitive detachment it takes to ask these
questions and digest philosophy is why most people avoid philosophy. Its not
healthy to be too detached from your emotions. So it seems like by asking that
question, empiricism and rationality have already gone too far.

~~~
steve19
"... is why most people avoid philosophy"

Billions of people discuss and debate morality every week at Churches,
Synagogues, Temples, Mosques and Monasteries etc. I don't think its that
people don't want to be asked big questions or told how they act is wrong and
should be changed.

I would argue they avoid it because 20th century philosophers are either
boring/abstract, too political or too preachy.

For example, postmodernism thought, Feminist philosophy and Green Philosophy
all tend towards certain political agendas which it offputting to those who
don't agree with the agendas. Modern philosophers also tend to be anti-
religion, putting off most of the world's population (being lectured on how
the concept of a God has been the source of all the world's problem for
millennia is tiresome, as tiresome as you would find a charismatic preacher
telling you that you will go to hell for being an Atheist)

There are in fact Atheistic movements towards creating moral/church-
experiences centered around philosophy, one such example if the London School
of Life.

[http://www.theschooloflife.com/london/](http://www.theschooloflife.com/london/)

I think it is very sad Schools of Philosophy, like those of Ancient Greece, no
longer exist. Sadly, I don't think they could exist in today's outrage-driven
cultural climate where online lynch mobs are on the hunt for someone to say
something controversial.

~~~
thyrsus
My experience of religion as practiced deals very little with the "cognitive"
(see article), and very much with emotions, such as gratitude, affection and
reverence (as well as less positive feelings). It is rare that an appeal is
made to syllogism rather than sympathy.

~~~
steve19
I can't speak to all religious traditions, I would say that in many Judeo-
Christian traditions, that is not the case (and again, I can't speak for even
a small minority of these traditions)

"Why do we do what we do?" or "Why do we believe this to be so?" are
frequently asked and debated. There is an assumption that there are logical
reasons for beliefs, due to physical, societal or psychological
negative|positive consequences, even if those reasons are thousands of years
out of date (not eating pork for example). Emotion can have very little to do
with it.

On the other hand, there sure are many traditions that only emphasize feelings
and emotions. I don't believe any is better than the other (each to his or her
own).

------
MarkPNeyer
so many beliefs people have about morality rest on assumptions: my beliefs
must be rational, founded on evidence, or else they are invalid. this
insistence is highly destructive.

there is certainly a form of validity granted by axiomatic reasoning, but we
have rejected things we can't axiomatize and generalize, as if anything
uncomputable were not worth thinking of.

=========

in this article I explain a common (most likely false) assumption in most
moral thinking:

[http://markpneyer.me/2015/06/25/morality-and-the-
subjunctive...](http://markpneyer.me/2015/06/25/morality-and-the-subjunctive-
ordering-hypothetical-situations/)

and this is a series of articles explaining a model of emotion and why it
works the way it does:

[http://markpneyer.me/2014/10/19/a-model-of-
emotion/](http://markpneyer.me/2014/10/19/a-model-of-emotion/)

~~~
ikeboy
Frankly, in your article you appear to only argue against deontology, while
appearing unaware of any alternatives. Your actual argument is also
inconsistent with your uncomputable claim. Specifically, your proposed "taking
context into account" is completely computable.

Also, if you _were_ right that morality exists but is not computable, why
would that change anything?

~~~
MarkPNeyer
> Also, if you were right that morality exists but is not computable, why
> would that change anything?

because principles as the basis of morality then go away.

making moral decisions becomes about looking at each _specific_ situation, and
applying as much context as possible - instead of trying to say "well in
general, X is bad".

~~~
ikeboy
>because principles as the basis of morality then go away.

I don't see why. Why can't I say "uncomputable function X is the basis for
morality", and simultaneously believe that X satisfies principle Y? There's
nothing about uncomputable functions that says you can _never_ know a value,
and principles are useful even if they aren't always correct anyway.

>making moral decisions becomes about looking at each _specific_ situation,
and applying as much context as possible - instead of trying to say "well in
general, X is bad".

Why can't an uncomputable function have a rule that X is bad? It might not be
computable in all cases, that doesn 't mean it can't have rules.

------
psycr
gwern: care to comment why you've posted this? What in particular is
interesting about it?

------
eli_gottlieb
And next, gwern, I suppose you'll tell us that things are made of atoms?

