Difference between revisions of "2008-09-09 What Makes People Vote Republican/woozle"
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("propaganda" needs further justifying) |
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Haidt then advances the hypothesis that these laws were drawn up on the basis of what an ancient cleric might have found to be "disgusting". (Hmm, I thought he said there was [[skepticism bypass|no rational way]] to explain them. Surely if you're a powerful priest, and something disgusts you, you would quite reasonably want to outlaw it – being ancient and everything, and not really knowing any better or having any reason to question one's ideas since liberalism hadn't been invented yet. So is Haidt excluding emotion as a possible motivator for rational action, here? (...and surely outlawing actions based on whether a bunch of ancient priests found them "disgusting" is a pretty awful way to decide "right" and "wrong", regardless of your goals.)) | Haidt then advances the hypothesis that these laws were drawn up on the basis of what an ancient cleric might have found to be "disgusting". (Hmm, I thought he said there was [[skepticism bypass|no rational way]] to explain them. Surely if you're a powerful priest, and something disgusts you, you would quite reasonably want to outlaw it – being ancient and everything, and not really knowing any better or having any reason to question one's ideas since liberalism hadn't been invented yet. So is Haidt excluding emotion as a possible motivator for rational action, here? (...and surely outlawing actions based on whether a bunch of ancient priests found them "disgusting" is a pretty awful way to decide "right" and "wrong", regardless of your goals.)) | ||
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| + | (Side note: surely an ancient lawgiver would have found defecation to be disgusting, yet as far as we know they did not make any attempt to outlaw it -- presumably for the obvious reason that they knew this would be impossible, and that it was a necessary biological function. They would have had to make a decision about what criteria might override their apparent concern for "disgust" -- which further implies that it's not at all out of keeping with tradition for us modern folk to similarly override our "disgust" if it seems warranted.) | ||
Haidt then tested this hypothesis for his dissertation, where he "made up stories about people who did things that were disgusting or disrespectful yet perfectly harmless." What he found was that most people agreed that the actions were wrong even though nobody was harmed -- which, he argues, supports his hypothesis that morality is not (or not entirely) based on avoidance of harm to others. | Haidt then tested this hypothesis for his dissertation, where he "made up stories about people who did things that were disgusting or disrespectful yet perfectly harmless." What he found was that most people agreed that the actions were wrong even though nobody was harmed -- which, he argues, supports his hypothesis that morality is not (or not entirely) based on avoidance of harm to others. | ||