Study questions

Moral Psychology: PHIL 415/545
Lecturer: Sandy Berkovski

Bilkent University
Spring 2021

Contents

1  Williams[1]

1. What are the difficulties in understanding the relation between "ought" and "can"?
2. What is the representation problem, as formulated by Williams?
3. Is Williams right to claim that every human "action" is shaped by culture?
4. Why does Williams think that there is no special problem of altruism?
5. How can the representation problem be paraphrased in terms of inhibition and prohibition?
6. What kind of behavioural deviances should present a problem for the biological approach to moral norms?
7. How does the representation problem arise in the case of incest taboos?

2  Wolf[2]

1. Formulate the Westermarck hypothesis.
2. What is the evidence gathered in the kibbutzim?
3. How does the evidence from Taiwanese minor marriages complement the kibbutzim evidence?
4. How does the sexual aversion depend on the initial time of childhood association between individuals?
5. Outline the four objections to the data of minor marriages, and Wolf's responses to them.
6. Why is the fact of relatively frequent incestual relations not an objection to the Westermarck hypothesis?
7. How does Wolf explain the special trauma experienced by victims of incestual assault?
8. What is the evidence about incest from the primate world?
9. How does the special case of incest in highly inbred populations sustain the idea that the incest prohibition is a purely social phenomenon?
10. What, besides inbreeding, are the possible alternative explanations of the early association aversion?
11. How is Westermarck's solution of the representation problem?
12. Why is sentimental aversion "disinterested"?
13. Why can sentimental aversion qualify as a moral emotion?
14. What are the weaknesses of Burton's and Durham' solutions of the representation problem?

3  Wolf[3]

1. What are the lessons of Sherif's and Allport's experiments?
2. How could incestual myths help to explain the incest taboo?
3. How does the taboo reflect "two aspects" of human nature?
4. What are the basic meta-ethical assumptions behind Westermarck's explanation of the taboo?
5. How does the aversion to incest acquire its moral character, according to Westermarck (according to Wolf)?
6. How does Wolf explain the enormous attention people pay to the behaviour of others?
7. What is the example of twinning supposed to illustrate?

4  Nemeroff and Rozin[4]

1. Why do Nemeroff and Rozin claim that magic is not mistaken science?
2. Outline briefly the principles of sympathetic magic.
3. What is the role of essence in contagion?
4. What are the similarities between the law of contagion and the law of similarity?
5. How does magical thinking influence the attitude of disgust?
6. Outline the failures of rationality illustrated by the law of similarity.
7. In what sense is contagion a reverse of similarity?
8. How can food taboos be explained by magical contagion?
9. Should cultural variations play a role in magical thinking?
10. How can magical contagion help explain our concern with the behaviour of other people?
11. What is the relevance of disgust for moral thinking?
12. How does the moral-epidemiological conflation explain a range of behaviours?
13. How, in the cases of disgust, does rationality conflict with emotions?
14. Outline briefly the mechanisms of contagion?
15. How are the mental models of contagion different from physical ones?
16. What is the adaptive value of contagion?
17. Outline briefly the different cognitive models that explain the appeal of "magical thinking".
18. How can Rozin's theory of disgust help to explain the disgust we are apt to have toward incest?

5  Tybur et al.[6]

1. How is disgust associated with pathogen avoidance?
2. What are the main characteristics of the RHM model?
3. What are its shortcomings?
4. What are the principles of the functional analysis suggested by Tybur et al.? How is it supposed to improve on the RHM model?
5. How, in broad terms, can pathogen disgust affect human behaviour?
6. How is the occurrent feeling of disgust related to computation, according to Tybur et al.?
7. How is pathogen disgust co-opted into the system of sexual disgust?
8. Why do some sexual acts provoke disgust, whilst other provoke arousal?
9. Why can't emotions other than disgust (like fear) help to avoid sub-optimal sexual mates?
10. How is the explanation of sexual disgust developed by Tybur et al. related to the Westermarck effect?
11. What are the two questions that a theory of moral disgust should solve?
12. What, according to Tybur et al., is the role of disgust in the formulation of moral rules?
13. What is the empirical evidence showing the relevance of disgust for moral judgement?
14. Why is the disgust idiom evoked in moral judgements that are neutral with regard to pathogen threat or sexual value?

6  Haidt[7]

1. Summarise the reasons given by the social intuitionist model for doubting the role of rationality in moral judgements.
2. Does this model declare reason irrelevant for moral judgement?
3. How does Hume's philosophy, according to Haidt, provide initial support for the social intuitionist model?
4. Outline Kohlberg's view of moral judgement.
5. What is the social interactionist model?
6. What are the principal differences between the social intuitionist and the social interactionist models?
7. What is moral dumbfounding?
8. What are the chief characteristics of the moral judgement, according to the social intuitionist model?
9. What is moral reasoning?
10. What is the contrast between reasoning and intuition?
11. Briefly explain each link in the social intuitionist model.
12. How does the social intuitionist model explain the possibility of moral change?
13. Under what conditions does is the moral judgement automatic? Under what conditions does it involve reasoning?
14. How does the social intuitionist model integrate the dual-processing heuristic system?
15. What are the biases in moral judgement?
16. Give examples illustrating post-hoc moral reasoning.
17. Does post-hoc reasoning rule out the possibility of rational moral disagreement?
18. How does the social intuitionist model interpret the causal mechanics of moral action?
19. What are the "gut feelings"?
20. What is the role of metaphor in intuitive reasoning?
21. In what sense, according to the social intuitionist model, are moral intuitions innate?
22. How does culture shape moral intuitions?
23. Give an example that illustrates the proposed integration of moral intuitionism and moral rationalism.

7  Haidt and Joseph[8]

1. How does the distinction between "thinking fast and slow" support moral intuitionism?
2. What is the lesson to be learned from the Heinz example?
3. How does the modularity hypothesis help to make sense of different moral concerns?
4. What is the special nature of the purity concern?
5. How different is the explanation of the moral role of disgust offered by Haidt and Joseph from the explanation of Tybur et al.?
6. Why is virtue theory the most accurate account of moral judgement, according to Haidt and Joseph?
7. What are the weaknesses of the traditional virtue-theoretic approach?

8  Greene[9]

1. How to describe the debate between deontologists and consequentialists?
2. "Deontology and consequentialism are psychological natural kinds." Explain.
3. What does the Elder miss when he "misses the big picture" (38)?
4. What are the "characteristic judgements" of deontology and consequentialism?
5. What is the "hidden essence" of deontology?
6. In what sense is cognition behaviourally neutral?
7. What is the distinction between cognition and emotion?
8. How does Greene describe his disagreement with Haidt's views?
9. Describe the trolley and the footbridge dilemmas.
10. What are the traditional explanations of the different moral responses in the two cases?
11. What is Greene's explanation of these responses?
12. What are the two forms of violence implicit in Stalin's motto?
13. What is the neuroscientific evidence for the two forms of violence?
14. How does neuroscientific evidence account for response conflicts?
15. How do cognition and emotion elicit moral judgements, according to Greene?
16. How in general does Greene's account help to deal with Singer's dilemma?
17. What is the empirical evidence for Greene's account of that dilemma?
18. What are the two competing views of punishment?
19. What are people's most frequent responses to punishment dilemmas?
20. What is the role of outrage in these responses? How does it explain people's behaviour in ultimatum games?
21. Describe the different scenarios of "harmless crimes". Connect them to our earlier discussion of incest.
22. What are the factors likely influencing people's reactions to harmless crimes?
23. How does the earlier discussion of disgust connect to the problem of harmless crimes?

9  Berker[10]

1. How does Berker argue that neuroscientific evidence is crucial to Greene's account?
2. Outline at least one objection that Berker raises against Greene's empirical methodology.
3. How does Berker defend a mismatch between deontology/consequentialism, "up close and personal"/remote and impersonal, and "me hurt you"/not "me hurt you"?
4. Are the "bad" arguments for Greene's view really that bad? Explore at least one argument.
5. How does Berker argue that Greene's "good" argument results merely in another conflict of intuitions?
6. How does Berker argue that neuroscience is irrelevant for Greene's account? Is this a good argument?