Occasional Musings

Interesting discussions and pointers to various discussions on the new science of morality (from edge.org)

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/morality10/morality10_index.html

Contains videos and (downloadable) audio recordings of the talks from: Jonathan Haidt, Joshua Greene, Marc D Hauser, Sam Harris, Roy Baumeister, Paul Bloom, David Pizzaro, Elizabeth Phelps  and Joshua Knobe.

Couple of interesting papers which is a must read in these issues, especially for putting results of psychology studies in context.

• Henrich, Joe, Heine, Steven J. and Norenzayan, Ara, “The Weirdest People in the World?” (May 7, 2010). RatSWD Working Paper No. 139.
  • How representative are experimental findings from American university students? What do we really know about human psychology?
  • Abstract: Broad claims about human psychology and behavior based on narrow samples from Western societies are regularly published. Are such species‐generalizing claims justified? This review suggests not only substantial variability in experimental results across populations in basic domains, but that standard subjects are unusual compared with the rest of the species—outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, spatial reasoning, moral reasoning, thinking‐styles, and self‐concepts. This suggests (1) caution in addressing questions of human nature from this slice of humanity, and (2) that understanding human psychology will require broader subject pools. We close by proposing ways to address these challenges.
  • [Link to Paper]

• Mercier, H., Sperber, D.  “Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory” Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
  • Abstract: Reasoning is generally seen as a mean to improve knowledge and make better decisions. Much evidence, however, shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests rethinking the function of reasoning. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given human exceptional dependence on communication and vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of evidence in the psychology or reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis.
  • [Link to Paper]