http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/137...6:09&out=06:32 So much to say about this little bit already!
1. I continue to think Haidt could use more philosophical sophistication. He ought to distinguish between "reason" or "rationality" on the one hand and "REASONING" on the other. His own summary of the difference between liberals and conservatives gives the emotional reaction an apparently cognitive content ("things are bad" or "things are basically OK"). No doubt this cognitive reaction is not purely a matter of reasoning -- experience naturally forms our views, but it doesn't follow that the cognition in question isn't a fit subject for reasoning. Emotional reactions are Gestalt "perceptions", not analyses. But so what? If I perceive a garter snake as dangerous, is my perception not amenable to reason? If I continue to fear garter snakes even after learning exactly how harmless they are, is not my fear irrational?
That our moral views are based on intuitive "perceptions" -- that even our reasoning about morality must depend upon intuitions -- ought to be no surprise to anyone. The claim that all such reasoning is only rationalization is what requires defense. I'm glad to see that Knobe is pressing Haidt on this point at least.
2. Haidt should

You know a conversation is interesting when it makes you want to learn more about naked mole rats.

The final point in this conversation seems to be that Mr. Haidt is so liberal he was able to overcome his disgust reflex when watching FOX. Even I am not that liberal.

I haven't finished the diavlog yet, but it might be helpful to add a link to a NYT piece by the cognitive scientist Stephen Pinker, "The Moral Instinct." It's been a while since I read it, but it gets into the various categories of morality and how different groups privilege some categories over others. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/ma...0Pinker&st=cse

Josh's question is good herehttp://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/137...3:52&out=25:32
Jonathan's reply fails to really answer it. As Jonathan admits earlier, a lot of liberals start off with the same immediate reactions as conservatives (regarding gay sex, for example). But (sorry Jonathan) what distinguishes liberals is their belief in the Enlightenment project of subjecting their immediate reactions (e.g. the feeling that a witch's curse caused the death of my cow, the feeling that gay sex is worthy of disgust) to rational critique. Jonathan's response is that liberals are the kind of people who like variety of experience. But isn't he first of all confusing correlation and causation? First of all, if you become convinced that you have no rational reason to back up your initial feeling of disgust at other ways of life, won't you be likely to try to become a more accepting person, and won't you try to value diversity? Second, it seems that some willingness to reconsider one's beliefs is a PRECONDITION of thinking rationally about something you already have a strong feeling about. If you are a very rigid person, then you won't try to be rational -- you will just rationalize

Really good post BN. Your questions and challenges make me want to hear Haidt's replys. I hope we will hear more on these topics.

Here is Jonathan's explication of "purity culture". Is there any way in which scientifically sophisticated people could believe this as actually true? Is there any way that a purity culture could accept Jonathan's evolutionary explanation of the origins of a culture like theirs? Or would a scientific understanding of reality (i.e., an understanding of what is actually true, as opposed to the myth) tend to undermine such a culture -- does such a culture depend upon a failure to understand itself? What "fluid" do we all share? On the other hand, would an understanding of human reciprocity undermine the liberal's concern for justice and harm? The social contract is (if understood historically) a myth as well. But, as Jonathan seems to recognize, the social contract appears to be a metaphor for game theoretic truths that may well justify reciprocity. (The prisoner's dilemma shows that reciprocal altruism is a better strategy for everyone to adopt than selfishness.) In one case, may debunk, in the other case, explanation may also justify. Haidt doesn't seem to recognize this as a possiblility -- seemingly because he assumes that there is no such thing as justification.

BN - I never before heard the term purity culture. I found the explanation interesting. Do you know of any good writings on this topic? I can't understand why humans would have ever believed that we all share a common fluid. When and where did (do?) such cultures exist?

Quoting ohcomeon: Really good post BN. Your questions and challenges make me want to hear Haidt's replys. I hope we will hear more on these topics.

Thank you, ohcomeon. I'd like to have Haidt back with someone like Railton. Knobe and Wilkinson are insufficiently critical of Haidt's approach, in my view. Even though I'm not that sympathetic to either one, it could be interesting to see Haidt and Shaun Nichols talk. Both are sentimentalists in some form, but Nichols doesn't attempt to explain moral norms directly in terms of natural selection. He appeals to a cultural process to explain our norms. It isn't obvious that there's any inconsistency between them. Haidt regards his evolutionary explanation as an explanation of the basic emotional building blocks out of which individual moralities are built, while Nichols focuses more on explaining why certain norms survive. However, I do think Will's general enthusiasm for all these sentimentalist accounts elides a lot of differences in detail between them all. If the BHtv overlords are watching, then: what about Railton and Haidt some time?

The rules in the Leviticus about contact with menstruating women etc. would be understood as "purity codes", and a culture that was particularly dominated by rules about what one may touch or not touch or eat or not eat (Jewish and Hindu cultures are Jonathan's examples, I think) would be "purity cultures" by extension. The idea is that contact with certain things "defiles" or "pollutes" one, and that one must avoid defilement and when one has been defiled, seek "purification" trhough some ritual. I think it's ultimately an anthropological notion, and it's certainly true that most cultures have a notion of "pollution" -- eg the ancient Greeks.
It's been a long time since I read it, but E.R. Dodds's _The Greeks and the Irrational_ surely has a secition on 'pollution'. Here's a Wikipedia article to start you off anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_purity

Thanks, BN. As usual, your contributions are enlightening and thought provoking. Keep up the good work! BTW - My husband is a contractor and is currently working on a building used for female purification on the grounds of a Jewish Center. He has been told it is the only such facility in the metro area. The metro area has a population of about 1.4 million.

Quoting ohcomeon: BN - I never before heard the term purity culture. I found the explanation interesting. Do you know of any good writings on this topic? I can't understand why humans would have ever believed that we all share a common fluid. When and where did (do?) such cultures exist?

Oh, come on! It's water! We all drink it and are made of it. Obvious!

Yes - I get that it's water. My modern brain just has a hard time coming up with why my taking a drink of water equals you taking a drink of water. If it did no one would ever die of thirst. And does that mean my taking a drink of beer equals you taking a drink of beer?

Haidt has a terribly simplistic conception of what liberalism is. Liberalism doesn't say that hierarchy must be dismantled and that no one should be able to tell others what to do. What it says is that authority is not an intrinsic, inborn feature of certain "noble" or "royal" individuals. Authority must be justified on a contractual or quasi-contractual basis, not on the basis of the "divine right of kings" etc. Again, liberals don't have to deny that people may be more than mere biological machines. Haidt confuses two entirely different groups: Naturalistic moralists and political liberals. Political liberals may grant that there is much more that is "sacred" than individual rights. What political liberals (as opposed to atheistic/naturalistic moralists believe is that the mutual recognition of the sacred must be voluntary -- at any rate, the state should not be imposing some particular view of the sacred on those who don't agree with it. Political liberalism (or the secularist aspect of it) really doesn't say anything about what is sacred or not. It says something about the role of the state in imposing a particular view of the sacred.
Of course, once

What a pleasure to listen to this discussion!
An upfront disclaimer: I am on Jonathan Haidt's side of thinking about this topic. I could have saved a lot of time writing in previous recent posts and just refer to his talk today. He is certainly more knowledgeable and very didactic.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin:
1. I continue to think Haidt could use more philosophical sophistication. He ought to distinguish between "reason" or "rationality" on the one hand and "REASONING" on the other....

I actually like Jonathan's style which is very consistent with most of the more modern empirical philosophers. It is a way of candidly stepping back and demystifying some of the traditional concepts in order to facilitate empirical work. This is a different perspective from the armchair only traditional philosophy. Because I have a more formal background in science, I particularly like this approach.

Emotional reactions are Gestalt "perceptions", not analyses. But so what? If I perceive a garter snake as dangerous, is my perception not amenable to reason? If I continue to fear garter snakes even after learning exactly how harmless they are, is not my fear irrational?

These are good points. I recently wrote ad nauseam about this. I will not torture anyone else. But, yes, reason can alter

I have no disagreement with the claim that normative views must be discussed with an eye to moral psychology. But I suspect both Josh and Jonathan of believing that the dependency doesn't go the other way -- that we can settle moral psychology all by itself and normative ethics will be a kind of epiphenomenon. They seem to imagine that moral psychology is a value-free foundation on which one can build a normative view. My view is that you aren't really going to get either one right unless you try to do them together. Haidt's discussion here rides rough-shod over so many normatively important distinctions, that I certainly would not trust anything he eventually attempts to "read off" from his psychological theory.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Josh's question is good herehttp://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/137...3:52&out=25:32
Jonathan's reply fails to really answer it. As Jonathan admits earlier, a lot of liberals start off with the same immediate reactions as conservatives (regarding gay sex, for example). But (sorry Jonathan) what distinguishes liberals is their belief in the Enlightenment project of subjecting their immediate reactions (e.g. the feeling that a witch's curse caused the death of my cow, the feeling that gay sex is worthy of disgust) to rational critique.

Yes, I completely agree with you.

Jonathan's response is that liberals are the kind of people who like variety of experience. But isn't he first of all confusing correlation and causation? First of all, if you become convinced that you have no rational reason to back up your initial feeling of disgust at other ways of life, won't you be likely to try to become a more accepting person, and won't you try to value diversity? Second, it seems that some willingness to reconsider one's beliefs is a PRECONDITION of thinking rationally about something you already have a strong feeling about. If you are a very rigid person, then you won't try to be rational -- you

Quoting ohcomeon: Yes - I get that it's water. My modern brain just has a hard time coming up with why my taking a drink of water equals you taking a drink of water. If it did no one would ever die of thirst. And does that mean my taking a drink of beer equals you taking a drink of beer?

No, no. Only one fluid we share... I was just kidding because to my knowledge, as you said before, there is no shared fluid. Your name tempted me to include it in my response. Now seriously, they may have been referring to the concept of "ether", but, frankly, I have no clue.

Hey BN, I was wondering about your own moral views. If you've already discussed this, I'll look for your posts until I find it. But what I was particularly interested in was (a) whether you're a moral realist (which I suspect you are) and if so (b) what kind of moral realist you are: naturalist (a la Boyd and Railton), non-natural intuitionist (a la Regan, Audi, and Shafer-Landau), or some third option (Robert Adams style Divine Command Theorist, or Allen Wood style Kantian, which last is the camp I fall into).

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Here is Jonathan's explication of "purity culture".

Is there any way in which scientifically sophisticated people could believe this as actually true? Is there any way that a purity culture could accept Jonathan's evolutionary explanation of the origins of a culture like theirs? Or would a scientific understanding of reality (i.e., an understanding of what is actually true, as opposed to the myth) tend to undermine such a culture -- does such a culture depend upon a failure to understand itself? What "fluid" do we all share?

Again, I didn't understand his talk about purity. My impression is that so far, they haven't looked at this very closely. So he is trying to come up with some general ideas. But, I agree, it wasn't clear, and some statements appeared phony.

On the other hand, would an understanding of human reciprocity undermine the liberals' concern for justice and harm? The social contract is (if understood historically) a myth as well. But, as Jonathan seems to recognize, the social contract appears to be a metaphor for game theoretic truths that may well justify reciprocity. (The prisoner's dilemma shows that reciprocal altruism is a better strategy for everyone to adopt than selfishness.)
In

I guess you are saying that the rules of cooperation, which implicitly include to place the benefit to the group before the individual benefit, stays within the group. When you look at inter-group relationships, those rules don't apply. I guess you would have to say additionally, that they don't specifically apply when there is an adversarial inter-group relationship.

Hello Ocean,
I can't make sense of the first of the quoted sentences -- I think you must have included bits from two different drafts of the same sentence? Unfortunately, it seems like the essential sentence for getting an idea of what you are saying -- could you revisit and reformulate?

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Haidt has a terribly simplistic conception of what liberalism is. Liberalism doesn't say that hierarchy must be dismantled and that no one should be able to tell others what to do. What it says is that authority is not an intrinsic, inborn feature of certain "noble" or "royal" individuals. Authority must be justified on a contractual or quasi-contractual basis, not on the basis of the "divine right of kings" etc.

I think that besides the point about on whom power resides, liberals tend to advocate for a careful restriction of the amount of power. Haidt did talk a little about the extremes of conservatism and liberalism as being more restrictive and allowing less autonomy at the very beginning of the diavlog.

---Of course, once you recognize what liberalism is, it begins to be much harder to make any sense whatsoever of the "liberal" as a psychological type -- some very religious people will certainly turn out to be liberals.

I think it's important to differentiate between assertions that belong to liberalism (as an abstract conception or synthesis) from those that belong to "liberals" (the individuals who create or endorse the concept

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I have no disagreement with the claim that normative views must be discussed with an eye to moral psychology. But I suspect both Josh and Jonathan of believing that the dependency doesn't go the other way -- that we can settle moral psychology all by itself and normative ethics will be a kind of epiphenomenon. They seem to imagine that moral psychology is a value-free foundation on which one can build a normative view. My view is that you aren't really going to get either one right unless you try to do them together. Haidt's discussion here rides rough-shod over so many normative important distinctions, that I certainly would not trust anything he eventually attempts to "read off" from his psychological theory.

I'm not so suspicious because I think he is taking one step at a time, and at this time Haidt is looking at empirical data that describes the basic "state of affairs". I don't think that he is even looking at direction of causality. When Josh pushes him more in that direction, he talks about the direction from moral psychology towards normative ethics as, I would think, a

I guess I'll have to wait...

Haidt's research uses self-identification for "liberal" and "conservative", so you can't really criticize his definitions too much. He even argued in this episode for breaking them down into subtypes. Haidt's research is the most exciting development in political thought that I know of. This hour was pretty much the same as his interview with Wilkinson, a big picture summary of his research, but I still enjoyed it. Now that he's been introduced to the BH audience, twice, I'd like to see him go off on some tangents or dig deep into some aspect of his research. Anything that can enable a sane person to watch FOX News without going nuts is impressive. What I'd love to see is Jonathan Haidt and Rick Perlstein together. Perlstein's "Nixonland" seems inevitable through the lens of Haidt's perspective.

I guess you took to heart Bob's lament that you don't comment as much anymore!

The classic inquiry on "purity" is done by anthropologist Mary Douglas. Since there is nothing whatsoever that is 'pure' about the human animal, 'Purity' is an ideal, and therefore is a psychic rejection of reality: Puritanism is a very, very dangerous way of adopting a catabolic standard in the name of morality. Current famed purists include Ruhollah Khomeini, Abul Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb (Osama bin Laden's favorite philosopher) and Ibn Wahhab. Two of the most famous Christian purists were Luther and Hitler. All of Nazism, racism, and jihadism is puritanism. In today's world, the ultimate purification vehicle would be nuclear incineration, which makes the extreme puritanical governance in Iran so worrisome. If there is to be a post-Nietzschean anabolic morality, 'purity' will have to be deliberately discarded as a standard which is, even if unintentionally, lethal to human nurturing.

Quoting a Duoist: The classic inquiry on "purity" is done by anthropologist Mary Douglas.

Since there is nothing whatsoever that is 'pure' about the human animal, 'Purity' is an ideal, and therefore is a psychic rejection of reality: Puritanism is a very, very dangerous way of adopting a catabolic standard in the name of morality. Current famed purists include Ruhollah Khomeini, Abul Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb (Osama bin Laden's favorite philosopher) and Ibn Wahhab. Two of the most famous Christian purists were Luther and Hitler. All of Nazism and jihadism is puritanism. In today's world, the ultimate purification vehicle would be nuclear incineration.

If there is to be a post-Nietzschean anabolic morality, 'purity' will have to be deliberately discarded as a standard which is, even if unintentionally, lethal to human nurturing.

Very interesting comment. I'm not familiar with this field of thought. In the diavlog, they made reference only, or mostly, to physical aspects of "purity". Are there other non-physical correlates? For example is anyone talking about ideological, moral, "spiritual" purity? Are there any links between those?

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Hello Ocean,
I can't make sense of the first of the quoted sentences -- I think you must have included bits from two different drafts of the same sentence? Unfortunately, it seems like the essential sentence for getting an idea of what you are saying -- could you revisit and reformulate?

I think the problem is about two languages in short circuit. I guess you were saying: a. The rules of cooperation include placing the benefit of the group before the benefit of the individual. The individual is expected to make a sacrifice for the good of the group. b. This rule is true when applied to individuals within one single group. c. However, when you look at relationships between two groups, those rules don't apply any longer, if the relationship between those two groups is adversarial (not sure that you implied this). In other words an individual from group A, would not be expected to make sacrifices for the good of group B only. Your original paragraph wasn't clear to me either. That's why I tried to rephrase it to make sure I understood your point. Is the above what you meant?

It's great that Haidt's done the legwork to establish that conservatives seem to have five moral foundations while liberals have only two, but that fact by itself says nothing *whatsoever* about which set of foundations (if either) is the right one. It certainly doesn't imply that the liberal conception is "lopsided." That after all is what ethics is for, and I think Haidt insistently blurs the boundaries between moral psychology and moral philosophy. I also suspect the man's something of a moral relativist, which is fine, lots of good philosophers are, but he shouldn't act like he's discovered some brilliant new facts that support the position. I wish someone would ask him what he'd say if someone found a group of people with only Purity and Authority as bases for ethics. Somehow I shouldn't be surprised if he waffled, refusing on principle to grant additional space for moral reasoning as distinct from rationalization. Speaking for myself, I googled the man, found tests he offers probing people for reactions on the different foundations, found a few places where I apparently apply purity as a moral criterion, and resolved to try and stop doing that. Anyhow. I think the

I am in way over my head here but having read a lot recently about Muslim thought on purity I am aware that one of the reason given for keeping women covered is not only so that they may be kept "pure" but that men whom they encounter will be kept safe from "impure" thoughts. When I Googled "purity culture" I got a list of articles relating to the purity balls sweeping across the country. These are horrible little father/daughter rituals where girls as young as seven promise that their virginity belongs to their father until he gives it to her husband.

Quoting eskinol: It's great that Haidt's done the legwork to establish that conservatives seem to have five moral foundations while liberals have only two, but that fact by itself says nothing *whatsoever* about which set of foundations (if either) is the right one. It certainly doesn't imply that the liberal conception is "lopsided." That after all is what ethics is for, and I think Haidt insistently blurs the boundaries between moral psychology and moral philosophy.

I also suspect the man's something of a moral relativist, which is fine, lots of good philosophers are, but he shouldn't act like he's discovered some brilliant new facts that support the position. I wish someone would ask him what he'd say if someone found a group of people with only Purity and Authority as bases for ethics. Somehow I shouldn't be surprised if he waffled, refusing on principle to grant additional space for moral reasoning as distinct from rationalization.

Speaking for myself, I googled the man, found tests he offers probing people for reactions on the different foundations, found a few places where I apparently apply purity as a moral criterion, and resolved to try and stop doing that.

Anyhow. I think the

Quoting ohcomeon: I am in way over my head here but having read a lot recently about Muslim thought on purity I am aware that one of the reason given for keeping women covered is not only so that they may be kept "pure" but that men whom they encounter will be kept safe from "impure" thoughts. When I Googled "purity culture" I got a list of articles relating to the purity balls sweeping across the country. These are horrible little father/daughter rituals where girls as young as seven promise that their virginity belongs to their father until he gives it to her husband.

Thank you for the information. Yes, I suspect that most of the purity stuff will be coming from religious thinking of one kind or the other. I guess it can be encountered in racial isolationists as well. Perhaps that's why Haidt had difficulty finding suitable examples for the liberal group and only came up with the dietary story. I'm just guessing, really.

"He isn't offering much argument beyond that, except for the few times when Joshua asked him to comment."

Funny, I saw his shtick as being almost entirely "let's stop automatically/reflexively denying legitimacy to disgust/ingroup/authority as moral principles. After all, so many people use them to guide their thinking." This isn't a crazy position by any means (I'm even moderately, with some caveats, sympathetic to the claim that the academy should be more open to conservative positions.) However: His science itself is purely descriptive, and on that level while the principal component analysis is interesting, in broad terms it's long been known that people have differing intuitions. If that's all he's seen as saying he's a bit milquetoast, nothing new and fascinating. If instead he wants to use these data to guide our moral thought, he needs to make the case in philosophical terms. That would indeed entail answering at the very least some of the questions I raised, though of course good ethicists would raise both better and sharper questions. For whatever reason (perhaps some on the board are right - he simply lacks the requisite training and intellectual sophistication) he doesn't want

Quoting eskinol: His science itself is purely descriptive, and on that level while the principal component analysis is interesting, in broad terms it's long been known that people have differing intuitions. If that's all he's seen as saying he's a bit milquetoast, nothing new and fascinating. If instead he wants to use these data to guide our moral thought, he needs to make the case in philosophical terms. That would indeed entail answering at the very least some of the questions I raised, though of course good ethicists would raise both better and sharper questions. For whatever reason (perhaps some on the board are right - he simply lacks the requisite training and intellectual sophistication) he doesn't want to do this. That is fine too, but then he should stick to the PCA and stop bullshitting on how liberals (or conservatives) ought to think about moral matters. He wants to have it both ways, hence the boundary blurring I mentioned.

I understand you may find his field of study uninteresting. The subject of study is a personal choice, as different careers are. Haidt didn't choose to guide moral thought, or to make his case in "traditional" philosophical terms. He

1. At least some of Haidt's arguments make me wonder, for example, how he'd critique someone who said: The results of the Implicit Association Test clearly show race affects all of our thoughts and judgments deeply, except in the case of very small minorities. In fact, in societies around the world, the thought process even often becomes explicit. Clearly we need to recognize the limited aspects of wisdom contained in this traditional understanding of the world and not automatically dismiss it. College professor elites need to reconsider the evolutionary wisdom of racial ingroups and segregation. I hope my point is clear; the science of implicit association - which is exceedingly interesting - doesn't support either that or the opposite ethical principle. Neither does Haidt's. - You say the man sticks to the science. I really don't see it. I think rather that Haidt is in the public eye because he uses his research to says religion is a good thing, that conservative views are given short shrift in philosophy departments, that "Enlightenment 2.0" will need to be more communitarian, that over-educated liberal elites have lopsided moralities, that 'gay sex is icky so same sex marriage should be

Quoting eskinol: - You say the man sticks to the science. I really don't see it. I think rather that Haidt is in the public eye because he uses his research to says religion is a good thing, that conservative views are given short shrift in philosophy departments, that "Enlightenment 2.0" will need to be more communitarian, that over-educated liberal elites have lopsided moralities, that 'gay sex is icky so same sex marriage should be illegal' is not an obviously idiotic argument et al. Once more, these views are not all idiotic or offensive. However, they need justification, philosophical justification, not sophistical bait and switch.

When did you hear him saying this? He said that there are studies that suggest/show that religious people are happier. He didn't say "religion is good". He made the argument, that there appears to be some advantages to being more cooperative/ communitarian. I would like to know what you mean by lopsided morality. And I didn't hear at all that he said that same sex marriage should be illegal. You are reading an agenda, which I frankly don't see at all. I am quite sensitive to the issues you mention, but I didn't detect that kind of bias.

- I hope I didn't come across

To Ocean: We will find 'purity' behind all theological historical accusations of 'heresy,' 'apostate,' and 'infidel.' In ideology, book burnings, a controlled press, and even "political correctness" are manifest purity systems. Dr. Haidt pointed out in this diavlog that 'purity' for the conservative is related most often to sex; for liberals, it is most often related to food. Harvard conservative law professor Charles Fried wrote a recent book, interestingly suggesting that the denial of freedom for the individual in a repressed culture is always accomplished by first controlling sex. But whether ideologically or theologically derived, 'purity' is, historically, one of the most vicious ideals. Every woman burned at the stake, every 'ethnic cleansing,' all racism, etc., have the malevolence of 'purity' posing as morality. It's interesting that no part of this diavlog by two highly intelligent scholars ever pursues the unintended "harm" that 'purity' has forever had as its dark side.

Quoting a Duoist: To Ocean:

We will find 'purity' behind all theological historical accusations of 'heresy,' 'apostate,' and 'infidel.' In ideology, book burnings, a controlled press, and even "political correctness" are manifest purity systems.

Dr. Haidt pointed out in this diavlog that 'purity' for the conservative is related most often to sex; for liberals, it is most often related to food. Harvard conservative law professor Charles Fried wrote a recent book, interestingly suggesting that the denial of freedom for the individual in a repressed culture is always accomplished by first controlling sex.

Yes, I'm familiar with this idea. The same may apply to religious repression of sexuality.

But whether ideologically or theologically derived, 'purity' is, historically, one of the most vicious ideals. Every woman burned at the stake, every 'ethnic cleansing,' all racism, etc., have the malevolence of 'purity' posing as morality. It's interesting that no part of this diavlog by two highly intelligent scholars ever pursues the unintended "harm" that 'purity' has forever had as its dark side.

I agree with the above. I don't think that the intention here was to elaborate on moral judgments, but to examine the basic guiding principles of two different broad ideologies. Perhaps Haidt's research hasn't picked up the finer detail, it just identifies broad categories

My husband is a contractor and is currently working on a building used for female purification on the grounds of a Jewish Center. He has been told it is the only such facility in the metro area. The metro area has a population of about 1.4 million.

Called a Mikvah They exist wherever there is a community of Orthodox Jews. Women must go every month. Menstruation is bigtime cooties in traditional Judaism. A man cannot have sex with a woman until she is purified by the mikvah, post-menstruation.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: The rules in the Leviticus about contact with menstruating women etc. would be understood as "purity codes", and a culture that was particularly dominated by rules about what one may touch or not touch or eat or not eat (Jewish and Hindu cultures are Jonathan's examples, I think) would be "purity cultures" by extension. The idea is that contact with certain things "defiles" or "pollutes" one, and that one must avoid defilement and when one has been defiled, seek "purification" trhough some ritual. I think it's ultimately an anthropological notion, and it's certainly true that most cultures have a notion of "pollution" -- eg the ancient Greeks.
It's been a long time since I read it, but E.R. Dodds's _The Greeks and the Irrational_ surely has a secition on 'pollution'. Here's a Wikipedia article to start you off anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_purity

Just to add on to what Bloggin Noggin said, a good source to look into on this topic is Mary Douglas. She has written a number of books addressing taboo and the 'pollution' aspect of purity. She suggests that the reason some things are deemed untouchable or impure is because they do not belong or conform to a particular

Quoting ohcomeon: The final point in this conversation seems to be that Mr. Haidt is so liberal he was able to overcome his disgust reflex when watching FOX. Even I am not that liberal.

Well put, ohc. I was thinking much the same thing, and especially, flashing back to the times when BlogginNoggin has taken me to task for having an "illiberal" attitude. However, much as I might like to think fondly of my ability to hold my mind open, I think I'm a lot like you in this regard. I can only wear my disinterested anthropologist's hat for short bits of time while watching Fox, or, say, reading some of the more extreme bloggers on NRO. I think, or would like to think anyway, that were the far right not quite so in control of this country that I could be a little more sympathetic to their concerns. Or maybe it's the case that I'd find them easier to tolerate if their tactics were a little less repulsive -- there seems to be so much of an ends-justify-the-means attitude. Now that I think about that last, though, maybe it's more the case that it's not really the true believers who put me

BN: You've said so much of substance in this forum that I want to discuss that I hardly know where to begin, but let me just start off with a nitpick.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Haidt has a terribly simplistic conception of what liberalism is.

[...]

Of course, once you recognize what liberalism is, it begins to be much harder to make any sense whatsoever of the "liberal" as a psychological type -- some very religious people will certainly turn out to be liberals.

I agree that there is a big difference between having a liberal attitude in a general sense and being a liberal in the current American politics sense. However, I think you're being a little unfair to Jon here. Recall his image of the 5-band graphic equalizer as a replacement for a single linear scale. If he is not always careful to distinguish between these two kinds of liberalism, I still think he's got them separated in his mind.

Quoting ohcomeon: I am in way over my head here but having read a lot recently about Muslim thought on purity I am aware that one of the reason given for keeping women covered is not only so that they may be kept "pure" but that men whom they encounter will be kept safe from "impure" thoughts. When I Googled "purity culture" I got a list of articles relating to the purity balls sweeping across the country. These are horrible little father/daughter rituals where girls as young as seven promise that their virginity belongs to their father until he gives it to her husband.

Here's another instance where you and I have a quite similar mindset. I can appreciate, in the abstract, the notion of a father wanting his daughter not to let herself get pushed into sexual experiences prematurely. I can also appreciate how well ceremony works in situations like this, especially when dealing with children whose minds aren't yet fully formed. However, purity balls creep me out.

Quoting eskinol: [...] Anyhow. I think the upshot of that post is: Jonathan Haidt irritates me.

I laughed out loud when I read this post. It matched quite well with my reaction the first time Jon was on BH.tv. I did like this diavlog a lot better. I'm not sure what made me have a different reaction -- maybe I've become more liberal in some sense? Or maybe, since he is now more familiar to me, I therefore found him less objectionable, and this receptivity suggests that I am more conservative than I would like to think. But seriously ... I think part of the reason I liked this one better is due to Josh -- he is really good at keeping potentially sprawling topics on track. Nothing against Will, but Josh's specialization adds something when the topic rests in the blurry area where psychology and philosophy overlap. You hit on a good point in a later comment where you said:

Quoting eskinol: His science itself is purely descriptive ...

I think this is a good thing to keep in mind when listening to Jon, and I also think he's aware of this himself. At times during this diavlog, I felt like he was building a good ground floor

BN: Some more nits to pick, since I don't have the chops to discuss your ideas on larger scales.

Jonathan's response is that liberals are the kind of people who like variety of experience. But isn't he first of all confusing correlation and causation?

As I said to eskinol, maybe not to excuse Jon completely, but:

Quoting bjkeefe: It's possible to hear instances where Jon seems to confuse correlation and causation, but I think this is more imprecision due to speaking conversationally; i.e., he assumes, consciously or not, that he doesn't need to keep issuing disclaimers, or it's not his way to speak in a highly pedantic manner.

i do agree with what you go on to say; loosely, that a more prominent tendency to keep a watchful process running that subjects visceral reactions to rational examination is what makes/defines a liberal in the first place.

The adventurous eater analogy is a bit strange in the current case. The adventurous eater would like to try many dishes, but he may NOT particularly want to try sex with other men. The straight liberal is not more likely to try gay sex than a conservative like Larry Craig. Liberals, both straight

These are horrible little father/daughter rituals where girls as young as seven promise that their virginity belongs to their father until he gives it to her husband.

Where are Freud and Marx when we really need them?

Quoting Wonderment: Where are Freud and Marx when we really need them?

Well, I don't think that they are going to come back just to comment on this. But you are certainly right on target about the "richness in dynamics" that this apparently innocent ritual has. When I hear about these things, and past the revolting response, I really have to wonder whether it is actually possible that our species already "split", being the "purity ballers" on one side, and I'm (certainly with others) on the other.
I don't dare to say my side has evolved, but rather, their side is devolving, mine is not.
With all the White Supremacist talk, the disregard for inequality, and now this last fascist pseudo-religious purity crap, I have to make great efforts to remind myself that fortunately there are many others that share my sentiment...
Now I feel better.

Thanks guys for such a fascinating discussion--its really great to listen to such a high level talk on this. Where else but bloggingheads can we hear such a quality assortment of expert analysis on different topics on a level perfect for college educated non-experts? Bloggingheads: A maypole for intellectuals! Free of charge for use as a slogan Bob Wright nation!! Angling for an on-air comment reading
The only actual comment I have is maybe that people on both sides of the liberal/conservative scale have large amounts of the different five factors--i.e., liberals need community and hierarchy too, and its really a balance for people who are in all but the most extreme positions on the scale, with different weightings of the various factors. I mean few liberals think we could or would want to live without some hierarchical government, police, or don't need family and friends, etc... We argue for more fairness, but not no structure at all, which was alluded to at the end of the discussion, that the tide has shifted back from the far left of the sixties, in part because some of the injustices that existed

Quoting bjkeefe: However, purity balls creep me out.

I'd never heard of them before reading this conversation, so I googled the phrase. What a nasty, damaging little ritual it is; with all kinds of ugly Freudian implications. What is any father doing extracting vows of chastity - in a ceremony modeled on marriage, no less - from a child who in many cases is barely even going to understand what the hell is going on? Even the teens, whom one would hope understand the mechanics of the promise being extracted from them can't possibly grasp the emotional blackmail inherent in this practice. Additionally there's the consideration of unnecessary damage done to children in terms of guilt and self-loathing when a large number of girls inevitably break their vows. And then add the additional element of making explicit a father's sexual jealousy of his daughter's attachments... Yuck. What a vile practice. The following is a pull from the Wikipedia entry that demonstrates that there are sane evangelicals in the world, despite deviant crud like this stemming from some elements of that community:

I'm an evangelical Christian who firmly believes that sex should be

Quoting Ocean: Well, I don't think that they are going to come back just to comment on this. But you are certainly right on target about the "richness in dynamics" that this apparently innocent ritual has.

When I hear about these things, and past the revolting response, I really have to wonder whether it is actually possible that our species already "split", being the "purity ballers" on one side, and I'm (certainly with others) on the other.
I don't dare to say my side has evolved, but rather, their side is devolving, mine is not.
With all the White Supremacist talk, the disregard for inequality, and now this last fascist pseudo-religious purity crap, I have to make great efforts to remind myself that fortunately there are many others that share my sentiment...
Now I feel better.

At least you were able to be relatively polite about it. That was more than I could manage. Yech - the very idea of "purity balls" makes me want to gargle.

Dear BH community: This is my first post at BH. I’m amazed to find out how much went on in the 24 hours after this Diavlog went up. Some of the criticism of me has been justified. In fact, in the hour after Josh and I finished talking, I felt pangs of regret that I didn’t say a few things straight out, and also that I did say a few things poorly. So first, here are 2 statements I wish I had made early on: 1) I am a Jewish atheist who used to dislike all religions, but gradually came to see that religion has a complex profile of effects, many of which are good for individuals and even good for society beyond the religious group (in the form of social capital and the suppression of selfishness among members). BUT, with that said, I have nothing good to say about fundamentalism, which is almost by definition incompatible with life in diverse modern states. When fundamentalists get a hold of governments, they tend to abolish checks and balances. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and you get the Taliban and extraordinary cruelty committed in the name of “virtue.” 2) I am a moderately liberal democrat who has come

Quoting AemJeff: At least you were able to be relatively polite about it. That was more than I could manage. Yech - the very idea of "purity balls" makes me want to gargle.

Thank you, Jeff. There is a very twisted dynamic in this kind of situation. I agree with all your comments about this topic. But, there is more to it, and I quite can't figure out what. I'm frankly not making much effort, it is nauseating. It has to do with a fundamental violation of boundaries, but in a specially sick way.
Well, what could you expect from a psychiatrist? By the way, if you see any other posts that have my name, but don't appear serious, it's just my alter ego. She gets out of control at times...

Quoting Ocean: By the way, if you see any other posts that have my name, but don't appear serious, it's just my alter ego. She gets out of control at times...

I'm familiar with that particular demon - more likely a close cousin, I guess. (It's not always my fault! I swear!)

Thank you. It's most helpful to get this kind of feedback, especially after the various threads of discord have been developed. It brings clarification and perhaps, some closure. Although I wouldn't bet on that...

AemJeff: Liked that quote. Thanks.

Thanks for checking in, Jon. Regarding this:

2) I am a moderately liberal democrat who has come to find that some of the most thought-provoking ideas in the writings of conservative intellectuals (such as Thomas Sowell). BUT, with that said, I have nothing kind to say about the Republican Party, which has badly abused its power and betrayed American principles as well as conservative principles.

I did notice you said "we" several times this diavlog, when talking about liberals. As I remember your previous one, I had the impression you were taking pains to appear neutral, and always referred to the groups in the third person. Better that you should be open about these things, especially given your area of research. So, thanks.

Quoting benjy: ... who knows if anyone's even reading this?

Now you know.

I am a Jewish atheist

Me too. Welcome to the club (which also includes Joshua Knobe). My guess is that Jewish atheists account for about .2% of the US population and about 20% of the Bhead presenters. A mere 100-1 over-representation.

Quoting Wonderment: Me too. Welcome to the club (which also includes Joshua Knobe). My guess is that Jewish atheists account for about .2% of the US population and about 20% of the Bhead presenters. A mere 100-1 over-representation.

What about this now? Don't start with the story of the IQ's and blah, blah, blah. What a show off!!!

Quoting claymisher: Haidt's research uses self-identification for "liberal" and "conservative", so you can't really criticize his definitions too much. He even argued in this episode for breaking them down into subtypes..

I don't see that this means his definitions are beyond criticism. It depends on what he's trying to do. If he means to be talking to political philosophers, then self-identification by people who have no idea how to think consistently and carefully about liberalism and conservatism. Imagine that some scientific dispute -- say between gradualists and catastrophists in geology had become a popular dispute and we found that more phlegmatic types tended to be gradualists and more passionate types tended to be catastrophists. What would that show about gradualism and catastrophism? Very little, I think. Scientific theorizing is a matter of balancing various considerations and finding a way to thread various needles with careful distinctions. How far would a "graphic equalizer" model of scientific theory choice really Help understand how the theories actually work or why the scientific community chose this theory or that theory. If Haidt is simply off in some psychological corner, not intending to talk with political

Quoting Ocean: I actually like Jonathan's style which is very consistent with most of the more modern empirical philosophers. It is a way of candidly stepping back and demystifying some of the traditional concepts in order to facilitate empirical work. This is a different perspective from the armchair only traditional philosophy. Because I have a more formal background in science, I particularly like this approach.

I have no trouble with demystification, but it seems to me he's distorting rather than demystifying. I must admit I don't know Kohlberg -- perhaps he was unreasonably hyper-rationalist in his moral psychology. Perhaps he really did claim that all (adult?) moral views were achieved through reasonING. Perhaps he denied the importance of intuition -- though I can't imagine how he imagined moral reasoning proceeded if it didn't START from intuition. Philosophers are certainly aware from experience that there wouldn't be much to reason about if we had no intuitions, and they are also aware that forming a consistent theory out of these intuitions takes work -- and sometimes we really are stumped. Ultimately, those of us who are particularly committed to careful reflection on such matters probably give up the intuitions

Instead of going through each of the fragments of your post, I would like to ask you a question to clarify what you said. You talk quite a bit about intuition. Could you briefly describe your definition of intuition as applied to this context? I did respond to your question about the paragraph that was confusing. Let me know if it's clear now.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: How far would a "graphic equalizer" model of scientific theory choice really Help understand how the theories actually work or why the scientific community chose this theory or that theory.

Point taken, but I hope you will at least grant that categorizing someone as "liberal" or "conservative" is more intellectually satisfying if one uses a set of sliding scales rather than just one.

I kind of agree with Bnoggin on this one. I find Haidt's approach very interesting, but I think he's really stretching on his scientific and philosophical claims. The categories seem to have way too much overlap and ambiguity to stand up to serious empirical scrutiny, despite all the nifty questionnaires. Haidt suggests he'll be vindicated when everyone figures out how wrong Dawkins and others were about group selection, "tribalism" and how fast human evolution has moved. Hmmm. What I like about the categories is they do allow you to think about authority, purity, reciprocity, harm in novel ways, and it's interesting to contemplate why some smart conservatives seem impervious to reason on issues like same sex marriage, whereas liberals often "get it" as a human right in like two seconds. But I think BN's objection -- which I agree with -- is that the minute you find a bunch of exceptions to that tendency, Haidt moves the goalposts.

Quoting Wonderment: Haidt suggests he'll be vindicated when everyone figures out how wrong Dawkins and others were about group selection, "tribalism" and how fast human evolution has moved. Hmmm.

I agree completely with Haidt. Looking at evolution from a group perspective instead of the individual, makes much more sense. Classical evolutionary psychology (individual) becomes a real stretch when you want to explain certain aspects of group behavior. When you introduce the idea of the survival of the group, it becomes very clear. I enjoy Dawkins, but he is rigid and pompous, two elements of dogmatism..

Okay, so if I understand the anti-Haidt perspective here, his problem is that he's 1) not empirical enough, and 2) he should be arguing from first principals. Hmm.

I contest the phrase “Jewish Atheist”. Wonderment has attempted, with patience, to explain it to me once upon a time, but to no avail. As for me, I insist that you can be either one or the other, but not both. Furthermore, the paragraph written in the quote box in Mr. Haidt’s comment, taken from his book, is the most eloquent and concise acknowledgement of the legitimacy of religion that I have ever seen. I find it to be brilliant. I cannot change the fact that it was written by a self described atheist, but I can certainly refuse to accept that it was written by an atheist. I could say the same about several of the commenters in this forum, who claim to be atheists, but whose expressed sentiments point (from my perspective) in another direction. I know that my comment can be easily dismissed as just a silly quibble about the definition of atheist, or worse still as chauvinism on my part regarding my perception of who is/isn’t an atheist, but I think not.

Quoting bjkeefe: Point taken, but I hope you will at least grant that categorizing someone as "liberal" or "conservative" is more intellectually satisfying if one uses a set of sliding scales rather than just one.

Certainly there ought to be some kind of range of positions. But, if we are categorizing political positions (as opposed to psychological types), we will need something other than the idea of a "mixture" of various intuitions -- which is essentially what the graphic equalizer model is. Philosophical positions cannot just be "mixed" together -- there's such a thing as consistency and coherence that will both (a) make certain "mixtures" impossible as rational systems (though many people will unthinkingly occupy these positions) and (b) make what looks like the same "mixture" into quite different positions.
To illustrate point (b) with an example I've been using, consider someone who has very high settings on the "purity" dimension -- probably better captured as the "sacredness" dimension. Such a person would be categorized as fairly conservative on Haidt's view, yet such a person can actually be quite liberal (as that position has traditionally been understood), if he believes that this holiness dimension is a matter of individual

Quoting JIM3CH: I contest the phrase “Jewish Atheist”. Wonderment has attempted, with patience, to explain it to me once upon a time, but to no avail. As for me, I insist that you can be either one or the other, but not both.

Without attempting to offer a semantic characterization of the word "Jewish" -- which I'm inclined to think is ambiguous between religious and ethnic senses -- let me just say that Jewish law itself recognizes the possibility of Jewish atheists. For, according to Jewish law, anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, regardless what they (dis)believe. I take it that you're not going to want to to argue that Jewish law is mistaken on this point, right?

Quoting mvantony: Without attempting to offer a semantic characterization of the word "Jewish" -- which I'm inclined to think is ambiguous between religious and ethnic senses -- let me just say that Jewish law itself recognizes the possibility of Jewish atheists. For, according to Jewish law, anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, regardless what they (dis)believe. I take it that you're not going to want to to argue that Jewish law is mistaken on this point, right?

I will only interject that when someone says (s)he is Jewish, it implies the religion, or the ethnicity (or culture if you prefer), or both. I guess you can also add the "biological" connection only, if the mother is Jewish, but the person doesn't endorse the religion, and isn't part of the culture. Within certain limits it appears self -definitional.

Quoting mvantony: Without attempting to offer a semantic characterization of the word "Jewish" -- which I'm inclined to think is ambiguous between religious and ethnic senses -- let me just say that Jewish law itself recognizes the possibility of Jewish atheists. For, according to Jewish law, anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, regardless what they (dis)believe. I take it that you're not going to want to to argue that Jewish law is mistaken on this point, right?

Yes. (You’re right…, I’m not) But in normal discourse, at least here in Bloggingheads' space, the phrase "Jewish atheist" seems to come up a lot. I would argue that just the process of putting the word Jewish immediately before the word atheist self selects for the religious meaning of the word Jewish. Why not just “atheist”? Does atheist need a modifier? I guess what I am saying is that when I hear someone describe themselves as a “Jewish atheist”, I register a bit of an equivocation. Can I imagine someone of Jewish decent being an atheist? Yes. I can also imagine them being a Christian, or a Buddhist for example. However, in these cases I would anticipate that they would describe themselves without the Jewish modifier as either simply Christian

I do understand your clarification -- at least well enough to go on. As I said above, I'll try to get to that today. Your request for clarification about "intuition" I can probably do faster. If I'm not mistaken, Haidt himself speaks of intuition vs. reasoning, but i could be wrong about that. What I am calling "intuition" might be defined as "explicit deliverances of one's tacit/implicit understanding of things." Malcolm Gladwell's book _Blink_ could be regarded as an essay on "intuition". He gives an example of the kouros bought by the Getty museum which is now strongly suspected of being a forgery. The Getty had a bunch of tests performed, which seemed to come out fine, but there were archeologists who on first sight just "knew" that it was a fake -- or anyway, that it "smelled fishy." These archeologists could analyze this sense of fishiness, eventually breaking it down, but they had not started with the analysis and reasoned themselves toward the view that it was a fake. The sequence was reversed (just as Haidt points out in the case of moral intuition and argument). Not only that, they might have felt surer that this was a forgery

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I

The main features I take to be characteristic of intuitive understanding are:
(1)it gives you an answer without telling you why it is right
(2) You aren't conscious of a process that led up to this answer
(3) It is 'holistic' -- like reading a face or a map, rather than discursive or analytical.

I think Haidt (in his paper on the "rational tail") shows (rather unsurprisingly) that much of our moral understanding is tacit or intuitive (just like much of our knowledge of everything else), but in the specific case of morality, he invalidly infers that because there was no reasoning, there was no reason.
(To be fairer, the specific cases he comes up with are cases where repeated attempts to find a reason fail, and where Haidt and I might well strongly suspect that there really is no reason. My problem, then is actually with the generalization of cases like this to all moral intutions.)
A

Thank you for the clarification. I wanted to make sure we are talking about the same. Yes, we agree on intuition. In many cases it appears to be a short cut in a way. The process that originates the abrupt emergence of

Quoting JIM3CH: in normal discourse, at least here in Bloggingheads' space, the phrase "Jewish atheist" seems to come up a lot. I would argue that just the process of putting the word Jewish immediately before the word atheist self selects for the religious meaning of the word Jewish. Why not just “atheist”? Does atheist need a modifier?

I guess what I am saying is that when I hear someone describe themselves as a “Jewish atheist”, I register a bit of an equivocation....

I can also imagine them being a Christian, or a Buddhist for example. However, in these cases I would anticipate that they would describe themselves without the Jewish modifier as either simply Christian or Buddhist....

I’m really interested. How should I interpret the phrase "Jewish atheist"?

I, like many others, am inclined to think that "Jewish" is ambiguous between religious and ethnic senses of the term, where the latter refers to an ethnicity or "people" with a history and culture (a large part of which of course involves the Jewish religion in its various manifestations, but also bagels and chicken soup, etc.). If there is such a sense of "Jewish," then atheists who identify as being members of that ethnic group can refer

But in normal discourse, at least here in Bloggingheads' space, the phrase "Jewish atheist" seems to come up a lot. I would argue that just the process of putting the word Jewish immediately before the word atheist self selects for the religious meaning of the word Jewish. Why not just “atheist”? Does atheist need a modifier?

I think your problem is simply that you have some trouble decoupling Jewishness from a religion. It's probably because you were taught that there are X number of world religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, ... etc. Since you knew what Christianity was and you knew what a religion was, you reasoned that you knew the kind of thing Judaism was (and wasn't). But Judaism is a culture that's compatible with atheism. You have very prominent atheist Jews throughout the 20th century who never for a moment stopped defining themselves as Jews: Freud, Einstein, Chomsky, etc. Plus, you have the ordinary experience of hundreds of thousands of Jewish atheists like me. I speak Jewish languages, I understand Jewish ritual, life cycle and texts. I know what keeping Kosher is. I know what observing the Sabbath is. I have family who ended up in Israel and in Nazi ovens (as well as in Mexico and

Putting aside the fact that I don’t believe you when you when you say that you are an atheist; I guess that I would ask why it is that you would feel the necessity to qualify your atheism in any sense? When Jon Haidt above used the phrase “I am a Jewish atheist”, he did so in a paragraph that was contextually religious. Am I really to believe that when he did so he was not thinking Judaism, but rather Jewish heritage? Were I to be the phraseology dictator of the world I guess that I would edict that the following phraseology be used instead: I am Jewish and an atheist. By the way, as a means of calibration / synchronization, Einstein was in my opinion certainly not an atheist.

Putting aside the fact that I don’t believe you when you when you say that you are an atheist...

Okey dokey.

Hello Ocean,
The truth is that only 6 minutes or so into the diavlog, I was shooting a bit from the hip. I was unaware that "identification with the group" was supposed to mean "identification with one's own in-group" as opposed to out-groups. I was thinking that he meant to say that conservatives emphasize what individuals owe to the group and liberals tend to emphasize the limits of what society can demand of the individual.
Even if it's not what he meant, I think this tends to be true. My point in connection with this is that rights and duties are flip sides of each other: there are no rights without duties or duties without rights. Which one you emphasize is going to depend on whether you think society is currently being too demanding or whether you think individuals are being too selfish and not contributing their share to the common good. But what Haidt goes on to say later in the diavlog does suggest he is saying that conservatives tend to think in terms of in-group and out-group more than liberals. I think this too is simply a

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Is the phrase “Jewish atheist” used to a noticeable extent in Israel? When I Google it I find websites about Jewish Atheism. Is Jewish atheism actually a type of atheism in its own right (e.g., a reaction to religious persecution through the ages)? If I’m becoming a bore, feel free to hang up on me. As the saying goes, a fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer. Besides it's after midninght in Israel as I type this.

Quoting Wonderment: Okey dokey.

Don’t take it so hard. I don’t believe Bloggin’ Noggin either.

Quoting JIM3CH: Don’t take it so hard. I don’t believe Bloggin’ Noggin either.

Do you care to elaborate, Jim? There are quite a few of us here who identify as atheists. Is it hard for you to believe in disbelief in God? The touchstone for me, the moment when I stopped mumbling about agnosticism and started calling myself an "atheist," was re-reading the following by Bertrand Russell, known as Russell's Teapot:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become

Jim: I'll add to Jeff's comment to say that, if you're going to define an atheist as someone who is dogmatically certain that there is no God, well, yeah, maybe there aren't that many atheists. I, for example, would not make that assertion -- since it's virtually impossible to prove non-existence, logically I am forced to admit the possibility of existence. But, as with Russell and Jeff, there's a point where the utter lack of evidence, combined with the obviously human manifestations that form the bedrock of all major religions, that makes me effectively an atheist. It's just not a necessary hypothesis.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Hello Ocean,

But what Haidt goes on to say later in the diavlog does suggest he is saying that conservatives tend to think in terms of in-group and out-group more than liberals. I think this too is simply a matter of emphasis.

That's exactly what he's saying. People in the conservative side tend to hold "belonging to a group" as a much more important principle. I'm not sure how he measured this, but most likely he used a 5 or 7 point Likert scale. So, his results would not be categorical but rather quantitative. I'm speculating on this.
The general idea is that liberals try to overcome the bias rendered by self interest. Conservatives may value their closer group and see the rest as enemy. Again, these are my speculations.

Like many of our general assessments, such judgments will be affected by temperament, but they need not be mere temperament.

I certainly agree with that.

Quoting bjkeefe: Jim:

I'll add to Jeff's comment to say that, if you're going to define an atheist as someone who is dogmatically certain that there is no God, well, yeah, maybe there aren't that many atheists. I, for example, would not make that assertion -- since it's virtually impossible to prove non-existence, logically I am forced to admit the possibility of existence.

But, as with Russell and Jeff, there's a point where the utter lack of evidence, combined with the obviously human manifestations that form the bedrock of all major religions, that makes me effectively an atheist. It's just not a necessary hypothesis.

Add my vote to this one. Another phrase that I entertain: I live my life as an atheist, but technically I'm an agnostic. Go figure!

Quoting AemJeff: Do you care to elaborate, Jim? There are quite a few of us here who identify as atheists. Is it hard for you to believe in disbelief in God? The touchstone for me, the moment when I stopped mumbling about agnosticism and started calling myself an "atheist," was re-reading the following by Bertrand Russell, known as Russell's Teapot:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the

Quoting JIM3CH: My impression, developed over a length of time, is that those forum members who assert their atheism in the strongest terms are also those who are the most passionate in their search for truth and justice. I find this to be curious.

Why? If one is interested in truth, then why wouldn't one have little patience for a hypothesis for which there is no evidence? And what does justice have to do with it? Are you suggesting that humans can't develop the concept on their own?

Quoting bjkeefe: Why? If one is interested in truth, then why wouldn't one have little patience for a hypothesis for which there is no evidence?

And what does justice have to do with it? Are you suggesting that humans can't develop the concept on their own?

Truth and justice are so fractal as to be inaccessible. They are directions rather than destinations. I am suggesting that if one were truly an atheist one would cease to be passionate about searching for ether one.

Quoting JIM3CH: Truth and justice are so fractal as to be inaccessible. They are directions rather than destinations. I am suggesting that if one were truly an atheist one would cease to be passionate about searching for ether one.

I may agree with the concept that they are directions rather than destinations. But this concept doesn't require religious belief and it's perfectly compatible with the notion of atheism. You say "truly atheist". That makes me wonder what your concept of that is. Perhaps we are talking about something different.

Jim:

Truth and justice are so fractal as to be inaccessible.

If you didn't have a distinguished history of solid commenting, I'd really think you were being a troll with this thread. Either that, or you've gotten hold of some of the good stuff and returned to your sophomore year dorm room. This is not completely meaningless, although it is banal:

They are directions rather than destinations.

And this is more meaninglessness:

I am suggesting that if one were truly an atheist one would cease to be passionate about searching for ether one.

Again, why? This makes no sense. Why does there need to be a God for humans to be passionate, to believe in overarching concepts, to strive for goals? Why can't you just accept the more parsimonious explanation, that that's just the way we humans are? The only other possible explanation is you're trying to redefine atheist to be mean something for which we already have a perfectly serviceable word. Perhaps you have never heard of nihilist?

We are definitely now in the realm where intellectual giants have written great enduring volumes. I should fold, but I’ll play my last card. Let me just say that I don’t think that God is something you necessarily have to believe in, rather it is something that we should all search for. The continuous search for truth and justice within and between societies by groups and by individuals I take as evidence of a search for God. Atheists are those who have stopped searching. In the vernacular of Jon Haidt (see the quote box in his comment above), they are the people who have lost sight of the up and down dimension of life and let their world collapse down to two dimensions. Merriam-Webster says that an atheist is one who believes there is no God. I accept that definition.

Quoting bjkeefe: Jim: Perhaps you have never heard of nihilist?

Actually I have.

Quoting JIM3CH: Merriam-Webster says that an atheist is one who believes there is no God. I accept that definition.

One of the ways in which our society has declined is the decision by dictionary editors to prefer a descriptive approach rather than a prescriptive one. Most people who define atheist in this way are people who believe in God of some sort. All M-W is doing is reporting the common usage. That doesn't make it correct. Most people who call themselves atheists, who have thought about this for any amount of time, would reject this M-W definition. A more accurate one would be: one who does not believe in God. Think of the Greek root: a-theist. Literally, "without God." What you're trying to do by imposing the M-W definition reminds me of what a lot of theists try to do: create the impression that atheism is nothing but another form of faith. That's a mistake. In fact, it's an insult.

Quoting JIM3CH: Actually I have.

Well, good. But you have yet to show me how your attempt to describe atheism is any different from what is meant by nihilism.

And let me just reject one more thing out of hand:

Quoting JIM3CH: Let me just say that I don’t think that God is something you necessarily have to believe in, rather it is something that we should all search for.

This is very close to attempting to impose your values on others. Why should I and everyone else have to waste any (more) time searching for something for which there is no evidence? You want to pursue this, go right ahead. But this is a personal thing, and not something you should be dictating to others.

Quoting bjkeefe: One of the ways in which our society has declined is the decision by dictionary editors to prefer a descriptive approach rather than a prescriptive one.

Most people who define atheist in this way are people who believe in God of some sort. All M-W is doing is reporting the common usage. That doesn't make it correct.

Most people who call themselves atheists, who have thought about this for any amount of time, would reject this M-W definition. A more accurate one would be: one who does not believe in God.

Think of the Greek root: a-theist. Literally, "without God."

What you're trying to do by imposing the M-W definition reminds me of what a lot of theists try to do: create the impression that atheism is nothing but another form of faith. That's a mistake. In fact, it's an insult.

I went round and round on exactly this point with Wolfgangus long ago. And, yes, he acted as though he was insulted. But no insult is intended I assure you.

Quoting JIM3CH: I went round and round on exactly this point with Wolfgangus long ago. And, yes, he acted as though he was insulted. But no insult is intended I assure you.

I'd say, "OK," if you hadn't acknowledged that you've already been told that it comes off as insulting. You want to insult me about this? That's fine. I'm won't go on the warpath about it. But in principle, it's just a little irritating to hear someone say something he knows could be heard as an insult, and then claim full absolution anyway.

Quoting bjkeefe: Well, good. But you have yet to show me how your attempt to describe atheism is any different from what is meant by nihilism.

Nihilism implies evil, but the view of atheism that I have tried to convey -- that is, one who is no longer searching--does not. A nihilist would be how I would describe an atheist that's gone bad.

Actually, you're right. The word should has no place here. That was exactly the point that Jon Haidt was making in his quote box. Mea culpa and shame on me. Delete 'should'.

Quoting JIM3CH: Actually, you're right. The word should has no place here. That was exactly the point that Jon Haidt was making in his quote box. Mea culpa and shame on me. Delete 'should'.

Noted. Thanks for the handsome apology.

Quoting JIM3CH: Nihilism implies evil, but the view of atheism that I have tried to convey -- that is, one who is no longer searching--does not. A nihilist would be how I would describe an atheist that's gone bad.

Just for the record, that's not exactly how I'd define nihilism. It is, to me, once again, a term which merely describes an absence of belief in something. However, since a lot of people understand the absence here to include an absence of belief in (the worth of) values, I'm getting close to splitting hairs, so I'll accept your definition.

Quoting bjkeefe: And let me just reject one more thing out of hand:

This is very close to attempting to impose your values on others. Why should I and everyone else have to waste any (more) time searching for something for which there is no evidence? You want to pursue this, go right ahead. But this is a personal thing, and not something you should be dictating to others.

If recommending one's values to others is "imposing" one's values on others, that's an impossibly low standard of coercion. Any liberal who uses that as the standard of coercion is instantly caught in a contradiction when it comes to liberal values -- e.g., "no one should impose his values on others." If simply making that recommendation is "imposing one's values", then even liberal tolerance amounts to intolerance.
This kind of hypersensitive liberalism, though undoubtedly popular, is pretty much self-refuting.
Note that this kind of point is one that simply can't arise in the "mixture" or "graphic equalizer" model of political postions -- to bring the thing back to Haidt and my response to you above.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: If recommending one's values to others is "imposing" one's values on others, that's an impossibly low standard of coercion.

I distinguish between "recommending" and saying "should."

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Certainly there ought to be some kind of range of positions. But, if we are categorizing political positions (as opposed to psychological types), we will need something other than the idea of a "mixture" of various intuitions -- which is essentially what the graphic equalizer model is.

Agreed. I didn't mean to suggest Jon's GEq analogy was the be-all and end-all, just that it seemed better than a single line spectrum sort of thing.

Jim is not being very forthcoming with an argument, certainly.
Let me suggest that he may have something like this argument implicitly in mind: 1. If there is to be any objective value in the world, its source must be God.
2. An atheist doesn't believe in God.
3. Therefore, atheists cannot (reasonably and consistently) believe in objective value. He then seems to assume at his least careful, that the only reason to care about anything is if there is objective value. More carefully, he might say instead that the only reason to care about truth or justice (as opposed to one's own pleasure) is that one believes truth or justice to have objective value -- to be valuable even if people don't explicitly desire them). He concludes that atheists are irrational to care about truth or justice (or at least to care about them in the way that they do). I deny (1). As Plato shows in the Euthyphro, this assumption is something that even theists should deny -- at least if it is based upon the assumption that God's preferences or commands are what determine what is good. Whence comes God's authority

Quoting bjkeefe: I distinguish between "recommending" and saying "should."

So you would not tell people that they shouldn't impose their values on others? Your response to Jim seems to presuppose that people shouldn't do this. I don't think you have escaped the self-contradiction that I pointed out above.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: So you would not tell people that they shouldn't impose their values on others? Your response to Jim seems to presuppose that people shouldn't do this. I don't think you have escaped the self-contradiction that I pointed out above.

I take your point, but I think this is also a limitation-of-the-language problem as well. I am reminded of Russell's Paradox.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I suspect you will want to question the argument I've supplied to Jim only where he assumes the only reason to care about truth and justice is to believe they have objective value. This is clearly another place where Jim owes something of an argument, since there are certainly many people who would deny it. Why can't someone just happen to care about truth or justice enough to sacrifice other desires for the sake of them?

Right. I don't need to believe that truth, or justice, or anything else, is objective or has an objective value. I am content to have a sense of what these things are, right here, right now, however we best understand them at the moment, and to pursue them as such. And, of course, ideally we have a little watching process that's always running, that is able to see when the understanding of the goal value (e.g., truth or justice) changes, and maybe makes us pull off to the side of the road for a moment and adjust the route we've mapped out.

Quoting bjkeefe: I take your point, but I think this is also a limitation-of-the-language problem as well.

So are you saying that it's consistent for liberals to tell everyone else that they shouldn't tell others what they should or shouldn't do, but there's just no way to show them that it's consistent because of the limitations of language itself?
I think that's a claim of a sort that you would yourself scoff at if a theocrat made it in answering an inconsistency you pointed out.
Certainly, you can't declare something unsayble before trying pretty hard to say it. I think the resolution is to say that "imposition" implies coercion of some sort, and that merely saying that someone "should" do something is not by itself coercive. Was there anything unsayable in that position?

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: So are you saying that it's consistent for liberals to tell everyone else that they shouldn't tell others what they should or shouldn't do, but there's just no way to show them that it's consistent because of the limitations of language itself?

I'm not saying it's consistent or couldn't be restated to remove the apparent contradiction. I'm just not up for trying to write an airtight law at the moment. An interesting intellectual exercise for another mood, perhaps.

You may think this is only quibbling, Brendan, but:
a) It actually is a big part of the theocratic argument against liberalism -- that it is supposedly inconsistent on this point. My response to the theocrats is that liberalism isn't really inconsistent on this point, but this response tends to be undermined by all those liberals who make precisely this mistake of objecting to anyone who says what people should do.
and
b) It falls into the "whiner" stereotype of liberals -- someone who just says that people "should" do this or that (as liberals necessarily do themselves) is accused of coercion. I don't expect ordinary liberals to be able to argue about the finer points of Rawls, but maybe it really is politically significant when they put their feet in their mouths.

Hi BN. Long time no chat. I ask this with all good will and genuine curiosity: Would you mind elaborating a bit on your two statements below?

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: If morality demands such complete impartiality of us that we are branded selfish because we do more for our own children than for other people's children, then there's something wrong with that standard.......

......It's OK for me to promote my friends' interests above those of other people.......

On their face, these strike me as debatable statements, yet you seem to present them as fact. Given that I have never seen you take a firm position on the more mundane moral issues (as opposed to extreme issues, such as killing babies for fun), I'm interested to know if the above rise to the level of moral fact for you and how you justify these positions philosophically. My interest is in how people adopt and justify/rationalize their day to day mundane moral positions. Our past conversations have tended to skirt mundane morality, thus my curiosity. Thanks. Amanda

Quoting Bobby G: Hey BN,

I was wondering about your own moral views. If you've already discussed this, I'll look for your posts until I find it. But what I was particularly interested in was (a) whether you're a moral realist (which I suspect you are) and if so (b) what kind of moral realist you are: naturalist (a la Boyd and Railton), non-natural intuitionist (a la Regan, Audi, and Shafer-Landau), or some third option (Robert Adams style Divine Command Theorist, or Allen Wood style Kantian, which last is the camp I fall into).

Hello Bobby G,
Sorry to take so long to answer you -- I have a lot less time than I used to on this board.
I guess I ought to say I am a moral realist in at least this sense: I think torturing babies for fun is simply wrong -- and I think "torturing babies for fun is wrong" is a literally true statement. I am also convinced that my believing it doesn't make it true -- it would be wrong even if everyone thought it was perfectly OK. I feel as convinced of those claims as I am of my most confident beliefs -- and the arguments against these claims (a) are far less obvious than the fact

Quoting Me&theboys: Hi BN. Long time no chat. I ask this with all good will and genuine curiosity: Would you mind elaborating a bit on your two statements below?

Hi Amanda, I bet you have been in seventh heaven, with not one but two appearances of Jonathan Haidt on BHtv, not to mention a lot of experimental philosophers and moral skeptics of various sorts. I know I have been -- even though I tend to be critical (too sharply critical, probably -- I don't mean to look gift horses in the mouth).

On their face, these strike me as debatable statements, yet you seem to present them as fact. Given that I have never seen you take a firm position on the more mundane moral issues (as opposed to extreme issues, such as killing babies for fun), I'm interested to know if the above rise to the level of moral fact for you

If I don't make a clarification here, we'll be talking at cross-purposes. For me, a "fact" is simply a true statement -- or (better) the state of the world that makes the statement true. You seem to be using it to mean "a statement for which the evidence is so strong

I'm surprised that so many people dislike the term "Jewish atheist". It's a nice way to avoid rejecting a certain culture while rejecting a false belief. In my experience (this is just anecdotal; I haven't done or read any research) I'm struck by how many self-identifying Jews describe themselves as "observant Jews", while Christians, especially Protestants, are more likely to describe themselves as "believing Christians". Catholics seem to me a kind of in-between case; ritual observances are more important for them than for Protestants, so far as I can judge. So if for many Jews, Jewishness is principally defined in terms of observing certain rituals and/or cultural practices, then the term "Jewish atheist" can make a lot of sense. Famous atheist Richard Dawkins, who has no reluctance to describe himself as a cultural Christian, wish people a merry Christmas, put up a Christmas tree in his living room, etc., has with some (acknowledged) envy noted the easy use of the term "Jewish atheist" and wished for some acceptance of some term like "Christian atheist"; to avoid confusion, he has called himself a "post-Christian atheist", to acknowledge and accept his cultural heritage while jettisoning the theological baggage.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: You may think this is only quibbling, Brendan, but:
a) It actually is a big part of the theocratic argument against liberalism -- that it is supposedly inconsistent on this point. My response to the theocrats is that liberalism isn't really inconsistent on this point, but this response tends to be undermined by all those liberals who make precisely this mistake of objecting to anyone who says what people should do.
and
b) It falls into the "whiner" stereotype of liberals -- someone who just says that people "should" do this or that (as liberals necessarily do themselves) is accused of coercion.

I don't expect ordinary liberals to be able to argue about the finer points of Rawls, but maybe it really is politically significant when they put their feet in their mouths.

All I can tell you is that I find the distinction between the two kinds of "should" (e.g., "you should pursue God" vs. "you shouldn't mandate that other people pursue God") so intuitively obvious that I can't summon up the energy to come up with a better way of saying it. You're right that it would be worthwhile to come up with a

BN - I meant fact in the same way you have just described, as in "there are moral facts whether we know what they are or not" (don't read anything into the quotes; they are there just to indicate this is not a claim I am making here). Since I am interested in your thoughts on this, I was definitely intending the term as I understand you to use it. I have indeed been enjoying all the diavlogs on my favorite topics. I've just moved half way across the country and barely have time to watch BH.TV, and definitely don't have time to write any thoughtful posts, so I have been posting very selectively, despite a desire to have the time to do otherwise. But I have been listening avidly. BTW, I really am not a moral skeptic. I am a skeptic about whether or not most people are motivated by moral facts (including in their most mundane behavior). Two very different things. I believe people are motivated to portray (to themselves and others) their behavior in a positive moral light (and justify it as such) rather than to really determine whether or not their behavior is in fact moral. And since

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin:
... It falls into the "whiner" stereotype of liberals -- someone who just says that people "should" do this or that (as liberals necessarily do themselves) is accused of coercion.

Who coerces who?
Are there other ways to make the case for the "liberal" position? The basic conflict seems to go like this: Let's say two students decide to go to the library after school. The library is only several blocks away, so they decide to walk there.
Student A says: let's take Street X, the tennis courts are there and I enjoy watching the players.
Student B says: No, thank you. That's a long walk and I'd rather take street Y. It's much shorter. Student A insists: That's nonsense it's much better to enjoy the game. Street Y is boring.
Student B says: I see you like tennis, but I don't. Let's do this. You can take Street X and look at the players, I'll take street Y and have a shorter walk.
Student A unrelenting says: No, no. You have to come with me. Tennis is great. I know you will enjoy it. You have to come with me. And I will enjoy your company. Student B says: Sorry. You can choose whatever way you go. But I'm going the short way. Respect my decision, I don't think you should try to impose your preference on

Ocean: LOL! Nicely done. Thanks for picking up the weight.

Quoting bjkeefe: Ocean:

LOL!

Nicely done. Thanks for picking up the weight.

Welcome.

Hello Ocean,
I guess you share Brendan's feeling that it is simply obvious that the word "should" involves an "imposition" -- which I take to be some kind of coercion. This really is not in the least obvious to me, so your example does nothing for me. I don't think either student clearly wants to "impose" anything on the other, and thus I don't accept the premise of your response. They seem to be involved in recommending courses of action to each other and trying to persuade each other of their respective recommendations. The problem I see here is that we only have a few options in society: either we can coerce each other or we can persuade each other -- there is no magical third option where we all live in separate caves and make no collective decisions whatever. The route of persuasion strikes me as clearly preferable because however "coercive" recommendations and rational arguments may be, they beat the hell out of guns. When liberals treat recommendation and rational argument as coercive and an affront, they seem to be conceding that it makes no difference whether you use guns or arguments

Bloggin' Noggin, I'm not sure that substituting "imposition" for "persuasion" makes much of a difference Let's say we are talking about a certain topic which involves taking a course of action and you tell me "I hear your reasons. I don't agree with you. I told you my reasons. Let's not discuss this any further. You can follow your course of action, I'll follow mine". At that point your are allowing me to exercise my free will, while you claim your right to exercise your own. But, I don't accept this proposition and continue trying to persuade you. The persuasion is about the original topic of conversation, but now, there is also an imposition to continue the discussion even when you clearly said you wanted to end it. The element of coercion is perhaps somewhat subtle. I'm not putting a gun to your head to make you listen to me. But, if the conversation started within the limits of courtesy, and at this point of insistence, it appears that you may have to depart from it, that would consitute a subtle from of coercion. I think there is a principle of right to "self determination" that would apply. There are circumstances when

Quoting Me&theboys: BN - I meant fact in the same way you have just described, as in "there are moral facts whether we know what they are or not" (don't read anything into the quotes; they are there just to indicate this is not a claim I am making here). Since I am interested in your thoughts on this, I was definitely intending the term as I understand you to use it.

I thought I had better clarify, because you seemed to expect me to offer some kind of final knock-down argument to be able to justify my normative views -- to justify them as "rising to the level of moral fact". Normative questions are somewhat separable from one's views about the status of those normative questions -- just as the question of whether there are objective physical facts is separate from the question of what exactly those facts are. I am far more confident that there is some fact of the matter about whether string theory is true than I would be about any particular view of whether string theory is ture or what particular version of it might be true. And just as

I'm not sure that substituting "imposition" for "persuasion" makes much of a difference

Let's say we are talking about a certain topic which involves taking a course of action and you tell me "I hear your reasons. I don't agree with you. I told you my reasons. Let's not discuss this any further. You can follow your course of action, I'll follow mine". At that point your are allowing me to exercise my free will, while you claim your right to exercise your own. But, I don't accept this proposition and continue trying to persuade you. The persuasion is about the original topic of conversation, but now, there is also an imposition to continue the discussion even when you clearly said you wanted to end it. [/quote]
Let's return to the original case. Jim stated a belief about what everyone should do (seek God).
Brendan regarded this statement alone as Jim imposing his beliefs on everyone else.
Was Jim imposing his beliefs simply by believing this? Or by truly stating that this was his belief? Simply believing it can't be coercive. Is the free statement of his opinion about what everyone ought to seek coercive by itself?
I can

Well the problem with (post) X atheists is can you really trust them? Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in. ...

Now you "make me" feel like we are ganging up on you! I can't speak for Brendan because I have no idea what his position is. But I can speak for myself. And I'm going to take a different view so that, perhaps, we can make some progress. You say:

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I can see that people don't like to be told that they are wrong in their evaluations, but a good liberal should be in favor of robust argument and free speech, not in favor of an oppressive politeness or "political correctness" that keeps people from even discussing their deepest evaluative beliefs out of a fear NOT of IMPOSING beliefs, but rather of telling other people that they are wrong (oh horror!) Good liberals should be in favor of teaching people how to handle disagreement and how to make progress in argument, not of declaring the most important questions off-limits to polite discussion.

I agree with the above. The example I had given in prior post was an attempt to examine what I thought was an equivalent situation. But let's drop that. The way I see the exchange that we are discussing now, is that Jim kept saying that other

I've tried to follow this one, maybe hoping that it had something to do with the actual episode, but for the life of me I can't figure out what's going on. My guess is that Bloggin' Noggin is ejecting squid ink and baffling the other commenters.

Quoting claymisher: I've tried to follow this one, maybe hoping that it had something to do with the actual episode, but for the life of me I can't figure out what's going on. My guess is that Bloggin' Noggin is ejecting squid ink and baffling the other commenters.

Something like that. Although, those of us who choose to stay in the ink cloud share some responsibility. This was about "The Good Liberal's Guide to Proper vs Improper Argumentation". We are writing a book. Would you like to join us?

Quoting Ocean: Something like that. Although, those of us who choose to stay in the ink cloud share some responsibility.

This was about "The Good Liberal's Guide to Proper vs Improper Argumentation". We are writing a book. Would you like to join us?

Like the "I can't argue with what you said but I didn't like the way you said it" routine? Or, "Stop making so much noise when I'm punching you"? What the teacher says when he's siding with the bullies?

The question that Haidt left unanswered, in both the diavlogs I've watched with him, is why we can't just regard the narrowing of the 'domain' of morality, by 'liberals' (in his technical sense), as an epistemic gain, that is, an insight. Consider a similar case: If one reads things written by Leon Trotsky in the first half of the 20th century, or by Lenin for that matter, there is a very striking mistake that one finds him making again and again. He confuses theories with strategies. For instance, he calls his "permanent revolution" strategy, the "theory of permanent revolution," and he seems to regard it as scientific. He seems to take the idea of "correctness" in politics quite literally. Most readers will quickly see that in these slips Trotsky is calling a strategy a "theory," or a tactical proposal "correct," precisely because he thinks that strategies can be true or false. But as we read this we immediately realize that, whereas theories can be true or false, strategies can only be effective or ineffective (or something like that). We see clearly that he is blurring a relevant distinction. Surely we cannot just say, in this case, that he has certain

Quoting claymisher: Like the "I can't argue with what you said but I didn't like the way you said it" routine?

Or, "Stop making so much noise when I'm punching you"?

What the teacher says when he's siding with the bullies?

Sorry, I don't get it -- that's supposed to be ME? I objected to the attempt to silence someone's statement of his actual opinion (about what everyone should seek). Liberals are in serious trouble if they think the mere statement of evaluative opinions covering all people are coercive "impositions" -- not least because liberals hold such general beliefs about what people should do, and they must sometimes state them and argue for them.
The "squid ink" is not mine -- it's the total confusion of our school system on this issue.
Have a look at _On Liberty_. Mill argues that discussion of values (and everything else) should be as free as possible. People should then be free to make their own mistakes in putting those values into practice in their own lives.
He confronts an objection to the effect that no man is an island and our fellow creatures ought to look out for us

Quoting Ocean: Now you "make me" feel like we are ganging up on you!

No -- but I was concerned that my position was being labeled as quibbling and therefore not taken seriously, though I was quite serious.

I agree with the above.

If that's true, then we don't have much of interest to continue arguing about. I'm not in the least eager to rehash the details of the original debate with Jim. There's no doubt he was being rather frustrating in asserting a provocative opinion but offering only one-line reassertions of his point (or of his broader point of view). My own preference (even though I am one of those atheists who Jim ws mislabeling) would be to point out that he hadn't really offered any reasons so far (any non-question-begging ones anyway) and put off responding until he provided a real reason for his view.
If Brendan didn't really mean the principle he seemed (to me) to adopt (that saying everyone SHOULD do something amounts to imposing one's values), then I may have no argument with him either. I tried in another post to give him an argument that he could adopt and

I have been, of course, reading your comments with interest. As to continuing with any argument, clearly I have dug a hole for myself and don’t wish to go any deeper. The structure that you provided for the argument that I was trying to make was very interesting, and helpful for my own understanding. I may be more parochial in my view than I have thought myself to be. I am not a competent philosopher and would not be able to make an argument for the objective value of truth and justice. All I can say is that I find it discomfiting to contemplate that they don‘t have it. I am unable to imagine why there would be a collective reason to pursue them if they didn’t have it. As to my mislabelling of you and other’s, I trust that you (and others) have not found it too offensive. I realize that I am on the jagged edge of having to admit that you are, as you say that you are, an atheist. After all you flatly deny that “if there is to be any objective value in the world, it’s source must be God.” But, just as you may label yourself

SteveD, I'm with you. I'd like to think my lack of tribalism, authority-worshipping, and weird hangups about purity are a plus. But since they're everywhere and don't seem to be going away anytime soon, I'd like us in the moral foundations #1 & #2 camp to game the system somehow to make #3, #4, and #5 productive for our current cultural and economic environment. Let's start a think tank! Project for a New American Loyal Respectful Purity. PNALRP! Who's with me?!

BN:

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: The social norm that Brendan tried to impose is one that shuts down free speech and rational argument about values -- on the ground that mentioning what one takes to be valuable is itself a coercive imposition of one's values. This diminishes the realm of free speech ...

Your problem with me seems to trace back to this:

Quoting bjkeefe: And let me just reject one more thing out of hand:

Quoting JIM3CH: Let me just say that I don’t think that God is something you necessarily have to believe in, rather it is something that we should all search for.

This is very close to attempting to impose your values on others. Why should I and everyone else have to waste any (more) time searching for something for which there is no evidence? You want to pursue this, go right ahead. But this is a personal thing, and not something you should be dictating to others.

If you review the exchange that led up to that, I think you'll realize that my objections to Jim's argument stemmed from my understanding that he was making a blanket assertion that atheists don't pursue

Quoting SteveD: Why isn't this just a plain insight about which kinds of things are blameworthy, as opposed to disgusting or alien to "us," etc. Why isn't this just an insight into the difference between morality (which concerns the blameworthy) and socio-cultural normativity (which concerns the disapproval-causing).

If it is a genuine insight, then what is called for is not a more expansive conception of the scope of morality, but a more widespread appreciation of an insight now only fully grasped by some.

The distinction that you make between morality (concerning the blameworthy) as different from socio-cultural normativity (more context dependent), isn't accepted by everybody. Many think that all forms of morality are context dependent, and there are no absolute norms, moral relativism. The scope of the context can be narrower and more obvious to see the interdependence, or you can have a very broad scope of context, and appear to be an absolute morality (or moral realism). In your last sentence, you appear to favor the existence of a moral reality which is only accessible to some. Would you like to expand on that?

I'm pretty all that SteveD is getting at is that tribalism, undue deference to the powerful, and weird hangups about purity are mistakes, and the people who've figured that out might want to argue their case. My gut instinct is that Haidt's five foundations are pretty much cross-cultural, and that x% of any community is going to use all five whether we like it or not. I'd like our own society to reframe the last three: * Our group should be wide enough to not exclude anyone. No man is an island. We're all in this together. * Authority should apply narrowly in scope and widely in extent. You defer to the judge when you're in court. You defer to the old guy by holding the door open. You defer to the coach because it makes the team play better. You never, ever, ever defer to rich people and politicians. * Purity ... aw hell, beats me. Just as long as it's we stop beating up on the little guy I'm happy. I think a lot of the old-fashioned ideas about chastity and whatnot were pretty good advice, but usually for the wrong reasons. Cheating on your wife, having threeways, or

Claymisher, Thank you for your reply. I think that you expanded on your brief, but thoughtful previous post. But, that's not exactly what SteveD was talking about. Maybe you know that he also thinks about the five foundations similarly to you. But, definitely not the same he was making reference to. I did enjoy your post though.

Quoting Ocean: In your last sentence, you appear to favor the existence of a moral reality which is only accessible to some. Would you like to expand on that?

There is an issue to discuss about "moral reality," but that's not the issue that I think I'm raising. The "insight" to which I refer is not an insight into what, specifically, is morally permissible or not, "really" or "truly." It is an insight into which kinds of behaviors raise issues of wrongness, which is (arguably) a properly moral question (regardless of how one answers that question), as distinct from those behaviors that cause disapproval because, for a certain culturally or subculturally specific group, they violate an entrenched social norm, and thereby provoke anger or disgust or other kinds of offense. Compare the distinction between etiquette and morality. I think of it as an insight when I notice that someone has done something which, for a community to which I belong, is deemed improper, even though it would be a kind of confusion were I to say, "What she did was morally wrong." For instance, there are norms in, say, Tibet or Thailand for how to interact with a monk. But outside those contexts, few people observe them. Is

Quoting SteveD: There is an issue to discuss about "moral reality," but that's not the issue that I think I'm raising. The "insight" to which I refer is not an insight into what, specifically, is morally permissible or not, "really" or "truly." It is an insight into which kinds of behaviors raise issues of wrongness, which is (arguably) a properly moral question (regardless of how one answers that question), as distinct from those behaviors that cause disapproval because, for a certain culturally or subculturally specific group, they violate an entrenched social norm, and thereby provoke anger or disgust or other kinds of offense. Compare the distinction between etiquette and morality. I think of it as an insight when I notice that someone has done something which, for a community to which I belong, is deemed improper, even though it would be a kind of confusion were I to say, "What she did was morally wrong." For instance, there are norms in, say, Tibet or Thailand for how to interact with a monk. But outside those contexts, few people observe them. Is that immoral? To say so is to confuse wrongness with socio-cultural inappropriateness.

OK. I understood all that.

What I claim is "only accessible to some" is the insight that, when a person

Quoting SteveD: There is an issue to discuss about "moral reality," but that's not the issue that I think I'm raising. The "insight" to which I refer is not an insight into what, specifically, is morally permissible or not, "really" or "truly." It is an insight into which kinds of behaviors raise issues of wrongness, which is (arguably) a properly moral question (regardless of how one answers that question), as distinct from those behaviors that cause disapproval because, for a certain culturally or subculturally specific group, they violate an entrenched social norm, and thereby provoke anger or disgust or other kinds of offense. Compare the distinction between etiquette and morality. I think of it as an insight when I notice that someone has done something which, for a community to which I belong, is deemed improper, even though it would be a kind of confusion were I to say, "What she did was morally wrong." For instance, there are norms in, say, Tibet or Thailand for how to interact with a monk. But outside those contexts, few people observe them. Is that immoral? To say so is to confuse wrongness with socio-cultural inappropriateness. What I claim is "only accessible to some" is the insight that, when a person conflates these

Quoting claymisher: SteveD, this is exactly the kind of research Haidt does. He talks a lot about it in his first episode, the one with Wilkinson. This article is pretty good too: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/sc...pagewanted=all

I have seen the other discussion, with Wilkinson, and I just read the NY Times article. I agree that he does research on the question I raised about whether disgust and social conventions about authority are properly part of the moral domain. He clearly thinks that they are. But I'm suggesting that what seem to be his two main arguments -- that these other "foundations" are accepted as properly "moral" by everyone except "educated liberals," and that treating them as moral (blame-authorizing) is socially functional because it promotes group cohesion and prevents "anomie" -- are arguments which fail to convince, if one thinks that one has made an "epistemic gain," i.e., reached a deeper understanding, when one separates out the moral from the psychological and the conventional. One can't just pretend to believe that these things are moral, or just will oneself into believing it, if one things that believing this would be a crude conflation of domains that one has come to recognize as importantly distinct. People don't give

Came across an interesting reaction to this diavlog, posted by LizardBreath on Unfogged. Okay, maybe those names aren't the best elevator pitch. Here's the title, instead: : "Self-Undermining Liberalism."

Thank you for the link. Good summary.

Quoting bjkeefe: Came across an interesting reaction to this diavlog, posted by LizardBreath on Unfogged.

Okay, maybe those names aren't the best elevator pitch. Here's the title, instead: : "Self-Undermining Liberalism."

Thank you for the link, Brendan. It is indeed an interesting comment. I tend to agree and it does reflect a kind of turn off about this part of Haidt's argument. I think, though, that JH derived his comment from the fact that people that endorsed the last three foundations (who tended to be conservatives) were "happier" and had a stronger sense of cohesion within their group. Therefore, he postulates the possibility of liberals "adopting" these foundations, in a sanitized way, to benefit from these effects and strength the group. It is certainly arguable. And even more arguable that people could just "adopt" these principles, if somehow they don't occur naturally within the liberal crowd.

In this post, Massimo is really responding to an article that Haidt wrote, but the ideas are the same ones that Haidt presented in this diavlog.

Quoting bjkeefe: In this post, Massimo is really responding to an article that Haidt wrote, but the ideas are the same ones that Haidt presented in this diavlog.

Excellent response! It would be interesting to see what Haidt would respond to this. Thank you, Brendan.

O: y/w. Thanks for noticing.