Moral Psychology

An Introduction

Mark Alfano

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781509503148
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Moral psychology is the systematic inquiry into how morality works, when it does work, and breaks down when it doesn't work.

In this comprehensive new textbook, Mark Alfano outlines the five central concepts in the study of moral psychology: agency, patiency, sociality, temporality, and reflexivity. Subsequent chapters each assess a key area of research, which Alfano relates both to the five central concepts and to empirical findings. He then draws out the philosophical implications of those findings before suggesting future directions for research.

One of Alfano's guiding themes is that moral philosophy without psychological content is empty, whereas psychological investigation without philosophical insight is blind. He advocates and demonstrates a holistic vision that pictures moral psychology as a project of collaborative inquiry into the descriptive and normative aspects of the human condition.

Featuring a glossary of technical terms, further reading sections and chapter-by-chapter study questions, this rich, systematic, and accessible introduction to moral psychology will be suitable for both undergraduates and researchers in philosophy, psychology and related fields.

1
Preferences

1 The function of preferences: prediction, explanation, planning, and evaluation

Among our diverse mental states, some are best understood as representing how the world is. If I know that wine is made from grapes, I correctly represent the world as being a certain way. If I think that Toronto is the capital of Canada, I incorrectly represent the world as being a certain way (it's Ottawa). Other mental states are best understood as moving us to act, react, or forbear in various ways. I want to see the Grand Canyon before I die. I desire to know how to speak Spanish. I prefer to use chopsticks rather than a fork to eat sushi. I intend to keep my promises. I aim to be fair. I love to hear New Orleans-style brass band music. Depending on their longevity, their intensity, their specificity, their malleability, and their idiosyncrasy, we use different words to describe these mental states: values, drives, choices, appraisals, volitions, cravings, goals, reasons, purposes, passions, sentiments, longings, appetites, aspirations, attractions, motives, urges, needs, acts of will. Such mental states are sometimes referred to as pro-attitudes, and related states that move someone to avoid, escape, or prevent a particular state of affairs are correspondingly called con-attitudes.

If you put together an agent's representations of how the world is and the mental states that move her to act, you have some hope of predicting and explaining her actions. Suppose, for instance, that you know that I want a snack, and that I have some crackers in my kitchen. What am I going to do? It's not unreasonable to predict that I will go to the kitchen, open the cupboard where I keep the crackers, take them out and eat them. Now suppose that you know that my memory of where I store my own comestibles is pretty weak. I still want a snack, but I mistakenly think that my crackers are in the pantry, not the cupboard. What do you think I'll do now? It's reasonable to predict that I'll still walk into the kitchen, but that instead of opening the cupboard I'll look in the pantry. Someone's representations and purposes combine to lead them to act. If you know what someone's representations and purposes are, you can to some extent predict what they'll do.

In the same vein, knowing what someone's representations and purposes are puts you in a position to explain their actions. Suppose you see me stand up, walk across the room, open a door, and walk through the doorway. On the door, you notice the following icon:

Figure 1.1

Why did I do what I did? A plausible explanation isn't too hard to assemble. If you saw the sign indicating that the door led to the men's bathroom, then presumably I did too; so I probably had a relevant representation of what was on the other side of the door. What desire (preference, goal, intention, need) might I have that would rationalize my behavior? The most obvious suggestion is that I wanted to relieve myself. Of course, it's possible that I went to the men's bathroom to participate in a drug deal, to conceal myself while I had a good long cry, or for some other reason. But if you're right in thinking that I wanted to urinate, then you've successfully explained my action. If you know what someone's representations and purposes are, you can to some extent explain what they've done.

To predict and explain other people's actions, we need some idea of what they prefer (want, desire, value, need). But that's not all that preferences are for. Preferences also figure in planning and evaluation, and when they're structured appropriately, they contribute to the agent's autonomy. Think about your best friend. Imagine that her birthday is in a week. You love your friend, and want to do something special for her birthday. You don't need to predict your own action here, nor do you need to explain it. Your task now is to plan: in the next week, what can you do for your friend that will simultaneously please and surprise her without emptying your bank account? To give your friend a special birthday present, you need to know what she enjoys (or would enjoy, if she hasn't experienced it yet). To be motivated to give your friend a special birthday present in the first place, you need to want to do something that she wants. In philosophical jargon, you must have a higher-order desire – a desire about another desire (hers). You want to give her something that she wants.

It's remarkable how adept people can be at solving this sort of problem, which involves the sort of recursively embedded agent–patient relations discussed in the introduction. Think about it. To plan a good gift, you need to know now not just what your friend currently wants, but what she will want in the future. You can't just give her what you yourself want or what you will want in a week. You can't give her what she wants now but won't want in a week. To successfully give your friend a good present, you have to figure out in advance what she'll want in a week.

The same constraints apply when you plan for yourself. Think about choosing your university major. What do you want to specialize in? Musicology is interesting, but will you still be interested in it three years from now? Will it set you up to earn a decent living (something you'll presumably want in five, ten, and twenty years)? Marketing might earn you a decent living, but will you find it boring (not want to do it, or even want not to do it) after a few years? Are you going to want to have children? In that case, you may need more income than you would if you didn't want (and didn't have) children. Living a sensible life requires planning. You need to make plans that affect your friends, your family, your colleagues, your rivals, and your enemies. You also need to make plans for yourself. Doing this successfully requires intimate knowledge of (or at least some pretty good guesses about) your own and others' future desires, needs, and preferences.

Thus, preferences figure in the prediction, explanation, and planning of action. They're also important when we morally evaluate action. Imagine that I reach out violently and knock you over, causing you some pain and surprising you more than a little. What should you think of my action? It depends in part on what moved me to do it. If I've shoved you because I want to hurt you, if I'm engaged in an assault, you're going to think I'm doing something wrong. If I'm not depraved, I'll also feel guilty. If I'm just clumsily gesturing at a pretty tree over there, I should probably know better, but you'll temper your anger. I may not feel guilty, but I'll probably be embarrassed or even ashamed. If I'm knocking you out of the way of a biker who's zooming down the sidewalk toward you, perhaps you'll feel grateful, while I'll feel relieved or even proud.

What marks the difference between your reactions to my action? What marks the difference between my own assessments of it after the fact? It's not that my shoving you and your falling hurts more or less in one case or the other. Instead, what leads you to evaluate my action as wrong, misguided, or benevolent is the pro- (or con-)attitude that moves me to act. Likewise, what leads me to feel guilt, embarrassment, or relief is the pro- (or con-)attitude that moved me to act. If I want to hurt you, if I want to do something to you that you prefer not to happen, you'll say that I've acted wrongly. If my aim is to do something relatively harmless (something you neither prefer nor disprefer) like pointing out a feature of the environment, you'll perhaps think I'm a klutz, but you won't think I've done something morally wrong. If I'm trying to prevent you from being run down by an out-of-control cyclist, if I want to do something to you that (once you understand it) you prefer that I do, you'll presumably think I've done something morally good.

Preferences are important and versatile. They help us predict and explain actions. They help us exercise agency on our own behalf and for those we care about. They help us evaluate the actions of others and ourselves. They also play a role in autonomy. According to some philosophers, such as Harry Frankfurt (1971, 1992; see also Katsafanas 2013 and, if he is on the right track, Nietzsche 1886/1966), a person is autonomous or free to the extent that she wants what she wants to want, or at least does not want what she would prefer not to want. An autonomous agent is someone whose will has a characteristic structure. This idea is discussed in more depth in chapter 2.

As I mentioned above, we have dozens of terms to refer to pro- and con-attitudes. But the title of this chapter is “Preferences.” Why? Preferences are sufficiently fine-grained to help in the prediction, explanation, and evaluation of action in the face of tradeoffs. Other motivating attitudes lack this specificity. Consider, for instance, values.¹ At a high enough level of abstraction, just about everyone values the same ten things: power, achievement, pleasure, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security (Schwartz 2012). If you want to know what someone will do, why someone did something, or whether someone deserves praise or blame for acting as they did, knowing that they accept these values gives you no purchase. Qualitatively weighting values doesn't improve things much. Consider someone who values pleasure “somewhat,” stimulation “a lot,” and security “quite a bit.” What will she do? It's hard to say. Why'd she go to the punk rock show? It's hard to say. Does she merit some praise for engaging in a pleasant conversation with a stranger at the coffee shop? It's hard to say.

Preferences set up a rank ordering of states of affairs. This is easiest to see in the case of tradeoffs. Suppose two desires are moving you to act. You're exhausted after a long day, so you want to take a nap. But your friend just texted to suggest meeting up fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1: Preferences
• 2: Responsibility
• 3: Emotion
• 4: Character
• 5: Disagreement
• Afterword
• Glossary
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement