Logic & Morality

[dr_mabeuse]

Zoot, I'm so glad you added Asperger's to the discussion.

My children have difficulty at times with the understanding of social norms. Their disability is not too severe, they place at the high functioning end of the spectrum, but there are definite times that they remain confused about certain expectations.

They do see a terrific child psych who works with them on role-playing actions for different situations (among other things). If they practice it, they can learn what to say, what to do, how to react.

This is so they can fit in.

Our pets help tremendously, and lately our young logical son has been cooing to the cats as he strokes their fur. This is good. As they mature we're seeing more positive social behaviors emerging due to repetition and training.

But it's telling that this strictly logical/analytical point of view is considered a disability.

My brother-in-law is a functioning autistic. He holds down a simple manual-labor job and has savant tendencies (encyclopedic knowledge of pro sports, for example, down to the different time-out chords they play in every pro basketball stadium in the US) but he can't empathize and so he can hardly commnicate. It's tragic. he can ask questions and make statements, but everything else we do with communication - like 95% of it, the teasing, playing, stroking, joking, cooing, opining, dreaming, imagining - that's closed to him.

I recently saw a guest editorial from a college kid with Asperger's which I at first thought was silly. He was complaining about discrimination in his dorm because no one wanted to be his friend because of his condition. On the one hand, that's not surprising. He'd say inapporpriate things, wouldn't laugh at their jokes, couldn't empathize, couldn't understand what they were feeling, so who'd want to hang around with someone like that. Then on the other hand, you've got to feel for him. We all take our ability to empathize so much for granted that it's kind of horrifying to think that it's so fragile.

It makes you wonder how much our ventromedial prefrontal cortex has to do in determining our plotics and philosophy. Could it be that we bleeding hearts are more developed in that area? It's been said that the history of mankind is the story of an expanding area of empathy where we've gone from just caring about ourselves to our family, our tribe, our city-state, our race or ethnic group, our nation, and finally to all humankind. Those of us who feel the horror of the Iraq war - are we more able to empathize with the Iraqis as human beings rather than as terrorists?

I've heard of those runaway-train thought experiments before. They use them a lot in investigating morals and ethics. For instance, if you see a runaway train headed for a group of five poeple and know you could save them by pushing an innocent victim in front of the train, would you do it?

Logic tells us yes - push him; five lives are more valuable than one. But most people answering (as truthfully as the fanciful situation allows) would say no, they couldn't bring themselves to kill an innocent person eveb to save other lives. It's just more evidence that our morality is ruled by emotion more than logic.

 

[gauchecritic]

Asperger's syndrome. Soon as you made the ask Charley I thought of a recent best selling novel called "The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night time" by Mark Haddon. The main character appears wholly unsympathetic and pathetic at the same time. Not a very good book but interesting none-the-less if only for the Asperger's 'insight'.

Too recent anecdotal evidence of compassion over logic.

Logic said no to DNR. After the second time I was begging my wife not to put him through it again. My wife's trust in him gave us no option because she knew (the three of us had already agreed) that he would decide for himself.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Bumping because this thread intrigues me....I only lack the smarts to make a comment...I live vicariously through the rest of you.

 

[shereads]

Brain mishaps produce “cold” morality

March 21, 2007
Courtesy University of Southern California
and World Science staff

Imagine that someone you know has AIDS and plans to infect others, some of whom will die. Your only options are to let it happen or to kill the person. Do you pull the trigger?

Most people waver or say they couldn’t, even if they agree that in theory they should. But a new study reports that people with damage to one part of the brain make a less personal calculation. The logical choice, they say, is to sacrifice one life to save many.

The research shows that emotion plays a key role in moral decisions, scientists claim: if certain emotions are blocked, we make decisions that—right or wrong—seem unnaturally cold.

Past studies have linked damage to some brain areas with a lack of any discernible conscience, part of a syndrome commonly called psychopathy. The new study, by contrast, identified a region of brain damage tied to what the researchers portrayed as a narrower deficit: one that strips morality of an emotional component while leaving its logical part intact.

The scientists presented 30 males and females with scenarios pitting immediate harm to one person against future harm to many. Six participants had damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a small region behind the forehead; 12 had brain damage elsewhere; another 12 had no damage.

The scenarios in the study were extreme, but the core dilemma isn’t. Should one confront a co-worker, challenge a neighbor, or scold a loved one to uphold the greater good? The subjects with ventromedial prefrontal damage stood out in their stated willingness to harm an individual—a prospect that usually generates strong aversion, researchers said.

“They have abnormal social emotions in real life. They lack empathy and compassion,” said Ralph Adolphs of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., one of the researchers.

“In those circumstances most people… will be torn. But these particular subjects seem to lack that conflict,” said Antonio Damasio of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, another of the scientists.

“Our work provides the first causal account of the role of emotions in moral judgments,” added a third member of the research team, Marc Hauser of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. The study appears March 21 in the advance online edition of the research journal Nature.

What’s “astonishing,” Hauser added, is “how selective the deficit is... [it] leaves intact a suite of moral problem solving abilities, but damages judgments in which an aversive action is put into direct conflict with a strong utilitarian outcome.” Utilitarianism is the belief that the top priority in ethics should be what’s best for the greatest number of people.

Humans often deviate from this principle because they recoil from directly harming one another. This aversion is “a combination of rejection of the act [and] compassion for that particular person,” Damasio said. The question, Adolphs asked, is whether “social emotions” such as compassion are “necessary to make these moral judgments.”

The study’s answer will inform a classic philosophical debate on whether humans make moral judgments based on norms and societal rules, or based on their emotions, the scientists predicted. It also holds another implication for philosophy, they said: it shows that humans are neurologically unfit for strict utilitarian thinking, and thus suggests neuroscience could test different philosophies for compatibility with human nature.

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/070320_morality.htm

So {name of person goes here} really is mentally deficient. I knew it!

Now that there's proof, I guess we should show less fruatration and more compassion.

 

[impressive]

So {name of person goes here} really is mentally deficient. I knew it!

Now that there's proof, I guess we should show less fruatration and more compassion.

I've often had a dear friend who is "a thinker" (as opposed to "a feeler") liken her logical nature to a disability.

I think any extreme can be termed as such. We all live on a spectrum.

 

[rgraham666]

I've often had a dear friend who is "a thinker" (as opposed to "a feeler") liken her logical nature to a disability.

I think any extreme can be termed as such. We all live on a spectrum.

Yep.

My favourite author likens human beings, in their mental life, to atoms.

What makes a person whole is having their various traits in balance. Each of us has different balance points but we need that balance.

When any one trait comes to strongly to the fore, we lose our balance, with unpleasant results.

For the record he lists the important human traits as common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory and reason.

 

[amicus]

A bemused Amicus smiles at the perspicacity of the emotional female who 'feels' that 'men' ought to be more sensitive and less logical.

ahem...


the always amicable....amicus...

 

[elsol]

For the record he lists the important human traits as common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory and reason.

What the fuck is intuition doing in there?

Intuition is a human trait? What the FRACK!!!

 

[rgraham666]

What the fuck is intuition doing in there?

Intuition is a human trait? What the FRACK!!!

Uhm. Why not?

 

[Guest]

A bemused Amicus smiles at the perspicacity of the emotional female who 'feels' that 'men' ought to be more sensitive and less logical.

ahem...


the always amicable....amicus...

Ami, my very brilliant, extremely logical daughter could mop the floor with you.

And she's in 6th grade.

 

[elsol]

Uhm. Why not?

What is intuition?

A lucky guess, good reading of body language, subconcious mind, ESP, aliens talking to us, the holy spirit whispering in our ear.

Imagination...okay...
Ethics... okay...
Reason... okay...

But we can't define the source, put a solid definition, or even agree that intuition exists.

 

[impressive]

But we can't define the source, put a solid definition, or even agree that intuition exists.

Kinda like gravity, ain't it?

 

[elsol]

Kinda like gravity, ain't it?

You can prove the existence of gravity.

If I drop someone of the top of a building... they won't go up... no matter how many people I drop.

You could have gone with God though.

 

[impressive]

You can prove the existence of gravity.

If I drop someone of the top of a building... they won't go up... no matter how many people I drop.

You could have gone with God though.

I feel the same way about my intuition.

My intuition has never let me down. ("God" has.)

 

[amicus]

Ami, my very brilliant, extremely logical daughter could mop the floor with you.

And she's in 6th grade.

~~~


Izzat you, flat on your back at the Chicago Litogether? ahem, from that perspective, I suggest perhaps the world appears differently.

grins

amicus...

 

[impressive]

~~~


Izzat you, flat on your back at the Chicago Litogether? ahem, from that perspective, I suggest perhaps the world appears differently.

grins

amicus...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

It, dear ami, is a place of unfathomable power (as is on one's knees).

 

[amicus]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

It, dear ami, is a place of unfathomable power (as is on one's knees).

~~~

To each her own, I suppose, Imp, I rather like just being in the saddle for extended periods of time.

ahem

amicus....

 

[Guest]

~~~


Izzat you, flat on your back at the Chicago Litogether? ahem, from that perspective, I suggest perhaps the world appears differently.

grins

amicus...

But darling, ami - I am too emotional to debate you. You've said this on many occasions.

But my children would love the chance.

 

[gauchecritic]

What is intuition?

But we can't define the source, put a solid definition, or even agree that intuition exists.

Well, yes it does if you just give it a different title: synthesis.

When intuition fails it is because there is a lack of data, not because there is a fault or non-existence of/in the programme.

It's how good fortune tellers, interviewers and successful stockmarketeers work.

 

[gauchecritic]

A bemused Amicus smiles at the perspicacity of the emotional female who 'feels' that 'men' ought to be more sensitive and less logical.

ahem...


the always amicable....amicus...

And I, as ever, despair of an emotionless lifetime given free reign on the interweb.

 

[amicus]

And I, as ever, despair of an emotionless lifetime given free reign on the interweb.

~~~


Just because one can control ones emotions and because those emotions are understood and refined, not just acquiesced to, does not mean that a rational, logical person is 'emotionless', it just means they are not left wingers who function only by unbridled emotions.

amicus...

 

[gauchecritic]

~~~


Just because one can control ones emotions <> does not mean that a rational, logical person is 'emotionless'

Erm... I think you'll find that it does. Controlled emotion is not emotion it's control.

it just means they are not left wingers who function only by unbridled emotions.

amicus...

It's not the bridling that matters, it's the affirmative action following emotion that counts.
You see, logic is all fine and well, but responsible thought remains only to those that choose to take all factors into account.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

~~~


Just because one can control ones emotions and because those emotions are understood and refined, not just acquiesced to, does not mean that a rational, logical person is 'emotionless', it just means they are not left wingers who function only by unbridled emotions.

amicus...

Not true. Some people simply lack emotion. The ever present question for this type of thing seems to be whether or not nature or nurture plays a bigger role in such an outcome. The term in psychology for this behavior is Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). The majority of things I've read on the subject lead me to believe that a genetic predisposition is the strongest predictor, though several environmental factors have been documented in twin studies as playing an important role. Either way, logic is perfectly capable of functioning without any identifiable piece of moral input. This lack of emotion is reported as being the reason why so many self-destructive (alcoholism, cutting, etc.) and self-harming behaviors are committed by the person suffering such deficits in their brain. The logical understanding that they lack the emotions they see in everyone else often leads them to dangerous and violent behavior directed at the self or others.

 

[S-Des]

Not true. Some people simply lack emotion. The ever present question for this type of thing seems to be whether or not nature or nurture plays a bigger role in such an outcome. The term in psychology for this behavior is Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). The majority of things I've read on the subject lead me to believe that a genetic predisposition is the strongest predictor, though several environmental factors have been documented in twin studies as playing an important role. Either way, logic is perfectly capable of functioning without any identifiable piece of moral input. This lack of emotion is reported as being the reason why so many self-destructive (alcoholism, cutting, etc.) and self-harming behaviors are committed by the person suffering such deficits in their brain. The logical understanding that they lack the emotions they see in everyone else often leads them to dangerous and violent behavior directed at the self or others.

There have been news specials (60 Minutes, 20/20, etc...) about children who've been victims of extreme neglect and/or abuse, who grow up without the capability to feel empathy. Sometimes adoptive parents have found that no amount of love makes any impact on these children who seem incapable of normal emotional behavior. Extreme cases saw the people forced to give up on the kids because of violent or unpredictable behavior that was unsafe for the rest of the household. One particularly chilling case had the mom explaining how she scolded the child, who proceeded to bash his own head against the concrete until he drew blood. It was truly frightening.

 

[amicus]

[QUOTE=gauchecritic]Erm... I think you'll find that it does. Controlled emotion is not emotion it's control.



It's not the bridling that matters, it's the affirmative action following emotion that counts.
You see, logic is all fine and well, but responsible thought remains only to those that choose to take all factors into account.[/QUOTE]



~~~


Gauche....I do not wish to engage in an endless and sometimes bitter argument with you, it is non productive.

However...I do not fully understand your positions; it seems you want both simultaneously but are opposed to the use of logic and reason as determining factors in personal decisions, preferring to rely upon emotions...dunno.

I grew up on a farm as a boy. I raised, among other things, rabbits and chickens for meat and eggs. I felt bad when a rabbit I was trying to move to another cage, left its tail in my hand when I tried to catch it.

I fed and watered those animals for months until it was time to kill them.

You use a hammer to kill a rabbit, hit it on the head. Chickens you use a hatchet, place their heads on a wood block and they flop around spurting blood, headless in the dirt.

My sisters could not bare to watch the killing and thought badly of me, I think, for being cruel and without emotion as I performed those assigned tasks.

That is not to say that I did not 'feel' anything as I killed and butchered those animals, I am sure I did, but I over rode those emotions with the logic and the necessity of storing food for a family.

I slapped the shit out of a woman in a supermarket once because she was slapping and kicking a child and I lost my temper. I try not to do that, at least in public.

Everyone has both emotion and logic, the degree of control of both or either, is a matter of choice and intelligence I offer.

And yes, I think the ability to function more or less by either, is a gender thing. It used to be well accepted that women were more emotional than men, now it is politically incorrect to think that way.

amicus....