How The Brain Makes Moral Judgements

IndigoSensor

IndigoSensor

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Retired Staff
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This is a fascenating talk to listen to. This person describes research done on how we can understand the minds of people, and how we make judgements based on what some one does, and what their motives are. About 2/3rds of the way through, she talks about how we can actually change peoples moral judgements by using a magnet, THAT freaked me out.

http://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_saxe_how_brains_make_moral_judgments.html
 
First I would like to state this video was amazing. The speaker explained her point of view quite well and effectively. I could not stop paying attention to it and it got my total attention. I felt as the beginning was similar to what I have researched on developmental psychology, of course this goes more into depth and explains the biological perspective clearly on how our mind works. The explanation of the sandwich between children clearly shows different stages of development and how well us human beings apply knowledge. Later as Indigo stated, the magnet example totally amazed me. Its amazing how prone we are to this changes, how sensitive our minds are, how this can all be explained in terms of chemical process, the human mind is indeed complex and beautiful
 
The magnet experiment is nesscarry for them to understand the mind and for the purposes of the experiment, but I bugged out when I listened to it. My first thought is "HELL NO! You are NOT sticking that on my head and altering my thoughts". I haven't felt an internal resistance like that in a very very very long time.
 
Interestingly, people on average are clearly more judgmental of an Accident, than the Fine case.

That probably comes from the assumption that everything in life has "purpose", thus whoever was involved with the Accident is like cursed to be blamed, and that "must" be done (usually by someone who decides to act as "the hand of higher justice" etc).
 
IndigoSensor said:
The magnet experiment is nesscarry for them to understand the mind and for the purposes of the experiment, but I bugged out when I listened to it. My first thought is "HELL NO! You are NOT sticking that on my head and altering my thoughts". I haven't felt an internal resistance like that in a very very very long time.
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Indeed, I would hate the feeling of someone controlling my thoughts, I reacted quite similar. This reminds me of really how humans are just part of this planet and like other creatures we are left helpless against many things. There are just certain things we cannot control or understand. The fact that through such magnet the way we think can be altered just demonstrates how much our chemicals and other thought processes play an extremely important role. We have been design in such way, we are build up of things we cannot even understand fully. But the beauty is that we are creatures of change, we are constantly learning and through science we can constantly understand more and more about each other..this a long with the spiritual..it s all interconnected.
 
"...it's not a surreptitious technology"

and it's a damn good thing, though I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Also, I am a subscriber to the tedtalks channel on youtube, saw this a while back. Almost every video has some good information.

EDIT: I had that same knee-jerk reaction upon thinking about that device. "For the love of god keep that thing away from my head!"
 
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IndigoSensor said:
This is a fascenating talk to listen to.
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Agreed.

I wonder at the suggestion of the Pentagon calling and what it implies about the desire for social construction (or perhaps deconstruction is a better word) that this knowledge might allow--both potential intended military implications and wider unintended social implications of this sort of moral engineering. Has science fiction been written that imagines this outcome yet?
 
Wyote said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_Man
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I read the quick plot summary. Thanks for directing to that. Maybe in my quick review I missed this angle, but I was thinking about, as the speaker described, the jury vs. the defendant.

What would it do to the way society looked if large portions of it were manipulated to make moral judgments about behavior that were in line with the consequential thinking of the three year old in the example vs. the more intent based thinking of the adults in the example?

Maybe it wouldn't be much different. My boyfriend just informed me that Kohlberg studied group behavior and that while the individual may make more intent based decisions, when in a group that collective tends in it's decision-making toward more outcome based or consequential decision-making. I haven't researched the truth of this, but if it's true, then perhaps it wouldn't manifest in much different societal behavior. Perhaps it would simply make for a world with fewer internally conflicted people.
 
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