Thursday, November 4, 2010
Must Read
Radley Balko links to Ronald Bailey writing about Jon Haidt's new academic paper on libertarian morality. Here's how libertarians are different. Jon Haidt is a firm liberal...but it seems spot on to me. (He invented a 6th moral axis to help explain libertarians, because his 1st 5 were insufficient). Jon Haidt is STILL my favorite psychologist working today.
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3 comments:
Yes, we're different...we're proven AUTISTIC!!
Straight from the article:
Some of the more intriguing results reported in this study involve the Empathizer-Systemizer scale. The scale measures the tendency to empathize, defined as "the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion," and to systemize, or "the drive to analyze the variables in a system, and to derive the underlying rules that govern the behavior of the system." Libertarians are the only group that scored higher on systemizing than on empathizing—and they scored a lot higher. The authors go on to suggest that systemizing is “characteristic of the male brain, with very extreme scores indicating autism.” They then add, “We might say that liberals have the most ‘feminine’ cognitive style, and libertarians the most ‘masculine.’”
And, for any who don't know, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizing_theory
Think Different!
This is a really great article. More good threads after the systemizing section.
Yes, read the whole thing!
Nitpick: five workmen will be killed by a runaway trolley unless you, in the non-aversive case (1) move a track switch which will divert the train but kill one workman, or in the aversive case (2) push a fat man off a bridge stopping the trolley. Typically, most people will choose to move the switch, but refuse to push the fat man. Why the difference? The utilitarian moral calculus is the same—save five by killing one.
I'm always happy to endorse PEOPLE ARE CRAZY, THE WORLD IS MAD. But, here...the fat man doesn't seem to be a trolley worker. The 6 workers kinda voluntarily take on known risks of trolley troubles, and they pretty much collectively agree to minimize their net harms. Fat guy seems like an innocent interloper, maybe just out for a nice walk along the bridge...as blameless as possible for trolley troubles.
Instead of feeling low(er than conservatives) disgust, fear, et cetera...I suspect that I personally am HIGHER on these Level One predictors. Further, I suspect I'm SO oversensitive that tons of little things bother me that NOBODY promises to reduce in the body politic.
For example, my local B&N has their public announcement speakers turned on all the time that emit a god-awful-to-me buzz that I struggle to tune out except for in a magical 20% of the store equidistant from all speakers. This is apparently not a normal reaction ;)
Because no one appreciates all the things that bother me & promises to attack them, both liberalism and conservatism miss most of my passionate joining opportunities. Growing up in schools, being forced to sit in particular seats & such, it was always clear to me that no one else (other than me) even CAN make microdecisions for my comfort.
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