Comments on: Haidt and Libertarians

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:07:50 +0000

I don’t think that the “immediate, visceral reaction to the perceived suffering of another” is what is described in the “harm” foundation. That’s a good point, though — if all the “harm” foundation turns out to be is the instinctive motherly instinct to protect babies and old people then it’s not particularly abstract.
My understanding of the harm foundation, though is that it’s much more abstract. It’s not about simply perceiving harm (as in watching harm occur and being disturbed by it), but about putting oneself in the shoes, and head, of another, and abstractly identifying with them, such that a harm to their interests matters in your calculus of right and wrong.

By: minik peri

minik peri — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 11:16:19 +0000

nice site

By: philosopher

philosopher — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 23:13:35 +0000

Seconding Karl, I’d also note that there’s something more than a little off in your taking the harm factor — which involves an immediate, visceral reaction to the perceived suffering of another, in a way that is continuous with the affect systems of many other mammals — to be the _more_ abstract than purity, which often involves a fairly abstruse understanding of sexual mores. (Since, e.g., sex-between-married-people has a radically different purity status than sex-between-unmarried people.)

By: Karl

Karl — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:17:01 +0000

So if you consider abstract reasoning and perception to be “higher” than mere material perception of tangible things, then libertarians have almost completely left behind the thumb-sucking, anally-fixated values of “purity.” To me, such values represent a relationship with the world as mentally isolated as that of a baby playing in a crib.
When I took the test after Zach’s previous post on this subject, I had a fairly low score on the purity-valuing component. I expected this, because I don’t think that disgust generally has anything to do with morality. However, in defense of people with higher purity-valuing scores, I want to point out that all you have done in this comment is compare them to babies (twice) and reference the anus. You also seem to be using a different definition of the purity value than the one that Haidt offers.

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:13:50 +0000

On the previous Haidt post, I commented that the five moral foundations actually appeared to me to have another dimension – specifically, that it illustrated relationships from tangible to abstract. The most tangible relationships are represented by the purity foundation, and the least tangible, most abstract relationships are represented by the harm foundation.
So if you consider abstract reasoning and perception to be “higher” than mere material perception of tangible things, then libertarians have almost completely left behind the thumb-sucking, anally-fixated values of “purity.” To me, such values represent a relationship with the world as mentally isolated as that of a baby playing in a crib.

By: J

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 12:56:39 +0000

“In an Equality Matching transaction, such as taking turns going through a four-way stop, people operate according to an intuitive sense of balance and fairness”
Not to get on a rant about driving or anything, but…no. At a four way stop you’re supposed to operate according to the right-of-way laws of the jurisdiction you’re in, not “an intuitive sense of balance and fairness”. Here’s an example from the CA driver’s handbook (see “Intersections” – http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/pgs16thru17.htm .