Moral Courage in Politics

Context

Over time, the concept of moral courage has crystallized in my mind to mean an ability to try to see, and accept inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning or logic, collectively I call those things the “objective components of politics.” The objective components generally do not include facts, truths and reasoning or logic that already support or fit with existing political or tribe beliefs, self-identity, self-interest or other psychological or social factors. Accepting unpleasant reality and sound reasoning is what takes real courage. Standing up and pounding one's chest about the righteousness one's ideological beliefs and worldview isn’t a matter of moral courage per se. That kind of behavior tends to signal a mindset that denies, distorts or downplays what is inconvenient.

The following was originally posed on another blog in 2016 and reposted here in August of 2019. I repost it again to accompany the post on the science of morality post I did a few minutes ago.

Political Moral Courage

Most core concepts in politics are defined mostly by how people view them. Definitions may exist in dictionaries, but politically different people looking at the same thing often see different or even opposite things. Most (>95% ?) liberals and conservatives who are active in and/or ideological about their politics firmly believe that they stand on great or even sacred political principles or morals. They know that their ideological beliefs have survived the test of time and delivered great benefits to humanity. They know that their politics is firmly grounded in both unbiased truth and clear-headed reason. That mind set tends to see itself as standing in a valiant, patriotic defense of true reason and truth against an onslaught of evil, tyranny, self-deluded stupidity, cynical self-interest or things about like that. That mind set generally sees the political opposition as practicing politics firmly grounded in heavily biased truth and lies, rigid partisan ideology and addle-brained reason that borders on, or is, sheer nonsense.

It’s fair to say that most politically engaged people would sincerely characterize themselves and their efforts as being driven by true moral courage. A Wikipedia discussion about moral courage says this about the concept: Moral courage is the courage to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse consequences. Courage is required to take action when one has doubts or fears about the consequences. Moral courage therefore involves deliberation or careful thought. Reflex action or dogmatic fanaticism do not involve moral courage because such impulsive actions are not based upon moral reasoning.

Given the common, opposing views that the left and the right have of each other as people mostly unable to deal honestly with truth, both sides would no doubt consider their own side to employ moral courage in their own politics. Many people on one side may see most people on the other side as having only some or no moral courage at all.

Does that thinking and belief by either side stand up to scrutiny? Not according to cognitive and social science. And not according to simple logic.

The science disconnect: Science finds that most or all people see political issues and think about them through a lens of intolerant, self-righteous personal morals or ideology. Facts and logic that undermines or contradicts those moral beliefs are usually either flatly rejected or rationalized away. One scientist, Johnathan Haidt, put it this way: “We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct why we ourselves came to a judgment; we reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment. . . . . The rider (conscious reason) is skilled at fabricating post hoc explanations for whatever the elephant (unconscious moralistic thinking) has just done, and it is good at finding reasons to justify whatever the elephant wants to do next. . . . . We make our first judgments rapidly, and we are dreadful at seeking out evidence that might disconfirm those initial judgments.”

The logic disconnect: If it is true, as partisans on the left and right argue, that the opposition’s thinking and perceptions of reality is heavily distorted by a reality- and reason-distorting ideology or mind set (or other things such as self-interest), then neither side practices moral courage in politics. That’s an example of impulse actions that are not based upon moral reasoning. No authority says that both the left and right cannot be mostly correct in arguing that the other side acts on ideological impulse instead of deliberation or careful thought, i.e., not morally courageous.

The interesting thing about the pure logic argument is that it is supported by science. In that regard, the logic argument isn’t just a thought disconnected from everything else. It’s a hypothesis (theory?) supported by a great deal of research and evidence.

Is moral courage possible at all? 

Practicing perfect moral courage is impossible if it requires perfect knowledge. Perfection in anything is impossible, as argued here before. Nonetheless, it is possible to practice an imperfect but recognizable form of moral courage if one acknowledges one’s own cognitive nature and honestly tries to deal with it. How can that be done? Since existing political ideologies are known fact- and reason-distorters, adopting a political ideology that fosters reductions in ideologically-inspired distortions is a real step toward moral courage. One example of such an ideology has been described here. Obviously, other variants or articulations of that ideology are possible, but the point is to reduce unrestrained fact and reason distortion that underpins standard that underpins standard subjective politics.

Of course, accepting that requires the intestinal fortitude (moral courage) to try to see unbiased reality and unbiased, reasoned argument for what they are instead of accepting the false realities and reason that create the some liberal and many conservative worlds that most partisans now view the world through.


B&B orig: 9/22/16; DP 8/13/19; DP repost 5/31/20

The Science of Measuring Morality

Context

A matters of increasing personal interest in relation to politics is morality and the related concept of moral courage. Over time, morality and immorality appear to be of growing importance to politics. It's not clear if that shifting perception is mostly due to social changes, my own ongoing learning, a combination of both, and/or something(s) else, e.g., increasing social and/or economic stress.

Researchers interested in politics such as Johnathan Haidt are also looking at morality to see if there are correlates between moral and political beliefs. This line of research seems to be moving from a relatively intuitive phase into a more objective and empirical phase. Whether experts would characterize it that way isn't clear, but that's my take on it.

Haidt and others are developing tests for morality and related traits to try to gain insight into what is going on in people's minds. These tests are open to the public so that a big database can be built and analyzed. The main test page is here. I took seven tests out of about 20 to see what insight I could gain about my own mind. For what it's worth, what my mind did, along with with explanations of the tests, are shown below.

I'm not sure what all the results mean, but they do seem to indicate a personal trait of moral concern that seems a bit more pronounced than it is in most others. That includes concern for religious moral values despite being a hard core atheist. Hm. Does that make more more religious than most other people?

Personal Theories of Morality

The scale is a measure of your agreement with five different ideas about what fundamentally determines whether particular thoughts and actions are moral or immoral. These different ideas were related to the following factors: 1) benevolent consequences, which is the idea that thoughts or actions are immoral when they do not result in positive outcomes for other people; 2) normative standards, which is the idea that thoughts or actions are immoral when they violate what is generally believed to be acceptable in society; 3) emotional experiences, which is the idea that thoughts or actions are immoral when they lead to negative feelings and emotions; 4) religious principles which is the idea that thoughts or actions are immoral when they are inconsistent with religious teachings or the perceived will of some higher power, and 5) malicious intentions which is the idea that thoughts or actions are immoral if they arise from harmful intentions, such as jealously or hate.

In the graph below, your scores on each personal theory of morality are shown in GREEN (the 1st bar in each set of 3 bars). The scores of all men who have taken it on our site are shown in BROWN (the 2nd bar), and the scores of all women are shown in ORANGE (3rd bar). Scores run from 1 (the lowest possible score, you completely reject that lay theory) to 7 (the highest possible score, you very strongly endorse that lay theory of morality and use it to decide whether some action or intention is moral or immoral).

Left-wing Authoritarianism Index 

This research seeks to capture the diversity and complexity of the authoritarian personality. Indeed, that the term “authoritarianism“ is so frequently invoked in news media and popular culture may belie the numerous fundamental research questions regarding the construct’s nature that have yet to be meaningfully answered by psychological scientists, including those tied to (a) authoritarianism’s key features and their structure and interrelations; (b) whether these features manifest differently across different populations (e.g., left-wing vs. right-wing groups); (c) how, and why, these features are organized and/or interrelated; and (d) how authoritarian traits can be most accurately measured.

Although measures of right-wing authoritarianism have proved extremely fruitful in generating corroborated hypotheses concerning the psychological correlates of political extremism, the same cannot be said for previous measures of left-wing authoritarianism, a notoriously elusive construct that is sometimes called the “Loch Ness monster of political psychology“ (Altemeyer, 1996, p. 5). The reasons for this may be multiply determined, but we suspect that one key reason is that scholars have yet to elucidate what psychological “glue“ binds right-wing authoritarianism and left-wing authoritarianism. Hence, measuring left-wing authoritarianism in a sound, robust manner may bear substantial implications for the psychological underpinnings of political extremism and generalized prejudice.

The scale is a measure of the six major dimensions of personality 

This test attempts to assess Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness (versus Anger), Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience as explained below.

Honesty-Humility: Persons with very high scores on the Honesty-Humility scale tend to avoid manipulating others for personal gain, feel little temptation to break rules, are uninterested in lavish wealth and luxuries, and feel no special entitlement to elevated social status. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale often flatter others to get what they want, are inclined to break rules for personal profit, tend to be motivated by material gain, and feel a strong sense of self-importance.

Emotionality: Persons with very high scores on the Emotionality scale tend to experience fear of physical dangers, experience anxiety in response to life's stresses, feel a need for emotional support from others, and feel empathy and sentimental attachments with others. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale tend not to be deterred by the prospect of physical harm, feel little worry even in stressful situations, have little need to share their concerns with others, and feel emotionally detached from others.

Extraversion: Persons with very high scores on the Extraversion scale tend to feel positively about themselves, feel confident when leading or addressing groups of people, enjoy social gatherings and interactions, and experience positive feelings of enthusiasm and energy. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale tend to consider themselves unpopular, feel awkward when they are the center of social attention, are indifferent to social activities, and feel less lively and optimistic than others do.

Agreeableness (versus Anger): Persons with very high scores on the Agreeableness scale tend to forgive the wrongs that they suffered, are lenient in judging others, are willing to compromise and cooperate with others, and can easily control their temper. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale tend to hold grudges against those who have harmed them, are rather critical of others' shortcomings, are stubborn in defending their point of view, and feel anger readily in response to mistreatment.

Conscientiousness: Persons with very high scores on the Conscientiousness scale tend to organize their time and their physical surroundings, work in a disciplined way toward their goals, strive for accuracy and perfection in their tasks, and deliberate carefully when making decisions. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale tend to be unconcerned with orderly surroundings or schedules, avoid difficult tasks or challenging goals, are satisfied with work that contains some errors, and make decisions on impulse or with little reflection.

Openness to Experience: Persons with very high scores on the Openness to Experience scale tend to become absorbed in the beauty of art and nature, are inquisitive about various domains of knowledge, use their imagination freely in everyday life, and take an interest in unusual ideas or people. Conversely, persons with very low scores on this scale are usually rather unimpressed by most works of art, feel little intellectual curiosity, avoid creative pursuits, and feel little attraction toward ideas that may seem radical or unconventional.

Moral Foundations Questionnaire revised 

The scale is a measure of your reliance on and endorsement of six psychological foundations of morality that seem to be found across cultures. This revised scale asks a variety questions related to each foundation: 1) Care/Harm, 2) Fairness/Cheating, 3) Loyalty/Betrayal, 4) Authority/Subversion, 5) Purity/Degradation, and 6) Autonomy/Oppression. We suspect that the Fairness/Cheating foundation may consist of two kinds of fairness. Fairness as equity and fairness as equality. Thus, the revised MFQ attempts to measure both potential forms of fairness.

The idea behind the scale is that human morality is the result of biological and cultural evolutionary processes that made human beings very sensitive to many different (and often competing) issues. Some of these issues are about treating other individuals well and respecting them as individuals (care, fairness, and autonomy). Other issues are about how to be a good member of a group or supporter of social order and tradition (loyalty, authority, and purity). Haidt and Graham have found that political liberals generally place a higher value on the care and fairness foundations; they are very concerned about issues of harm and fairness (including issues of inequality and exploitation). Political conservatives care about harm and fairness too, but they generally score slightly lower on those scale items. The big difference between liberals and conservatives seems to be that conservatives score slightly higher on the loyalty foundation, and much higher on the authority and purity foundations. Libertarians appear to score highly on the autonomy foundation and lower (relative to liberals and conservatives) on the other foundations.

This difference seems to explain many of the most contentious issues in the culture war. For example, liberals support legalizing gay marriage (to be fair and compassionate), whereas many conservatives are reluctant to change the nature of marriage and the family, basic building blocks of society. Conservatives are more likely to favor practices that increase order and respect (e.g., spanking, mandatory pledge of allegiance), whereas liberals often oppose these practices as being violent or coercive.

In the graph below, your scores on each foundation are shown in green (the 1st bar in each set of 3 bars). The scores of all liberals who have taken it on our site are shown in blue (the 2nd bar), and the scores of all conservatives are shown in red (3rd bar). Scores run from 0 (the lowest possible score, you completely reject that foundation) to 4 (the highest possible score, you very strongly endorse that foundation and build much of your morality on top of it).

Need for Cognition

The scale is a measure of a personality variable reflecting the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities. People high in the Need for Cognition are more likely to form their attitudes by paying close attention to relevant arguments, whereas people low in the need for cognition are more likely to rely on peripheral cues, such as how attractive or credible a speaker is. This variable may be quite relevant to political psychology: many political advertisements try to manipulate people through emotional appeals and poorly reasoned arguments. People who are higher in the Need for Cognition may be less swayed by such commercials. The construct is also used widely in consumer psychology; advertisers use it target their appeals to audiences that vary on the trait.

In the graph below, your score is shown in green. The scores of all liberals who have taken it on our site are shown in blue, and the scores of all conservatives are shown in red. Scores run from 1 (the lowest possible score, lowest need for cognition) to 5 (the highest possible score, highest need for cognition).

Consumer Values Scale

The scales measure six dimensions that we believe predict a large amount of variance in terms of the kinds of consumption decisions that people make. In this case, we are defining consumption broadly to include not just material goods, but also the experiences one buys, the causes one supports, and the places one travels. The six dimensions we are currently measuring are:
- Achievement: How much one values individual achievement.
- Purpose: How altruistic one is.
- Pleasure: How much one values fun in the present moment.
- Freedom: How much one values independence.
- Security: How much one values security and safety.
- Tradition: How much one values tradition.

The idea behind the scale is that people's values may be related to what they purchase, experience, consume, and desire. For example, in previous samples, we have found that those who are high in self determination, support, and generosity tend to do more research on their purchases. Those who value tradition and wealth are more responsive to ads. We are broadly interested in exploring the relationship between values and spending behavior with an eye towards helping consumers self-actualize through their consumption patterns better.

Engagement with Beauty 

The scale is a measure of your reactions to three different kinds of beauty: natural, artistic, and moral. Moral beauty refers to any action that displays virtue -- acts of love, courage, loyalty, or generosity, for example, often produce in observers a distinct pattern of physical feelings (often in the chest) and social motives (such as to copy the person who did the good deed). Haidt (2003) has called this feeling "moral elevation," drawing on a description of the feeling from Thomas Jefferson.

The idea behind the scale is that philosophers and psychologists have long been intrigued by the connection between beauty and virtue. Are those who are more "sensitive" to beauty and ugliness in the physical world also more sensitive to beauty or ugliness in the social world? Immanuel Kant said "A direct interest in the beauty of nature is always a mark of a good soul." Kant surely overstated things -- Hitler seems to have been quite fond of the natural beauty of Germany. Nonetheless, Diessner has found that scores on the EBS do correlate with scores on measures of gratitude, spiritual transcendence, and happiness. Diessner created the EBS in part to investigate whether feelings of moral elevation (in response to moral beauty) are related to the feelings of spiritual uplift that many people report in response to viewing natural and artistic beauty.

The graph below shows your scores (in green) compared to those of the average male (in brown) and the average female (in orange) visitor to this website. The first green bar shows your average response to the "natural beauty" items. The next green bar shows your average response to the "artistic beauty" items. The third green bar shows your average response to the "moral beauty" items. The scale runs from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest possible score).

How Billionaires Make Money in Home Ownership When Government Fails

Mnuchin has good reason to be happy - he is screwing people out of their assets

This 53 minute podcast, Homewreckers, goes into the details of how billionaires make money from middle class misery when the free market goes awry and government fails. This is one of the most depressing investigative journalism reports I can recall. It details the tactics that billionaires use to make hundreds of millions deceiving and exploiting average people. It shows that the only moral value that the billionaire class has is profit by any means, including deceit and illegal means. The rule of law is mostly irrelevant because it is an easily side-stepped joke. Law enforcement against billionaires is almost non-existent. Honesty and transparency by everyone involved is a total joke.

This shows just how cynical and corrupt our two-party system can be. The federal government failed. The rule of law failed. Average people were tricked, deceived, fooled and cheated out of their homes. To make it all worse, the podcast plays clips of the president telling his supporters how bad the housing situation is and then putting the people behind the mass misery into positions of power.

This is truly heart-breaking, so if you don't want to be depressed, don't listen to this. If you want to be at least somewhat informed about how the vicious game is played by the big guys, you have to listen to this.

My conclusions 

First and foremost, caveat emptor is the only defense the consumer has against the immorality of the ruthless profit motive running free and wild in corrupt, rigged markets. Do  not look to government for protection, relief or a level playing field. This podcast is well worth 53 minutes of a person's time. It shows once again why it is long past time for regime change. Both parties and their corrupt, morally bankrupt ideologies and incompetent ways of doing business of by and for business have got to go. we need government for the people, not for the corrupt wealthy.

Finally, this shows that the rich do not operate in a meritocracy, unless merit lies in corruption, and heartless lies, deceit, trickery and exploiting incompetent government.


My thanks goes to milo for bringing this sad but infuriating story to my attention.

American Authoritarian Kleptocracy Rising

The last few days have evinced more evidence that the president is moving aggressively toward a more irrational, anti-democratic and authoritarian form of government. The latest hate and incoherence relates to the president's continuing use of dark free speech (DFS)[1] to further polarize and divide Americans along political and racial lines. This looks to be part of the president's 2020 re-election strategy.

The Washington Post writes that Twitter considered one of the president's Tweets to be glorifying violence. In it, the president called for police brutality in response to riots in Minneapolis that had erupted after police there killed a black man in custody. The company limited public access to the toxic Tweet. The president flew into a rage, claiming it was censorship. He threatened that the company would be regulated as punishment. WaPo comments: "Trump and his allies again decried the move as censorship, promising to regulate the company a day after he signed an executive order that could open the door for the U.S. government to punish social-media sites for their handling of political speech online."

That move is blatantly irrational from the president's point of view. The punishment the president wants to impose is elimination of a law that protects companies like Facebook and Twitter from liability for people who post false or defamatory content on their sites. Although experts do not believe that the president has to legal power to unilaterally do that, if the law is eliminated or made to just go away, affected companies would need to be far more aggressive about blocking the kind of dark free speech content that the president routinely posts online.

In essence, the president is so enraged that he blindly wants to get rid of the law that protects companies from liability from his own lies and defamation. If that came to pass, Twitter would likely be forced to delete the president's account and ban him forever.

The New York Times writes:

"The executive order that Mr. Trump signed on Thursday seeks to strip liability protection in certain cases for companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook for the content on their sites, meaning they could face legal jeopardy if they allowed false and defamatory posts. Without a liability shield, they presumably would have to be more aggressive about policing messages that press the boundaries — like the president’s. 

That, of course, is not the outcome Mr. Trump wants. What he wants is the freedom to post anything he likes without the companies applying any judgment to his messages, as Twitter did this week when it began appending “get the facts” warnings to some of his false posts on voter fraud. Furious at what he called “censorship” — even though his messages were not in fact deleted — Mr. Trump is wielding the proposed executive order like a club to compel the company to back down. 

But the logic of Mr. Trump’s order is intriguing because it attacks the very legal provision that has allowed him such latitude to publish with impunity a whole host of inflammatory, harassing and factually distorted messages that a media provider might feel compelled to take down if it were forced into the role of a publisher that faced the risk of legal liability rather than a distributor that does not. 

Mr. Trump has long posted false and disparaging messages to his 80 million followers on Twitter, disregarding complaints about their accuracy or fairness. In recent weeks, he has repeatedly issued tweets that essentially falsely accused Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC host, of murdering a staff member in 2001 when he was a congressman. Mr. Scarborough was 800 miles away at the time and the police found no signs of foul play. The aide’s widower asked Twitter to delete the messages, but it refused."

To the president's Tweet, Twitter added “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence” in a gray box that hid the tweet from public view unless a user clicks to see it. Twitter also prevented users from liking the president’s tweet or sharing it without adding a comment. A company spokesman commented: “We’ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance.” Twitter is between a rock and a hard place.

Should the law just go away?

This situation raises a fascinating question. Should congress repeal the law that protects private online companies from liability for lies and defamation that users post online? In my opinion, unrestrained DFS constitutes the single most powerful tool that the president and political extremists of all stripes have at their disposal for getting what they want. The president relies heavily on DFS to build public support for his goal of establishing a generally weak central government that operates as some sort of police state that operates as a kleptocratic tyranny heavily tinged with vengeful Christian theocratic overtones.

What is the cost-benefit of allowing unfettered DFS in political speech? What is the cost-benefit of normalizing and acceptance of political lies, deceit, character assassination (defamation), crackpot conspiracy theories, anti-democratic norms, e.g., voter suppression, corruption and gross incompetence? What does each of us get that is good that outweighs the social bad that DFS causes?

Maybe I am an outlier, but I don't see any good in essentially all DFS. I do see a lot of personal, social, economic and democratic harm. What am I missing? Why should Twitter, Facebook and Google be protected from liability?


Footnote:
1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism, and (4) ideologically-driven motivated reasoning and other ideologically-driven biases that unreasonably distort reality and reason. (my label, my definition)

100,000

Mr. Spock : I've noticed that about your people, Doctor. You find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million. You speak about the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart, yet how little room there seems to be in yours.

STAR TREK: 

“The Immunity Syndrome”

DOES THIS NUMBER MEAN ANYTHING ANYMORE?


 DO YOU HAVE A GUT REACTION WHEN YOU SEE THIS NUMBER? 

DOES IT MATTER?

The View from a Social Scientist

Hey All,

I am a fairly new fan of Jonathan Haidt.  This article alarmed me more so than it encouraged me regarding the state of politics in the United States.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/jonathan-haidt-pandemic-and-americas-polarization/612025/


I see factions on Facebook and Disqus.  Social media is making us more tribal and emotional.  Less rational.  It creates experts out of high school dropouts.  Dunning Kruger run amok.

Our town page has members attacking each other over the virus.  Some taking this as a life threatening event while others treat it as some conspiracy theory.

President Dumb Ass is creating chaos with his tweets.  He's using the virus to scapegoat his political opposition.  He is using his office to turn the people against the media.

Questions:

Is this nation being set up for division?  Who benefits from that?  Will we turn on each other?

How bad can this get?

Or will we wake up as Americans?  Value our freedoms and not allow others to take power using such divisive and immoral tactics.

Can we learn to get along while at the same time disagreeing about issues.  Finding a way to compromise?  To listen to others and realize that the good of the nation also means the good of the people of that nation?  To admit that we were wrong?  Then apologize and learn from our mistakes?

Is Haidt too patient?  Are liberals too patient?  Can conservatives rid themselves of Trump and his divisive rhetoric?

As we see in other societies and learn from history those that seek to grab authoritarian power do not back down easily.  They will use every means at their disposal.

If the people don't stand up and fight it and instead are passive or take the high road are they just conceding to this evil.  That's really what it is.  It's evil.

Is Twitter making a stand about one of Trump's points a turning point?  Can the people of this nation back their freedom to not allow lies on their site.  To not allow a president to use their platform to cause division by lying with his tweets?

We can't stop the outlets they own from publishing propaganda.  We don't have to allow them free access to mass media to push more of it on the unsuspecting.

Trump's words today was scary.  It was an action of a dictator.  Demanding free speech while taking it away from others.  He has a right to the government not restricting his free speech.  He can not use his power and government power to restrict the free speech of others.  Twitter was within it's rights.  Trump was not.

Lot's of questions.  Answer one or none.  Give me your own thoughts and theories.

Thank you!

Ellabulldog