A Universal Moral Grammer: a case for Intention Predicates, Consequence Predicates and Action Predicates?

There is an interview of Mark Hauser on the American Scientist wherein Hauser discusses Moral Development in humans and animals in context of his soon-to-be-released book Moral Minds.

In brief, Hauser contends, that just like humans are born with an innate ability to acquire language and there exist universal grammatical rules underlying this language acquisition, so too there are universal, innate, unconscious moral rules and they govern the development of Moral Sense. Thus, though different languages may have different content (actual words etc), their form would be constrained by the Universal Grammar that was instrumental during the language acquisition, so too though different cultures may have different moral or ethical systems or values (the actual content), their form would be constrained by the universal, unconscious grammatical rules that constrained the development of that particular moral language.

To simplify things a bit, it is instructive to read up a bit on Universal Grammar as well as familiarize oneself with popular grammars like Generative grammars that are used in linguistics.

Hauser mentions that the "moral grammar is a set of principles that operate on the basis of the causes and consequences of action". To put that in a simplified (and my own!) form, one may say that every moral sentence (or moral act/judgment) can be represented in the form of a Cause or Intention Predicate (IP), a Action Predicate (AP) and a Consequence Predicate (CP).

Thus, A Moral Sentence S consistent with a particular Moral System would have the form

S = IP AP CP

This is similar to a normal language sentence being of the form Noun Predicate followed by Verb Predicate followed by Prepositional Predicate (juts for sake of example)

The IP,AP and CP may themselves be recursively defined and may be made of either terminals are non-terminals like IP,CP, AP themselves.

Thus we may have different types of Moral languages - ranging from type 3 or regular moral languages to type 0 or unrestricted.

Only sentences that are valid and as per the rules of the Moral language would be 'right', while sentences that have been rejected by an automata as not belonging to that grammar would be 'wrong'. Thus, an algorithmic implementation of judging acts as moral or immoral can exist.

Hauser, also mentions some interesting observations.

• When consequences of an action are same, one (even children) differentiates based on whether the act (or lack of it!) was accidental or intentional.
• If an act was accidental and leads to the same consequence, one still distinguishes whether the act was hasty, due to negligence or carelessness or something which normally should have been performed, but skipped.
• He also discusses, that even when consequences and intentions are same, say in active and passive euthanasia; still based on the nature of act - viz. the fact that in former one is actively ending life by administrating poison, while in other one is passively letting the person die by removing life-support - our moral judgments are different.

Hauser doesn't go on to develop from these observations a full-fledged universal Moral grammar, or maybe he does so in his book, but I take the liberty here to relate this to my own theories of Moral devlopment as well as my analysis of Kohlberg's theory and see how this Universal Grammar affects the acquisition of Moral Sense in a developmental staged manner in Humans.

To make the analogy clear, consider language acquisition in Children. There is a clear developmental pattern to all language acquisitions and this is independent of the language learned. The child begins by babbling, follows up with one letter words (either nouns or verbs), then goes on to construct two letter words, this is followed by a telegraphic speech phase wherein multi-word sentences are created, but there is too much grammeticalisation and finally the adult usage of multi-word grammatically correct sentences that are pragmatically used.

Within these broad stages, there are universal features found in all languages like usage of inflection and intonation to denote exclamation or interrogation without changing the order or content of words used to denote a normal sentence. For example, normal sentences like

“Dad is coming"

when spoken with different inflections and intonations can either represent an exclamation or an interrogation viz.

"Dad is coming!"

or
"Dad is coming?"

This is true for all languages and this ability to use inflection also develops later and in a staged manner. Similarly prepositions are learned later than say nouns, verbs or adjectives in all languages.

To focus discussion back on Universal Moral Grammar and acquisition/development of Moral Sense, what I propose is that different stages of Moral development reflect the mastery of some rules of this universal grammar.

In stage I of Moral Development, one is babbling in the sense that one is trying to formulate a coherent moral judgment about any act. One has still not learned/ identified the 'words'/ 'acts' that form the moral lexicon (of the moral culture in which this moral sense is developing) and as such judges an act based on whether it is personally rewarded or punished. One has started forming the concept of 'consequence' of an act, but that consequence is defined by how the society around us responds to a particular act, rather than on any intrinsic property of the act. The concept of Consequence Predicate is beginning to form and one starts judging an act based on the 'good' or 'bad' consequence it had and this consequence is learned by feedback provided by society/parents.

In stage II of Moral Development, one is in the holophrastic speech stage in the sense that one has realized the acts that lead to good consequences and those that lead to bad and undesirable consequences. In this stage one may also start realizing the difference between accidental acts or intentional acts and value intentional acts over accidental ones. Still the child would be using either the schema of Intention or that of Consequence to judge an act. It may not be possible for him to combine the two schemas together and analyze the situation not only on the basis of consequences as well as on the basis of intentions.

In stage III of Moral Development, one may start combining two moral predicates like "Intention" and "Consequence" to form combinations and then judge whether the moral act is inline with his moral system or not.

For example, the terminals for Intention Predicate could be 'good', 'bad', 'selfish', selfless', 'accidental', 'active', 'casual' etc and the terminals for Consequence Predicate could be 'good' , 'bad' , 'maximising' ,'minimising' ,'disruptive' ,'constructive', 'long-term' etc

The combination of these two 'words' in stage III of Moral development may lead to different value judgments of a moral act, based on taking into account both the consequence and the intention.

In stage IV of Moral development, one may start refining the moral judgment statements, by taking into account Action Predicate terminals like 'inactive', 'casual', 'careless', 'lazy', 'lethargic', 'vigorous', 'vibrant', 'thoughtful' etc and combine these with IP and CP to form more complex 3 or more words sentences. One would also start refining IP, CP and AP as recursively embedded in each other and thus consisting of more than one words each, but the construction of moral sentences or judgments would be overtly grammatical just like telegraph speech.

In stage V of Moral development, not only would one rely on syntax, but would be using pragmatics to inform the construction of Moral Judgments. One would have reached an adult stage of taking into account different consequences, intentions, actions and their combinations to arrive at a moral judgement.

The above was focused more on development of Moral syntax.

Another way to see how moral lexicon develops is to consider the development of vocabulary for the Consequence Predicate.

In stage I, one may use the words 'good-rewarding' and 'bad-punishing' in the CP and the consequences would be judged based on whether they are rewarded by society (parents) or punished. This stage leads to formation of the concept 'good' as relevant to consequences; and acceptance of the 'good' over 'bad' as part of one's moral lexicon.

In stage II, the words used may switch to 'good-for-self' and 'good-for-other' in the CP and one may start distinguishing on the moral judgments based on whether the consequence is good for self or for others; with 'good-for-self' taking precedence over 'good-for-others'.

In stage III, the words used may switch to 'good-feeling-self' and 'good-feeling-other' in the CP. In this stage, the Consequence is judged more favorably if it leads to feelings of goodness or that of being a good person. Again, 'good-feeling-self' may be preferred over 'good-feeling-others'.

In stage IV, the words used may be 'good-for-society' and 'greatest good for greatest people' in the CP. Here Consequences are classified as per whether they benefit the society as a whole or at least the greatest number of people that are involved(including oneself).

In stage V, the words used may be 'good-for-life', 'good-for-property', 'good-for-happiness' etc and here too one may prefer 'good-for-life' over all other including 'good-for-happiness' or words learned in previous stages like 'good-for-society'. At this stage the lexicon used would be reflecting the maturity reached in stage V, with individual rights being upheld and individual universal values (like human rights) preferred over societal duties or obligations to others under the social contract.

Just like for Consequence Predicate, it is easy to show, that words for Intention Predicate also keep changing and getting added as one goes through moral developmental stages.

One may start with a distinction between, 'accidental' and 'intentional' intentions and refine them with more terminals like 'selfish intention', 'intention to help other', 'intention to be happy', 'intention to make happy', 'altruistic intention to help society', or 'intention to reform society/ upheld human values'

I'll leave the discussion for now and would like to hear from readers how they intuitively feel regarding the Universal Moral Grammar and what experiments can they suggest to prove or disprove the theory?

Endgame: As Moral Judgements do not just involve atrributing whether a moral sentence (or moral act) belongs to the moral grammer (is right) or not; but also involves comparision between competing Moral Acts and a classification as to which act is 'better', is the analogy to Language a bit restrictive? or is it that an act is either right or wrong; and that all 'right' acts are equivalent and chosing any 'right' act (of the many possible) does not make a difference?

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Encephalon Edition 5 now online

The Encephalon Edition 5 has just been published at the Developing Intelligence .

The articles range from analysis of Potassium channels gating (that has turned out to be analog gating rather than digital gating) and the resistance of TREK1 (a gene used in K channels) knockout mice to anti depressent and the possible effect of anti-depressants via this TREK1 pathway to those focusing on depiction of psychoses in novels of Philip K dick and the technology used to make the movie A Scanner Drakly

There are many other interesting articles including some posted earlier on this blog. Have a nice read and Enjoy!

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The Male and The Female Brain: from Back to Front and from Left to Right

I have been reading too many commentaries on The Female Brain (and also read an online chapter from the same today), so please excuse me if I too jump into the fray with my own discovery of a Dorsal visual stream bias in Males and a Ventral visual stream bias in Females. This is a novel departure from the usual left brain /right brain argument and deserves some attention!!

It has been often commented that the dorsal visual stream is specialized for location (and motion). Considering the combination of motion and location, one can easily see that if males process this stream more easily/predominantly then they are good at driving:-) and parking cars:-) vis-a-vis females who may not process data in this stream as preponderantly as in the Ventral stream.

Now, it has also been commented that the ventral stream is specialized for things like shape, color etc all of which enable us to identify the object. Thus, this stream is specialized for identifying objects. If women have more preponderant processing here, they would definitely be good at skills needing to treat objects like a whole- for ex relating to a person, recognizing faces etc.

I got thinking along these lines by reading a excellent commentary on Developing Intelligence regarding visual binding and you must read it before proceeding further.

As per the research mentioned there, it was experimentally found that object-location condition evoked longer looks from infants only when the objects were toys. It is evident that this ventral stream is a predominantly mean stream with focus on worldly objects and toys (I guess they had used cars as toys!)

It was also found that the object-identity condition evoked longer looks only when the objects were faces. Thus, the ventral stream it seems is tailor-made for females with their emphasis on interpersonal relationships and faces and persons as opposed to the more objective world of Men. Pardon me if reading too much Gilligan etc has gone to my head.

To me this seems as compelling evidence that not only do the female and male brains differ from left (hemisphere) to right, but also from front to back!

This post is written with a tongue-in-cheek but also takes forward some of the concepts like object and motion permanence that I mentioned earlier. It seems we need to distinguish now between object-identity permanence, object-location permanence, object-motion permanence and object-binding permanence!

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Celebrity Worship, Personality and Temperaments

There is an interesting article published in the Psychologist, regarding the psychology behind Celebrity Worship.

The Celebrity worshipers are classified on the following three dimensions (obtained by Principal Components Analysis):

• Entertainment-social. Fans are attracted to a favorite celebrity because of their perceived ability to entertain and to become a source of social interaction and gossip. Items include ‘My friends and I like to discuss what my favorite celebrity has done’ and ‘Learning the life story of my favorite celebrity is a lot of fun’.

• Intense-personal. The intense-personal aspect of celebrity worship reflects intensive and compulsive feelings about the celebrity, akin to the obsession tendencies of fans often referred to in the literature. Items include ‘My favorite celebrity is practically perfect in every way’ and ‘I consider my favorite celebrity to by my soul mate’.

• Borderline-pathological. This dimension is typified by uncontrollable behaviors and fantasies about their celebrities. Items include ‘I would gladly die in order to save the life of my favorite celebrity’ and ‘If I walked through the door of my favorite celebrity’s house she or he would be happy to see me’.

The article goes on to relate these dimension to Eysenecks Personality dimensions:

Specifically, the entertainment-social factor of the Celebrity Attitude Scale reflects some of the extraversion personality traits (sociable, lively, active, venturesome), the intense-personal factor of the CAS reflects some of the neuroticism traits (tense, emotional, moody), and some of the acts described in the borderline-pathological subscale of the CAS seem to reflect some of the psychoticism traits (impulsive, antisocial, egocentric).

It goes on to discuss the social and developmental aspects with special focus on the predominantly teen phenomenon of celebrity worship. It is theorized that Celebrity Worship is part of 'parasocial' relationship building and plays a role in the transition from parental attachment to peer attachments as a function of increasing emotional autonomy.

Here I start seeing parallels between the Teen's particular style of Celebrity Worship and the infant's reaction to Strange Situation test measured by Ainsworth and theoriesed by Bowlby.

In the Strange Situation test the group of infants which has a secure attachment with parent, protested and cried on separation, but when the mother returned, they greeted her with pleasure and were easy to console. They were securely attached. Could a person with this form of attachment style (the Extraversion secure trait), in its adolescence when building a parent-like role-model relationship with a Celebrity display a similar attachment style as displayed in infancy. The attachment would give pleasure, would be fun to talk about and provide as a basis (talking matter) for other peer relationships. Is this not the Entertainment-social style?

The second group of infants in the Strange Situation test was characterized by a lack of distress during parental separation, and avoidance of the parent upon return. This group was called insecurely attached, and avoidant. Is it not possible that this attachment style , that is characterized by attachment from a distance and no anxiety on separation , but a general anxiety (Neuroticism trait) in general, lead in adolescence to intense-personal style of seeking a parental figure in the Celebrity, which purports to be personal, and is a substitute for the lack of parental bonding and is itself more of a facade. As the article notes, "an intense-personal interest in celebrities was best predicted by low levels of security and closeness with parents." What is apparent is that this intense 'relationship' with the celebrity is juts another facade and a repeat of the pattern of insecure or avoidant attachment as the relationship is more about oneself then about the celebrity.

The third group in the Strange Situation Test was labeled ambivalent or anxiously attached, and tended to be clingy from the beginning and afraid to explore the room. They became terribly anxious upon separation, yet displayed angry and resistive behavior upon the parent's return. This may indeed follow up in adolescence as celebrity worship of the Borderline/Pathological type where one loves as well hates (in the sense of distressing or harming the celebrity if favors not returned) the one who has been substituted for the parental figure. One is not really clear about the feelings as the role of impulsive (Psychoticism trait) behavior is too much!

This makes us pause and consider whether the attachment style displayed in infancy was due to bad parenting or a result of some 'trait' factor associated with the temperaments of the infant? Does one come endowed with some temperaments like that proposed by Buss and Plomin? Do the attachment styles in infancy and Celebrity Worship styles in adolescence based on the developmental unfolding and fixation of the same underlying trait tendencies? Below are the traits observed by Buss and Plomin in infants:

1. Emotionality-impassiveness: How emotional and excitable were the babies? Some were given to emotional outbursts of distress, fear, and anger -- others were not. Could the high emotionality tilt lead to insecure attachment and intense-personal celebrity worship? Is achieving impassiveness a developmental task that these kids are not able to achieve (due to a mix of inherent traits as well as nurturing provided)?

2. Sociability-detachment: How much did the babies enjoy, or avoid, contact and interaction with people. Some babies are “people people,” others are “loners.” Does the high sociability lead to secure attachment and later to Entertainment-social fixation on celebrities? Is achieving detachment too a developmental task?

3. Activity-lethargy: How vigorous, how active, how energetic were the babies? Just like adults, some babies are always on the move, fidgety, busy -- and some are not. This dimension may be related to ambivalent and active forms of stalking behaviors. Maybe too much activity (hyperactivity) is not too good and cultivating a bit of lethargy is a developmental task?

4. Impulsivity-deliberateness: How quickly did the babies “change gears,” move from one interest to another? Some people quickly act upon their urges; others are more careful and deliberate. This could be strongly related to the ambivalent attachment and later borderline-pathological celebrity worship characterized by impulsiveness and lack of successful traversal of developmental task of cultivating deliberativeness.

I'll leave this topic for now, just noting briefly that the intense-emotional worshippers also have low cognitive flexibility. As they have been shown to be related to Neuroticism, it is little wonder. People with high Neuroticism also develop disorders like Depression whereby one sort of falls into learned helplessness- a fixed cognitive schema and inflexibility in trying new things, cognitive coping actions. This needs cures like cognitive behavior therapy where new modes of cognition and action are taught. A lack of cognitive flexibility thus fits nicely with the Intense-Personal celebrity worshippers.

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Development of Perspective Taking : a pre-requisite for different stages of Moral Development

There is an interesting post on Edie NeuroLearning Blog, that focuses on some recent findings that empathy/interpersonal perspective-taking is correlated with high activation in sensory-motor areas. This is as opposed to the baseline condition in which a third party or 'bystander' perspective is undertaken.

Of more interest to us here is the Robert Selman's developmental stage theory of perspective-taking and how that relates to the Kohlberg's Moral Development theory we have discussed earlier.

As per Robert Selman, the interpersonal perspective-taking or the related role-playing (stepping in someone else's cognitive perspective) ability develops through distinct stages and he outlines five of them starting from undifferentiated perspectives in which one is not really able to distinguish between different perspectives to 'bystander' or third party perspectives tainted with social/cultural influences.


Before we proceed further, it is instructive to distinguish between perceptual perspective-taking or point-of-views as outlined by Piaget and more emotional-cognitive theory-of-mind perspectives as elaborated by Selman. The 'impersonal' point-of-view tasks that piaget used (for eg in the famous point-of-view task whereby a Christmas tree was obstructed from point of view by hills. See figure) rely more on whether one can literally see from the point of view of another person and is restricted to purely perceptual phenomenon. While egocentrism would correspond to undifferentiated perspective taking (stage 1) of Selman as it involves inability to distinguish one's own perspective from those of others, Decntering would be akin to taking third party perspectives (stage 4) of Selman. Piaget's decentration may be a necessary (but not sufficient say in the case of people with Autism) condition for the development of third-party perspectives stage of Selman.

Thus, in the ensuing discussion all references to perspective-taking would be in the theory-of-mind emotional-cognitive sense and not in purely perceptual terms.
Consider as an example a story presented to children who are then asked on what the protagonist would do and how others would react to it.

Holly is an 8-year old girl who likes to climb trees. She is the best tree climber in the neighborhood. One day while climbing a tree she falls off the bottom branch but does not hurt herself. Her father sees her fall, and is upset. He asks her to promise not to climb trees anymore, and Holly promises.

Later that day, Holly and her friends meet Sean. Sean's kitten is caught up in a tree and cannot get down. Something has to be done right away or the kitten may fall. Holly is the only one who climbs trees well enough to reach the kitten and get it down, but she remembers her promise to her father

The first stage of Selman is based on Undifferentiated Perspective whereby one attributes one's or protagonist perspective to everyone else's. One may have a concept of perspective or Theory-of-mind but may suffer from an inability to attribute any other perspective to anyone else distinct from one's own. Thus typical response are like "The child predicts that Holly will save the kitten because she does not want it to get hurt and believes that Holly's father will feel just as she does about her climbing the tree: "Happy, he likes kittens"

This also relates to Kohlberg stage 1 in the sense that one comes to realize that one can have a 'moral' perspective on a subject. This 'moral' perspective though is undifferentiated from what the society has imposed in the form of rewards/ punishments . One confuses others moral perspective (father says this is right" with ones own "this is right" and sort of has an undifferentiated moral sense. Everyone should behave like this.

The second stage of Selman is the social-informational perspective whereby one comes to realize that not only there exits a perspective, but that it can be different for different persons. Nevertheless, despite the realization that the perspectives can differ ( based on say the different information that each may have) the preponderant tendency is to consider one's perspective as valid and by exchanging information attempts to make others perspective inline with one's own. Thus a typical response may be " When asked how Holly's father will react when he finds out that she climbed the tree, the child responds, "If he didn't know anything about the kitten, he would be angry. But if Holly shows him the kitten, he might change his mind." The attitude is typical of a person who realizes that someone may have a different perspective, but that perspective is not valid and is due to lack of information.

This too relates to Kohlberg's second stage which is marked by self-interest and deal-making . One realizes that people may view things from different 'moral' perspectives, but also there is a preponderant tendency to favor one's own moral perspective (that is based on self-interest) over others moral or ethical perspective. Thus there is relativism, but a relativism that is skewed by self-interest. Also exchanging or del-making as a way to align self-interest or different moral /ethical perspectives is the norm.

The third stage of Selman is marked by self-reflective perspective taking which marks the first empathetic perspective taking whereby one sees, thinks and feels from other person's perspectives using first person. This is literally stepping in someone else's shoes and truly seeing as if the situation concerned oneself. This not just a logical realization that someone can have a different perspective but also realizing that that perspective can be equally valid given the other person's unique situation. Thus one thinks and feels like the other person and can both suffer and enjoy the outcomes of situations as they unfold from the other person's perspective. The emphasis is on understanding. And empathy. Thus the typical responses like " When asked whether Holly thinks she will be punished, the child says, "No. Holly knows that her father will understand why she climbed the tree." This response assumes that Holly's point of view is influenced by her father being able to "step in her shoes" and understand why she saved the kitten. "

This too relates well with Kohlberg's third stage marked by interpersonal relations. When one has developed empathy and understanding, one is guided by ensuring that the dealings are ethical in the sense that they make people feel good , enable one to be viewed favorably by others (realized as a good and genuine person) and generally lead to good relations. Empathy and understanding leads to valuation of individuals as similar to oneself and thus equally valuable. All moral/ethical conduct is guided by the dictum of good outcomes and relations between all (and especially those closely empathized with) parties concerned.

The fourth stage of selman becomes possible by the appearance of third-party or 'bystander' perspectives whereby one has decentred in the emotional/cognitive personal sense and can see a situation not only from first and second person perspectives of interacting parties, but also from that of a neutral bystander. This includes the ability to keep multiple perspectives in mind at the same time. One does not see from this perspective and then from the other - one looks at the entire big picture or view and understands that different people are having different perspectives. Thus typical responses include " When asked whether Holly should be punished, the child says, "No, because Holly thought it was important to save the kitten. But she also knows that her father told her not to climb the tree. So she'd only think she shouldn't be punished if she could get her father to understand why she had to climb the tree." This response steps outside the immediate situation to view both Holly's and her father's perspectives simultaneously. "

This also relates closely to the Kohlberg's fourth stage marked by conventional focus on social order. The ability to keep multiple 'moral' perspectives in mind at the same time and the ability to abstract and construct a big picture from these perspectives enables one to come up with the concept of the social morality, or morality that is not governed by different moral perspectives of the participating actors, but is based on the effects these acting persons have on the big picture, the social fabric. Thus the criteria of any ethical actions is adjudged as to how it influences the social fabric - does it lead to maintenance of social order- the third party neutral moral playground and its rules - or is it subversive to it. This is as opposed to the earlier ethical thought and action based on interpersonal focus on individual's morality. The stage now becomes more important than the actors.

The fifth stage of Selman derives form maturation of this to a societal perspective, whereby one realizes that the neutral third party perspective is not really neutral but influenced by the societal and cultural context in which the bystander lives and is reflective of those values. One realizes that one can have different neutral perspectives on a situation, each of which would be colored by the values that are dear to the social and cultural context in which the situation occurs and which dictate what a neutral perspective is. One may realize that some values are desirable and others are not and that the perspective that is informed by desirable values is more preferable. The typical response thus are "When asked if Holly should be punished, the individual responds, "No. The value of humane treatment of animals justifies Holly's action. Her father's appreciation of this value will lead him not to punish her."


This too corresponds well with Kohlberg's fifth stage with the emphasis on Social Contracts and individual rights. When one realizes that the neutral third party perspectives cannot be neutral with respect to the fundamental values and human (or cat in our example) rights that inform such perspectives, then one realizes that while one has societal duties in the form of maintaining the social order which allows for resolution of conflicts between individual moral perspectives, one also has a duty to ensure that the societal laws, mores, traditions are such that they upheld this rules and regulations that are best suited to the human condition. One not only has duties, one also has rights that one can expect from the social fabric. Here one may play with different social values before coming up with a set of values that one deems are amenable to making most interactions viewable from a neutral perspective. One discovers one's moral self and takes activism other measures to ensure that ones moral sense is inline with external social fabric in which one lives.

There is an interesting twist to the whole thing. It seems that moving to higher perspective stages involves taking in more and more information to form ones perspective. This bodes well for the information age. As more and more information becomes available at our fingertips, and we realize novel methods of integrating that information to form better perspectives, our moral sense and actions should also continue to be on upswing.

Selman himself has compared his work to Kohlberg's stages. I don't have access to the article, but others may find it interesting.

More later on the qualitatively different 6, 7, 8 stages. (which I'll have to work out from thin air!)

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Synapse vol 1, issue 5 now online

Synapse vol 1, issue 5 is now online at the Retrospectacle.

This issue of the Synapse features interviews; introductory descriptions of topics as varied as eye movements and sleep disorders; cutting edge news on developments like HAR1's light-to-prominence; detailed analysis of niches like bird songs and circadian rhythms and much more. Go to the Retrospectacle to catch on.

There is also an article on Childhood Poverty and Neurocognitive Development and this takes forward the debate on effect of socio-economic status on IQ and cognitive abilities that have been earlier mused on by me earlier on the mouse trap.

As usual, a post from this blog features in the Carnival.

The Next synapse, i.e. Synapse Vol 1 Issue 6 would be hosted right here at The Mouse Trap on September 3, 2006. So don't forget to drop in then and also drop in your submissions for that edition in the meanwhile. Submission guidelines are right here. Deadline for submissions - one minute before midnight, September 2,2006!

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A glimpse of my Memome!

Ok, I have taken the gauntlet and decided to expose 5 of the memes that make my Memome.

This post is courtesy Retrospectacle.
>>

The rules: "Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe."

>>

• They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987), The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

• You can't turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again.

Bonnie Prudden

• Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.

Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)

• When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.

John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

• The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

OK these were 5 of my memes. Now its your turn. Truth or Dare!

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Moral dilemmas and what they tell us about moral development

There is an interesting article on Rationality Vs. Emotivity influence in moral decisions and a commentary on the same by Thinking Meat.

As per that article, different decisions are reached in a situation that mandates one to choose a life of one person vis-a-vis that of 5-6 other people, depending on how the situation and moral action to be taken is presented. The hypothetical situation is that of a train/trolley running on a track and 5-6 people unaware of the impending train on the tracks ahead.

In one version of the situation, you can press a lever to divert the train to another track, on which only one person is present, and thus save 5-6 lives by compromising on one life. Most people, when the situation is presented thus, opt for the option of pressing the lever.

In the second version, you can push another person on the track, so that his impact will slow the train down and thus lead to saving of the other 5-6 people down the track. In this situation people usually choose not to throw the person on the track. Also experiments have revealed that emotional centers of the brain are engaged while making this decision.

While some theorizing is going on that the (imagined) action of pushing is not preferred due to the emotional reality of touching and pushing someone to end his life and that this particular (imagined) feeling leads to the decision not to throw the person on the track, let us focus more on the rational or deliberative part of the decision making.

It would be instructive to get familiar with Kohlberg's excellent Moral Development Stage theory for further discussion.

From the point of consequences , the two situations are the same. One life vs many lives and the choice lying with the user (you). Also, perhaps equal societal punishment or recognition based on your choice. Thus, any Moral reasoning employing piaget's first stage or Kohlberg's first stage focusing on reasoning on the basis of consequences or societal punishment/rewards does not solve the dilemma as to why one would act differently in two situations. In both situations, one may be guided by a 'rule' or social dictum like that 'many lives are better than one live'.

From the point of self-interest and relativity(Kohlebrgs second stage), the dilemma doesn't make sense as neither the one person that needs to be sacrificed nor the many other that will be saved are either you or related to you. So the dilemma doesn't solve for a person on second stage. In both cases he should make the same choice based on self interest and that choice may be not making a choice (neither pushing the person, nor pressing the lever) and thus being saved of any consequences that result from the making of choice.

From the point of Conventional morality employing good interpersonal stage of reasoning (stage 3 of kohlberg) the question would now become rephrased as what a 'good' person would do. Also, in absence of information about whether the one person about to be sacrifice is 'good' or the 5-6 to be saved are 'evil' and should not be saved or vice versa, he has no rational basis to make decisions. The one factor that may influence his decision is the proximity of pushing a person down, which may not fit in with the self-perception as a good person and this may explain to a certain extent the skew towards not pushing a person to save lives of others. In this stage of thinking pushing a lever and pushing a person may have different connotations.

From the perspective of social order (stage four), this dilemma presents a challenge. Before deciding which way to act, one would need to deliberate on whether the social order demands that one life be sacrificed to save many more, whether one need to take life of someone to prevent deaths of many others (this can be framed as should a dangerous murder be sentenced to capital punishment) . Another deliberation can be what if all those whose life is at stake are innocent and differ only in the fact that sacrificing one innocent life early on can save many innocent lives later. This is the typical hostage scenario whereby you may have to release terrorists, in order to save an innocent life in the moment that is kept as hostage, only to discover later that this has resulted in many future deaths of victims of those terrorists. In such cases where one knows that one innocent life stands in balance for 5-6 innocent lives further downstream, one still has to make a decision and the consideration primarily is on what precedent it would set. How it affects social order. Would one start taking hostages often ? Thus, sacrificing one life may be the option chosen. These deliberations may lead to the insight that though it may be emotionally repelling one may need to push the person oneself in order to keep up the social tradition of saving maximum number of innocent lives.

From the point of Social Contract and Individual rights (the fifth stage), it may seem that the life of every single individual is very valuable and maybe equally valuable. One may gain insights as to the fact that no amount of property is as precious as even a single (human) life. If this dilemma involved a choice to blow the (goods) train that was carrying vast amounts of wealth in order to save all the lives involved, then one may choose that. As the question is currently framed, there is not much ground on which to decide whether to sacrifice one person or many others. One may deliberate on the greatest good for greatest number of people and thus chose to sacrifice one person, so that many others can see much more years. Again, one may take into account the fact that the one person to be sacrificed is child ( and has many more years of life) and thus needs to be saved in contrast to 5-6 people who are old ( and thus wont see much life). One may even employ the reverse analogy and see that one old man (who has vast amount of wisdom) needs to be saved as he is of greater use to humanity then a child in which one has not invested much. All these deliberations involve and individualistic regards as to the value of life and value of unrealized potential or accumulated experience. What is important is the reasoning involved.

I wont go to stage 6 (universal principles) as Kohlberg himself has sort of retracted the sixth stage, but would hint that from that stage the dilemma gets interesting with discussion of life as a means or life as an end coming into picture. This is mentioned in the original Boston Globe article and is what Hauser is elaborating on. As per Hauser, one may be utilizing a universal moral principle (like universal grammar of language) preceding any rational or emotive deliberation to resolve such conundrums. In this universal scheme Life as Ends may be more acceptable than life as Means. Framed this way given a choice between saving a child and saving an old man, one would always choose a baby (as he/she has more years of life (and end in itself) ) over the old person. Only when one treats Life as a means of achieving something (knowledge? ) one may value an old person over a baby.

But before concluding , I would like to link these stages of moral development with my own theories of 8-stage development.

The first stage is based on finding out rules of society and are authority based. The cognitive task is to find correct associations between behaviors and results (punishment/rewards) and find an accurate view of how the Reality out there is. A similar development process leads to attainment of Trust (knowing that rewards are in plenty) in child's development in Erikson theory. In moral development one develops capacity to link consequences to actions.

The second stage is based on seeing things from ones own point of view and is based on self-interest. One realizes points of view of others , but does not empathizes and is more of a deal making attitude. The cognitive task is to choose for oneself what would benefit one the most. In eriksons framework this leads to Autonomy (will) whereby one can decide for oneself. In Moral Development this takes the form of graduating from society's dictums to a relativist position whereby one can choose what is beneficial to oneself in the moral sense (that is what fits one's morality). One develops the capacity to choose over different options/ viewpoints.

The third stage is based on focusing on how the moral decisions is governed by interpersonal relationships. Here concepts like 'goodness' , empathy, motives become important. One starts thinking in terms of effects ones actions have on others and vice versa. This cause-and-effect interactionist view that goodness is an end in itself and that what goes around come back governs many of the moral decisions. The Cognitive task is to understand and appreciate the effects of one's actions on others. In erikson's framework this takes the form of Initiative or Purpose whereby one tries to co-operate with others and either lead or follow to accomplish goals. In Moral Development this takes the form of realizing that one has the capacity to do good and one should use that capacity.

The Fourth stage is based on focusing on maintaining the social order. One again gets obsessed with societal laws and more, but now does not see them as rules to be followed, but norms which the society has and which are for the good of the society. Thus, these 'good' norms are internalized and ones moral thinking behavior geared around maintaining the norms so that society can function as a whole optimally. The concept of Social duty forms and one feels obliged to return to society what one gets from it. The Cognitive task involved are to understand that one is part of a bigger society, to understand the complexities involved in social interactions and to learn the fragility of social fabric and the need to preserve it as the social fabric is responsible for the large amount of learning that individual suffers by indirect means like observational learning. In Erkison's stages one develops Industry or a sense of competence that they can also work as effective members of a social group. They learn to follow rules followed by their peers or self-imposed by themselves as part of games etc. In the Moral Development this takes the form of realization that one has some moral duties towards the society in which one lives.

The Fifth stage is characterized by focus on Social Contract and individual rights. On makes moral decisions based on the fact that one has voluntarily negotiated a social contract with others on ones' own terms that have included a strong focus on enjoying some rights as part of that social contract. Here, Kohlbergs notion of roles may be appropriate. One plays with different roles (as a moral agent) that one has to play while living in a society and instead of playing the role that his society may demand, turns the tables around and says that I as an individual be;live in these moral rights and duties and that this is my limited social contract with the society. In a sense one has defined one's role and negotiated a personal contract based on that role and feels that neither the individual nor the society-at-large is under any other moral obligations. The cognitive tasks involved are gaining insights into what moral action or thought that one believes in are and how one can consistently use those moral rules while living in a society. The discovery of a moral self is the culmination of these 5 stages of moral development. As an outcome one may end with a rigorous personalized set of moral rules. In Eriksons theory this is equivalent to the similar (ego)Identity achievement of a n adolescent whereby one plays with many roles before deciding on one that one plans to stick around with. In Moral Development this is akin to forming a strong, personal moral sense (self) vis-avis not having a particularly integral sense of having a personal moral sense / conscience.

It's interesting to draw parallels here with my earlier posts on Cognitive Maps whereby in stages 6, 7, 8, if the development is not proper one may regress to earlier stages and suffer from pathologies like regression, fixation or displacement to out groups. I propose that if after achieving a moral self if one does not continue to develop along quantitatively different next three moral stages, one may regress to earlier dysfunctional moral stage when faced with stress situations.

What these 6, 7 and 8 stages of moral development are? Wait for the next mail!! A tantalizing hint that 5th stage may involve another way of achieving moral-ego-integrity (more akin to how moral sense develops in females as per Gilligan) and the 6th stage may involve literally stepping in someone's else's shoes as if you are that person and then resolving a conundrum.

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