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Sat 12 Dec, 2015 08:20 am
"both questions" in the context below seems to refer to "donation and cumulative effect that leads to moral dilemma" -but I am not sure at all..
What do they refer to?
Context:
The fact that people seem to be reliably less concerned when faced with an
increase in human suffering represents an obvious violation of moral norms. The important point, however, is that we immediately recognize how indefensible this allocation of emotional and material resources is once it is brought to our attention. What makes these experimental findings so striking is that they are patently inconsistent: if you care about what happens to one little girl, and you care about what happens to her brother, you must, at the very least, care as much about their combined fate. Your concern should be (in some sense) cumulative. When your violation of this principle is revealed, you will feel that you have committed a moral error. This explains why results of this kind can only be obtained between subjects (where one group is asked to donate to help one child and another group is asked to support two); we can be sure that if we presented both questions to each participant in the study, the effect would disappear (unless subjects could be prevented from noticing when they were violating the norms of moral reasoning).
-Sam Harris
The fact that people seem to be reliably less concerned when faced with an
increase in human suffering represents an obvious violation of moral norms. The important point, however, is that we immediately recognize how indefensible this allocation of emotional and material resources is once it is brought to our attention. What makes these experimental findings so striking is that they are patently inconsistent: if you care about what happens to one little girl, and you care about what happens to her brother, you must, at the very least, care as much about their combined fate. Your concern should be (in some sense) cumulative. When your violation of this principle is revealed, you will feel that you have committed a moral error. This explains why results of this kind can only be obtained between subjects (where one group is asked to donate to help one child and another group is asked to support two); we can be sure that if we presented both questions to each participant in the study, the effect would disappear (unless subjects could be prevented from noticing when they were violating the norms of moral reasoning).
@Tes yeux noirs,
Tes yeux noirs wrote:
The fact that people seem to be reliably less concerned when faced with an
increase in human suffering represents an obvious violation of moral norms. The important point, however, is that we immediately recognize how indefensible this allocation of emotional and material resources is once it is brought to our attention. What makes these experimental findings so striking is that they are patently inconsistent: if you care about what happens to one little girl, and you care about what happens to her brother, you must, at the very least, care as much about their combined fate. Your concern should be (in some sense) cumulative. When your violation of this principle is revealed, you will feel that you have committed a moral error. This explains why results of this kind can only be obtained between subjects (where one group is asked to donate to help one child and another group is asked to support two); we can be sure that if we presented both questions to each participant in the study, the effect would disappear (unless subjects could be prevented from noticing when they were violating the norms of moral reasoning).
Thanks.
So when the both questions were presented to a participant, he would naturally realize that he's in a moral dilemma? It is mysterious to me: how to prevent him from noticing he's violating the norms of moral reasoning?
@oristarA,
Quote:It is mysterious to me: how to prevent him from noticing he's violating the norms of moral reasoning?
Indeed, although an expert psychologist (or a politician!) might be able to think of a method.
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