Introduction

class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide

# Introduction
## Week 1 - Moral Psychology

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# Week 1

In the first week, after a review of the syllabus, we will be discussing how morality has been defined by philosophers and psychologists and  measured empirically.

.highlight-blue[In week 1:]
- **How will the course be structured and your learning assessed?**

- **How do philosophers define morality?**

- How do psychologists define morality?

- How do psychologists measure morality?

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# Introductions

Fill later with ice breaker

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# Course website

- [www.sdimakis.github.io/moral_psychology](www.sdimakis.github.io/moral_psychology)

- Course content, syllabus, readings, lectures, and assignments are all posted here

- Let's navigate now to the website to go over the syllabus

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# Course website

.small-br[]
<iframe src="https://sdimakis.github.io/moral_psychology/syllabus.html" width="100%" height="400px"></iframe>

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#How Your Life is Scored
.small-br[]
.center[
<iframe width="560" height="310" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ut0ai4s4mjU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
]
.smallish[The Good Place is a TV series set in the afterlife. When you die, if you've been a 'good person' you go to the Good Place, and if you've been a 'bad person', you go to the Bad Place. This is a clip from the first episode where the characters are introduced to how their goodness was determined.
.right[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut0ai4s4mjU]]

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#How Your Life is Scored

#### The Good Place's claims about morality

1. All behavior can be categorized as "good" or "bad"

2. Some behaviors are objectively more "bad" than others

3. Behavior can be assigned an objective moral score

.dq[Do you agree with all three of these claims?]

???
For example, committing genocide gives you -430,000 points, while not tipping a waitress was determined to be only -4 points
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# Activity

Let's test these claims. On a piece of paper, order the following actions from right to wrong. Once you're done, compare your rank order with your neighbor(s) and note any disagreements.

- Causing a car accident.
  - Developing a vaccine.
  - Leaving a restaurant without tipping a waitress.
  - Helping your friend.
  - Eating a chicken sandwich.

.dq[What did you disagree about and why?]
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# Activity

.pull-left[<center>Actions</center>
 - Causing a car accident.
 - Developing a vaccine.
 - Leaving a restaurant without tipping a waitress.
 - Helping your friend.
 - Eating a chicken sandwich.

]

.pull-right[<center>Source of variability</center>
]

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# Activity

]

.pull-right[<center>Source of variability</center>
- Intentions or consequences
]

???
Our actions may be harmful, even when we have good intentions. Do we determine an action is moral by the intentions of the person, or the consequences? e.g., the person may have not intended to cause anyone harm when they didn't see the red light, not all charities ultimately help who they intend to help

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# Activity

]

.pull-right[<center>Source of variability</center>
- Intentions or consequences
- Beliefs
]

???
We differ in what we believe to be true about our environment, e.g., vaccines are harmful (vaccines), fetuses have souls (abortion), we disagree about what harms others

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# Activity

]

.pull-right[<center>Source of variability</center>
- Intentions or consequences
- Beliefs
- Culture
]

???

What is right differs across cultures e.g., in some East Asian cultures, tipping can be perceived as rude (tipping). Cultures differ across beliefs, worldviews, traditions, practices, etc. 
---

# Activity

]

.pull-right[<center>Source of variability</center>
- Intentions or consequences
- Beliefs
- Culture
- Context

]

???
Actions may be "good" in some contexts but not others, e.g., helping your friend study would be good, but helping your friend rob a bank may not be as good.

---

# Activity

.pull-right[<center>Source of variability</center>
- Intentions or consequences
- Beliefs
- Culture
- Context
- Who deserves moral concern
]

???

Some people think that we should care about harming animals, while others don't (also: Chick fil a); some people think that we should help others suffering in other countries, while others don't
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#Defining morality

Definitions of morality are either **descriptive** or **normative**

.footnote[Gert (2020)]
--

- **Normative**: morality is a code of conduct that would be agreed upon by all "rational" persons

- Morality is shared beliefs about how we *ought* to act
  
  - Normative theories assume that philosophers can ultimately, through reasoning, determine which behaviors are good and which are bad (i.e., it would be possible to assign objective moral scores to actions like they do on The Good Place)

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#Normative definitions

.left-column-big[**Utilitarianism** is the *normative* moral theory that the most moral course of action is one that .highlight-blue[benefits the most people.]

> "[Morality can be defined as...] the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which [a happy existence] might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured to all mankind.

.right[-John Stuart Mill, 1861]]
.right-column-small[![](images/John_Stuart_Mill.jpg)
<center>John Stuart Mill, Philosopher</center>]

???
John Stuart Mill is a 19th century British philosopher.

- Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory, meaning that it focuses on the consequences of the action.

---
#Normative definitions

Utilitarianism is a form of **consequentialism**, which says that we should judge actions by their *consequences.* A utilitarian believes that what is "good" will produce the most happiness for the most amount of people.

> "During your time on earth, every one of your actions had a positive or negative value, depending on how much good or bad that action put into the universe... every single thing you did had an effect that rippled out over time, and ultimately created some amount of good or bad" .right[-Michael *The Good Place*, 1x01]

---
#Normative definitions
.footnote[Aktas et al. (2017)]

Consider the following scenario:
.smallish[>You are a doctor. You have five patients, each of whom is about to die due to a failing organ of some kind. A new person is rushed into the hospital after a serious car accident. It is likely you can save this accident victim. You realize that if you purposely cut his
carotid artery during surgery, you could harvest his organs for
transplant into the bodies of the other five patients. Is it appropriate for you to kill the accident victim
in order to save your five patients? ]

.dq[What decision might a utilitarian advocate for? ]

???

What action benefits the most people?

---

#Normative definitions
.footnote[Aktas et al. (2017)]

Consider the following scenario:

.smallish[>You are a doctor. You have five patients, each of whom is about to die due to a failing organ of some kind. A new person is rushed into the hospital after a serious car accident. It is likely you can save this accident victim. You realize that if you purposely cut his
carotid artery during surgery, you could harvest his organs for
transplant into the bodies of the other five patients. Is it appropriate for you to kill the accident victim
in order to save your five patients?]

.dq[What do you think is the right thing to do?]

---
#Normative definitions

.left-column-big[**Deontology** is the *normative moral* theory that the determination that an action is right or wrong should depend on .highlight-blue[a set of predetermined rules], rather than on the consequences of the action.

>"A lie always harms another; if not some human being, then it nevertheless does harm to humanity in general, inasmuch as it vitiates the very source of right."

.right[-Immanuel Kant]]

.right-column-small[![](images/Kant.jpg)
<center>Immanuel Kant, Philosopher</center>]

---

#Normative definitions

Utilitarians and deontologists are sometimes in conflict about what they agree is right. For example,

- A utilitarian, who says that we should **increase the utility for the most amount of people**, may argue that the surgeon ought to save the lives of the five by harvesting the organs of the one.

- A deontologist, who relies **on predetermined rules** to decide what is moral, may argue that it is never okay to violate a person's right to life, regardless of the consequences. Thus, there is a predetermined rule that says that we cannot sacrifice a human life for the greater good.

---
#Defining morality

Recall our list from earlier...
  - Causing a car accident.
  - Developing a vaccine.
  - Leaving a restaurant without tipping a waitress.
  - Helping your friend.
  - Eating a chicken sandwich.

Moral psychologists do not try to figure out moral truths, e.g., what is objectively the most or least moral action on this list. They study **your answers** and try to understand why you gave them.

---

#Defining morality

Definitions of morality are either **descriptive** or **normative**

- **Normative**: morality is a code of conduct that would be agreed upon by all "rational" persons 
- **Descriptive**: morality is a system of morals that are endorsed by an individual or a group

- Morality is whatever a group or individual thinks is moral
  
  - E.g., Catholic morality, Democrat morality, Nazi morality
  
  
.footnote[Gert (2020)]

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# Summary

- Morality refers prescriptively to how we *ought* to behave (normative theories) but also descriptively to behavioral rules that are endorsed by an individual or a group (descriptive theories)

- Philosophers have argued about how we *ought* to determine if an action is moral

- **Utilitarians** believe the moral act is the one that brings about the best consequences for the most amount of people
  
  - **Deontologists** believe the moral act is the one that does not violate predetermined rules

.highlight-blue[ Next class:] Descriptive psychological moral theories