Morality-Go-Round

I think the best way to start this reflection is to define morality in the context Lehrer uses it throughout the chapter, The Moral Mind, “Morality can be a squishy, vague concept, and yet, at its simplest level, its nothing but a series of choices about how we treat other people” (169). Basically what Lehrer is saying is that morality really has no true but is merely the result of how we think we should treat others. The example that stood out most to me was the one where he talked about a brother and sister having sex, but with no chance of having a baby, and the emotional side effects were positive for both. When ever he would ask people why that is wrong people would keep coming up with reasons that would be discounted until finally they were left with reasons such as, “that’s just wrong, that’s gross, etc”. That is an example of moral dumbfounding. Although these people have been presented with the facts that disprove any wrong doing, they still refuse to admit its wrong. (Cognitive Dissonance) This is something they feel very emotionally about and the emotional brain leads us to make decisions based on them. Another example he used about the trolly killing either one or five people reminded me of the same struggle in the podcast with Josh Green. Either kill one yourself to save more, or kill five in order to not have to kill someone yourself. Killing one man with the trolley is an impersonal decision while killing one man by pushing him in front of the trolley is a personal moral situation. The impersonal decision will obviously be the most chosen because it doesn’t involve yourself. Lehrer says, “a personal moral violation can be roughly defined as “me hurts you”, a concept simple enough for a primate to understand” (178). With the trolley example it leads me to think there is a huge difference between being moral and being ethical. Everyone also puts those two concepts hand in hand but I think it is similar to relationship of social justice and charity: although both are similar and often do overlap in some ways there are still many defining differences between them. Morality is an innate sense of what we think is the “right” thing to do, while ethics is the “abstract” route which takes into consideration the greater good. Currently I can not make a very good connection to my service and the first chapter the Moral Mind. I do not think NGS is an establishment based on morality but rather ethics as I discussed previously. What they do is not based on an innate sense of what they think is right, but more what they think is the best for a certain group of individuals. I feel in a way morality is selfish.

Moving on to The Brain is an Argument I will start with a quote I also used in the podcast discussion, “In this sense, the editorial board is a metaphor for the brain. Its decisions often feel unanimous-you know which candidate you prefer- but the conclusions are actually reached only after a series of sharp internal disagreements. He is simply describing the opposing forces working in our brains constantly, we have all these different regions telling us what we should like, pick, do etc and obviously that makes things a bit difficult. Lehrer states, “A brain that’s intolerant of uncertainty- that can’t stand the argument- often tricks itself into thinking the wrong thing” (203). One example is the voting situation where voters are given contradicting statements their parties are portraying and regardless of the evidence shown to them they ignore the facts to affirm what they already believe. Lehrer describes this, “but what they’re really doing is inventing facts or ignoring facts so that they can rationalize decisions they’ve already made” (206). The final example I really liked was the one with costco. They go over this very intricate process they use in order to get you to buy things and feel good about it: Show you nice things as you walk in and cater you with free food samples throughout so that your NAcc is constantly active, making you feel good about what you are doing. Not only do they release NAcc but they inhibit the insula by making everything a “bargain buy” or “on sale” even when prices are high. Everything is calculated, to me that is unsettling. Yes from an economical stand point this is a good thing making consumerists happy so they continue to buy but from a moral or ethical stand point which ever way you choose to see it it is detrimental. Society is creating this reward system from buying material objects. Once again it is hard for me to connect this to my service as I feel like these inner arguments happen in the core of the program, as in the minds of the operators (ozzy etc). One connection I an adverse outlook would be the lack of dissonance felt by volunteers such as myself. It satisfies all parts of my moral decision making “brains”. There is really no argument to be made, society has conditioned us to want to and to feel good about volunteer service, and which of course I feel great I love helping seeing the kids each week, but there is no part innate or extrinsically that would lead me to struggle with this.