Benjamin David Steele

Karma: 2

Benjamin David Steele 7 Aug 2023 23:02 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: ErnestScribbler’s comment on: Book Review: The Righteous Mind
@EnestScribbler—You wrote that, “I think he caught the Moral Foundations and their ubiquitous presence well, but then made the error of thinking liberals don’t use them (when in fact they use them a lot, certainly in today’s climate, just with different in-groups, sanctified objects, etc.).”
Others noted that same problem. If the moral foundations truly are inherent in all of human nature, then presumably all humans use them, if not in the same way. But he also doesn’t deal with the dark side of the moral foundations. Some of the so-called binding moral values are, in fact, key facets of what social scientists study in right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. How can one talk about the view of tribalism while somehow not seeing that mountain on the landscape?
As with the personality traits of liberal-minded openness and conservative-minded conscientiousness, Haidt doesn’t grapple enough with all of the available evidence that is relevant to morality. Many things that liberals value don’t get called ‘values’, according to Haidt, because he is biasing his moral foundations theory according to a more conservative definition of morality. So, liberals are portrayed as having fewer moral values, since a large swath of what moral values is defined away or simply ignored.
@TJL - You wrote that, “If we want to know the right thing to do, we can’t just assume that all of the moral foundations have a grain of truth, figure we’re equally tribalistic, and compromise with the conservatives; we need to turn to reason.”
It’s interesting how Haidt dismisses moral pragmatism and utilitarianism but then basically reaffirms it’s essential, after all. So essential, in fact, that it seems to undermine his entire argument about conservative morality being superior. Since the binding moral foundations have much overlap with right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), that probably should give us pause.
Should we really be repackaging RWA and SDO as moral foundations? Is that wise? And if we interpret them this way, should we treat them as equally valid and worthy as liberal-minded concern for fairness, harm, and liberty?
There is an intriguing larger context to be found in the social science research. Under severely stressful and sickly conditions (high parasite load, high pathogen exposure, high inequality, etc), there tends to be a simultaneous population level increase of sociopolitical conservatism, RWA, and SDO; though each measures independently on the individual level. So, there really is a fundamental commonality to these binding ‘moral foundations’. Just look at the openness trait, of which not measures high in liberals but low in conservatives, RWAs, and SDOs.
These binding traits are also closely linked to disgust response, stress response, and what I call the stress-sickness response (related to parasite-stress theory and behavioral immune system). Is this really just a matter of differences in moral values? Or are we dealing with a public health crisis? Liberal-mindedness requires optimal conditions of health and low stress. Why would we want to balance liberalism with conservatism, RWA, and SDO?

Benjamin David Steele 7 Aug 2023 21:19 UTC
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in reply to: Yanina M’s comment on: Book Review: The Righteous Mind
@Yanima—A few reviewers have noted the various unstated and uninterrogated assumptions and biases in Haidt’s book. It’s what make it difficult to review.
If one is to state and interrogate all of those assumptions and biases, in order to clarify and critique, then one ends writing a very long book review. An example is Dennis Junk’s “THE ENLIGHTENED HYPOCRISY OF JONATHAN HAIDT’S RIGHTEOUS MIND.”
But that isn’t to say there isn’t much of interest as well, if he oversteps the evidence provided on too many occasions, and even as he fumbles some of his interpretations.

Benjamin David Steele 7 Aug 2023 21:03 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: MSRayne’s comment on: Book Review: The Righteous Mind
@MSRayne—You wrote that, “Personally, I believe and have believed for a long time now that the only thing that could save the world is a rationalist religion.” You wouldn’t be alone in that aspiration. Many Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinkers have shared similar hopes.
During the early modern revolutionary period, Universalism and Deism became popular among liberal and radical thinkers, including in the working class (Matthew Stewart, Nature’s God). Thomas Jefferson optimistically predicted that Americans would quickly convert to Universalism.
Sadly, it never happened. But Universalism is still around. Besides independent Universalist churches, there is the Unitarian-Universalist organization with its origins as a an organized religion, although increasingly secularized, allowing believers and non-believers to gather together with shared values.
On a positive note, maybe the future will eventually prove Jefferson right, if he was way off in his timing. As most organized religion is on the decline, the UU ‘church’ is experiencing an upsurge, and most strongly in the South for some reason. It’s now one of the fastest growing ‘religions’ in the US.

Benjamin David Steele 22 Dec 2022 20:19 UTC
1 point
in reply to: JenniferRM’s comment on: On the Openness personality trait & ‘rationality’
@JenniferRM—“However, when researchers tried the same thing on other cultures to see if this was a human universal, it turned out that the other four (Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) were relatively universal but in some cultures (if I remember correctly it was things like agrarian peasant societies?) basically everyone is pretty low in Openness relative to measurement norms derived from Japan or the US or whatever.”
I would note that the very framework of personality traits can be questioned as WEIRD bias. But personally, I’m fond of explanations of personality like trait theory. There is an attractive elegance to such models and the research is immense. On the other hand, defenses still can be made for trait theory, even for openness. One would predict that agrarian peasant societies, with above average rates of pathogens and parasites, would measure as below average specifically on openness. That precisely fits the point made in the above piece.
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2022/02/06/weird-personality-traits-as-stable-egoic-structure/

Benjamin David Steele 23 Nov 2018 15:08 UTC
1 point
in reply to: taw’s comment on: Dealing with the high quantity of scientific error in medicine
No, paleo dieters don’t bundle all non-paleo foods. Almost all foods that can be bought in a store or farmers market has been altered in one way or another since the neolithic began. And most paleo dieters acknowledge this. The purpose is not to perfectly replicate the diet of a paleolithic human, in the fashion of a civil war reenactor, but to most closely mimic the profile of the diet humans evolved to eat.
Some factors in this are nutrient density, lower simple carbs, intermittent fasting, and ketosis. These have been shown in research to be beneficial. But of course, there is a lot of research that shows a diversity of results. The strongest evidence comes from studies of hunter-gatherers who mostly lack chronic diseases, and this forms a central basis of the paleo diet.
By the way, Americans ate more meat than bread prior to the 20th century. They also only ate a fraction of the sugar in the past. Yet many of the chronic diseases only became common in the 20th century. Heart disease was a rare disease in the early 20th century, but by the end of the century it was rampant.