Lance S. Bush on Mon0’s Substack

(1) Where did Bryan Caplan post that meme? I didn’t see it among his notes, and I haven’t seen any discussion about it anywhere. (2) I wouldn’t be so quick to accept the evolutionary psychological claim that we possess semi-independent, domain-specific networks that function semi-autonomously. That claim rests on largely theoretical grounds and is a contested matter that has not been convincingly established. There are ongoing disputes about the degree to which cultural learning shapes the relevant psychological systems we employ. See e.g.,: Robbins, P. (2013). Modularity and mental architecture. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 4(6), 641-649. (3) Likewise, I don’t think Greene’s dual process model of moral cognition has held up well to scrutiny. Critics like Kahane have shown, I think convincingly, that the two systems don’t neatly prompt people to produce deontological and utilitarian judgments. Kahane, G., Everett, J. A., Earp, B. D., Farias, M., & Savulescu, J. (2015). ‘Utilitarian’judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good. Cognition, 134, 193-209. (4) The remark about Greene placing “significant emphasis” on deontological judgments may be confusing to readers. Greene thinks that deontological judgments are the output of a more biased system that may work well much of the time but ultimately Greene thinks we should favor something more like utilitarianism under many circumstances, especially in cases of intergroup conflict since it provides a “common currency.” Maybe you know all that already but I thought “significant emphasis” could give readers the impression he’s a deontologist. (5) I think more general skepticism about “intuitions” is called for. Why think anyone has moral “intuitions” at all? What even is an intuition, and how do we know people have them? (6) You say “Given the assumption we are working under — that healthy humans share an evolved moral module whose purpose is to provide a normative understanding of how to behave towards other beings — it appears plausible that this method could bring us closer to uncovering its governing principles.” Why work under this assumption? I agree with Stich that there is no moral domain and with Machery that morality is an historical invention. I’m not sure morality is a part of our evolved psychology. Here are a couple relevant papers that defend these views: Machery, E. (2018). Morality: A historical invention. In K. J. Gray & J. Graham (Eds.), Atlas of moral psychology (pp. 259-265). New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Stich, S. (2018). The moral domain. In K. Gray & J. Graham (Eds.), Atlas of moral psychology (pp. 547- 555). New York, NY: Guilford Press.