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Week 01 Questions:
Moral Psychology
s.butterfill@warwick.ac.uk
Nikki (Q3)
How do we define disgust?
The dictionary defines it as "a strong feeling of disapproval and dislike at a situation/ person's behaviour". However, won't some of the "non-disgusting" vignettes pass as a "disgusting" by the dictionary's definition?
‘... feelings of disgust; we are concerned with whether [people] use such feelings to guide their judgments’ (Schnall et al., 2008, p. 1096).
Affect Heuristic:
‘if thinking about an act […] makes you feel bad […], then judge that it is morally wrong’ (Sinnott-Armstrong et al., 2010).
‘Disgust is thought to have originated in distaste, a food-rejection impulse or motivation triggered by the ingestion of unpleasant-tasting substances, prototypically those that are bitter
[...] Distaste appears to have very ancient origins: Even sea anemones, which first evolved some 500 million years ago, will expel bitter foods from their gastric cavity’ (Chapman & Anderson, 2013, p. 300).
‘the primitive motivational system of disgust’(Chapman et al., 2009, p. 1222)
motivational states
primary motivational states
unchanging, not modifiable by learning
- hunger
- thirst
- satiety
- disgust
- ...
preferences
changing, influenced by learning (and fashion, ...)
- chocolate over rhubarb
- lime over lemon
- red over blue
- ...
yes
Samuel J
Should we approach/read psychological papers differently to how we approach philosophy papers?
Nikki (Q2)
Just wondering if the sadness had a statistically significant effect in making people less harsh in making moral judgements?
[RESULTS] In the high-PBC group, ‘the means for the sadness condition were lower than the means for the neutral condition’ (Schnall et al., 2008, p. 1105)
[DISCUSSION] ‘sadness showed a trend in the opposite direction of influence on moral judgment’
(Schnall et al., 2008, p. 1105)
i.e. not significant
Nikki (Q1)
Can you explain a bit more about Private Body Consciousness please, or maybe more specifically how the level of Private Body Consciousness is tested?
Rated on a scale from 1 (disagree strongly) to 6 (agree strongly):
- “I am sensitive to internal bodily tensions”
- “I know immediately when my mouth or throat gets dry”
- “I can often feel my heart beating”
- “I am quick to sense the hunger contractions of my stomach”; and
- “I am very aware of changes in my body temperature.”
(Schnall et al., 2008, p. 1101)
To follow-up, see Miller, Murphy, & Buss (1981) and works citing their paper.
more questions?