One of the best essays I have heard on the topic:
In his fascinating book on moral intuition, The Righteous Mind, psychologist Jonathan Haidt tells the fictional story of what he calls a “harmless taboo violation.” A sister and brother, Julie and Mark, are traveling together. While staying at a beach cabin in France, they decide it would be a fun new experience to have sex with one another. They take strict precautions to avoid pregnancy. They make love and enjoy it. It makes them feel closer. They then decide never to do it again. They keep the incident a secret between them.
When test subjects were presented with this story, they reacted strongly at first: “It’s totally wrong.” But when questioned about why it was wrong, they were stumped. There’s no danger of pregnancy. The relationship isn’t damaged. No one else knows. The subjects began to hem and haw — but even so, they stuck to their position that the act of incest was wrong.
“People were making a moral judgment immediately and emotionally,” Haidt observes. “Reasoning was merely the servant of the passions, and when the servant failed to find any good arguments, the master did not change his mind.” In other words, our moral intuitions are not based on reason, and some may be mere evolutionary remnants, no longer legitimate.
My own reaction to the story, however, was very different.
Read the remainder of this entry »
