The Dangers of Non-Secular Morality

In recent articles, I have taken on the challenge of describing the benefits and possible causes of what is referred to as "secular morality", (The second article being here, and the first here). In this article, I shall attempt to describe a few dangers of 'traditional' morals or "religious conservatism" that aren't necessary obvious at first glance.

This is somewhat shaky ground for anyone to walk on, and of course the bias in opinion is blatant here -- but that's what makes arguments, well, arguments. This one might wind up being a bit brief, but that's how these things go. Recently, a good deal of study has been going into the area of moral judgment, at least according to the Evolutionary Psychology blog. Here's a few snippets of information, snagged from that resource:

Moral judgments come more from an emotional basis than a reasoned one:

Psychologist are currently debating the underlying processes involved in our moral judgments. Some psychologists believe that our moral judgments are caused by automatic unconscious moral intuitions whereas others believe they are due to conscious reasoning and reflection.

Traditionally, psychologists subscribed to the rationalist perspective. Rationalist proponents have included Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and James Rest. According to their perspective, moral reasoning follows a cognitive-developmental trajectory in which individuals progress from basing their moral judgments on selfish issues early in development to basing them on universal ethical principles later in development.

More recent evidence, however, suggests that moral judgments may result from quick, automatic flashes of emotion. The intuitionist perspective assumes that moral reasoning serves as a post hoc rationalization rather than a cause of moral judgments.

In support of the intuitionis perspective, Jonathan Haidt found that when participants were asked to imagine a scenario in which a brother and sister have a sexual encounter, participants invariably label the behavior as morally wrong. However, they have a difficult time explaining why they find immoral. Participants often cite the danger of inbreeding and the emotional damage that could be caused by the sexual encounter. When the researcher reminds them that the brother and sister used two forms of protection and neither of them was emotionally affected by the encounter, the participants respond by saying something like “I don’t know, I can’t explain it. I just know it is wrong.”

So if it is not moral reasoning that causes our moral judgements, what is it? Haidt suggest that it is our moral emotions. These emotions include empathy, guilt, embarassment, anger, disgust, etc.

This idea is further supported here:

I recently posted some of the findings from my thesis, which suggests that moral emotions are more predictive of moral judgments than moral reasoning. Specifically, people who are high in disgust sensitivity and high in moral development are just as prejudice toward homosexuals as those who are low in moral reasoning, which indicates that disgust can overwhelm our ability to reason.

In the second study of my thesis, I found that inducing disgust can make certain individuals more prejudice toward homosexuals while making other individuals report less prejudice.

Participants in this study were asked to read one of two scenarios and write a brief paragraph describing their physical and emotional reactions. Half of the participants imagined what it would be like to consume a bowl of maggots and the other half described what it would be like to eat a bowl of lettuce.

Following the experimental manipulation, the participants completed measures of prejudice toward homosexuals, disgust sensitivity, and authoritarianism. Authoritarianism was measured using the right-wing authoritarianism scale, which assess conventionalism, authoritarian submission, and aggression toward out-groups. Traditionally, individuals who score high on the right-wing authoritarianism scale are more likely to be prejudice toward homosexuals, minorities, and more likely to be politically conservative.

So, of course, what this means is fairly simple; our 'emotional' or 'unreasoning' responses are what dictate our moral reactions to scenarios. Is this a phenomenon, however, that is merely limited to moral responses, or is it one that perhaps has greater implications? Consider; those whom are less "authoritarian" tend to become less prejudiced by exposure to reactions of disgust, while those whom are more authoritarian tend to become more prejudiced by reactions of disgust. This seems, prima faciae, to be support of the idea that extremist conservatism has in its roots prejudice of many varieties (said idea supported by the conservative/liberal schism over foreign relations, be it immigration by non-english speakers of different color, or be it the general "gut-reaction" to Muslims. It is a safe bet that anyone reading this has heard at least once the phrase, "All Muslims hate Americans", or at least a variation on it). Similarly, it is a familiar axiom that those of the "political left" will bend over backwards to appear tolerant. This is one area where the Evolutionary Psychology author and I disagree; liberals are just as authoritarian as conservatives -- by only testing for social authoritarianism, the test was skewed. Mandated egalitarianism is just as "authoritarian" as politicized moral invectives -- but that is neither here nor there.

Today, we are facing what could only be readily described as a loosely organized movement to suppress the successes generated by the secularization of society as we know it. An example of this scenario's accuracy can be found here:

The Creation Museum open[ed] in Petersburg, Kentucky on May 28. Designed by a former Universal Studios exhibit director, they do have the theatrics right. For in nearby Tennessee, the famous Scopes Trial, the subject of the play "Inherit the Wind," was held in 1925. Some thought the trial disposed of creationism as something other than a religious story, but think again, folks. It's baaaack, with a vengeance.

As the museum's president, Kenneth Ham of "Answers in Genesis-USA," said ("Biblical creation museum to rise in Kentucky in 2007" Michael Powell, Washington Post, 9/27/05): " ‘Evolutionary Darwinists need to understand we are taking the dinosaurs back. . . . This is a battle cry to recognize the science in the revealed truth of God. . . [In] the post-Flood world dinosaurs lived with man.' [The museum presents the view that] the world and the universe are but 6,000 years old and that baby dinosaurs rode in Noah's ark." As Powell said further: "Creationists believe man became mortal when God cast Adam and Eve out of Eden 6,000 years ago. Death did not exist before that."

This refers to something called, "Creation Science", and refers that it isn't exactly the same as what the rest of the scientific community refers to as science. So what's the difference? Quoth Wikipedia:

Creation science is the attempt to find evidence and rationales to support a literal interpretation of the Biblical account of creation.

The real kicker to this can be found later in the same article:

Some advocates have spent many years arguing for the inclusion of creation science in the science curriculum of U.S. public schools; however, in 1987 in the case Edwards v. Aguillard the Supreme Court of the United States held that a requirement that public schools teach creation science alongside evolution as an alternative theory violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[12]

And there it is in "black and white" as it were -- Creation Science is an attempt by religious groups to endorse in the language of science a thing which is anything but science. And it isn't really a surprise, when you get right down to it. As discussed By Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg, the simple truth is that there are some people who will always resist "Science." That isn't really news. What is, however, is their approach to explaining just why that is:

The main source of resistance to scientific ideas concerns what children know prior to their exposure to science. The last several decades of developmental psychology has made it abundantly clear that humans do not start off as "blank slates." Rather, even one year-olds possess a rich understanding of both the physical world (a "naïve physics") and the social world (a "naïve psychology").

All of this, of course, is leading somewhere -- that's what makes an argument an argument, after all. And we're almost there, so bear with me whilst I quote a little bit more at you, dear reader.

Bruce Schneier recently wrote, in his blog, that people react to the wrong threats due to their perceptions on what is and is not a greater danger:

1. We over-react to intentional actions, and under-react to accidents, abstract events, and natural phenomena.

   That's why we worry more about anthrax (with an annual death toll of roughly zero) than influenza (with an annual death toll of a quarter-million to a half-million people). Influenza is a natural accident, anthrax is an intentional action, and the smallest action captures our attention in a way that the largest accident doesn't. If two airplanes had been hit by lightning and crashed into a New York skyscraper, few of us would be able to name the date on which it happened.

2. We over-react to things that offend our morals.

   When people feel insulted or disgusted, they generally do something about it, such as whacking each other over the head, or voting. Moral emotions are the brain's call to action.

   He doesn't say it, but it's reasonable to assume that we under-react to things that don't.

3. We over-react to immediate threats and under-react to long-term threats.

   The brain is a beautifully engineered get-out-of-the-way machine that constantly scans the environment for things out of whose way it should right now get. That's what brains did for several hundred million years -- and then, just a few million years ago, the mammalian brain learned a new trick: to predict the timing and location of dangers before they actually happened.

   Our ability to duck that which is not yet coming is one of the brain's most stunning innovations, and we wouldn't have dental floss or 401(k) plans without it. But this innovation is in the early stages of development. The application that allows us to respond to visible baseballs is ancient and reliable, but the add-on utility that allows us to respond to threats that loom in an unseen future is still in beta testing.

4. We under-react to changes that occur slowly and over time.

   The human brain is exquisitely sensitive to changes in light, sound, temperature, pressure, size, weight and just about everything else. But if the rate of change is slow enough, the change will go undetected. If the low hum of a refrigerator were to increase in pitch over the course of several weeks, the appliance could be singing soprano by the end of the month and no one would be the wiser.

So what does all of this, when put together, mean? Simple: One of the greatest dangers of religious, "traditional" morality having sway over our society is that the reasonable truth of things is simply set aside in favor of the fears which are driven home by those who control the dissemination of information; the religious leaders as it were, rather than the statistics or information.

This is, partly, why you have, on the liberal left, the rampant drive for increased gun control laws despite the adverse impact increased gun regulation has on the rate of violent crime. This is also, why such incidents as this happen at all:

Utah Supreme Court justices acknowledged Tuesday that they were struggling to wrap their minds around the concept that a 13-year-old girl could be both an offender and a victim for the same act - in this case, having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend.

The conclusion is fairly simple; so long as religion remains the sole legitimate source of morality in society, such absurdities as children having their lives ruined by labels meant for pedophiles and rapists will continue -- all in the name of protecting said children -- even while such real dangers as the widespread growth of Caulerpa taxifolia, the loss of arable water resources for irrigation and food production, and other serious, life-threatening problems will fail to gain purchase.