The Psychology of Morality

What does it mean to do something good or bad? How do we know what's good or bad? How do we even know that this is a reasonable question to ask? Psychologists have been studying morality for a long time, examining how our sense of morality develops over time, and the ways that we arrive at certain decisions based on our conception of morality. This is a pretty hefty topic, but let's dig into it now. And yes, we will cover the Trolley Problem!
Haidt study on morality: www.faculty.umb...
Script by Caitlyn Finton
Animation by Ignacio Triana: / unraveled
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[@OrdinaryEXP]

Whenever the trolley dilemma is brought up, I always thought about the video of a father demonstrating the dilemma to his 2-yo son with a toy train set, which his son responded with putting all "people" onto the same track then running them over with the toy train lol Sounds like a fun topic to explain the psychology behind.

[@dandeguy686]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y3_Cg42AiqaEj5Y

[@pieskobi943]

The kid is smart. He covers all of his tracks. No witnesses.

[@beaclaster]

and then his sister

[@clintmcbride7830]

Yeah but I doubt a 2 yo has the intellectual capacity to understand a metaphor concerning the value of human life. He was just playing with toys

[@punishanpika]

​@@pieskobi943 Truth ✅💱

[@drbenhgn1869]

My problem with the trolley situation is, by pulling the lever or pushing the large person you have now have a personal hand in killing a person. You might be able to justify the thought that you just watched 5 people die and convince yourself you couldn't help them, but can you deal with the thought that you just murdered someone. Now, until you actually are in this situation you will never know how morality comes into play. If it's a much older person you might look at the whole situation differently than if it is a young person. Or visa versa. You don't know until that split second in time actually happens.

[@danielcrafter9349]

Yes, that's the point of it, well done

[@WesternCommie]

On a side note about the Trolley problem. One perspective I read about was by interacting with the lever to switch the tracks, you are now responsible for the deaths of the single individual, when previously, no one would have been responsible. Great video professor.

[@louieberg2942]

You could have acted, with knowable consequences, but did not. Watching as a person drowns, knowing that you could have safely helped them, does impact culpability doesn't it?

[@jaylhant]

@@louieberg2942 The situation you brought up is different than the actual question we originally are talking about. You have to MURDER 1 person in order to save 5 people, or leave the situation alone and let 5 people die. You didn't actively MURDER someone in this scenario, but you let 5 people die; these are different, it is your opinion to decide which scenario is more morally correct. Neither answer is the right or wrong one, it is all based on your own perspective and what you think is moral.

[@OmniversalInsect]

Well yeah that's the only reason why you might not pull the leaver.

[@jackdaniels9133]

Intent is a major part of reasoning and morality too. There are vastly different punishments in different judicial systems for murder and manslaughter. Even types of murder and manslaughter are punished differently. In all these situations someone dies the only thing that changes is intent, but an individual is punished very differently under the law. This seems to show that there is a pretty large consensus that outcome is less important than behavior.

[@Sunsper]

Regarding The Trolley Problem, I once heard a version of this dilemma, where 6 people on both sides of the tracks are not tied down to the tracks, but instead it's told, that the first 5 people are playing on the tracks, while they may or may not be aware that this is a dangerous activity, while the man on the other side of the tracks is crossing them, knowing that the trolley won't cross there any time soon. In my eyes this modification of the dilemma completely changes how people might react to it, myself included.

[@vaguetenebrous8349]

How does it change anything for you?

[@Sunsper]

@@vaguetenebrous8349 well, if you ask me - from my perspective it's more moral to not do anything, since those 5 people should know by themself that it is, in fact, dangerous to play on the trolley tracks or basically do anything around them, if you're not safely crossing them or you don't have any other specific reason to be there, it's dangerous. Even though it is, for sure, a harsh answer, since it's 5 people now dead after all. But it's their fault in this scenario, that's the point. They should've know better.

[@vaguetenebrous8349]

@@Sunsper I guess, but the problem as stated doesn’t say whether they do, or why they wouldn’t. What if they’re kids? What if they’ve never encountered a trolley before? From my point of view, the only solid measure we have for determining the proper action is number of lives that are protected on the other side of the event.

[@Sunsper]

@@vaguetenebrous8349 that's the beauty of dillemas for you.

[@danielcrafter9349]

@@Sunsper - no, because the point of the dilemma is about YOU and your moral choice - who do YOU save or kill? You're really saying it's ok to kill 5 people because them being on the track is "their fault"?

[@101elesdee]

I think the option of shoving one man on to the tracks also involves doubt that the trolley would even stop as a result of the decision, causing hesitation to choose that as a better action.

[@carmensavu5122]

Fair point.

[@Deus69xxx1]

the presented scenario gives you guarantees. there are no maybes to make a choice from, that's the point. you make you choice knowing that switching the track kills 1 person, not switching it kills 5, or pushing the one guy definitely saves the others.

[@jamesbellamy9328]

@@Deus69xxx1 That's true in principle, but in my experience most people try to carry over their experience of the real world into hypotheticals. It's hard to imagine real-life trolleys, real-life men, and real-life suffering, but NOT think about the real live kinematics of a fat dude lying on a track

[@jaylhant]

@@jamesbellamy9328 That is true, but that would be a different question at that point. You can ask for clarification, but the outcome will always be that shoving him will stop the train. That outcome only changes if you actually change the question. The question would then have to be something like "...would you push the guy for the chance to save the 5 people's lives?"

[@ARF_average]

9:37 the way you worded the trolley problem, "a single person standing" makes throwing the switch more moral because it has a chance of resulting in zero loss, if the person standing is smart enough and fast enough to jump off the track. they arent restrained.

[@thailmore]

If you're too stupid to get off the tracks, that's not my problem. (Prof Dave voice)

[@Alan_Duval]

In the original wording, the tracks are in gorges with insufficient room to jump off the tracks sufficiently to get clear.

[@mattperkins2538]

@@Alan_Duval Thanks for clarifying this. I had the same confusion that average rap fan raised.

[@Alan_Duval]

@@mattperkins2538 All good. Cheers.

[@javierburgos9975]

Break the Trolly, it's the Kobayashi Maru of moral arguments used to reinforce binary solutions to non binary situations.

[@Darkloid21]

Situations are often binary that's the issue.

[@realsonofmars]

The trolly problem isn't about decisions or learning how to make the right one, it's about examining *why* you feel it's right to pull the switch or not. There isn't supposed to be a solution.

[@SnappyWasHere]

This isn’t even a choice. Push the fat guy so we aren’t paying his medical bills from being overweight. Saves lives and money!

[@dirtmcgirt1038]

@@realsonofmars precisely

[@Darkloid21]

@@realsonofmars It makes no difference which one you pick, neither is right or wrong.

[@ItsDaNewGuy]

I don't even watch this man for school. I watch this guy because he makes learning this stuff fun. No idea why, man just does better than everyone else

[@FGirao]

I dont think he makes anything meant for school

[@clintmcbride7830]

@@FGirao he has stated that it is intended to be a study aid for those who wish to use it as such.

[@theslashbro4474]

His videos are awesome!

[@davehawkins5265]

Regarding the trolley problem. Pulling the lever is an act of murder. Just the same as pushing the man from the bridge to derail the trolley. If either one of these scenarios actually took place the police would be obligated to lay criminal charges.

[@carmensavu5122]

It would be an act of murder. I am baffled that so many people would pull the lever. I think they are the real psychos.

[@J-Johna-Jameson]

@@carmensavu5122and by not doing anything you let 4 more people die. You are responsible for the results of your inaction as the actions you take.

[@3nd1ess77]

I think mainly that the psychology of these kinds of moral problems like the trolley problem also stems from personal affliction. You're less likely to push a man off a bridge to save 5 people because you are physically closer, therefore more connected with that man, even if you never spoken to them before. Another issue is when the victims of the trolley problem have a desire for either self-harm or suicide, you're much more likely to sacrifice the person with suicidal intentions first to save others, but that's a moral problem in and of itself. Overall, a very interesting video Dave! I wanted to major in psychology, but videos like yours satisfy my curiosity.

[@tsvetanstoychev655]

You're ok!

[@carmensavu5122]

I never got that. For me, pulling the lever is akin to pushing the man, and I would never do it. I'm baffled that most people would pull the lever. I've even been called a coward for saying I wouldn't pull the lever. Like, are you f**king kidding me? If I thought pulling the lever was the right thing to do, I would do it in a heartbeat, but I don't.

[@jaylhant]

@@carmensavu5122 I agree with you and you aren't wrong or cowardly. Neither scenario (where you sacrifice one person's life to save the rest) are different in which you have to actually impose your ideology on someone else where you MURDER them in order to "save" 5 people. If you do nothing, 5 people died but you didn't cause their deaths. You had the ability to stop them from dying but in doing so, you had to actually MURDER someone else for it. People do not instinctively see that side of the argument at first and it is what causes this question to not have a right or wrong answer.

[@ericpelletier7721]

Interesting. I knew of the trolley dilemma, but I never heard the version of me pushing a man on the track. It’s funny how being closer and having a personal contact completely changes our perception, even if the result is exactly the same : one person dies because of my action. It’s way easier to pull a lever than pushing somebody under the trolley.

[@rebelraime2524]

The problem with the bridge alteration of the trolley problem is that it requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief, so it's easy for people to wiggle out of answering. You know pulling the lever will kill the one person for a certainty, but you don't know for a certainty that pushing the man will stop the trolley. There's a good chance you'll end up killing 6 people. Obviously pushing the man stops the train 100% of the time in this scenario for the sake of the exercise, but it's not ideal.

[@Imman1s]

No, the problem is that if you can throw someone else, you can jump yourself. If you are not willing to do that much, you have no business making the decision for others so the action is ALWAYS immoral.

[@rebelraime2524]

@@Imman1s The point is that you don't know for a certainty that pushing a body in front of the trolley, whether it's yours or someone else's, will do anything. Therefore it's a flawed exercise because nobody would ever do it. Contrast that with pulling the lever, which is guaranteed to have the desired outcome save for acts of God.

[@Imman1s]

@@rebelraime2524 The idea is that the train will stop once it hits someone, thus saving the others that are presumably farther away. There is no guarantee of anything but all things considered, is not that bad of an assumption... although whether someone will make the connection in the split second that it takes to realize the situation and act on it in against morality and law is a different story. But the point is moot, since this one is not a binary situation and there is a morally sound solution (jumping yourself), ergo pushing someone else is immoral by definition.

[@harrenhoare9637]

Having a substantial lack of empathy, on a brink of AS, I have always responded to the trolley dilemma as 'let the 5 people die'. The justification I took is that 'not preventing death' and 'killing' are by definition two different acts - one morally situational, another absolutely immoral. Disqualifying one option this way, I am left only with the other one, no matter how inconvenient it might appear.

[@carmensavu5122]

You think that comes from a lack of empathy? Why? I absolutely agree with you on the response to the trolley dilemma, and I've always thought the lack of empathy most people display towards that one person on the side track to be baffling. He just had the bad luck of being alone as opposed to part of the group of five, so now you're gonna push that lever and kill him? To be quite frank, I think people who would pull the lever are the ones lacking in empathy, and I would consider them murderers.

[@harrenhoare9637]

I've understood from the video, that in general people with more empathy, tend to save more people on the expense of the unlucky murdered guy, as study shows (?). But maybe I misunderstood. However, I can agree that the more empathy you have, the more important for you it will be 'how many people die'? Try to modify the dilemma - instead of 5:1, the ratio between people is 100:1. Or 10,000:1. In this case, I still don't murder one person to save thousands. This might indicate I have low empathy - my moral backbone not to murder a person stops me from saving many.

[@riluna3695]

Remember also that there are precisely two allowed answers, and yet thousands of reasons to CHOOSE one of those answers over the other. Meaning that you can choose the "typically immoral option" (if there is one in the given example) for reasons completely unrelated to immorality. If many people choose that option because of a lack of empathy, and you choose that option too, that does not automatically prove that you lack empathy too. (Although if you have other reasons for thinking it, it can certainly contribute to an overall understanding of yourself)

[@gabri41200]

Why is killing absolutely immoral?

[@dainbramage9508]

Pull the switch after the front wheels start to go one way and then the rear wheels will go the other way, trolleys don't move fast so it will likely tip over slowly only resulting in a few injuries and no deaths

[@oidbio2565]

Pretty Damn good! My father studied under Gregory Bateson and was working on a masters degree in ‘Clinical Philosophy’ at UCSC. Whenever I asked my father a question about it, he gave me books to read instead of answering the question (probably because I was a teen only into reading science fiction). But this video gives me some idea as to what my father was trying to do in using philosophy to help people who have difficulty dealing with the world around them.

[@righty-o3585]

Breaking into the facility? I would have absolutely understood if the dude had killed the chemist. Does that make me a bad person in other people's eyes? More than likely, to some at least. Will that influence me to change how I feel about my answer? Nope, not even a little. Why? Because if it had been me in that situation, it is an action I would put some serious consideration into.

[@alucarderipmavtube]

I believe that by intervening in the event makes you accountable. So, even if it's 5 v 1, it's not my business to intervene if it makes me accountable for the one death anyway. My priority is my own well-being. If I can produce an optimal solution by saving everyone, then I would. If I cannot produce such a solution, then I would be saving the 5 people, if killing the other person isn't going to bite me in the butt in the future. If I don't pull, it was never in my hands.

[@ryansergas2776]

Hey Dave, what are your thoughts on preconventional morality in relation to religion? It seems like religious organizations put a huge emphasis on teaching people what is right and wrong based on direct consequences (promise of heaven or threat of hell) in a very black and white way, much like Kohlberg described with children and their parents. Would children in highly religious families never get a chance to evolve beyond a conventional sense of morality or truly internalize universal values?

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

Precisely accurate.

[@kilotango1537]

Depends on the type of people and the type of religiosity, but yes it can be an enormous impedance. A long time ago I embarrassed and offended some friends that came to visit me in order to maintain the "black and white" aspects of morality with my faith (at the time) effectively destroying my relationship with all of them. Later on I did come to view God as an all-things-from-all-angles type of entity and was able to allow myself to break absolute no-no's in order to accomplish something that my be more beneficial to everyone....this might be a simple thing for a lot of people but I came to this realization far too late in life. Despite the amount of people that insist that the bible easily lays out moral right and wrong for us, I find moral reasoning to be a LOT more straightforward now that I am completely atheist. My ONLY regret in life is clinging to and obsessing over religious ideas for so long.

[@Coolepapaas]

religion is poison

[@kilotango1537]

@@wontcreep Sure, But I think a large part of the evangelical community (which I was part of) believed that there are absolute DO and DO NOT rules...even when we couldn't clearly discern definitively what all of them were. Sometimes we read into various scripture suggesting perhaps it's not as bad if we were ignorant of doing wrong. Of course that wasn't always universally applied so it became a bit of a mess when trying to come to a satisfyingly stable conclusion about right and wrong. The line that was frequently presented (and we would in turn encourage each other) in such situations where you are not sure what to do based on scripture alone was "be lead by the spirit" because, you know...attempting THAT will clear up the decision making process...

[@punishanpika]

Are you sure morality 😇 is.

[@CXLVII]

This is the first non-debunking video of yours that KZbin has suggested me!

[@fourk_]

Hi Dave, nice video but at 4:49, when you say "in stage 3", the graphic for stage 2 still appears on screen. No big deal, I just had slight trouble following because of this

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

It's 3 out of 6, so the first part of stage 2, it's a little confusing.

[@mileskeller5244]

Big fan of your biology videos. Philosophy is my passion. Really cool to hear you talking about it. In your first moral dilemma, a good method would be that of Kants by asking is it one in which could be universalized?

[@DeconvertedMan]

Switch the switch in a way to derail the trolly!

[@IKilledEarl]

What if there's a trolly driver? Someone has to operate a trolly, so you may kill the driver if you derail it.

[@secularidiot9052]

@@IKilledEarl You may also kill the other passengers onboard the trolly. Derailing the trolly only results in significantly more casualties.

[@IKilledEarl]

@@secularidiot9052 I was assuming it was empty since it wasn't mentioned in the experiment, but you would still have to assume a driver since the trolly is operational. Adding in a multitude of hypotheticals is pointless and only highlights the absurdity of a false dichotomy.

[@carultch]

@@secularidiot9052 Derailing the trolley could, in concept, just injure the driver and passengers, rather than kill them. If you could derail the trolley, in a situation where the occupants are likely to survive, that could be a moral solution to this problem that everyone could agree with.

[@exmuslimusa]

📍I have created a more stronger moral dillema way harder and complicated then the trolly problem, You have two options to choose from: 1. You die peacefully, and rest of human beings suffers forever 2. You suffer forever, and all human beings dies peacefully What would you choose? Note: if you don't choose, human beings will choose you to suffer forever instead of them. What are your thoughts dave, and would love to see you mention this new example in a new video, i asked religious people, and many of them choosed to die peacefully, and let humanity suffers including their holy prophets

[@RedCocoon]

There's only a finite amount of people to die, hence it cannot account for my infinite suffering. As such, I would choose the former.

[@nio804]

The fault lies with whichever power forces a choice like this on someone. No-one can be expected to suffer infinitely for the sake of other people, and thus they can't be blamed for making the choice that saves them the infinite suffering. It's not really a choice.

[@ModernRelic69]

​@@nio804 💯

[@exmuslimusa]

@@nio804 exactly 99% of whom i asked so far they choosed for humanity to suffer, including lots of religious people

[@exmuslimusa]

@@RedCocoon i know yeah, all of us will do, even if the rest has our families and beloved ones

[@dangtuandung2423]

as a philosophy student I am absolutely waiting for the philosophy series

[@Zaylic]

man this guy knows a lot about the science stuff

[@rainaroseling]

Another factor in morality is some of it is wired in our DNA. People have a sense of doing wrong without being told it is wrong.

[@tarikwalters854]

You’re nurtured to believe that not natured.

[@punishanpika]

Is 🥑 the content of morality 😇 wired or just the desire to be moral 😇 using some set of arbitrary rules you like.

[@frankdelahue9761]

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.” - Rumi

[@MrKaden1217]

Kent is shaking in his boots rn

[@matthewmaniego2762]

Thank you, Professor Dave!

[@bcburnettcom]

Solution to trolly problem: switch it to the single person, The others are on the tracks through coercion. The single person is on the tracks due to stupidity. It's natural selection in action.

[@glennpearson9348]

The case for morality and empathy becomes even more tangled when we consider the prospects for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. For example, while Tesla is still struggling for true full self-driving capability, how does a machine go about making moral judgements when faced with "no-win" situations? That is, if an AI-controlled vehicle finds itself in a situation where no matter what it does, it calculates that someone is inevitably going to be seriously injured or killed, how does it decide what action to take? Deeper still, if an AI makes what society collectively believes is the "wrong" decision, who is to blame? Is the AI programmer to blame? Or, is there no blame at all since, by design, the AI has developed beyond its original programming? The novel by Isaac Asimov, I, Robot, which was later turned into a movie (2004) starring Will Smith, was an exploration of this very dilemma. Nice work, Professor Dave. This series on philosophy is certainly making us all seriously think about morality in a productive way.

[@gordythecreator]

I keep noticing this psycopathy word lately. Dave might have helped me discover a new hole in my life. Dave's filling voids

[@ryansergas2776]

1 in 100 people you meet are psychopaths, so you've probably already met a few. They're usually quite charming but its a superficial act

[@Alan_Duval]

@@ryansergas2776 But 4 in 100 politicans and CEOs are :D

[@ryansergas2776]

@@Alan_Duval oh yeah I think I heard of that somewhere as well, it's crazy. But also not too surprising

[@weldabar]

I know several adults who still operate under Preconventional Morality. Isn't that what proponents of Authoritarianism are about? Obey those power without question. These morality evaluations are interesting and important. It's a shame that morality conversations don't enter politics very often.

[@tarikwalters854]

I disagree, take abortion for example.

[@Alan_Duval]

You could make an argument that relying on the ten commandments and being good in order to get into heaven is pre-conventional. At best it's convetional.

[@uTube486]

Two days after Christmas, you made my head explode. Too much thinking!

[@crawhey]

I love your channel. You do such a great job to simplify so much from a position of trustworthy standards. Gambatte to your journey to improve you and us following you.

[@maciej9280]

my aswer to trolley dillema was always, I would be too bloody terrified to even think to pull any leavers

[@Mr.PeabodySkeptic]

Capitalism is a economic system. Laws are just rules. Both can be moral but not necessarily so. I'd break into the pharmacy.

[@lkocon13]

Is the scientist not allowed to be rewarded for his discovery of a cancer-treating drug?

[@Alan_Duval]

@@lkocon13 How is a 50% deposit which is still a profitable margin (based on the specifics supplied in the dilemma) a lack of reward?

[@WanderTheNomad]

I don't know why it didn't click in my head until 3:34 that I learned this in school. I don't think I've heard that initial story before.

[@Alan_Duval]

It's worth noting that many of the complaints about Kohlberg can be fixed by making some minor changes to his model. He, like Piaget before him, assumed that levelling up to the next stage meant that the individual would no longer use the "lower" form of moral reasoning. If, however, we accept that individuals absolutely can revert to lower forms of reasoning (being hangry is a thing), we can do away with many concerns about the theory. Then we only have to go one step further and do away with the value judgment of "lower forms of reasoning." Instead, we see that the three levels and their stages are reliant on exposure to relevant instances, the cognitive ability to engage with solutions, and the ability to integrate the relevant thinking styles. We can say that post-conventional reasoning is more complex than conventional reasoning, which, in turn, is more complex than pre-conventional reasoning (the names that Kohlberg gave them signpost that pretty hard). It is also the case, however, that some instances of moral decision-making are not complex and don't require complex thinking to resolve; it is quite reasonable to apply the level of moral problem-solving required to solve the moral problem, what the higher forms of moral reasoning do provide is a means to assess one's behaviour after the fact and to learn from that reasoning to do better next time (if necessary). Similarly, the removal of the value judgment about the relative complexity of moral reasoning also allows one to include empathy/mercy as a valid motivation for reasoning that is no less valuable than a justice-based approach, it just leads with a different combination of approached from within the full suite represented in Kohlberg's model. The problem with Haidt is that he explicitly attacks Kohlberg's model, not on the basis of it being stage theory, but because it is cognitive or reasoning-based, rather than intuitive. Kohlberg's model is also developmental, whereas Haidt only looks at adult reasoning, detached from the developmental trajectory that got the adult to where they are. As such, he ignores the history of a person's learning. It is what one learns, especially as a child, that becomes one's unthinking habits as an adult. Adult intuitions are built upon one's thinking and learning as a child. So, this is a massive blindspot in Haidt's theory. Additionally, the original moral dumbfounding work, upon which the Mark and Julie story is based, was never published under peer review. Indeed, the source videos of people reasoning about these dumbfounding dilemmas were never fully coded, and I'm not aware of any summary of how many of the original videos were coded (30 appear in the write-up) and how the decision was made to stop coding, beyond 'it was time-consuming.' For a thorough analysis of the problems with Haidt's moral dumbfounding, see Cillian McHugh's blog: www.cillianmchugh.com/post/searching-for-dumbfounding/ Oliver Scott Curry's work on Morality as Cooperation is starting to bear fruit, article here: philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2020/07/is-morality-all-about-cooperation.html And Martin Hoffman's 'Empathy and Moral Development' is an excellent read for a fuller read on a moral theory from a researcher who was approximately contemporaneous with Kohlberg but whose book was published at about the time that Haidt came to prominence, and it just might explain human morality better than both: www.ethicalbooksearch.com/uk/books/m/ol:OL23405W-is:9780521580342-is:9780521012973/empathy-and-moral-development-martin-l-hoffman

[@zatimo1575]

Excited for that Philosophy Series.😮

[@shyper17]

7:14 Well, of course they are. Here is an obvious example as to why that might as well be a good thing: You and your friend are charged for a crime and have been sentenced to 2 years each. However, if you cast blame on your friend, you will get 1 year, and he will get 5 years. If he does that, the same rules apply. He gets 1 year and you get 5. If you both incriminate the other, you both get 5 years. If you both stay silent, you both get 2 years as was originally planned. What do you do? The choice I would make here, driven by emotion and compassion, is to remain silent. I know my friend, being my friend, will not betray me, and if he does, then it's the same as if I betrayed him too. I got 5 years. But the logical choice would be to go with the risk and incriminate him, because you really cannot be sure what he would say. In this case you can get either 1 year or 5 years, and it's 50/50 chance. However, in previous case, you can get 2 years or 5 years, which is again a 50/50. So choosing to incriminate him is a logical option, one which I would never pick.

[@HorsebackSkydiving]

Like everything you make, this is top notch material Dave. Your channels make learning easy, how I wish your videos had existed in my formative years as it likely would have made me give a shit and enjoy the pursuit of a full education.

[@mrfriessf214902]

Thank you for today's lesson, more psychology pls!

[@vigilantebanshee1459]

In this particular example of the Trolley situation, I would create a third option- rush to untie the 5 people on the track. No one dies. Problem solved. Sometimes we have to create our own solutions.

[@darioadaseq]

I disagree with what he said about the trolley and the large man. When the 6 people (5 on one side, 1 on the other) are tied to the tracks there is destined death. When the choice of pushing the man appears he is just an innocent bystander, he isn’t related to the situation. It’s not about the psychology of pushing compared to pulling a lever it’s about the large man not needing to die in the first place.

[@manfredkandlbinder3752]

The trolley problem is one of those conceived by people without engineering knowledge. Just turn the switch again while the trolley is on top of it, it will probably derail if its fast but simply stop if it is slow. Which brings us back to the point, a problem can be thought trough while not being confronted with it, but how much worth does this have ? Does this actually allow us to judge any decision made by the person that had to decide in split seconds ? How moral is it to judge a decision from the comfy armchair with all the time in the world to ponder over it ? Which pretty much puts us in the position to accept the fact that morals are also prone to opportunities, some have the opportunity to decide with proper morals, some do not even have the opportunity to realize there was a dilemma to begin with. Time, knowledge sometimes even just plain money often gets in the way of morals, not because the people involved decide against morality, but simply because they have not the means to make an informed decision. Philosophical examinations of reality rarely takes this very real problem into account, which makes many of their conclusions utterly worthless in the face of the reality of life. It is worthless because it does not take things into account that are very important but cannot be standardized and idealized, like the bad joke in which a physicist has a solution but only for perfectly spherical chickens in a vacuum. Thats what many moral dillemmas and most reflections on morality are, a solution for spherical chickens in a vacuum.

[@2ahdcat]

Merry belated Christmas, Dave! 🎄

[@peter5149]

Let it go straight and then have it loop back around. Fairness.

[@erikboncoref.7020]

This reminds me a bit of the phrase "die a hero or live long enough to become the villain", and a famous interview made to a rural communist politician wannabe: "If you had two mansions, what would you do?" "Easy, one for me and one for the communist party" "Okay, and if it were two BMWs?" "Easy, one for me and one for the communist party" "Okay, and if it were two hens?" "No, in that case, the two hens are mine" "Why not sharing one with the communist party, like with the mansion and the BMW?" "Because I DO have two hens"

[@desi_bhai_]

in trolley problem, the first thing that comes in my mind is that the 5 people tied on tracks had the reason that they were tied and left to die, whereas that worker on other track was doing his moral job, it would be ethically wrong to kill the man whose family is waiting for him at home

[@jeffreybailey2442]

I wish there was a dilemma with the Trolley Bridge where the Big Guy has a weapon and makes the two, who were trying to push him, instead they get tossed down to the tracks to save the five people.

[@vaguetenebrous8349]

I don’t understand how with the example of pushing a man on the tracks, not pushing him is linked to empathy because of the man, but pushing him is not linked to empathy for the group you’re saving.

[@Alan_Duval]

Because humans have a thing called psychological distance (which is broadly analogous to actual distance). In the Adam Smith book mentioned in the video, Smith points out that a man in Europe will be more concerned about the loss of a finger, or even the stubbing of a toe than he would be about the loss of 100,000 in far distant China. He notes that the man would, of course, feel intellectualized empathy for the loss of 100,000 people and the suffering of their relatives. Also, it's not possible for us to really conceptualize 100,000 people, so after 50 or 100 people, the numbers become meaningless. So, physical contact with a person is more "real" than physical contact with a switch. That emotional "realness" outweighs the intellectual value of a distant five people. That said, emotions can move the balance the other way. If those five people were all your family members, you might just be able to push the big man to his death if you didn't know him, because whilst they are physically distant, they are emotionally closer. However, if you had just had an argument with all five family members over Xmas, you might be more inclined to not push the guy off the bridge, etc., etc.

[@vaguetenebrous8349]

@@Alan_Duval Ah. Okay. That kind of thing didn’t even occur to me, but I tend to have a pretty utilitarian viewpoint.

[@colinofay7237]

Hard to make decisions based on morality cause I don't know what actually is moral or even right for everyone

[@Reifgar]

The trolley example always seemed flawed, especially when you bring in the pushing of the fat man part. The situation implies that you KNOW what the outcome is going to be. If you knew the outcome of every action you take, the entire equation would be different.

[@Alan_Duval]

Like how the people that killed Bruce Wayne's parents are responsible for all of the lives that Batman saves, bar two, making them almost as good as Batman :D

[@DanielNeedham2500]

It is interesting how this can relate to trial judges in sentencing people

[@frankchen4229]

not really "interesting" because ethics and philosophy have always been a basis for law

[@DanielNeedham2500]

@@frankchen4229 Depends, I know of many cases where a judge gives different sentences for the same crime

[@frankchen4229]

@@DanielNeedham2500 Not unexpected

[@Dilly_kong]

Hi Dave, great video as always! Do you think morality might also have developed earlier on because it gave us an evolutionary advantage?

[@jordopia]

What do you mean by developed earlier on? I think all social animals have some form of morality. I would imagine the complexity of the morality is proportional to the complexity of the societal interaction. edit: Also meant to say that it almost certainly gives any society an evolutionary advantage in that it drives the cohesiveness of the group dynamic. Imagine a world in which murder is fine in terms of law and gut feeling. Are genes going to be able to replicate as proficiently in that society? Plus a group with more members and more social cohesion has better chances against outside threats (for the most part).

[@danielcrafter9349]

@DillonBalfe999 - absolutely Dawkins discusses this in "The Selfish Gene" - about how we subconsciously pre-select those who share our genes It's the reason you save your son or sister from drowning over some random stranger Bees are particularly fascinating in this regard, as drone share more genes with the Queen than each other

[@jordopia]

@@danielcrafter9349 Gene replication machines. That shit blew my mind when I read it.

[@Kilmoran]

In the particular question given about stealing the drug or not, I would say it is morally valid to put someone's life over profits, but that perhaps after doing so, admitting to the theft is also the moral thing to do. Just because saving a life is moral, it does not mean the theft is. While you did need to do one in order to achieve the other, that does not necessarily mean that the means are justified even if the ends absolutely are. I do not prescribe to the idea that the ends justify the means. I see them as two different, but linked events. Someone else brought up the whole Trolly Problem. My solution is once again simple given the classic issue of multiple adults versus an infant or something similar. If I am going to break it, I derail the train and hope for the best (assuming I am the only passenger). But to take the problem on face value with the binary of "someone has to die", then it is the death that causes the least calculable harm. I say that carefully because there are many factors that cannot be calculated. So, to be clear, the baby dies. Why? Because it is one short life versus many fuller ones. Many more connections and experiences and relatives are likely to be effected by multiple adults dying than the horrible pain of a single family losing a child to essentially an accident. Of course, the real issue with the Trolly problem is the morality of the one making the decision. As I said, mine is an unbiased calculation as opposed to an emotional consideration. I believe that is the crux of that problem. I am not saying emotions do not matter, but I am saying that there are times that there is no emotionally or ethically solid decision can be made. The problem is literally who is going to die. If you cannot choose yourself, then morality and ethics in general no longer apply. You cannot morally kill innocent people by any standard definition. So instead, harm reduction is the next best option in my opinion. On the incest question. I saw no issue with it. It is culturally taboo, but with all of the specifics laid out (primarily, the near elimination of of pregnancy and the legality of the act), there is literally nothing wrong with sharing intimate physical pleasure in that way. The only reason it feels like it as a gut reaction is we are taught that it is wrong primarily to avoid all of the things that were avoided in the scenario. But honestly, if you think about it, aside from it possibly creating a romantic bond that continues to tempt fate with pregnancy or law breaking, it seems to be a safer alternative to random hook ups or even attempts at creating real bonds through sexual means as a primary drive (this does not usually end well). It would be most closely parallel to having sex with your best friend for no other reason than to bond and for pleasure. You know and trust them, you both consent, all of that, but you have no intention of romantic or parental/spousal involvement beyond that. Your bond is not about the sex, but it also isn't about romantic love which is the case in this theoretical instance. I see nothing wrong with it outside of social taboo.

[@Imman1s]

These are not mutually exclusive. Stealing the drug is the moral action, and of course you know what you did is illegal and are willing to pay for the consequences even if it means spending a few years in prison in exchange for the live of your loved one. I would go even further and leave the $1000 bucks and my card there, because in that specific case the one not willing to accept deferred payment is the other party. So between that and force majeure is very likely that you won't serve time at all (and we have a new Shkreli price candidate to be publicly shamed) As for the trolley problem... well, the difference is whether you are a passive actor in the events or not. To begin with, you don't have to do anything; you didn't cause the malfunction nor putted the people in the tracks, so you don't have a moral duty to do anything. I mentioned that in a different post, but you can change the situation so all the elements are identical but nobody would choose to change the track. It goes like this: you are a doctor and there are 5 terminal patients that need organ transplants to survive, and you just received another patient for a regular checkup that happens to be compatible with those 5. Is it moral to kill him to save the others? Most people will answer no without qualifiers and yet it s the exact same scenario. The second trolley variant is even worse, because if you can throw someone in the tracks, you can jump yourself and sacrifice your live in exchange for the other 5. If you are not willing to do that much, you have no business demanding someone else to do the same, much less making the decision for them, so throwing them over is ALWAYS immoral. Regarding age modifiers... I'm kind of torn on that subject. The reason we value children more than adults is because the intrinsic potential of goodness over a longer life... but as population grows, the chances of a specific children making a noticeable difference approaches zero. By that I mean that only a tiny proportion of kids will grow to make a noticeable contribution to the general wellness of mankind, while roughly the same proportion will grow to be the opposite while the vast majority will just be there in the crowd without moving the dial one way or another. So essentially, you are betting on the potential of the children you save against the actual goodness of the person you choose to sacrifice, which for all practical purposes of this scenario, is unknown to you. So as far as I'm concerned, it is moral (and honorable) to sacrifice yourself for others, but if your actions involve sacrificing others for a supposed greater good, you are almost always morally wrong. Specially if you are making a decision based on incomplete facts about the surrounding circumstances. As for the incest example, I'm with you on this one. Is not my business, and I don't care one way or another. As framed, the only REAL issue is the heightened risk of genetic defects in the offspring that would result in unnecessary suffering, but they took the necessary precautions and didn't result in pregnancy, meaning this is not a moral issue at all. Hell, that can have a vasectomy/hysterectomy, marry and live happily ever after for all I care.

[@Kilmoran]

@@Imman1s I agree that the situation about stealing medicine doesn't have mutually exclusive morality. But, as I think you agree, I do think the best outcome is breaking a law to save a life and still be willing to accept the consequences for having done so. Law is not morality, which it is clear you understand, but it is the agreement of living in a society. When it comes to the trolley problem, exactly. If the option is self sacrifice, then that is the only moral choice. Even if someone who is pure evil is on the tracks, choosing to kill them for your own safety is not a moral act, even if it may be necessary for survival or even protecting others. It is, at best amoral and at worst immoral! But it is definitely not moral to just kill someone. When it comes to inaction, that is also to me an amoral choice if you have no option where you take the consequences upon yourself. Any choice is once again, at best amoral and at worst immoral. There is no moral choice that involves sacrificing someone else. On the topic of the age difference, as you well noted, you have no context about who is good or bad or what potential good or bad may occur. We are not omniscient, so including the potential good of a child is nullified by the potential evil from a purely objective view. We do not know. All we truly know is the math, several versus one. I find it an amoral choice to choose more over less. However, that is once again if a choice is made at all. Leaving things to chance/fate/destiny may be the only "proper" choice to make. We are not omniscient in that either. We assume, with great reason, the trolley will kill someone in the scenario... But we do not know it until it happens. Attempting to save either may cause their deaths where doing nothing may preserve them all. If self sacrifice is on the table, that is the only action I truly think is our responsibility to make. Not self sacrificing is not evil or bad though, but sacrificing is the only true option I think that is personally moral (in the positive). I think the last bit is solidly agreed upon from there.

[@jaylhant]

The Trolley problem is something I want to focus on here. I don't know what situation you are talking about here with this question. You are changing the question to an entirely different scenario where there are 5 adults and 1 baby that you have to choose between to kill. You are stating, that you can calculate to a certain extent the impact that this tragedy has on the families on the victims but that (to my knowledge) isn't at all stated in the question. You can not possibly calculate the harm of killing anyone in this situation at all. You have no background as to who the 5 people or the baby are, and thus you are assuming 5 different families would have to grieve their loss as apposed to 1 family that has to grieve the loss of a child. The problem is, we have no idea if those 5 people have a family that would care for their deaths. It could be possible for all of them to be orphans and have nobody in their lives to care for them. It could be possible that the baby has 10 families that would grieve their death. My point here is, there is no way to "calculate" the impact that any of these deaths would have on anyone and thus, your "unbiased calculation" has no merit. You can't calculate shit in this scenario and that is the whole point. You are hiding behind a preconceived notion that isn't stated anywhere in the original question and are actively trying to change the question in your favor. Now if you simply said that you are biased and would kill the baby because you THINK it would cause less harm than killing the 5 people, basing it on the idea that the 5 people have families that would care for them, then you have a solid moral take on the question. Again, there is no right or wrong answer to the question. You are actively trying to change the question to make it answerable. You are running away from answering the actual question and are trying to be as morally correct as possible because you do not want to be incorrect or take a hard stance on the issue. Excuse me if I am wrong, but that is what I've gathered from your opinion on the Trolley problem.

[@Kilmoran]

@Jay Lhant First off, I specifically stated that neither answer was moral and that there was a lack of information about any of them. I said there was likely (as in a higher likelihood) that 5 adults have more connections in life than an infant because that is statistically probable, but I did not assume it was the case just to make that point. I did not change the problem for it to be in my favor, I infact purposefully made it a more difficult moral issue in order to illustrate that it is not a morality problem in the end. Or at least that it shouldn't be. My entire point is we lack information about the people. The five adults could be canabalistic sadistic murders for all I know with no connections at all and who will immediately devour the baby and anyone else right after the accident. I don't know, is the point. I am not trying to say that my decision would be objectively correct, it is entirely subjective, but it was an amoral calculation versus a moral consideration. Right or wrong was not what I was trying to convey and was literally what I avoided answering. I wouldn't consider it a biased answer, but perhaps it may have been.

[@selfhelp321]

Has there ever been 1 person tied to trolley tracks let alone 5, and how do you tie someone to trolley tracks anyways? Seems like it would be quite difficult to pull off, I mean you would need at least 10 tier uppers (assuming at least 2 per person since it would be extremely challenging for one person to hold down and tie one person to trolley tracks, which seems impossible in of itself, I mean have you ever looked at a trolley track? its imbedded into the roadway there really is nothing available to wrap the cordage around to tie a proper knot, and then there is the question of what type of cordage to use or would zip ties be more suitable. And you mean to tell me no passerby’s stopped to inquire as to why 5 people were being tied to trolley tracks.

[@Wizziesenpai]

Your videos are Literally a goldmine.

[@That-Guy_]

Easy answer Switch the track after the front wheels pass the switch point but before the rear wheels do and the trolly will derail.

[@markbrown8097]

Killing everyone

[@damotheman4196]

@@markbrown8097 😂

[@glennpearson9348]

And if the trolley has 20 people on it already (which I believe is the part of the Trolley Dilemma that Professor Dave didn't explain)?

[@That-Guy_]

@@glennpearson9348 Chances of death are lower for those on the trolly

[@markbrown8097]

@@That-Guy_ I've seen the dilemma before where the trolley smacks into a wall while filled with people vs having a group of people at the end of the line.

[@toptierscrub]

great video! thank you

[@bojannikolovski7250]

In the case of the -incestoid couple-, the research leaves out two important factors - this braking rules can cause them to break other rules and laws because it excites them, and if people know somehow about that, it can cause a big harm to them and others in many ways

[@BrettAnderson-f6n]

Morality is the Knowledge of good as opposed to bad. Only one source for moral understanding that gets it right every time. That is our Creator!

[@xINVISIGOTHx]

1 possibly smart man safely standing on a bridge > 5 stupid people standing on a track

[@Imman1s]

I'm sick and tired of the second version of the trolley problem. It is morally wrong to throw the guy to the tracks because there is a better option where all the harm only falls on a willing person: you can jump yourself to the track to stop the train. If you don't have the will to sacrifice yourself for strangers, you don't have the right to demand the same on other, much less force them against their will. And in both cases, the only real difference is whether your have an active involvement in the events or not. You are not responsible for the events that led to the people to be stranded in the tracks, nor the train to be out of control, so you don't have a moral duty to intervene in the situation at all, and if you do, you become responsible for your actions. You can change the problem a bit to see the stupidity of the basic assumptions; for instance you can be a doctor and have 5 terminal patients needing organ transplants to survive and you also have a healthy patient matching the 5 terminal cases. Is it morally correct to kill that healthy patient to save the other 5? As you can see, it is the exact same problem, but most people will give you a completely different answer.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

With the incest one, the way I view it is, I personally see it as wrong. But I recognize that I am not an arbiter of what 2 consenting adults can do. So I accept that even though I disagree with what they did, they were not wrong to do it. Things like the trolley problem are unrealistic and oversimplified, and neglect the very real possibility of third options. I'd say with that one, there is no right or wrong choice, because no matter what you do you are trying to save lives. As I've heard in Doctor Who "sometimes you can't save everyone".

[@Tallorian]

I personally find the "fat man" example to be inappropriate, poorly constructed, for the intended goal (to show the difference in morality dependent on situation). Because for me the set up looks so far-fetched that other concerns do not allow to make the choice with the same certainty the first trolley example does. There you KNOW for sure that the trolley won't get to five people (unless the switch malfunctions of course), while the other person on the track might still have a chance to survive. With the fat man you inevitably start doubting: what if I won't be able to push him on time, what if he falls to the side of the track, what if it's not enough to stop the trolley etc. Because you are asked to put yourself not in a spherical vacuum of abstract math, but in a situation where your real-life sensibilities and intuition has to decide your actions, and that intrinsically ties it to the complexity and uncertainty of the real world. So, even if you are told to BELIEVE that it's gonna work 100%, it is in human nature to doubt when there's not enough evidence or life experience to support some wild claim. And that is why it's not so easy to make the same choice in this case as with the switch. It's strange that those who made up this example don't understand such small but extremely important parts of reasoning, when they might drastically change the outcome. Also, at 13:40 you present a completely different take on the problem, because the initial in question in the trolley problem was "what do you do?", but not "is it morally wrong?". You cannot mix these two things up, because it can be simultaneously morally wrong, but necessary to do. In fact, the same applies to the Heinz problem, where you can say that it's morally wrong to steal the cure but not doing it is even worse. So, is it really a research on morality when people are offered to choose from two evils? Does it really speak about their empathy or just about common sense when they pick the lesser evil out of two? People are complex beings and don't have to believe that what they do is absolutely right and 100% good if they can still reason that it has to be done for the good of others. Trying to persuade yourself that you are morally right when you do a wrong thing is somewhat childish, but, actually, seems quite prominent in the American ways of thinking and behaving. One can only suspect that the case is deeply rooted in the centuries of brainwashing by Christianity that instills black-and-white thinking and self-righteousness in people. You should know it better than anyone, Dave, after dealing with all those wackos from DI and such.

[@minasamyagayby4057]

Dear prof, statistics is a very needed subject. Would you can explan it please.

[@tjbol]

“I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6

[@shyper17]

9:58 If there was nothing I could do other than what is explicitly asked of me to do, I would then kill that single person. However, this is real world, so what do I do? There are numerous things one could try: 1. "I think I would just cut the wire" - Tony Stark, The Avengers I'll agree with this one. If I can, I just cut the trolley's wire and it goes nowhere near those people. Or just break the trolley. 2. Entering the damn trolley and stopping it from inside. I mean come on, does it not have brakes? 3. Throw something in front of it to stop it - if there is time. Alright this one is only if you can make it. For example, if you are next to a car, just drive in front of the car. I'd do that even if it got me killed. 4. Pull the lever, then move one person out of the trolley's way. Like come on, you can't move 5 people, but surely you can move one in time.

[@spudbencer7179]

Well, guess my moral compass doesn't work like others, i.e. not from gut feeling. Because if I cannot come up with a logical and pretty much irrefutable justification for a moral decision, then this is not my viewpoint, this goes down to as basic of a thing as "why is it wrong to hurt (or even worse, kill) other humans?". Which makes me a terrible person for split second decisions about moral problems. You gave a good example, my answer to it would have been "As long as they do not harm anyone, I don't care, so it is okay." I think there should be a feeling based set of base assumptions in terms of morals, the rest should be propositional calculus if possible. Most people do not follow this concept. Most people follow their feelings exclusively when it comes to morals. The example with killing one guy to save 5 is harder but my decision would still be to sacrifice him as long as the chance of this causing saving the life of 5 other people is as certain as the sun rising in the morning. Though due to it being harder, if it is a split second decision, I might miss the opportunity, to be fair. So I have *some* empathy.

[@jimflagg4009]

There are 3 selfish primal rules that allow us to survive 1) Survive through fight or flight and hunting for food. 2) Reproduce to continue the legacy 3) Use as little effort possible to achieve 1 and 2. Number 3 is the selfish part but it helps you to use as little energy as possible so if you are starving you conserve energy but it leads you to immoral activities like theft of food from others and other more darker things. We have developed higher minds over the years that tell us the the long game is better than the short one so we became social and choose not to always do number 3. Also number 1 needs to be in moderation. We can't hunt the food source until it is gone we must use quotas so if we are fed then the rest is excess.

[@graladue]

I think the "fat man" version of the trolley problem is flawed because it carries too much uncertainty into the problem. Can you push a fat man off the bridge in time? Will he actually stop the trolley? Couldn't you just throw yourself off the bridge? The base version forces a pretty fixed one or many decision. The modified one not only forces you to decide whether to actively harm someone not currently involved, but also lays many ways that your intervention might fail, which muddies the water quite a lot. I think it is hard to pick out how much of the fat man scenario changes the answer because of the change from passive to active involvement and how much is because of the ways in makes the scenario less certain. Of course in the "real world" the answer is to throw the switch after the first set of trolley wheels have passed. Attempting to derail the trolley and saving all involved is even "better" than choosing one over many. You might fail, but the more comfortable moral choice is to attempt to save them all.

[@jonnyb1856]

I honestly love you dave

[@Anglomachian]

Disgusting/Wrong is what I’ve heard some people, and which I refer to as, the ick factor. I find it the least reliable means of determining right and wrong.

[@kvgirisxyaoimaster]

In this video, the trolley uses a pantograph, simply cut the power from the catenary and the trolley can't move. Also AWS, TPWS, and Vigilance systems still Emergency Stop the train if a driver is out, they are also multiple Emergency Brake Valves along the train that if triggered apply the brakes to max power. If the trolley problem happened in real life, I would be more concerned about the safety violations and the overall negligence by the transportation company, driver, and passengers aboard. Even if the conductor was the only one, the train can still be stopped. Even if, it'd try to free the people on the tracks, and remote switching station are ONLY FOR STAFF! Which I am not, so if you have access to the remote switch, you're breaking the law. Also 300-1000 pounds of raw manly meat is not stopping a tram that pulls over 20 to 30 tons.

[@stienogamez8296]

The trolley dilemma is a bit flaud... Because there is one big difference between pushing the fat man in front of the trolley or pulling a lever. With pulling a lever you will be sure you diverted the train to the other track and save the people. But you won't know up front if pushing a fat man in front of a trolley would stop it. If I would be 100% sure that the fat man would stop the trolley, and I would not end up in jail for it, then I would push the fat man. Unless the people on the tracks are loved ones, then I would push the fat dude regardless if I would end up in jail or not. But if the 5 people are bad people or people I hate/ do not like, then I would not sacrifice the life of an innocent fat man. There are so many parameters that would influence my acts and reasoning behind them.

[@berniethekiwidragon4382]

Here's a twist to the trolley dilemma: what if the one person you would kill to save the others was your own mother?

[@EH_888]

Others gonna die

[@nilavakar8068]

What if we don't touch the handle and let the trolley move in the direction it was moving unless we have a loved one, random people don't provide you any support, so the most you can do for them in the latter situation is to hold personnels who are responsible for this accident accountable. Also , we must try to protect our loved ones from being in this situation in the first place.. if they are that much of a rebel and intentionally they end up in this situation, should they be still considered as a loved one? They don't pay heed to any of your words in the first place...

[@stevenhanson9515]

Morality is nothing more than the science of Judging Human Action. Religion has its talons firmly embedded in the subject because it is the only remnant of control left to them. It is a science plain and simple. We judge EVERYTHING we do against some standard of what is considered correct and proper. From building a home to handling the issues of survival, everything we do is judged against a moral code. Every moral code is made up of 3 parts: the Goal, the Actions that lead to the attainment of that goal, and rules that qualify the actions as virtues. All people have one goal in common: Survival. The actions necessary to attain survival are the survival virtues: Choice, Seeking the Truth, Self Defense and creating a survival identity (a career for a person in society).

[@Username-nu8el]

I recommend everybody to read "The Righteous Mind" from Haidt.

[@CCC-V3]

Dr. Dave preps his audience for his return to Modern Day Debate !!

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

Nah that channel sucks. I don’t support it.

[@iliyanovslounge]

@@ProfessorDaveExplains I’ve only seen a couple of Modern Day Debate’s videos a long time before, I think it was the same one where you argued with Kent Hovind? But also what makes it suck? Just wondering.

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

@@iliyanovslounge He's just a dogshit moderator who panders to con men. He was completely biased towards Kent in that exchange and did nothing whatsoever to actually moderate or hold Kent accountable for responding to my prompts.

[@iliyanovslounge]

@@ProfessorDaveExplains I see. Yeah, I mean in that exchange he just sat there and didn’t do anything to stop Kent’s gish galloping haha. The moderator might aswell been a piece of fruit.

[@T_Armstrong]

Can you (or someone) explain objective vs. subjective morality? I am told that morality is objective. But I find that hard to come to terms with. For example, if we say that its objectively immoral to kill someone, then no matter the situation, the killer will be acting immorally. However if killer is forced to kill because someone is coming at their child with a knife, wouldn't that subjectively be a situation where you would excuse the killer? Or would you objectively still say that the killer performed an immoral act regardless of the circumstance? I feel like I might just be confusing terms or definitions so would be glad if someone can ELI5.

[@robertfindley921]

I am very comfortable with my moral compass. In the Heinz Dilemma I would have stolen the drug, but also opened a can of "whoop rear-end" on the druggist. People like that, and hence most big pharma execs, should be in a supermax prison or worse. In the Trolley Problem I do not pull the lever or push anyone. I have no right to condemn anyone to die.

[@Avigorus]

If myself or those close to me are threatened, I'll do what I need to save them and figure out how to moralize later, but if a stranger is threatened, my willingness to intervene depends on a sort of cost/ benefit analysis. Put me in a trolley problem where all I have to do is pull a lever and instead of a large group of people dying a fraction of the same number but different people die, none of them are people I care about and neither side has say a higher percentage of children or such, and I have no 3rd option, I'll pull it. Demand I pull a Saw-esque self-mutilation, someone I care about better be on the chopping block or I'll just wait out the timer. Granted, there is one family member who I know would be upset if I let others die to save him (old, terminal disease, christian, etc) so I'd probably sacrifice him in such a situation and cry myself to sleep afterwards, but any other situation where someone I care about is at risk we'd need ludicrous tragedies if I didn't give them up to make me sacrifice someone I cared about (even my jerk brother-in-law). EDIT: also, any time someone wants to do something in private, my response is "live and let live" so long as nobody is being hurt, including via enrichment (e.g. paying for access to a weird video encouraging whoever made it to make more)

[@mysurfing3550]

My gut reaction to the bro and sis problem was they're not hurting anyone so whatever they did nothing wrong just kind of gross.. Also, to me pushing the guy and pulling the lever seems the same to me since my behavior chose someonss fate. My instinct is do I know any of the people? Id be more likely to save somebody I care about. Or try to see if there's a way to get the trolly to stop some other way.

[@carmensavu5122]

I would save my loved one no matter what. My response to the original trolley dilemma is that I would NOT pull the lever, as I don't think it's my decision to kill the one person on the side track, but if the trolley were going towards my loved one and there are five people on the side track, I would pull the lever and kill the five strangers to save my loved one any day. And if I were family to one of the five, I would not blame the person who chose to pull the lever and save his own loved one, either.

[@danielcrafter9349]

The reason it's gross is we have an evolutionary reaction to it - because it causes genetic complications They ARE hurting people - they hurt the offspring who have a VERY high chance of a genetic mishap Do... do you even science?

[@Mr.PeabodySkeptic]

Explain and define 'less than ideal moral choices'? According to who?

[@Alan_Duval]

I would argue that there are few moral decisions - and no moral dilemmas, for obvious reasons - where you can't benefit to some degree from either outcome. If some proportion of each outcome is acceptable to you, then you forego some portion of an acceptable outcome when you opt for either outcome. So, the less than ideal outcome would be according to you.

[@LM64]

Connect the 2 tracks near the end

[@iwersonsch5131]

Hi Dave, I'd like to preface this by saying I dislike Matt W. and his rhetoric, and I am an ally to the over a dozen trans people I know (to the degree that that's possible since I'm aromantic and we're usually seen as members of the same community). When you posted your first video on the topic, I actually saw myself more as a part of the Left that you criticized (though not as ambitious as the examples you gave). I've been watching your response to Matt W. and am cool with the fact that you turned off comments on those two videos specifically, getting targeted by a giant conservative channel must be pretty annoying for your comment section. So I think I'd post my thoughts about that (second) video here if that's alright. With the way that Matt W. phrased the comparison to anorexia, your rebuttal works. However, I'd like to steelman it: > What if the person doesn't feel like they're heavier than they actually are, but rather that they _should be_ lighter than what would actually be healthy for them? Maybe they know they're objectively 100 pounds, but think that they should weigh 95 pounds while medical experts would say that they should weigh 120 pounds. In that case they aren't out of touch with what's fundamentally true about their body, but rather they mentally desire something that is physically unhealthy. In that case, my go-to response has been that: > If conv. therapy worked and had reasonably small side effects, I would actually imagine myself wanting to get it if I had as burdening of a disconnect as between my gender and my sex (luckily I'm cis). The key is that conv. therapy does NOT work and that it does NOT have reasonably small side effects, so the treatment for anorexia simply isn't available for people with gender dysphoria (which is only a subset of trans people anyway). Beyond that, I've actually been talking to a Conservative with gender dysphoria, and one thing that I was surprised by is that, while they would use a hypothetical machine to perfectly gain the body of a woman, they would _never_ want to use a hypothetical machine to perfectly gain the brain of a man. So even this Conservative, unlike myself, feels that the gender of their brain is a far too vital part of who they are to allow it being """fixed""" even if that """fix""" was an actual option. Conservatives do like to reject definitions like "someone who identifies as a woman" or "someone who has a gender identity of 'female'" as incomplete or even circular. The one you gave is a lot harder to attack like this than the one that outright contains the word "woman", but I think it can still be interesting to clarify what a gender identity of 'female' means in this context. My attempt at defining the term "woman" went like this: 1) sociologically: A member of the societal category built on top of 3) over the millenia. "Angela Merkel was the first woman to be elected chancellor of Germany." 2) psychologically (or in your words, based on neurochemistry): Someone who wishes to be seen as 1) by internally acknowledging, agreeing, or disagreeing with how society views them. "Deep down I've always felt like a woman." 3) (old-fashioned) biologically: A female Human, often an adult. "I was born in a woman's body." You might disagree with this notion and want to root it more in neurochemistry: "Someone whose 'gender identity' part of the brain corresponds more to the typical phenotype for XX-chromosomed people, perchance?" How would you define a nonbinary person then? In either case, specifying what is meant by "woman" and "female" seems like an important part of the definition by now. Besides that, great videos, really appreciate the effort you've put into them and I'm kinda happy that you managed to offend Matt W. about gender.

[@iwersonsch5131]

There may even be more nuance in the term "woman" that I've been giving credit for. Someone might be neurochemically a woman (i.e. have XX-typical brain chemistry) without being psychologically a woman (i.e. prefering not to be seen as nor become a woman)

[@bryanfuentes1452]

One thing I know about morality is that it can be eroded by poverty. Third world countries have higher crime rate. Here in Philippines, crime rate is high, childporn sold by parents to foreign countries is getting worse.

[@anakinsghost4787]

The first example sounds a lot like American healthcare...

[@EdgePilgrim]

Oh dear 😂

[@ElTwOJaY]

The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

[@ValiantGarton]

It depends on whether you restrict your morals only to humanity. I consider it immoral to destroy nature so I would always take the option that kills the most humans.

[@ValiantGarton]

@pegamini Humans chose not to be part of nature by creating a special skydaddy and claiming dominion over all things. So no, humans are no longer part of nature and nature will soon remove them.

[@iwersonsch5131]

A question about the prisoner's dilemma. Is it even immoral to cooperate with the cops?

[@Avigorus]

There are some who believe the "best" solution is for both to finger the other, because then both are demonstrating agency on their own terms, regardless of the fact that they both get screwed in the process. I am not one of those, but I'm a lot more consequentialist (not to say I ignore intent as it at least effects measures of degrees of moral failure, and I'll allow for lack of knowledge to not make a choice immoral due to the result if they legit didn't know it would do whatever, but still).

[@kungfujoe2136]

the practical form of morality (the theoretical form) is power

[@geeman3693]

What is right and what is wrong depends on the situation and the context of the situation you apply right and wrong to. That is why it is laughable that creationists say God is responsible for morality it’s just the weakest argument ever. I can’t believe they even say that. Lol 😂 morality is set by the society of the time said morality applies to and changes overtime as that society progress hopefully. No god is needed to explain it. I know that is a simple explanation but it is the basis around morality. Different societies have different ideas on what is and what isn’t moral. That is just a fact. Evolution explains it beautifully.

[@tarikwalters854]

If morality is constantly changing then it isn’t consistent, if it isn’t consistent then it doesn’t make sense.

[@Alan_Duval]

@@tarikwalters854 It makes sense at the time. Do we need to know what was moral 600 years ago to know what is moral now? (Think slavery.) Do we need to know what will be moral in the future to know what is moral now? (We may need to consider to alien or android rights as part of human rights.)

[@tarikwalters854]

@@Alan_Duval There is no was or will be in reference to morality, that was my point.

[@Alan_Duval]

@@tarikwalters854 Are you actually claiming that morality is eternal?

[@tarikwalters854]

@@Alan_Duval Yes

[@greenflagracing7067]

or, to put the trolley car problem in a real world situation, the decision of the US to continue the air war against Japan using atomic weapons was a calculated decision to force Japanese surrender before an Allied invasion would have resulted in the deaths of millions of people, most of them Japanese civilians had the Allies followed up a naval blockade by an invasion. Rarely acknowledged: the Chinese had, on average from 1937 until Japanese surrender, suffered an average of about 180,000 killed (not wounded, not MIAs) every month of the war. Not to engage in post hoc reasoning, but US casualties were underestimated because US intelligence vastly underestimated the number of Imperial army numbers. So the responsible people were the Japanese Emperor and government, and the guy responsible for track maintenance and the guy who was responsible for switching operations in the trainyard. The trolley car problem seems artificial and juvenile.

[@BradleyZS]

When it comes to the trolley problem I don't think there's a morally right option, disregarding the argument that doing nothing means you've not made any moral decision. It's better to kill only one person than let 5 people be killed, but that's just the less bad option. I think of this in similar regard how abortion and euthanasia are see. It's never a good to do these things, but it can sometimes make things less bad; there isn't an amount of 'less bad' that makes things good. I think of 3 categories: reason, morality, and law. A single person has logic. It is their understanding of the world as it allows them to manipulate what is real. Reason as a verb is justifying your logic to someone else. Reason the noun is the collective logic of more than one person. The truer the reason the more accurately it reflects reality and thus allows for easier manipulation of it. Sometimes logic or reason can appear true/real, because it either works well enough or hasn't encountered a major conflict to destroy it (like doing rituals to a volcano thinking it appeases the gods until it erupts). A single person has emotion, the internal sensations determining their wants and dislikes. Socialising is sharing our emotions, and 2+ people with shared emotions have a morality. Animals thus have a morality, and its where our morality came from. Attempts to reason it leads to something like a religious belief (theistic or not), and further reasoning can change our morality. Psychopathy and lacking certain reason (like thinking different races aren't human, or that animals don't care about pain) isn't immoral, rather amoral. If you don't feel empathy to a person you don't have morality. Then there is law which is set by someone, states, religions, games. They are often dictated by the other two categories and usually with the intent of forcing the people who lack morality to be moral. That could be for psychopaths, prejudice people, or for an individual. A game is purely emotion and morality, having fun. Religions tend to be emotional with archaic reasoning, they often act out in a way that matches reality but don't describe it as closely as possible. (plus there are stories for the sake of fun) The state is all over the place, but the better the state the more it is based on reason. As the state requires real thing be done in order to operate, it needs to adhere closer to reality.

[@Furry-ousNews]

Theres a Realism element missing from the "defenestrate big dude" trolley problem. Legal repercussions. I think most people would choose inaction, because not only is pushing dude, 100% gonna kill him. You are also probably gonna go down for it and "i did it to save the other people" just isnt going to stand up legally