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Atheists and believers have different moral compasses

#1
C C Offline
https://www.livescience.com/moral-compas...evers.html

EXCERPTS: The moral compasses of atheists and believers are different in a few key ways, a new study finds. In some aspects, the moral compass was incredibly alike between the two groups; they both highly rated fairness and protecting the well-being of vulnerable people, for instance, and both highly endorsed liberty but not oppression. However, the groups diverged when it came to matters of group cohesion, such as valuing loyalty and respecting authority, the study found.

[...] differences between believers and disbelievers on the other three values: authority (respecting authority figures, such as police, parents and teachers), loyalty (being loyal to one's group, such as a country — not burning a country's flag, for instance) and sanctity (not doing anything perceived as degrading, usually in a sexual sense, such as being promiscuous).

"Those three values are thought to be serving group cohesion, keeping the group together [...] When it comes to the binding values, there's a dramatic difference [between the groups]. Religious people score much higher on those — they view [them] as much more relevant for being moral compared to the disbelievers." In contrast, "atheists don't really think of [these three values] as relevant for morality to the same degree" ... The finding held even when ... controlled for political orientation...

These findings are consistent with prior research [...] The new and earlier research, some of which was carried about by Rios, shows that the stereotypes that atheists don't have a moral compass are overgeneralizations ... "Although non-believers place less importance on group-based moral values than do believers, there is no evidence based on the measures used in these studies that non-believers are more amoral than believers." (MORE - details)
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#2
Syne Offline
This is just Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, which should that atheists have a very narrow, skewed sense of morality while theists have a well-rounded, balanced morality.
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#3
Zinjanthropos Online
Well we don’t have Ostro or those poor Jerusalem Syndrome guys. I’ll take morally bankrupt over f**ked up any day.
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#4
Syne Offline
(Feb 25, 2021 08:15 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Well we don’t have Ostro or those poor Jerusalem Syndrome guys. I’ll take morally bankrupt over f**ked up any day.

Considering Ostro doesn't believe in free will, it would be contradictory for him to believe in a wide range of moral accountability. If you have no choice, you can't really be accountable.
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#5
Yazata Offline
(Feb 25, 2021 06:59 AM)C C Wrote: https://www.livescience.com/moral-compas...evers.html

EXCERPTS: The moral compasses of atheists and believers are different in a few key ways, a new study finds.

A "study" reported in Live Science. (Sorry, I'm increasingly inclined to think that the word 'study' is a synonym for 'pretentious pseudo-scientific bullshit'. One reason why I like this board is that I can write that without triggering a general conniption fit.) So the first question is what is scientific about any of this?

Quote:In some aspects, the moral compass was incredibly alike between the two groups; they both highly rated fairness and protecting the well-being of vulnerable people, for instance, and both highly endorsed liberty but not oppression.

I bet that there's lots of division when those ideas are pushed aggressively away from airy ideals towards actual cases. Protecting the vulnerable may imply things like welfare statism in the minds of many. Liberty for people to choose what they want in their life and for their communities will seem like "populism" to those who insist that some vanguard party of "experts" must dictate what other people should want. But those divisions probably better correspond to political differences than religious differences. (Politics has taken over the social roles that religion once occupied in centuries past, like guardian of morality and purpose in life.)

My point is basically that all of this qualitative social science stuff really starts to depart from natural science norms when it comes down to details, definitions and examples of how things are interpreted. It's all ultimately subjective and dependent on the preconceptions, goals and values that the 'social scientists' are themselves bringing to the table.

Quote:However, the groups diverged when it came to matters of group cohesion, such as valuing loyalty and respecting authority, the study found.

[...] differences between believers and disbelievers on the other three values: authority (respecting authority figures, such as police, parents and teachers), loyalty (being loyal to one's group, such as a country — not burning a country's flag, for instance) and sanctity (not doing anything perceived as degrading, usually in a sexual sense, such as being promiscuous).

Defining it all as 'loyalty' isn't really far from how I myself conceptualize it. But the religious people that the author is talking about probably wouldn't conceptualize it that way. Just think of Islamic law and its supposed foundations. Adherents of Shariah would justify it very differently, as a divine revelation. So why should a particular worldview be built in and presupposed in this kind of academic rhetoric?

I'm also curious about what justifies their own moral intuitions. What is really wrong with "racism" or using the word nigger? (Things that I assume that they perceive are self-evident evils.) Is it really any less about group solidarity?

Quote:"Those three values are thought to be serving group cohesion, keeping the group together [...] When it comes to the binding values, there's a dramatic difference [between the groups]. Religious people score much higher on those — they view [them] as much more relevant for being moral compared to the disbelievers."  In contrast, "atheists don't really think of [these three values] as relevant for morality to the same degree" ... The finding held even when ... controlled for political orientation...

Just try defending President Trump in a typical crowd of atheists and watch the reaction. For people who supposedly aren't morally concerned about 'group cohesion', they are awfully sensitive to and intolerant towards any perceived heresy in their group. I'm personally convinced that atheists and religious people are probably equally concerned with social cohesion. (That might arguably be a function of human nature.) The difference isn't what the author here is claiming, but merely that each group chooses to cohere around different symbols.

Social "scientists" can easily put their thumbs on the scale and make these kind of "studies" come out any way they want simply by wording things such that their own biases are built into their questions and then interpreting results to conform to to those biases.

Quote:These findings are consistent with prior research [...] The new and earlier research, some of which was carried about by Rios, shows that the stereotypes that atheists don't have a moral compass are overgeneralizations ...

I certainly agree with that. "Overgeneralizations" is a euphemism for "bullshit" in this case. In our day and age, atheists are often the most aggressive moral puritans.

Quote:"Although non-believers place less importance on group-based moral values than do believers, there is no evidence based on the measures used in these studies that non-believers are more amoral than believers."

But I don't believe the author's conclusion that it's more about group solidarity in the case of religious believers. Atheists are just as defensive of their own identities and group solidarity as anyone else. It's just that they are more likely to assume political identity than religious identity.

There might potentially be a hypothesis lurking there about the genesis of the growing political division that we've seen in recent years. More and more people are abandoning traditional religiosity. And to the extent that religion once helped anchor a person's sense of personal and group identity, all of these new "nones" are going to need to find themselves a new emotional home. And in many cases that might conceivably be political identity and purpose, as contrasted with the religious identity and purpose they once felt in their religious observances.

And I'm also curious how the authors purport to measure morality. How does one detect or measure it? How can morality be quantified? So what meaning is there in saying that there is no evidence that one group is more moral than the other? What kind of evidence could there be? Isn't it all a matter of intuition and interpretation? It's not an empirical matter.
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#6
Syne Offline
(Mar 1, 2021 07:18 PM)Yazata Wrote:
(Feb 25, 2021 06:59 AM)C C Wrote: https://www.livescience.com/moral-compas...evers.html

EXCERPTS: The moral compasses of atheists and believers are different in a few key ways, a new study finds.

A "study" reported in Live Science. (Sorry, I'm increasingly inclined to think that the word 'study' is a synonym for 'pretentious pseudo-scientific bullshit'. One reason why I like this board is that I can write that without triggering a general conniption fit.) So the first question is what is scientific about any of this?

Since this is just expanding upon the amply and cross-culturally verified Moral foundations theory, there's a pretty solid basis in science. But I generally share your trepidation on "studies" from the soft-sciences.

Quote:
Quote:In some aspects, the moral compass was incredibly alike between the two groups; they both highly rated fairness and protecting the well-being of vulnerable people, for instance, and both highly endorsed liberty but not oppression.

I bet that there's lots of division when those ideas are pushed aggressively away from airy ideals towards actual cases. Protecting the vulnerable may imply things like welfare statism in the minds of many. Liberty for people to choose what they want in their life and for their communities will seem like "populism" to those who insist that some vanguard party of "experts" must dictate what other people should want. But those divisions probably better correspond to political differences than religious differences. (Politics has taken over the social roles that religion once occupied in centuries past, like guardian of morality and purpose in life.)

My point is basically that all of this qualitative social science stuff really starts to depart from natural science norms when it comes down to details, definitions and examples of how things are interpreted. It's all ultimately subjective and dependent on the preconceptions, goals and values that the 'social scientists' are themselves bringing to the table.

That's the difference between the generalized values and the specific policy/moral prescriptions. Even hard science often has trouble dealing with the specifics, which is why it generalizes abstract laws and principles. Fairness for the right is proportionality, while fairness to the left is equality.

2) Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives.
https://moralfoundations.org/

We can see from their definition that proportionality is more fitting because equality often runs counter to rights and autonomy in practice. I think if you look into the Moral foundations theory, or watch any presentation by Jonathan Haidt, you'll find it very well thought out and justified by data.

Quote:
Quote:However, the groups diverged when it came to matters of group cohesion, such as valuing loyalty and respecting authority, the study found.

[...] differences between believers and disbelievers on the other three values: authority (respecting authority figures, such as police, parents and teachers), loyalty (being loyal to one's group, such as a country — not burning a country's flag, for instance) and sanctity (not doing anything perceived as degrading, usually in a sexual sense, such as being promiscuous).

Defining it all as 'loyalty' isn't really far from how I myself conceptualize it. But the religious people that the author is talking about probably wouldn't conceptualize it that way. Just think of Islamic law and its supposed foundations. Adherents of Shariah would justify it very differently, as a divine revelation. So why should a particular worldview be built in and presupposed in this kind of academic rhetoric?

I'm also curious about what justifies their own moral intuitions. What is really wrong with "racism" or using the word nigger? (Things that I assume that they perceive are self-evident evils.) Is it really any less about group solidarity?     

Faithfulness is just another word for loyalty. We can see differences between these groups, as one has more community and gatherings over commonalities (church, etc.) while the other only seems to be able to come together over shared hatreds (protests, riots, etc.). And some of it goes back to the Moral foundations theory focus on political identity, where even something like Trump supporters would definitely be described in terms of loyalty.

Quote:
Quote:"Those three values are thought to be serving group cohesion, keeping the group together [...] When it comes to the binding values, there's a dramatic difference [between the groups]. Religious people score much higher on those — they view [them] as much more relevant for being moral compared to the disbelievers."  In contrast, "atheists don't really think of [these three values] as relevant for morality to the same degree" ... The finding held even when ... controlled for political orientation...

Just try defending President Trump in a typical crowd of atheists and watch the reaction. For people who supposedly aren't morally concerned about 'group cohesion', they are awfully sensitive to and intolerant towards any perceived heresy in their group. I'm personally convinced that atheists and religious people are probably equally concerned with social cohesion. (That might arguably be a function of human nature.) The difference isn't what the author here is claiming, but merely that each group chooses to cohere around different symbols.

Social "scientists" can easily put their thumbs on the scale and make these kind of "studies" come out any way they want simply by wording things such that their own biases are built into their questions and then interpreting results to conform to to those biases.

But those railing against Trump are only united in their hatred. It's just a mutual reinforcement, not a genuine sense of protecting the group itself. As the left eating the left has demonstrated, step one foot out of line and even an otherwise devote leftist will be ostracized. Aside from online, atheists don't really cohere socially. At least nothing like the religious, who meet up in large groups often more than once a week.

Quote:
Quote:These findings are consistent with prior research [...] The new and earlier research, some of which was carried about by Rios, shows that the stereotypes that atheists don't have a moral compass are overgeneralizations ...

I certainly agree with that. "Overgeneralizations" is a euphemism for "bullshit" in this case. In our day and age, atheists are often the most aggressive moral puritans.

Puritanical and moralizing doesn't always equate to actually being moral, especially when moral relativism allows for constantly shifting mores. The only overgeneralization is saying that atheists are outright incapable of being moral. But correcting that doesn't change the fact that atheists do not express moral views along all the foundations.

Quote:
Quote:"Although non-believers place less importance on group-based moral values than do believers, there is no evidence based on the measures used in these studies that non-believers are more amoral than believers."

But I don't believe the author's conclusion that it's more about group solidarity in the case of religious believers. Atheists are just as defensive of their own identities and group solidarity as anyone else. It's just that they are more likely to assume political identity than religious identity.

There might potentially be a hypothesis lurking there about the genesis of the growing political division that we've seen in recent years. More and more people are abandoning traditional religiosity. And to the extent that religion once helped anchor a person's sense of personal and group identity, all of these new "nones" are going to need to find themselves a new emotional home. And in many cases that might conceivably be political identity and purpose, as contrasted with the religious identity and purpose they once felt in their religious observances. 

And I'm also curious how the authors purport to measure morality. How does one detect or measure it? How can morality be quantified? So what meaning is there in saying that there is no evidence that one group is more moral than the other? What kind of evidence could there be? Isn't it all a matter of intuition and interpretation? It's not an empirical matter.

Political identity just doesn't form the same group bonds as religious identity. Even among political identities, it's conservatives that have more group values, like patriotism, duty to country, respect for the flag, etc.. Solidarity as virtue-signalling is a very pale comparison to actual in-group loyalty. Antifa and BLM largely do not operate outside of lax leftist policies. That shows that they are groups of convenience rather than conviction.

They likely used the same questionnaire or data used in the Moral foundations theory, just controlling for political orientation. Those foundations where found by trail and error studying cross-cultural values. It is empirical. People may express values differently, but once they're boiled down to their basics, they can then be tested for validity. Not like the hard-sciences, but as well as anyone could expect for a soft-science.
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