Gain Access To Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, And The Gap Between Us And Them Imagined By Joshua D. Greene Disseminated As Pamphlet

really wanted to like this book a lot, because it is aiming at a very important question, and the author has done his research.
Unfortunately, just because you have the right weapon and the right target, doesn't mean you hit the mark.


The target, in this case, is what happens when numerous tribes whose morality systems largely intuitive, which work fine within their own societies, impinge upon each other as with globalization.


The weapon, is all the science that's been done in the lastyears about how the human brain thinks about moral issues.
We know orders of magnitude more about this than when, for example, Mill and Kant and Bentham and others thought about this several centuries ago.
We have testable predictions about what changes people's opinions on moral issues, and how the different parts of the human brain interact with each other and with culture to produce our moral responses to things like violence, selfishness, novelty, sex, and so forth.
Greene's overview of this is actually quite good, and anyone who isn't aware of all of this research would do well to start with this book as a survey.


The problem is that, armed with this and a metamorality that Greene calls "deep pragmatism", a kind of modernized utilitarianism, he then attempts to determine whether we can find a better way to resolve moral disputes between "tribes".
The theory is that, since our instincts and intuitions are irreconcilably different, only an appeal to conscious reason informed by scientific facts can offer a way out of the morass besides just fighting it out, of course.


So far, so plausible, but the conclusions that Greene arrives at look suspiciously identical to the typical liberalwithadashoflibertarianism thatof all academics arrive at by following their instincts.
The low point is probably when, in a discussion of abortion, he pronounces the conservative argument as "too good", and settles conveniently on the only conclusion that would not have alienated his peers.


It's not so much even his conclusions that I disagree with, though I disagree occasionally, it's rather the idea he has that anyone who doesn't already agree with them will be convinced by his argument any more than the quicker, and in some ways more honest, assertion of one's position as being morally right and beyond question.


In many ways it reminds me of Daniel Dennett's attempts to appear that he was considering religious views in a dispassionate way in "Breaking the Spell".
No one who wasn't already convinced, will be convinced, If I found it to be biased and headed towards a predetermined conclusion, surely no religious and/or conservative reader will do otherwise.


In Greene's case, though, he is at least shining a light on the right question, and as mentioned earlier providing a pretty good survey of the relevant science of the lastyears.
Good. But not great, and not up to the task he seems to set himself, Our brains were designed for tribal life, for getting along with a select group of others Us and for fighting off everyone else Them.
But modern times have forced the worlds tribes into a shared space, resulting in epic clashes of values along with unprecedented opportunities.
As the world shrinks, the moral lines that divide us become more salient and more puzzling, We fight over everything from tax codes to gay marriage to global warming, and we wonder where, if at all, we can find our common ground.


A grand synthesis of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, Moral Tribes reveals the underlying causes of modern conflict and lights the way forward.
Greene compares the human brain to a dualmode camera, with pointandshoot automatic settings “portrait,” “landscape” as well as a manual mode.
Our pointandshoot settings are our emotionsefficient, automated programs honed by evolution, culture, and personal experience, The brains manual mode is its capacity for deliberate reasoning, which makes our thinking flexible, Pointandshoot emotions make us social animals, turning Me into Us, But they also make us tribal animals, turning Us against Them, Our tribal emotions make us fightsometimes with bombs, sometimes with wordsoften with lifeanddeath stakes,

An awardwinning teacher and scientist, Greene directs Harvard Universitys Moral Cognition Lab, which uses cuttingedge neuroscience and cognitive techniques to understand how people really make moral decisions.
Combining insights from the lab with lessons from decades of social science and centuries of philosophy, the great question of Moral Tribes is this: How can we get along with Them when what they want feels so wrong to Us

Ultimately, Greene offers a set of maxims for navigating the modern moral terrain, a practical road map for solving problems and living better lives.
Moral Tribes shows us when to trust our instincts, when to reason, and how the right kind of reasoning can move us forward.
A major achievement from a rising star in a new scientific field, Moral Tribes will refashion your deepest beliefs about how moral thinking works and how it can work better.
Greene places moral theory on a biological foundation, His focus is our tribal nature, Its a point that Darwin covered in “The Descent of Man” and Greene brings this topic back to life.
He argues that we are able to overcome our tribal morality that operates more or less automatically to merge us with our group, but not beyond.
Greene argues for a utilitarian approach that involves following a camera metaphor “manual control” where we intentionally direct our behavior to promote the happiness of all.
He calls a transcendent principle to “maximize happiness impartially” a “metamorality, ” If “all else is equal,” he states, “we prefer to increase the total amount of happiness across people.
”

The weakness of this argument is his assertion that we care about the happiness of all.
For everyone who is as Greene states who with prompting can overcome their tribal propensities, there are others who are indifferent or who seek to promote their own advantage at the others expense if they can get away with it via deception, manipulation, overpowering.
Both work as survival strategies and we see these poles of human behavior and everything in between.
Darwins theory rests on variation, Animals differ in “personality” and “disposition” and theres no reason why variation in us should not apply to our behavioral propensities as

well as our obvious physical differences.


A second problem is that opposing positions group vs, group tribe vs. tribe are in Greene's view reconciled by a pragmatic assessment of the evidence, Greene refers to himself as a member of a liberal “meta tribe” that follows a deep pragmatistutilitarian ethic to make the world “a happier place” for everyone.
“Why,” he asks, “would we ever want to make the world less happy than it could otherwise be” Greene then applies his ethic to the abortion debate and comes out with a prochoice stance based on reasoned evidence.
But thats not the way it works, Former Senator Santorum speaks for the “antiabortion tribe whose happiness is inherently at odds with the prochoice position.
While public debate can enlighten and bring some people together, Haidt is right: in the end, moral judgments are about values and emotionbased orientations.
Most often, we do values, not facts,

Greenes moral prescription also tends to leave the body behind, Greene argues that we can become a “global tribe that looks out for its members, not to gain advantage over others, but simply because its good.
” He wants to move from the moral feeling of the heart to the thinking morality of the brain.
But thats an artificial separation, Thinking per se motivates nothing unless it taps into something inside that cares, We dont leave emotion behind as he suggests, Consciousness helps us to see when our broader interests are involved, An alternative perspective is to tie moral behavior back to the selfs interest, either because we identify with the situation of others we naturally “care” or because we see, pragmatically, that our interest is tied up with the interest of others.
To be fair to Greene, he may be making the same argument about the need to respect the interests of everyone.
But he sees the sole motivating factor as a “care” for the happiness of others, While a good many do care in the way that Greene sees, a good many do not.
They can, though, be persuaded to transcend their personal or groupcentric interests if they see them tied up, as Hobbes argued, in the interests of the greater whole.
Yet, even so, there are the hardcore ego or groupcentric people who see the world only in “us” vs.
“them” terms. And this is where counterpower state, group, individual, as opposed to reasoned persuasion, must be used to protect the interest of the whole.


As a final point, Greenes account of the origins of cooperation strikes me as suspect.
He argues that morality evolved as a solution to the problem surrounding intergroup competition for resources he repeatedly uses the tragedy of the commons example.
In doing so, and despite his repeated disavowals, he lapses close to Darwins largely discredited notion of group selection when he states that cooperation evolved for “successful intergroup competition.
” But differential reproductive success need not involve competitive pressures with other groups, The challenges faced in the early hominid line were survival from whatever source, not just competing groups, and the individuals chances of success depended on being a member of a group in good standing rather than isolated and alone.
Following Dawkinss extended phenotype notion, it could be that the group is an extension of the individuals selfinterest and, as Darwin argued, the social instincts evolved to ensure merger and solidarity with a group.


“Our strategy should not be to compromise with tribal moralists, but rather to persuade them to be less tribalistic,” Greene writes.


For Daniel Kahnemanand, earlier Joseph LeDoux, mind and emotion work together and, more accurately stated, mind serves the interest of the passions per Hume by, in part, placing a broader context around our interests.
As opposed to one replacing the other, Kahneman integrates reason his Systemwith emotion his System,

Greene dismisses the capacity of science to establish moral truths, Yet, as with medicine where the doctor prescribes for health, here it is, staring us in the face.
Its a deductive logic based on biological survival and wellbeing: if everyone acts without regard for the interests of the other, than we all suffer.
The extension of this logic is to insist on respect for the rule of impartiality and the golden rule in making and enforcing laws that govern intra and intergroup behavior.


Greene writes that “Evolution might favor people who are nice to their neighbors, but it might also favor people with genocidal tendencies.
” and “Today we know that natural selection can promote nice behavior as well as nasty behavior” Greene is referring to the downside of tribal morality, but these statements, stated in this hardcore way, work against his argument that, with reasoned prompting, we can be persuaded to care for the happiness of those outside our tribe.

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