5 moral foundations b

Moral Foundations Theory was created to understand why morality varies so much across cultures yet still shows so many similarities and recurrent themes.

In brief, the theory proposes that five innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of "intuitive ethics." Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world, and conflicting within nations too. The foundations are:

1) Harm/care, related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. This foundation underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.

2) Fairness/reciprocity, related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. This foundation generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy.

3) Ingroup/loyalty, related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. This foundation underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one."

4) Authority/respect, shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. This foundaiton underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.

5) Purity/sanctity, shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. This foundation underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).

Much of our present research involves applying the theory to political "cultures" such as those of liberals and conservatives. The current American culture war, we have found, can be seen as arising from the fact that liberals try to create a morality relying almost exclusively on the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity foundations; conservatives, especially religious conservatives, use all five foundations, including Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. You can find out your own moral foundations profile at www.YourMorals.org   

http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/mft/index.php

5 moral foundations

Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory looks at the way morality varies between cultures and identifies five fundamental moral values shared to a greater or lesser degree by different societies and individuals. These are;

1. Care for others, protecting them from harm

2. Fairness, Justice, treating others equally.

3. Loyalty to your group, family, nation

4. Respect for tradition and legitimate authority.

5. Purity, avoiding disgusting things, foods, actions.

Haidt found that Americans who identified as Conservatives valued all of these equally but those who identified as Liberals valued care and fairness much more highly than loyalty, respect and purity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

http://thesciencenetwork.org/BeyondBelief2/watch/haidt.php

Touching the Earth

Transcription of a talk by Thich Nhat Hahn

http://www.haustao.ch/n1/dhammic.htm

As more and more people suffer the pain of being uprooted from their culture, we need more than ever to come into contact with our own heritage and with the positive seeds of our tradition. The moment we feel happy, society already begins to be transformed, and others feel some happiness too. When someone in society discovers his true identity, we all find our identity. This is the principle of interbeing. Even though our society has caused us pain, suffering, internal formations and illness, we have to open our arms and embrace society in complete acceptance. We have to go back to our society with the intention to rebuild society and enrich its life by offering the appropriate therapies for its illnesses. I would like to offer an exercise that can help to do this. It is called Touching the Earth.

In each of us, there are many kinds of ideas, notions, attachments, and discrimination. This practice involves bowing down and touching the Earth, emptying ourselves, and surrendering to Earth. You touch the Earth with your forehead, your two hands, your two feet, and you surrender to your true nature, accepting any form of life your true nature offers you. Surrender your pride, hopes, ideas, fears, and notions. Empty yourself of all resentment you feel toward anyone. Surrender everything, and empty yourself completely. To do this is the best way to replenish yourself. If you do not exhale and empty your lungs, how can fresh air enter?

In this practice, the body and the mind work together in harmony to form a perfect whole. We prostrate ourselves six times to help us realize our deep connection to our own roots:

The first bow is directed towards all generations of ancestors in our blood family. Our parents are our most recent, closest ancestors, and through them we connect the generations that have preceded us. If we are on good terms with our parents, the connection is easy. But if we are not, we have to empty our resentment and reconnect with them. Our parents had seeds of love and trust they wanted to transmit to us, but perhaps they were not able to do so. Instead of transmitting loving kindness and trust, they transmitted suffering and anger. The practice is to look deeply and see that we are a continuation of our parents and our ancestors. When we understand the "emptiness of transmission", reconciliation is possible. Bowing down, touching the Earth, we should be able to surrender the idea of our separate self and become one with our ancestors. Only then is true communion possible and the energy of our ancestors able to flow into us.

The second bow is directed towards Buddhist ancestors who came before us, those who have transmitted these teachings and practices to us for more than 25 centuries. 

The third bow is directed towards our land and toward the ancestors who made it available to us.

The fourth is for channeling and transmitting the energy of loving kindness to those we love. We touch the Earth, look deeply into our relationship, and see how we can improve it.

The fifth bow is directed towards those who have made us suffer. Looking deeply, we see that these people suffer also and do not possess the insight to prevent their suffering from spilling over onto others. Motivated by compassion, we want to share our energy with these persons, hoping it will help them to suffer less and be able to enjoy some peace and happiness.

The sixth bow is directed towards our own spiritual ancestors. If we are lucky, it may be easy for us to connect with representatives of our spiritual tradition  - our rabbi, pastor, or priest. But if we have had problems with such persons, our effort is to understand how they themselves were not able to receive the jewels of the tradition. Instead of feeling resentment toward them, we vow to go back and rediscover the jewels of our tradition ourselves. Getting connected with our church, synagogue, rabbi, or priest will enable us to touch all our spiritual ancestors.

Open Library: Details: mindfulofthebody00thanmiss

Open Library: Details: mindfulofthebody00thanmiss

Zencast

Zencast

Zen Proverbs, Sayings and Quotes

Zen Proverbs, Sayings and Quotes

Osho, what is meditation?

Osho, what is meditation?

Relatively absolute

George G Clark, 04 August 2008

I still hanker after the  correct answer, after the truth, after cognitive closure. And this is despite an intellectual appreciation of the postmodern position. There remains a feeling that 'they' know and that it is 'our' job to fall in line with their viewpoints. Hegemony and elegant power reign supreme.

Postmodernists talk of the social construction of reality and of the death of metanarrative. We cannot know things as they are in themselves we can know only the perceptions that we build from our conceptions. Cultural relativism: anything goes?

But mystics speak of another kind of knowing, of a perennial philosophy. This is most often  effectively dormant and unseen because the chatter of the normal (intellectual) mind drowns it out. But IF the chatter is stilled THEN the inner mind kicks in. This makes the paucity of normal perceptions and viewpoints immediately clear. Numinousness appears and the limitations of the normal phenomenal mind become blatantly obvious.

This other kind of knowing might be thought of as relatively absolute. Absolute because it is built in to all human brains and relative because it is found only in human brains and only when the cultural dust is removed from the mirror mind. Might a key social task be to popularise the notion of turning your mind around and thus liberating your full potential as a human being?

"Jean-Jacques Rousseau made the famous revolutionary pronouncement that: 'Men are born free, and everywhere are in chains'. A couple of centuries later that still holds truth for us, but now we see that the strongest chains are symbolic ones, mind forged manacles." (Anderson, p219)

 

Digging deeper:

The reference list could be very long. I will mention only a few sources that have recently enthralled me:

Anderson, Walter Truett (1996 Ed) The Fontana post-modern reader; ISBN 0006863701 Anderson's link pieces are particularly clear and useful

Mind and Life Institute (2003) Destructive Emotions and how to overcome them – a dialogue with the Dalai Lama narrated by Daniel Goleman; ISBN 0747561826 – the cutting edge findings from the brains of ace meditators studied by ace scientists.

Gunaratana, Henepola (1991) Mindfulness in Plain English; ISBN 0861710649 – the text is also available on a website.

And Dharma talks about the practice of mindfulness by the good people at Dharma Seed. There is a long list to choose from (including Gunaratana): I personally like the clarity and quiet good humour of Steve Armstrong and Carol Wilson.

Disciplined Democracy

George Clark, 28 July 2008

"It is not by accident that we come by our 'common sense'. People who think freely and independently are quick to realise how they have been taught to imprison and enslave themselves. In breaking free they become the champions of un-common sense. May their thoughts be clear, fruitful and infectious." [George Clark]

Discipline is what causes you to behave this way rather than that. In a democracy there are rules about how to behave. In a well disciplined democracy there will be forms of both  external and internal discipline and these can be thought of as more or less right or wrong. The following box suggests four main patterns:

	Right	Wrong
Internal discipline	Freely chosen	Culturally absorbed
External discipline	Negotiated	Imposed

 

Right internal discipline is freely chosen. This suggests a cool review of the options and a rational/emotional choice about which one to run with. BUT what are the causes and conditions for your choosing one option over another? (see next example)

Wrong internal discipline is culturally absorbed. We are social animals. We absorb the culture in which we are raised. This remains hidden till we are exposed to people from different cultures. This can lead to fanatical behaviour. In these post-modern times we must learn to live with cultural relativism and its attendant uncertainties.

Wrong external discipline is imposed. "Do it this way." "Why?"  "Because I tell you." The power relationship can be within the family, community, tribe, nation, and so on. It tends to lead to unthinking obedience which is rarely ideal in the long term.

Right external discipline is negotiated. IF we are to be social animals living in a pluralist democracy where the rights of the individual are to be respected THEN coercion must be at least 'reasonable' and at best negotiated. The watchwords would be consultation, participation and ownership.

"Cultural influences have set up the assumptions about the mind, the body, and the universe with which we begin; pose the questions we ask; influence the facts we seek; determine the interpretations we give these facts; and direct our reaction to these interpretations and conclusions." [Gunnar Myrdal]	"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." [Sir Winston Churchill]
"If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves." [Howard Zinn]	"Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power." [Lao Tzu]

 

More on hegemony at http://www.caledonia.org.uk/hegemony.htm

Ram Dass interviews Thich Nhat Hahn