Moral Psychology Research Group

Professor Roy Baumeister & Professor Richard Holton - 16 May 2016 - Moral Virtue and Self-Control

Moral Psychology Interdisciplinary Conference

9 October 2015

PANEL SYMPOSIUM 2: On Responsibility and Control

Moral Psychology Interdisciplinary Conference

9 October 2015

PANEL SYMPOSIUM 2: On Responsibility and Control

Professor Eve-Marie Engels (Philosophy, University of Tübingen)

Professor Martin Richards (Psychology, University of Cambridge)

Chaired by Dr Vasanti Jadva (Psychology, University of Cambridge)

Abstracts

Prof Eve-Marie Engels: In Vitro Fertilization and its Long-Term Challenges

For many people the primary purpose of the introduction of IVF was to alleviate infertility by assisted conception and to help couples to become parents. However, after its successful introduction IVF provided a range of further options, like preimplantation genetic diagnosis, embryonic stem cell research, and “social freezing”, the freezing of young women’s eggs with the option of thawing them for fertilisation in later life under more appropriate circumstances. All these techniques are bound up with a variety of ethical and social problems which have to be addressed.

Prof Martin Richards: Ethical challenges in the use of reproductive donation

The prime ethical issues in collaborative reproduction involving the use of donor insemination concern the relationships of the child with the intending parents and the donor. The historical development of arguments about the status of sperm donor offspring will be outlined and I will discuss contemporary ethical challenges in the use of donor sperm.

About the Speakers

Professor Eve-Marie Engels studied philosophy and biology in Bochum, Germany, where she also received her PhD. The topic of her doctoral dissertation was the problem of teleology in the philosophy of science, and she specialised in evolutionary epistemology. She held positions in Germany and the USA before taking on the first German chair for bioethics in Tübingen in 1996. She has published numerous articles and books on topics ranging from philosophy of science to applied ethics to Charles Darwin. She is a member of the International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities which investigates the question of responsibility and applied ethics from an interdisciplinary perspective. From 2001 to 2011, she was spokeswoman of said centre. From 2004 to 2013, she was also spokeswoman of the graduate school "Bioethics" which was funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation). Prof Engels has also held various advisory positions for policy-makers such as memberships of the German Ethics Council (2001-2007) and the scientific advisory board of the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (since 2014).

Professor Martin Richards gained his PhD in Zoology at Cambridge, on maternal behaviour in the golden hamster. During his postdoctoral work at Harvard and Princeton, Prof Richards’ interests shifted towards maternal behaviour in our own species, and he returned to Cambridge to found what was to become the Centre for Family Research. Since his retirement from the Directorship of the Centre in 2005, he has continued a prolific and diverse research programme focussing on family life, on the meaning of ‘genetic connection’ in the context of alternative reproductive technologies, and most recently on the ethical issues surrounding research participation. In 2013 Prof Richards was invited to chair a Working Party at the Nuffield Council on Bioethics on 'Collecting, linking, use and exploitation of biological and health data: ethical issues'. He is Vice Chair of the UK Biobank Ethics and Governance Council and has previously served six years as a member of the Ethics and Law Committee of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority. Currently, Prof Richards is preparing the third in a three-part series of edited volumes on alternative reproductive technologies, entitled 'Regulating Reproductive Donation'.

The Trolley Problem: Has the Obsession with Sacrificial Dilemmas Derailed Moral Psychology?

Professor David Pizarro (Psychology, Cornell)

Professor Guy Kahane (Philosophy, Oxford)

Chaired by Dr Sophia Connell (Philosophy, Cambridge)

Abstracts:

Trolley dilemmas and their variants have utterly dominated recent work in empirical moral psychology. It is assumed that such dilemmas shed light on psychological basis of the fundamental ethical division between utilitarian and deontological approaches to ethics. Prof Pizarro and Dr Kahane will address this assumption, and discuss the original philosophical purposes of trolley dilemmas, empirical findings from studies employing such dilemmas, and methodological alternatives.

About the speakers:

Prof Pizarro is a leading researcher in the area of moral judgments, intuitions, and biases. He also studies the influence of emotion on decision-making, with a particular focus on how specific emotions (e.g., disgust, fear) impact information processing and interpersonal judgments.

Dr Kahane is the Deputy Director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. He is a Research Fellow at Pembroke College and a recipient of a Wellcome Trust University Award. His research areas include practical ethics, neuroethics, meta-ethics, and value theory.

The Trolley Problem: Has the Obsession with Sacrificial Dilemmas Derailed Moral Psychology?

Professor David Pizarro (Psychology, Cornell)

Professor Guy Kahane (Philosophy, Oxford)

Chaired by Dr Sophia Connell (Philosophy, Cambridge)

Abstracts:

Trolley dilemmas and their variants have utterly dominated recent work in empirical moral psychology. It is assumed that such dilemmas shed light on psychological basis of the fundamental ethical division between utilitarian and deontological approaches to ethics. Prof Pizarro and Dr Kahane will address this assumption, and discuss the original philosophical purposes of trolley dilemmas, empirical findings from studies employing such dilemmas, and methodological alternatives.

About the speakers:

Prof Pizarro is a leading researcher in the area of moral judgments, intuitions, and biases. He also studies the influence of emotion on decision-making, with a particular focus on how specific emotions (e.g., disgust, fear) impact information processing and interpersonal judgments.

Dr Kahane is the Deputy Director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. He is a Research Fellow at Pembroke College and a recipient of a Wellcome Trust University Award. His research areas include practical ethics, neuroethics, meta-ethics, and value theory.

What is the Nature of Human Morality?

Professor Shaun Nichols (Arizona)

Abstract

Prof Nichols: Philosophical observation and psychological studies indicate that people draw subtle distinctions in the normative domain. But it remains unclear exactly what gives rise to such distinctions. On one prominent approach, emotion systems trigger non-utilitarian judgments. The main alternative, inspired by Chomskyan linguistics, suggests that moral distinctions derive from an innate moral grammar. We develop a rational learning account. We argue that the “size principle”, which is implicated in word learning (Xu & Tenenbaum 2007), can also explain how children would use scant and equivocal evidence to interpret candidate rules as applying more narrowly than utilitarian rules.

Shaun Nichols is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. A pioneer of the emerging discipline of ‘experimental philosophy’, Prof Nichols is interested in the psychological processes underlying our everyday moral intuitions, moral reasoning and moral decision-making – and in how understanding these processes can shed light on classic and contemporary questions in morality and ethics. More specifically, his research has brought an empirically-informed lens to bear on a range of philosophical questions including free will, moral responsibility and blameworthiness, and notions of self and personal identity. He is author of three edited volumes and two books (Sentimental Rules and Mindreading), and has been published in such prestigious journals as Mind and Language and the Journal of Philosophy.

Professor Jesse Prinz (Philosophy, City University of New York)

Professor Molly Crockett (Neuroscience, University of Oxford)

Chaired by Dr Simone Schnall (Psychology, University of Cambridge)

Abstract

Empathy is widely and increasingly heralded as an essential ingredient of morality. It is said to be necessary for moral development, moral motivation, and even for comprehending the moral domain. But is empathy really important for morality? Prof Jesse Prinz and Prof Molly Crockett will address these claims and engage in a discussion and Q&A session. Prof Prinz argues that empathy is in fact not necessary for morality, and it may even be harmful. Because empathy can bias us towards our near and dear, and blind us to demands of justice, we should look beyond empathy in developing recommendations about how to instill moral competence and encourage moral commitment. For Prof Crockett, answering the question of whether empathy is necessary to morality has been difficult due to the limitations of methods for measuring morality in the lab. Most research on human morality has relied on hypothetical judgments but there is evidence that hypothetical judgments are poor predictors of real moral decisions. In her talk she will describe newly developed methods for quantifying morality in the lab and present the results of a series of behavioral experiments investigating how people disvalue the pain of strangers relative to their own pain. These studies provide empirical data bearing on the question of whether empathy is important and necessary for morality.

Professor Jesse J. Prinz is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and director of the Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies at the City University of New York. He has published over 100 articles on several topics in moral psychology, philosophy, and consciousness. His books include The Conscious Brain, Beyond Human Nature, and many others. A leading advocate of empirical approaches to philosophical questions, Prof Prinz emphasizes the role of culture and emotion in shaping human morals.

Professor Molly Crockett is an Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. Her pioneering work on the neural basis of altruism and morality has been published in top journals including Science and PNAS, and has been covered by the New York Times, BBC, Scientific American, and others. Prof Crockett is intrigued by how individuals reconcile multiple conflicting motives in moral decision-making, and how neuroscience can help individuals make better decisions.

Professor Dr Todd Hare (Zurich)

Dr Lubomira Radoilska (Kent/Cambridge)

Professor Roger Crisp (Philosophy, Oxford)

Professor Andrew MacLeod (Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London)

Abstract

This event focuses on the empirical psychological and philosophical questions surrounding well-being and the good life. It will be chaired by Dr. Gillian Sandstrom (Psychology, University of Cambridge) and will include presentations by Prof. Crisp (5pm) and Prof. MacLeod (6pm), each followed by discussion between speakers and Q&A.

Professor Roger Crisp is a Uehiro fellow and professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. His work is dedicated to fundamental questions about the nature of well-being and the role of virtue in a well-lived life. He is the author of Mill on Utilitarianism (1997) and Reasons and the Good (2006) and editor of The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics (2013), among many others.

Professor Andrew MacLeod is a professor of Clinical Psychology and director of the clinical doctorate program of the Royal Holloway University of London. He is a leading researcher in the field of mental health and well-being, and adopts a positive psychological approach to the design of clinical and nonclinical interventions.