REMAKING MORALITY

MORAL PERCEPTION

Engaging with moral views that conflict with our own is not easy. We’re wired to respond with outrage rather than curiosity when we witness some moral violation or hear someone espouse a view we disapprove of. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not important to negotiate rather than lash out. And negotiation doesn’t mean appeasement or conciliation. We can still argue our positions with vigour and passion. We can still condemn views that we believe are morally bankrupt. The big difference is we do so mindful of our own and others’ biases, of different perspectives on the good life, of the contingencies and uncertainties in understanding the problems we face, and the fact that if we can’t persuade everyone to our view, then we might have to admit some diversity and express some tolerance of difference.

This also means being mindful of our own tendency to use moral reasoning to. There’s a reason we teach stuff like maths, science and economics in school, but not how to decide if doughnuts taste good. Evolution equipped us to learn the latter just by eating things. But maths, science and economics are not ‘natural’. We can’t intuit good answers to problems in those domains. They often run counter to so-called common sense. We need to be educated in them precisely they’re not natural.