July 7, 2011

It would be hard, in so short an article, to list the number of logical blunders in Kristin Ohlson's "The End of Morality." It's meant to be a stunning piece, something to make us reel and tremble in astonishment that the latest science is sweeping away several millennia of moral muddling, and replacing it with precise neurological revelations of what morality really is. But Ohlson's piece ends up revealing only the shallow thinking, philosophical and moral, of the author and some scientists alike.

Here's a brief account of the allegedly astounding science. Researchers at Harvard's Moral Cognition Lab hook up participants to Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines that scan their brains. They then give these hapless subjects a "moral dilemma," and wait to see what part of the brain (if any) lights up on the MRI.

Why would that tell us anything about morality—let alone spell the "end of morality"? Actually, it doesn't. It is so foolish an experiment, that one is tempted to wonder if it spells the end of science. Let's look at the details of the experiment, so we can see the logical and philosophical leaks.

What kind of moral dilemmas did they give the subjects to think about while their brains were being scanned? Unsurprisingly, very artificial and extreme ones. For example, subjects were to imagine themselves watching a bicycle race. A hot dog vendor is selling wares out of his cart on a hill. Suddenly, the cart begins to roll down the hill, hurtling with ever more speed toward the cyclists. Subjects are to assume that this mere hot dog cart has enough speed and bulk to "kill dozens of cyclists."

That's a BIG cart, and those cyclists must be clustered on top of each other like ants on a drop of honey. But never mind, the point is that each subject in the MRI must decide whether (1) to leap up and push the hurtling cart away from the wad of cyclists, which causes it to careen into and kill three innocent bystanders, or (2) let the dozens of cyclists get creamed by the steamrolling hot dog stand because it is wrong to kill three people to save, say, 36 or 48 or perhaps even 60 people riding bikes.

As it turns out, the choices of the subjects snuggled away in the MRI were about even. Half imagined themselves leaping up to push the really BIG hot dog cart away from the 36 to 60 cyclists, and into the three innocent bystanders, and half refused to save the cyclists at the expense of three innocent bystanders. Apparently no one had the presence of mind to object, "But if a hot dog cart was large enough and had gained enough speed rolling down hill to kill dozens of people on bicycles, then it would be impossible for a single person to push it out of the way."

Be that as it may, what did the researchers conclude? As author Ohlson reports it, "The [MRI] scans were all marked by ghostly yellow blobs indicating areas of increased blood oxygen levels at the moment of judgment….All decision-making takes mental energy, so no surprise there. More intriguing were the scans from the volunteers who opted to save more lives [by pushing the cart into the three innocent bystanders]. These show noticeably brighter regions of yellow, suggesting that their decisions demanded significantly more brain power. To Greene and Cushman [the Harvard cognitive scientists manning the helm of the MRI] it appeared that reason was overriding an automatic, instinctual response."

From this, they conclude that what we call God-given conscience speaking to us within ("Don't kill innocent people for any reason!") is merely an emotion, a "gut reaction" that is  "hardwired into the brain" by evolution. On the other hand, doing mental-moral utilitarian calculus ("Let me see, n(12) — 3 > 3, where n is a positive integer between 2 and 5; therefore I shall push this cart into those 3 people") takes more "mental energy" (as measured by the MRI) and is therefore rational rather than instinctual. Consequently, such utilitarian calculus is more morally advanced.

One wonders how cognitive scientists evaded elementary logic. It doesn't' take much mental effort to see the problems. Imagine another Harvard MRI experiment. The subjects in the MRI imagine themselves to be subjects in an MRI experiment. They are given the following moral dilemma. Imagine that a rival scientist from Yale has offered you a one million dollar bribe to skew the results of the original Harvard experiment by trying to divide, mentally, 1435 by 17, and then, through a quick "eenie-meenie-meinie-moe" arbitrarily choosing to push the hot dog cart or not.

Note the following. The subjects that immediately choose "Do not deceive" would be labeled as responding to a mere evolutionary gut reaction. The subjects who think about it, weigh the pros and cons, especially in regard to what they might do with the money, and then choose to skew the experiment, would light up the yellow blobs far more brightly. But the Harvard cognitive scientists themselves depend upon the absolute truthfulness of their subjects. Yet, according to their "logic," those that deceive them for money are using their reason more, and hence are more morally advanced.

Our contrarian experiment shows how foolish it is to equate evidence of mental energy in an MRI with being more morally rational. The yellow blob on the MRI will show just as brightly if you are thinking about pushing the hot dog cart into the bystanders or simply trying to divide 1435 by 17 in your head. There is no connection between measurement of mental effort and the actual content of the thoughts.

Even worse, there is no connection between the measurement of mental effort and the truth or falsity of the reasoning. A person who can easily divide 1435 by 17 in his head will expend less mental energy than a person who, through much sweat and toil, gets the wrong answer but in the process causes the yellow blob on the MRI to glow like a 100 watt bulb.

But finally, and worst of all, there is no connection between the MRI measurement and caliber of the moral reasoning. As I've noted, such experiments depend upon the absolute truthfulness of the responses—not as something the subjects arrive at after much utilitarian weighing of benefits and costs, but as something they hold absolutely without question. Indeed, science itself depends upon the absolute truthfulness of scientists, and that's why even the scientists trying to prove that all morality is relative depend upon the absolute prohibition against lying, against the skewing of data to get desired results, and against the manipulation of subjects to get hoped-for responses.

If all that isn't enough to make us throw out the Harvard experiment, think on this. Imagine hooking an MRI up to German citizens in 1943. Each is asked whether it is right to ship Jews off in cattle cars to be executed. Those that immediately responded "Don't kill innocent people for any reason!" would be labeled as merely instinctual creatures, whereas those that weighed the benefits of a large-scale eugenic program, thought deeply about the relationship of Jewish banking to the economic situation in Germany, contemplated what it might mean for Germany to rule Europe, and then chose to send the Jews to their deaths would light up the MRI, and be deemed more rational, and hence more moral.

Response to Marriage Delayed

"With all the education we receive up through college to prepare us to make a living, when do we ever take a course in how to make a life? What will cause the greatest happiness or heartache in students' lives: their vocation or their relationships? The answer is obvious; it probably will not be their vocation, so let's teach them how to choose wisely for marriage and how to stay married as part of their college education." With the above reasoning, I prevailed upon Fresno Pacific University in 2008 to teach a Sociology short course entitled, "Building Lasting Relationships." The reviews have been over the top, including, "Where was this information, this textbook, five or 12 years ago?" - Rev. R. M.

Ironically, feminism has turned males into the “weaker sex” with devastating consequences to women in general. National Public Radio (NPR) offered some interesting commentary to that effect in its “Morning Edition,” May 17, 2005. Here’s what NPR had to say… Since the 1980′s, women have earned more undergraduate degrees than men each year. That gap has grown to where this spring 200,000 more women than men will receive a degree (out of a total of about 1.6 million graduates). Tom Mortenson at the Study for Opportunity in Higher Education says many colleges are asking, “Where have all the men gone?” He believes that the success of women is to be applauded, but that the challenge of fewer and fewer men with degrees may present a problem, especially as the economy has fewer “traditionally male” jobs, such as manufacturing which now represents only 11% of all jobs and continues to decline. Women have done a much better job fitting into the fast growing private service sector. (NPR Morning Edition May 17, 2005) And level of education is just one of the “quality of life” indicators in which males lag females. Males fall behind females in involvement in crime, victimization by crime, health, longevity, suicide, mental health, drugs, control of wealth, and on and on. - B. B.