Let's talk about optimality theory. And also ethics.

[maradydd]

Lately I have much been enjoying the blog Slate Star Codex, which treads in sparkling prose much of the same rationality, ethics, cognitive science, &c ground that Less Wrong has gotten bad about stomping into dittoheady mud lately. By which I mean it's actually good and stuff. One recent post sparked off some recollections from, of all things,

Comments

[whswhs]

Haidt's moral foundations are kind of interesting, but I think he misses a couple of things I would want to look at

[maradydd]

I was under the impression that the purity axis also included dietary restrictions, menstrual taboos, the Hawaiian kapu system, &c. Does Haidt explicitly exclude that? I didn't think he was; the three purity-related questions on part 1 of the 30-item inventory are "Whether or not someone violated standards of purity and decency," "Whether or not someone did something disgusting," and "Whether or not someone acted in a way that God would approve of," and on part 2 they're "People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed," "I would call some acts wrong on the grounds that they are unnatural," and "Chastity is an important and valuable virtue." While all of these can certainly be interpreted with respect to sexual propriety or impropriety, they're certainly broad enough to cover every purity-related custom I've been able to think of so far

[whswhs]

If so, that's a bit better. I don't recall seeing that larger version, and the accounts of it I've read (including some of his) seem to only name sexual conduct as a focus, but I may have missed the fuller accounts.

However, the more specific point I have in mind is that he does not consider green concerns as driven by a purity ethos, and to me that looks like a really strong theme in environmentalism-by no means all of it, but when, for example, you have people saying that a Pigovian pollution tax is morally unacceptable because it amounts to accepts some pollution as tolerable and simply reducing it, when it should be banned entirely, that looks to me like fear of impurity/pollution rather than rational assessment of harm/risk. I think that perhaps Haidt is so accustomed to thinking that liberals are rational and conservatives are emotional that he doesn't recognize emotion when it's over their on his side, even though his analytical framework is quite capable of identifying it.

[maradydd]

The inventory used to be 41 questions, but apparently they threw out 10 that weren't contributing well to measurement and made some other changes. Maybe you only saw the 20-question version? (They prefer the 30-question one, apparently.)

I absolutely agree that purity is a strong driver for many greens (see below), and this actually dovetails with some research I'm doing later this summer. I'd love to get your input on it, actually -- mind if I drop you an email about it? (It may be a few days, as my parents are visiting through Saturday and so I'm not spending a huge amount of time online right now.)