{"id":992,"date":"2015-02-18T21:38:07","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T05:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=992"},"modified":"2015-02-18T21:38:07","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T05:38:07","slug":"behavioral-science-versus-moral-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=992","title":{"rendered":"Behavioral science versus moral judgment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"General<\/a>George S. Patton, Jr.\u00a0commanded the\u00a0Seventh United States Army, and later the\u00a0Third Army, in the\u00a0European Theater\u00a0of\u00a0World War II. \u00a0General Patton, a brilliant strategist as well as larger-than-life fount\u00a0of harsh words and strong opinions, was also infamous<\/a>\u00a0for confronting two soldiers diagnosed with\u00a0“combat fatigue” \u2014 now known as\u00a0post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD \u2014 in Sicily in August of 1943. \u00a0(One such incident was\u00a0depicted in the classic 1970 film\u00a0“Patton<\/a>” starring George C. Scott.) \u00a0Patton called the men cowards, slapped their faces, threatened to shoot one on the spot, and angrily ordered them back to the front lines. \u00a0He directed his officers\u00a0to discipline any soldier making similar complaints. \u00a0Patton’s commanding officer, General Eisenhower, firmly condemned the incidents and insisted that Patton apologize. \u00a0Patton did so reluctantly, always maintaining that combat fatigue was a pretext for “cowardice in the face of the enemy.”<\/p>\n

Seventy years have passed, yet as a society we still feel the tension between moral approval or disapproval on the one hand, and value-neutral scientific or psychological description on the other. \u00a0Cowardice is a character flaw, a moral lapse, a weakness. \u00a0PTSD, in contrast, is a syndrome that afflicts the virtuous\u00a0and the vile\u00a0alike. \u00a0We similarly\u00a0declare violent criminals evil \u2014 unless they are judged insane, in which case\u00a0our moral condemnation suddenly feels misplaced.\u00a0 Likewise, a student who is lazy or careless needs to shape up to avoid our scorn; a student with ADHD, in contrast, is a victim, not a bad person.<\/p>\n

Personality descriptors \u2014\u00a0brave, cowardly, rebellious, compliant, curious, lazy, perceptive, criminal, and many more\u00a0\u2014 feel incompatible with\u00a0knowledge of our minds and brains. \u00a0It seems the more we explain the roots of human behavior, the less we can pass moral judgment on\u00a0it. \u00a0It doesn’t matter if the explanation is biological\u00a0(e.g., brain tumor, febrile delirium, seizure) or psychological (e.g., PTSD, childhood abuse, “raised that way”). \u00a0However, perhaps because we feel we know our own minds best, it does seem to matter if we are accounting for ourselves versus others. \u00a0We usually\u00a0explain our own behavior in terms of value-neutral external contingencies \u2014 I’m late because I had a lot to do\u00a0today, not because I’m unreliable \u2014 and more apt to tar\u00a0others with a\u00a0personality judgment\u00a0such as “unreliable.” \u00a0This finding, the Fundamental Attribution Error<\/a>, has been a staple of social psychology research for decades.<\/p>\n

Will we eventually\u00a0replace moral\u00a0judgments\u00a0of others with medical or psychological explanations that lack a\u00a0blaming or praising tone? \u00a0It appears our inclination\u00a0to judge others\u00a0will not pass quietly. \u00a0Much of the rancor between the political Left and Right concerns the applicability of\u00a0moral language. \u00a0Are felons bad people, or merely raised the wrong way? \u00a0Are the poor lazy and entitled, or trapped in poverty by circumstance? \u00a0Was General Patton disciplining cowards\u00a0who were shirking their duty, or was he verbally and physically abusing soldiers who had already been victimized?<\/p>\n

The Left and Right disagree over where to draw the line. \u00a0But no matter how far we progress in our brain and behavioral sciences, we will still want\u00a0to voice judgments\u00a0of others \u2014 and negative judgments\u00a0seem the more compelling. \u00a0Humans are notoriously inventive in the use of language to denigrate. \u00a0Originally neutral clinical terms like “idiot” and “moron” (and “retarded” and “deluded” and many more)\u00a0eventually\u00a0became terms of derision. \u00a0Euphemisms like “juvenile delinquent” didn’t stay euphemistic for long. \u00a0While it may blunt the sharpness of\u00a0our\u00a0\u00a0scorn in the short term, “politically correct” language\u00a0won’t change this aspect of human nature in any lasting way.<\/p>\n

Even logic doesn’t stop us. \u00a0For example,\u00a0terrorists are routinely called cowards in public discourse, although it isn’t clear why. \u00a0Many terrorists voluntarily die in their efforts, an act considered\u00a0heroic, or at least brave, in other contexts. \u00a0They often attack civilian rather than military targets. \u00a0But we did that in WWII, and we<\/em> weren’t cowards. \u00a0They use guile, sneak onto planes, employ distraction and misdirection\u00a0\u2014\u00a0like our “cowardly” Special Forces do. \u00a0The point is, we find terrorists despicable, but that isn’t a strong enough putdown. \u00a0If we didn’t call them cowards, we’d have to call them something else to humiliate them. \u00a0Mama’s boys?<\/p>\n

Humans are a funny species. \u00a0Uniquely striving for intellectual understanding, yet not so far from the other beasts who purr or growl or screech their approval\u00a0or protest. \u00a0Balancing the aims of morality and science is the stuff of constant, and perhaps endless, political debate. \u00a0Ultimately it’s irresolvable, yet we do our best to pay homage both to our hearts and our heads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George S. Patton, Jr. commanded the Seventh United States Army, and later the Third Army, in the European Theater of World War II. General Patton, a brilliant strategist as well as larger-than-life fount of harsh words and strong opinions, was also infamous for confronting two soldiers diagnosed with “combat fatigue” \u2014 now known as post-traumatic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[13,54,41],"class_list":["post-992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-nature","tag-ethics","tag-responsibility","tag-self-criticism","odd"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":999,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions\/999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}