Cognitive Bias and the Creation of Moral Values

Introduction:

What if the morals that guide us through life are wrong? They could be bathed in cognitive bias, unseen but misguiding our actions. Here I explore an empirical attempt to reconcile that concern and put it to the test with a few thought experiments.

Discussion:

Cognitive bias can be a tricky thing that can influence the minds of many. When looking at Nazi Germany, they took great care to raise their youth indoctrinated with their values. If the resulting population was allowed to debate and construct the moral values for the society to be built from, what would it look like? I can imagine we would see great tragedy passed as morally acceptable. Does the amount of debate between these indoctrinated youth matter when their core concepts of reality are warped? And how can any of us tell we do not have similar bias to an unknown evil? There must be some other metric we can use to develop these moral values as a society to avoid personal bias. I suggest we lean on Jeremy Bentham's Hedonic Calculus to help solve this. He sought to measure suffering empirically by duration, intensity, and certainty.

Using our above framework, I'd like to tackle some common moral conundrums to see if we can pry out an answer. To start, I'd like to look at factory farming and animal suffering. We rely heavily on this to feed people, in a world where so many are starving. But does the means justify the ends? Which species of suffering should we look at with the utilitarian scope of metrics? If we look at the animals, their suffering is not prolonged. This would be inefficient to the farming process and would not make economic sense. But they are certainly going to perish in these farms and be cramped up until the day that happens. Opposing this, many humans are suffering every day from hunger. The probability of any one human dying from hunger is low, unless you are looking at certain regions of the world. Hunger is a painful way to die, and it often affects children in developing nations. It seems in this situation, the human suffering is more drawn out. Which do you believe this moral framework would support?

Next, let's look at the fat man trolley problem. I feel utilitarian logic often fails these kind of thought exercises. For those who do not know, the fat man trolley problem is broken out like the below. You can push a large man onto the tracks, stopping the trolley and saving 5 people. If you do not push the man, 5 people will die. Applying the logic above, we should push the man. After all, we would save 5 people, which is better than saving one. Where this becomes harder to reconcile is with using a person as a means. According to Kant, it is wrong to violate someone's moral autonomy to create a desired outcome. I mean, the man is not choosing to jump off the bridge to save those people; we are forcing him off. He could have a family, dreams, ambitions, and beliefs. Who are we to decide when taking a life is worth it in the end?

Conclusion:

Do you believe this moral realism, coupled with an empirical twist, is a good methodology for finding moral truths?