Moral tribes

What Hacker News says

1. kashyapcOct 2021
   (Excuse the length; formatted it for readability.)

   Your guesses are all good (and by "classics" I meant the works of Seneca, Cicero et al). You'll also find many gems in the bibliography section of any book with real substance. A good author will share their sources. On why I recommend these: Many of these researchers spent years grappling with the said topics. They are "invested" in it, and to be charitable, were/are trying to arrive at truth, however imperfectly. Even when they get things wrong, these books are more likely to make us think than the vapid "books" by charlatans.

   On Thinking, Fast and slow being hard to read: it is a hard read. For Pete's sake, the book asks you to grapple with probabilities, which we humans are terrible at. If you're trying to read Prospect Theory (a key idea from the book) in bed when tired, or in a noisy train station, you will be frustrated. Read it when you are fresh and are able to concentrate well.

   Note though, none of these books are "perfect"; there will be things in them that might irritate you. Read them anyway, for the mental nourishment they provide.

                    * * *
   

   More broadly, if you're interested in psychology, primate behaviour, neuroscience, philosophy, game theory, and linguistics, here are a selection of books that I've found helpful:

   • Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio

   • Neuroscience: Exploring the brain by Bear, Connors, and Paradiso (this is a fantastic illustrated text book with great explanations; fully worth the 72 euros I paid for it)

   • Behave and Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Sapolsky (I wrote my "why" for Behave here[1])

   • Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene

   • The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod

   • Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal

   • Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture by Johan Huizinga

   • Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

   • Becoming Human by Michael Tomasello

   • For Stoicism, I wrote a detailed guide here[2] on good quality English translations by foremost scholars

   • Not least of all, read some of Plato's dialogues—they're immensely fun, even if you don't agree with anything he says. Here's[3] a few recommended English translations.

   [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25559890

   [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25559890

   [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27440236

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2. yborisJan 2021
   Thank you for a beautiful description of what is likely happening. I think you're right about how many people think about morality.

   I humbly try to encourage everyone (if the conversation strays this way) to reflect on the built-in moral system, and how wildly unprepared it is for dealing with the modern world. Given how much the world has changed (I can literally help people across the globe; people are interconnected deeply with others on the other side of the planet through everyday objects they use, etc) it is important to use reason and careful thinking when it comes to morality, not just our gut feelings.

   The best writeup of all this comes from Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene - where he uses the photo camera analogy for morality: the automatic setting (gut feelings - great for usual scenarios evolution prepared us - like day to day courtesy with others), and the manual setting (slow and deliberate reasoning - essential for our complex world - anything to do with society beyond what our evolution prepared us for - I'm thinking like technology [mechanical and social] invented after 1500s).

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3. twelfthnightJan 2021
   In the book "Moral Tribes", Joshua Greene outlines a great point that rights are not arguments. I think the Facebook/Twitter censorship issue demonstrates this pretty clearly. Rights always have some context and without specifying that context, they can be used to justify almost anything. For example, depending on whether I'm under oath or not reasonably determines whether I can be persecuted for lying or not.

   Personally I think it makes sense for Twitter and Facebook to use their power to prevent Trump's false claims about election fraud, especially given the harm it appears to be fostering [1]. That said, I believe there are many good faith arguments about why censorship in this instance could be harmful to the aims of a free society. However, I don't believe "right of free speech" or "censorship is always bad" are good arguments, instead I would like to see arguments about the purported benefits/harms to society of this censorship.

   [1] I'm not the arbiter of truth here, there are many court cases affirming no voter fraud and the recent Capitol Building invasion is demonstration of the potential harm.

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4. pfd1986Sep 2018
   Also moral tribes, by Joshua Greene. These 2 were the best books I read this year.
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5. tlbNov 2017
   Moral Tribes, by Joshua Greene [0] has a more in-depth analysis of honor and other cultural attributes. You can find large geographical differences in the importance of honor within the US.

   Cooperation also varies greatly around the world. Scores in a cooperation game (where you both win by cooperating) vary by an order of magnitude between countries. They are somewhat related, in that getting hosed by the other player in a cooperation game is merely annoying for a non-honor-oriented person, but humiliating for an honor-oriented person, so they're more likely to defect immediately. The article doesn't mention it, but that seems like the obvious mechanism for how thar causes poverty.

   [0] http://www.joshua-greene.net/moral-tribes

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6. tlbOct 2016
   I recommend the book Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene, which treats this topic at book length.

   https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason-Between/d...

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