Thinking the unthinkable: taboos and transhumanism

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Aug 08 2003 - 10:28:34 MDT

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    I feel I have to recommend the paper "Thinking the unthinkable:
    sacred values and taboo cognitions" (Tetlock, Trends in cognitive
    sciences, vol 7, no 7 2003, p 320--325) that was mentioned earlier
    for the entire list. It is one of those eye openers that makes you
    see the overall pattern in stuff you earlier was vaguely aware of.

    The basic idea is the cognitive science of sacred values. Something
    is sacred when it is absolute and involable, and the mere thought of
    trading it off for some secular value is abhorrent. Different
    societies have different sacredness, but all societies have it. In
    practice we always have to do trade-offs between values. As an
    example, how much do we want to pay for road safety? If human lives
    were infinitely valuable to us, we would gladly pay all money we
    could for safer roads. But we actually chose (or have someone chose
    for us) a finite amount. But actually being tempted or forced to
    make these compromises makes us uncomfortable, and various escape
    and coping mechanisms (such as 'moral cleansing' where people do
    something they consider moral to balance the trade - we feel
    contaminated by trading in the sacred). These taboo tradeoffs cause
    strong moral outrage, especially among observers. It is seen as
    unacceptable to trade something sacred for secular, or even to
    consider it.

    Empirical research show that there was considerable agreement on
    sacred values between conservative republicans and liberal
    democrats. But Tetlock observes that libertarians accept extending
    market-pricing into areas other consider taboo, and socialists want
    to extend the taboo of market pricing to medical care, legal counsel
    and housing. This has great importance for us transhumanists (and
    libertarians). We have accepted the non-taboo nature of many things
    like genetic modification of humans. But when we discuss the reasons
    to do (or not do) them, we frame it in terms of secular
    cost/benefit, breaking the taboo for many outsiders. This is a
    strong reason why much normal discussion on this list is seen as
    abhorrent by many: we share a different set of the sacred, and this
    causes a deep rift of understanding. This is important to hold in
    mind.

    It turns out that it is more OK to make a sacred-sacred trade
    ("tragic trade-offs"): it is the stuff of greek dramas and ethical
    dilemmas. Freedom versus loyalty. Family versus duty. And so on.
    Moral judgements about a hospital administrator having to chose
    between the life of a patient and saving one million dollars showed
    that people lauded the administrator who chose to save the life
    (sacred value) over the money (secular), and much more strongly if
    the decision was described as fast. The administrator who took time
    to weigh the issue was seen as less praiseworthy even when he
    decided to save the life (the administrator who chose money quickly
    was of course the worst of the lot). But if it was a tragic
    trade-off (saving a life versus curing AIDS, say), then the
    administrator who lingered before making the decision was seen as
    more praiseworthy than the one who just did one thing. Compare this
    to the usual call for more careful thinking that nearly always ends
    a statement of bioethics.

    It turns out that framing a trade-off as a tragic trade-off rather
    than a taboo trade decreases moral outrage. If the PAM affair had
    not been framed as the taboo tradeoff between money and human lives
    but instead as a tragic trade-off between the need for knowledge and
    having to use money in "dirty" ways (or even better, as a secular
    trade-off between money and knowledge), the outrage would have been
    smaller. Similarly we transhumanists should try to frame our visions
    in terms of what is sacred when we are proposing taboo-breaking
    ("Yes, modifying the genome changes the "order of nature". But to do
    otherwise would block human freedom and well being!") or seek to
    show the different sacred landscape we are experiencing (although
    this is much harder).

    All in all, a very good article.

    -- 
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
    asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
    GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
    


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