{"id":42981,"date":"2021-07-30T06:50:02","date_gmt":"2021-07-30T10:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=42981"},"modified":"2021-08-03T09:07:36","modified_gmt":"2021-08-03T13:07:36","slug":"moral-intuition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/","title":{"rendered":"Moral Intuition or Moral Reasoning: What Comes First?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Why does moral intuition kick in before moral reasoning? Is reasoning a total slave to emotion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt&#8217;s experiments indicate that we react first with moral intuition, and then we employ reason. In his book <em>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/righteous-mind\/\">Righteous Mind<\/a><\/em>, he provides additional evidence for this conclusion and explains why this is the way we make moral judgments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more to learn about moral intuition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Intuition and Reasoning Are Like an Elephant and Its Rider<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>We respond to stimuli first with our moral intuition and then use reasoning later to justify our response. This article will deepen that understanding and provide examples of why and how this happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Think of intuition and reasoning like an elephant and its rider:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The elephant (intuition) is huge and moves mostly on its own.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Occasionally, though, the rider (reasoning) tries to guide it somewhere. This can be useful because, from the rider\u2019s perch, it\u2019s easier to see far into the future (or perform logical scenarios in our heads). The rider can also learn new technologies and skills, which can help the elephant get to its goals. Finally, the rider is the elephant\u2019s spokesperson, even though the rider can\u2019t always tell what the elephant is thinking.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ll begin with moral intuition and move on to moral reasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Moral Intuition First<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to Haidt\u2019s experiments, there\u2019s ample evidence that intuition comes before reasoning:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Our brains are instantly evaluating: <\/strong>Every time we see something, we have what\u2019s called an \u201caffect\u201d reaction. From something as simple as reading a positive word, like \u201chappiness,\u201d we get a little bit of positive effect. This sort of feeling is the first process that humans developed evolutionarily\u2014thinking came second.<\/li><li><strong>All of our social or political judgments are intuitive: <\/strong>People have immediate and intense reactions when they see social groups. Most people have implicit biases against certain groups as well\u2014think of it like the elephant seeing something and leaning away. This doesn\u2019t have to do with any reasoned morality. For example, most younger people are biased towards the elderly, but not based on a moral reason\u2014they have inherent biases against people who aren\u2019t like them who they cannot understand. The same is true with politics\u2014when conservatives see the name of a liberal president, they have an immediately negative reaction. When liberals see the name of a conservative president, they also have a negative reaction.&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Our bodies influence our judgment: <\/strong>For example, seeing, tasting, or smelling something disgusting can make us judgmental. A grad student at Stanford tested this theory by giving people a questionnaire to fill out about their opinions on controversial issues. One group of respondents answered in a place that smelled bad and another did not. The group that filled out the questionnaire in the room that smelled bad gave much harsher opinions on the issues. The reaction to the smell was pure intuition and overpowered respondents\u2019 reason.&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Psychopaths can reason but can\u2019t feel: <\/strong>When the elephant isn\u2019t functioning properly, it\u2019s difficult to be a productive member of society. Psychopaths have some emotions but don\u2019t have empathy for others. This allows them to break all kinds of social contracts that bind society together, as they don\u2019t care about torturing or killing others. The rider functions fine, but the elephant doesn\u2019t respond. In basing their moral judgments only on reason, psychopaths often break basic social contracts that require people to make decisions based on emotion.&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Babies can feel but can\u2019t reason: <\/strong>Experiments prove that babies, while they can\u2019t yet reason, have an innate understanding of their environment. They\u2019ll stare at something longer if it appears to be physically impossible, like a car traveling through a wall. They can understand social interactions as well. If shown a puppet show with three puppets, one puppet helping another trying to get up a hill and a third puppet trying to stop them, babies will register surprise when one of the puppets attempting to get up the hill befriends the hinderer. By the time they are six months old, infants develop a <em>preference <\/em>for people who are nice to others, outside of their own needs.&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Affective reactions happen in the right place, right time: <\/strong>The famous \u201ctrolley problem\u201d (you are told that pushing one person to his death will save five lives) pits utilitarianism against deontology. Utilitarianism suggests that you should push because you are doing an overall good. Deontology says that you have a duty to others\u2019 individual rights to not push. The truth of the matter is deontology generally comes from a gut feeling, where utilitarianism is more calculating, based on reason. Studies show that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-are-the-regions-of-the-brain\/\">areas of the brain<\/a> involved with emotional processing activate immediately when exigent harm is involved. We feel strongly that certain actions are okay and others are not, and when immediate harm is involved our brain reacts to those feelings, making it unlikely we\u2019d push someone into harm\u2019s way in the moment.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>The bottom line is that <strong>when we see or hear anything in the world, the elephant, emotion or intuition, reacts right away<\/strong>, before reason has a chance to.<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reasoning Second<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are, though, <em>certain<\/em><strong> <\/strong>cases when reason can make us revise our moral intuition, so reason might not be a <em>total slave <\/em>to passion. <strong>The elephant is more powerful, but not <em>all-<\/em>powerful.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>We mostly change our minds on questions of morality by interacting with others. Someone else can more easily poke holes in our logic than we can. This is especially true if there\u2019s affection between the two parties. <strong>If we like someone, we\u2019ll be more willing to attempt to find truth in what they are saying. <\/strong>This can lead to a changed mind.<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li><li>There are also times when we have <em>conflicting intuitions. <\/em>The elephant wants to lean two different ways at once. We start off by following one intuition and then change our own mind, but generally only if we had conflict within ourselves from the start.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s also possible, though rare, for someone to reason themselves to a different conclusion. Studies show this happens if we <em>have<\/em><strong> <\/strong>to sit and think about our own arguments before answering a question. We can reason a counterargument to our intuition, but only if we have time to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The more we understand the roles that moral intuition and moral reasoning play in our moral judgments, the better we understand ourselves and each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why does moral intuition kick in before moral reasoning? Is reasoning a total slave to emotion? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt&#8217;s experiments indicate that we react first with moral intuition, and then we employ reason. In his book The Righteous Mind, he provides additional evidence for this conclusion and explains why this is the way we make moral judgments. Read more to learn about moral intuition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":42989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,9,160],"tags":[431],"class_list":["post-42981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy","category-psychology","category-science","tag-the-righteous-mind","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Moral Intuition or Moral Reasoning: What Comes First? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We react first with moral intuition, and only then do we employ reason. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains why we operate this way.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moral Intuition or Moral Reasoning: What Comes First?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We react first with moral intuition, and only then do we employ reason. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains why we operate this way.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-30T10:50:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-08-03T13:07:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/moral-intuition.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elizabeth Whitworth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elizabeth Whitworth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elizabeth Whitworth\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d2928cf6c11a69ced1491d6a5b74fb13\"},\"headline\":\"Moral Intuition or Moral Reasoning: What Comes First?\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-07-30T10:50:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-03T13:07:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/\"},\"wordCount\":1103,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/moral-intuition.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"The Righteous Mind\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Philosophy\",\"Psychology\",\"Science\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/\",\"name\":\"Moral Intuition or Moral Reasoning: What Comes First? - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/moral-intuition\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/moral-intuition.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-07-30T10:50:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-03T13:07:36+00:00\",\"description\":\"We react first with moral intuition, and only then do we employ reason. 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