I think it’s a case of a lot of things, but fundamental attribution error isn’t one of them.
It’s funny you should mention kicking dogs, as I think animal cruelty (and cruelty in general) is an example of one of the strongest rationales for virtue ethics. I don’t attach a lot of moral weight to dogs, but if I witnessed someone kicking a dog, especially if they thought they weren’t being witnessed, that gives me insight into what sort of person they are. They are displaying characteristics I do not favour.
People would be more inclined to trust and deal with me if I display pro-social characteristics they favour (and don’t display characteristics they disfavour). There are a couple of approaches to me taking advantage of this:
1) I could conspicuously display pro-social characteristics when I believe I’m under scrutiny and it’s not too costly to do so.
2) I could make myself the sort of person who is pro-social and does pro-social things, even when it’s costly or unobserved.
For sure, option 2 is more expensive than option 1, but it has the advantage of being more straightforward to maintain, and when costly opportunities to signal my pro-social virtues come along, I will take them, while those option 1 people will welch out.
If I kick a single dog in private, this erodes the basis of having taken option 2. If anyone sees me kicking a dog in private, this will undermine their trust in me. As such, I should try as much as is reasonably possible to be the sort of person who doesn’t kick dogs.
If a dog runs to your kid, teeth bared, you probably kick it away without having a dilemma; but if pushing a fat man to die saves a bunch of kids, you have to decide to do it?
I mostly have (maybe) dilemmas of the kind ‘if I spend another hour at work, I will finish the task, but not make dinner’ which does have implications for me as a housewife; or (in the past) ‘if I fine this obviously poor flower seller, she might not earn her dinner, but others here will be less inclined to sell Cyclamen kuznetzovii’. (This latter is based on several assumptions, of course.)
This argument works equally well when you replace “kicking dogs” with “playing violent video games” or “being an atheist in a place where you are expected to be a religious believer”. But I would guess that most people here do not see it as a valid reason to stop those things.
I don’t claim that not kicking dogs is a universal moral imperative. I claim that having some internal feature that dissuades you from kicking dogs means I will like and trust you more, and be more inclined to cooperate with you in a variety of social circumstances. This is not because I like dogs, but because that feature probably has some bearing on how you treat humans, and I am a human, and so are all the people I like.
I obviously can’t directly inspect the landscape of your internal features to see if “don’t needlessly hurt things” is in there, but if I see you kicking a dog, I’m going to infer that it’s not.
Again, that can be said of violent video games or atheism. Or to generalize it a bit, it applies to putting conformity above individualism. If I have some internal feature that leads me to do exactly the things you like, you will like and trust me more and be more inclined to cooperate with me. This is true whether those things are “don’t kick dogs”, “don’t play violent video games”, “believe in God”, “be heterosexual”, or “go and kill members of the outgroup”. It doesn’t matter whether God actually exists for this to be true.
It is a property of the way human brains work that a human who kicks dogs in likely to be cruel in other ways. Similar arguments may apply to some of the items on your list although the amount varies by item and many are currently subject to mind-killing debate.
I think we’re talking past each other here. I’m not talking about how to cooperate with anybody, or how to cooperate in a value-hostile social environment. I’m talking about how I can cooperate with people I want to cooperate with.
I’m talking about that too. For slightly different values of “you”, where “you” want to cooperate with fellow religious believers because you think they are more likely to share your desires and values.
Well if we’re talking about that version of “me”, why not talk about the version of “me” who’s a member of the International Dog-Kicking Association? For any given virtue you can posit some social context were that virtue is or is not desirable. I’m not sure what that accomplishes.
The International Dog-Kicking Association is something you just made up, so the fact that a rule fails when applied to it doesn’t mean the rule will cause any problems in real life. Religion actually exists.
I think it’s a case of a lot of things, but fundamental attribution error isn’t one of them.
It’s funny you should mention kicking dogs, as I think animal cruelty (and cruelty in general) is an example of one of the strongest rationales for virtue ethics. I don’t attach a lot of moral weight to dogs, but if I witnessed someone kicking a dog, especially if they thought they weren’t being witnessed, that gives me insight into what sort of person they are. They are displaying characteristics I do not favour.
People would be more inclined to trust and deal with me if I display pro-social characteristics they favour (and don’t display characteristics they disfavour). There are a couple of approaches to me taking advantage of this:
1) I could conspicuously display pro-social characteristics when I believe I’m under scrutiny and it’s not too costly to do so.
2) I could make myself the sort of person who is pro-social and does pro-social things, even when it’s costly or unobserved.
For sure, option 2 is more expensive than option 1, but it has the advantage of being more straightforward to maintain, and when costly opportunities to signal my pro-social virtues come along, I will take them, while those option 1 people will welch out.
If I kick a single dog in private, this erodes the basis of having taken option 2. If anyone sees me kicking a dog in private, this will undermine their trust in me. As such, I should try as much as is reasonably possible to be the sort of person who doesn’t kick dogs.
If a dog runs to your kid, teeth bared, you probably kick it away without having a dilemma; but if pushing a fat man to die saves a bunch of kids, you have to decide to do it?
I mostly have (maybe) dilemmas of the kind ‘if I spend another hour at work, I will finish the task, but not make dinner’ which does have implications for me as a housewife; or (in the past) ‘if I fine this obviously poor flower seller, she might not earn her dinner, but others here will be less inclined to sell Cyclamen kuznetzovii’. (This latter is based on several assumptions, of course.)
This argument works equally well when you replace “kicking dogs” with “playing violent video games” or “being an atheist in a place where you are expected to be a religious believer”. But I would guess that most people here do not see it as a valid reason to stop those things.
I don’t claim that not kicking dogs is a universal moral imperative. I claim that having some internal feature that dissuades you from kicking dogs means I will like and trust you more, and be more inclined to cooperate with you in a variety of social circumstances. This is not because I like dogs, but because that feature probably has some bearing on how you treat humans, and I am a human, and so are all the people I like.
I obviously can’t directly inspect the landscape of your internal features to see if “don’t needlessly hurt things” is in there, but if I see you kicking a dog, I’m going to infer that it’s not.
Again, that can be said of violent video games or atheism. Or to generalize it a bit, it applies to putting conformity above individualism. If I have some internal feature that leads me to do exactly the things you like, you will like and trust me more and be more inclined to cooperate with me. This is true whether those things are “don’t kick dogs”, “don’t play violent video games”, “believe in God”, “be heterosexual”, or “go and kill members of the outgroup”. It doesn’t matter whether God actually exists for this to be true.
It is a property of the way human brains work that a human who kicks dogs in likely to be cruel in other ways. Similar arguments may apply to some of the items on your list although the amount varies by item and many are currently subject to mind-killing debate.
I think we’re talking past each other here. I’m not talking about how to cooperate with anybody, or how to cooperate in a value-hostile social environment. I’m talking about how I can cooperate with people I want to cooperate with.
I’m talking about that too. For slightly different values of “you”, where “you” want to cooperate with fellow religious believers because you think they are more likely to share your desires and values.
Well if we’re talking about that version of “me”, why not talk about the version of “me” who’s a member of the International Dog-Kicking Association? For any given virtue you can posit some social context were that virtue is or is not desirable. I’m not sure what that accomplishes.
The International Dog-Kicking Association is something you just made up, so the fact that a rule fails when applied to it doesn’t mean the rule will cause any problems in real life. Religion actually exists.
I really don’t know what we’re actually disagreeing about here, so I’m going to tap out. Have a nice evening.
(If it’s not evening where you are yet, then have a tolerable rest of the day, and then have a nice evening)