The study’s claim is actually more interesting. Basically, it says that “utilitarian ethics” is the default to which people gravitate when their higher cognitive functions are impaired.
In other words, the implication is that it is NOT the case that everyone starts by loving puppies and then through deep thinking comes to utilitarianism—rather, everyone starts utilitarian and then thinking moves you away from it.
Alcohol has some complex effects on personality and decision making, so it’s not really clear to me WHAT conclusions you can draw from this. Certainly, alcohol inhibits complex reasoning ability—but it also inhibits empathy (http://www.livescience.com/24676-men-alcoholics-empathy-emotions-perception.html). So is this saying that you need less reasoning to be utilitarian, or have less empathy? Can you really call something the “default” if it’s inhibiting default brain mechanisms?
Basically, to me this seems like a silly way to draw any conclusions about human nature or ethics.
Relatedly, a quick search of pubmed turned up another study which showed no effect of alcohol on moral attitudes: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/438780 , proving once again that social psychology is really fucking confusing.
Ethics are very very heavily influenced by one consideration: other people’s opinions. It may not be consciously admitted, but when people faced with an ethical conundrum, I think they make a decision that’s based on the question “What will people think of me?”. (The internalized version is: “What will I think of myself?” / “Will I be able to look at myself in the mirror?”).
The question here relates to letting 5 people die (by inaction) or killing one person (by taking action). If you pick the second one, then you’re actively responsible for that death. You were the killer. And that’s the sort of action that will get you judged by other people. That’s the sort of action that will make other people label you as a killer, as a betrayer, as an untreatable person. Therefore, we’re very heavily biased against certain things, and those biases don’t allow for utilitarian ethics.
It’s very often true that drunk people care less than sober people about what others think of them.
The study’s claim is actually more interesting. Basically, it says that “utilitarian ethics” is the default to which people gravitate when their higher cognitive functions are impaired.
In other words, the implication is that it is NOT the case that everyone starts by loving puppies and then through deep thinking comes to utilitarianism—rather, everyone starts utilitarian and then thinking moves you away from it.
Alcohol has some complex effects on personality and decision making, so it’s not really clear to me WHAT conclusions you can draw from this. Certainly, alcohol inhibits complex reasoning ability—but it also inhibits empathy (http://www.livescience.com/24676-men-alcoholics-empathy-emotions-perception.html). So is this saying that you need less reasoning to be utilitarian, or have less empathy? Can you really call something the “default” if it’s inhibiting default brain mechanisms?
Basically, to me this seems like a silly way to draw any conclusions about human nature or ethics.
Relatedly, a quick search of pubmed turned up another study which showed no effect of alcohol on moral attitudes: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/438780 , proving once again that social psychology is really fucking confusing.
Completely Ad-Hoc proposal:
Ethics are very very heavily influenced by one consideration: other people’s opinions. It may not be consciously admitted, but when people faced with an ethical conundrum, I think they make a decision that’s based on the question “What will people think of me?”. (The internalized version is: “What will I think of myself?” / “Will I be able to look at myself in the mirror?”).
The question here relates to letting 5 people die (by inaction) or killing one person (by taking action). If you pick the second one, then you’re actively responsible for that death. You were the killer. And that’s the sort of action that will get you judged by other people. That’s the sort of action that will make other people label you as a killer, as a betrayer, as an untreatable person. Therefore, we’re very heavily biased against certain things, and those biases don’t allow for utilitarian ethics.
It’s very often true that drunk people care less than sober people about what others think of them.