Hypermoralism | Data Science & Psychology

31Jul/11

Hypermoral Debt Ceiling Quotes

In an attempt to popularize psychological theories such as idealistic evil and the dark side of moral conviction, I sometimes use the term hypermoral to describe why ostensibly good people (e.g. non-psychopaths), can be led to do terrible things for ostensibly moral reasons. Research suggests that much of the violence that exists in the world [...]

Tagged as: debt, hypermoralism, idealistic evil 1 Comment

17Jul/11

Libya as a moral war (except for libertarians)

Many people believe that war and violence are inherently immoral, and some psychologists have begun to explore the idea that celebrating heroism is an antidote to the problem of evil. In contrast, other psychologists have highlighted the dark side of moral conviction (Skitka & Mullen, 2002) and the notion of idealistic evil (Baumeister, 1997) to [...]

Tagged as: idealistic evil, libertarians, libya, war 2 Comments

2May/11

Osama Bin Laden’s Death is a chance to escape Zero-Sum thinking

President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden was killed recently and I’ve witnessed an array of emotions. Some view it in partisan terms, wondering if it will benefit Obama. Many are celebrating, which is understandable, but some people also understandably feel uncomfortable with the idea of celebrating death, even the death of someone responsible for [...]

Tagged as: hypermoralism, osama bin laden, zero sum 1 Comment

11Jan/11

You can’t put out a Fire with Gasoline – A Reaction to reactions to the Giffords Shooting

For the past few months, I have been working with Matt Motyl and Jon Haidt on a website that promotes research based methods for increasing civility in politics. The desire to increase civility in politics is not new, having been parodied as the cliche-d dream of PhD Poli Sci students and recently promoted by Jon [...]

Tagged as: civility, gabriel giffords, incivility, jon stewart 2 Comments

21Sep/10

Stewart/Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and the Psychology of Moderates

As someone who is interested in promoting civility and reason in politics, I have been really excited over the past few days by Jon Stewart’s announcement of a Rally to Restore Sanity (“Million Moderate March”), coupled with Stephen Colbert’s satirical “March to Keep Fear Alive”. The below video, where the announcement is made, is well [...]

Tagged as: civility, jon stewart, moral absolutism, partisanship, stephen colbert 4 Comments

23Jul/10

On Hyperpartisanship, Hypermoralism, and the Supernormal Stimuli of Modern Politics

Today’s lead story from Politico, The Age of Rage, probably summarizes a lot of what people think is wrong with politics. Rather than make good policy, politicians and media are more concerned with scoring points for their political ideology (hyperpartisanship). However, as the Politico article points out, their actions are largely driven by the general [...]

Tagged as: hypermoralism, idealistic evil, incivility, joe wilson, partisanship, political ideology 5 Comments

5Apr/10

Sam Harris’ TED video and the danger of liberal atheist moral absolutism

A fellow graduate student recently shared the below Sam Harris TED video with me and I was quite surprised at the premise of the talk. In it, Sam Harris gives a spirited defense of moral absolutism, the idea that there are objective truths about what we should and should not value. Below is the video.

Harris [...]

Tagged as: moral absolutism, moral relativism, peace, religion, sam harris, war 7 Comments

23Mar/10

The Psychology of Aggression and the Ugliness of the Health Care Reform Debate

Most people are not violent people. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes very little sense for a species to kill members of it’s own species. Soldiers in war have to be trained out of their natural impulse not to fire weapons. For the vast majority of people, aggression is a last resort and I’m guessing [...]

Tagged as: aggression, health care, health care reform, healthcare, zero sum 1 Comment

30Jan/10

Hypermoralism – Morality causes ordinary people to do immoral things.

Some people believe that immoral acts are caused by amoral individuals. However, very few people are truly immoral (~1% of individuals are psychopaths). The idea of the term, hypermoralism, is to popularize the idea that morality can actually cause people to be immoral, rather than prevent them from being immoral (e.g. see this post). It’s [...]

Tagged as: hypermoralism, idealistic evil, immoral acts 3 Comments

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