Name your gut reaction before you reach for reasons

Notice the first moral reaction you have, label it, and only then start building the case for or against it.

Warum es wirkt

Haidt (2001) argues that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations, and that moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction (a reason built after the judgment has been reached, to explain it, rather than the cause of it). If that account is right, the sense that something is wrong arrives before the reasons do, and the reasons are often built to support it. Naming the reaction first makes it visible, so that you can tell whether the later reasoning is testing the judgment or defending it.

So gehst du vor

1. When a moral question comes up, write the first reaction in a few words before you think it through, such as "that’s wrong" or "that’s fine."
2. Note where in your body or attention the reaction appears, if that is easy to notice.
3. Build the reasons for and against, writing each one separately.
4. Compare the reasons with the first reaction and mark whether the reasons would have changed it if they had come first.

Evidenz

Haidt (2001) presents the social intuitionist model as an alternative to rationalist models of moral judgment, arguing that moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction and that the model is more consistent with findings across social, cultural, evolutionary and biological psychology. The abstract does not say whether the paper tests the model experimentally, so this page does not treat the model as experimentally tested. (mechanistic)

The post hoc claim is Haidt’s proposal, not a settled finding. This practice does not assume the reaction is always right, or that reasoning never changes it.

Quellen

• Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108(4), 814–834.

Häufiger Fehler

Treating the first reaction as the answer, or treating every later reason as a rationalization. The practice is to notice the order, not to discard either the feeling or the reasoning.