The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-extension

Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by endominus on Sunday July 02, 2023 @01:09AM (#36558415)

In the same sense that learning about cognitive biases can equip people to become even more entrenched in their own beliefs. Being able to claim that others are falling prey to "confirmation bias" whenever confronted with evidence that conflicts with their own preconceptions does a lot to shore up the Semmelweiss reflex. It does make one think about how much education actually helps people think better; the simple heuristic of "more learning = better" doesn't seem to hold up to real scrutiny. I would hypothesize that some forms of pedagogy would instead calcify incorrect ideas in people's heads, and predicting which would do that is nontrivial considering we don't actually know much about why people learn in the first place.

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by atoav on Sunday July 02, 2023 @02:14AM (#36558764)

If you are not interested in the truth, every theory becomes a weapon to hide it. This is why instead of teaching theories you have to teach the love of truth — coincidentally that is the meaning of the word philosophy.

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by taylorius on Sunday July 02, 2023 @02:35AM (#36558852)

I think it's hard to know whether you're interested in the truth. Even if you think you've scrupulously cleared away all the thickets of biases and prejudices, there are probably more still there, hiding in all the corners you've turned away from.

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by jrumbut on Sunday July 02, 2023 @03:58AM (#36559331)

It's true that all of us have a lifetime of work to do in that area, but I think the grandparent posted is referring to the people who cling to and consciously nurture biases.

Maybe my standards are too low but these days I'm excited to talk to anyone who even has a passing interest in truth for its own sake, no matter what the quality of their inquiry is.

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by vixen99 on Sunday July 02, 2023 @04:07AM (#36559372)

If you love truth you will know those hidden corners exist and be alert to emerging evidence of biases and prejudices. There is the story which I suppose is true, of the professor who sat through a lecture and understood that the work being described had demolished the basis for his own work of the last twenty years. Rather than despairing he stood up and congratulated the speaker on discovering a better theory.

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by dr_dshiv on Sunday July 02, 2023 @03:14AM (#36559076)

Truth =! Wisdom

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by atoav on Sunday July 02, 2023 @03:19AM (#36559107)

It isn't (and nobsoy claimed it was), but if you

A) know ethics

B) have a love for the truth

It is harder to use ethics to lie to yourself or others. Ethics are a tool that can be used to justify heinous behaviour, or to shine a light on how your daily choices could be made better, all depending on those wielding the tool.

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by drdeca on Sunday July 02, 2023 @03:31AM (#36559164)

They said that because the word philosophy is from “love of wisdom”, not “love of truth”, as was claimed?

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by dudeinjapan on Sunday July 02, 2023 @05:06AM (#36559707)

=! != !=

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by marginalia_nu on Sunday July 02, 2023 @05:49AM (#36559939)

Socrates would have questions about this.

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Re:The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-ex... by jrumbut on Sunday July 02, 2023 @03:55AM (#36559317)

Not to fall into exactly the trap that you set, but there is a survivorship bias at play here.

If you are wholly committed to young earth creationism, many college classes will be an unpleasant confrontation from start to finish and very little of your existing knowledge will help you pass classes even if you want to play along. People who come to college with more mainstream ideas will have an easier time and be more likely to succeed.

And it's not entirely surprising that graduates have a bit of a calcified worldview. If you read Marx without dropping out to join a revolution and were able to deal with a lot of compelling but conflicting arguments in whatever field you studied it's going to take quite a bit for you to radically change your mind.

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