“Moral psychology” is a recently-invented term of art with a somewhat disputed reference, which reflects disagreement about its proper method(s).1 Some use the term to designate venerable philosophical inquiry into the nature and moral significance of psychological states. These inquiries are carried out through armchair reflection based in common sense, everyday observation, or intuition about, for instance, what moral responsibility is and whether it requires volitional activity; what emotions are and when, if ever, they are appropriate; and (the old holy grail of ethics) what happiness is and whether ethical virtue always delivers it. The Socratic paradoxes—such as that virtue is knowledge, that weakness of the will is impossible, that a good person cannot be harmed—comprise perhaps the earliest recorded instances of this style of moral psychology in European philosophy.

Some recent practitioners—dissatisfied with the impoverished results of what we might call reflective moral psychology—have instead carried out their inquiries largely through humanistic study, using historical, literary, and sociological results and the interpretative methods of those disciplines. We may call this humanistic moral psychology. In this category we find Bernard Williams’s use of Sophocles’s Ajax to provide an account of shame and moral incapacity,2 Martha Nussbaum’s interpretation of Aeschylus’s Oresteia in service of her accounts of anger and forgiveness,3 Gabriele Taylor’s analysis of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus in her monograph on vice,4 and Charles Mills’s study of John Hearne’s Voices Under the Window5 in aid of his analysis of the phenomenology of race and class, all of which make use of hermeneutical and analogical reasoning to help illuminate moral experience via these artworks.

Still other philosophers use “moral psychology” to refer to the scientific study of the determinants of well-being and moral life, often aiming to validate or falsify the presuppositions of reflective and humanistic moral psychology. The spectacular advances of the last fifty years in the cognitive and behavioral sciences fuel this work, which we might call experimental moral psychology. There is also ample historical precedent for it in the work of Hobbes, Hume, and Dewey, who all introduce experimental methods of reasoning into moral philosophy. Proponents of experimental moral psychology often can be found enlivening the question-and-answer period of reflective and humanistic conference presentations with pointed questions about the empirical adequacy of various assumptions. (After one recent talk of mine on the topic of emotional self-knowledge, a prominent proponent of this methodology raised his hand to ask, simply, “You know that your conclusion contradicts the science on this matter, right?”)

These approaches are, on the whole, largely complementary. Nussbaum’s work on emotion, for example, appeals alternatingly to Aeschylus and to neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux. Likewise, Nietzsche combines literary and historical reflection on Greek tragedy, Christianity, and Wagner with appeals to contemporary (nineteenth-century) psychology, physiology, and race theory (though he rejects certain tendencies of British empirical psychology).

Alfano’s introductory text for advanced undergraduate students brings experimental moral psychology into the classroom. It has many virtues. For example, it sketches solutions to numerous controversies in the field, including: (1) whether empirical findings about the indeterminacy and instability of preferences undermine assessments of rightness and well-being, (2) whether findings in neuroscience related to the “dual-process theory” of cognition undermine assessments of rightness that depend on the doctrine of double effect, (3) whether “situationist” findings in social psychology undermine character-based assessments of moral worth and rightness, and (4) whether anthropological findings about the extent of ethical disagreement undermine some versions of moral realism. It also serves as an excellent annotated bibliography of recent experimental moral psychology.

Alfano insists, and I agree, that interdisciplinary confrontation is necessary for doing moral psychology well, since “moral philosophy without psychological content is empty, whereas psychological investigation without philosophical insight is blind” (1). From where should moral philosophers source our psychological content? One answer, which we might call the broad experimental view, prioritizes equally the results of all relevant natural and social sciences, including sociology, criminology, anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics. Even though Alfano does not discuss most of these fields—and it would be practically impossible for any short introductory text to do so—he mentions all of them, at least in passing, in a way that makes clear that he endorses broad experimentalism. Elsewhere Alfano has outlined a research program that is “naturalistic” in the sense that it aims to “employ only methods consonant with those used in the [‘hard’ and ‘soft’] sciences and refer only to entities countenanced by the sciences.”6 Alternately, we might accept a humanistic view, according to which one necessary component of the psychological content needed for moral philosophy can be acquired only by humanistic study. Such study involves making sense of (for instance) our relation to the past, our aesthetic practices, and our membership in political communities, where the project of sense-making depends crucially—in ways that distinguish it from some scientific projects—on our distinctive cultural, ethical, political, and aesthetic experiences and values.

One point in favor of the humanistic view, it seems to me, is that the study of moral psychology must attend to what our moral experience is like, shaped as it is by our interpretations of that experience. Much moral psychology aims to help us to make sense of our moral experience by using interpretive methods proper to humanistic study, not merely to diagnose the network of causes that make morality “work” (1) or not. Alfano’s exclusion of humanistic moral psychology makes me wonder about the place of such reflection in the work of experimental moral psychologists. In their view, must we deny that humanistic reflection provides necessary psychological content to moral philosophy? Or must humanistic reflection proceed by methods consonant with those of the sciences?

I worry that by ignoring humanistic moral psychology, this introductory text erases much interesting research in moral psychology in that it encourages students to think that there’s nothing to see there. Perhaps this is an inadvertent result of, say, marketing pressures from the publisher. Alfano does suggest, though, that the text’s design is to offer “a comprehensive survey of contemporary moral psychology” (ix). If so, then Alfano has concealed from the introductory student the fruitful pluralism of the field.

Perhaps Alfano will respond that the book doesn’t need to “give the other side,” because it is the other side. Or perhaps Alfano denies that humanistic moral psychology is intellectually reputable. I look forward to his clarification on this matter.

Implicit Bias

Let’s consider one of the many stimulating discussions in Alfano’s text—a discussion about blaming people for being implicitly biased that is representative of the mix of empirical and conceptual claims offered in the text. In anti-racist communities there has long been a suspicion, to say the least, that even individuals who sincerely disavow racism might still harbor racial bias. Recent empirical research seems to confirm this suspicion, and there is a burgeoning philosophical literature about how to understand moral responsibility for implicit bias, which Alfano ably highlights.7 How should we react to people with implicit biases who sincerely avow a commitment to the moral and political equality of all? There are numerous dimensions of analysis that are relevant to answering this question, including (1) whether holding one responsible would be useful (the pragmatic factors), (2) whether the biased person is in a position to know about their bias (the epistemic factors), and (3) whether the biased person is in a position to control their bias (the control factors). Alfano discusses them all, but let us focus on the pragmatic factors.

Alfano presents the following argument that we should not think of implicitly biased though explicitly egalitarian persons as racist or sexist. Studies suggest that one’s self-conception is often self-confirming: if I conceive of myself as a racist, say, then I am more likely to act like a racist than I would otherwise be. Likewise, accusing others of racism risks making them even more likely to act like a racist. Alfano takes these claims to support what he calls “the factitious, interactionist framework” (132) of virtue, according to which behavior is explained in terms of, among other things, “the ongoing feedback between the individual and environment” (187). On this view, social expectation-signaling and one’s self-conception help to bring about and sustain dispositions to think, feel, and act that are similar to traditional Aristotelian virtues or vices. Therefore, conceiving of people as racist is “dangerous” (71). Instead, Alfano suggests, perhaps one should think of such a person “as someone who strives to be fair to targets of negative stereotypes but who suffers in his human, all-too-human, way from various biases” (71). In doing so, one would ascribe lack of ill will (or perhaps even good will) to the implicitly biased person, which might help to bring about personal improvement. Lest one think that Alfano is urging emotional calm in the face of injustice, he adds that there is reason for victims of implicit bias to “angrily denounce people who are trying their best, despite implicit biases. . . . Even if it ruffles a few feathers” (78). For implicit bias can cause “immense harm” (78).

Several aspects of this argument would make for interesting classroom debate. First, there is some tension between the claims that (a) we should treat such implicitly biased people as if they have genuinely good will (or, at least lack ill will) towards the targets of their bias and (b) we should sometimes angrily denounce such people. For anger and blame are, plausibly, responses to ill will. Pragmatic arguments to be angry in such cases then seem to counsel emotional dishonesty or confusion. Perhaps, as Nussbaum has recently argued, other emotional attitudes are both more fitting and more productive (though perhaps not).8

Second, if even angry denunciation is compatible with constructive efforts to improve the offender, then I see no reason why the same cannot be said of calm and supportive communication that the offender embodies some form of racism. Indeed, George Yancy has recently hypothesized that bringing a person’s racism to their attention might be crucial for facilitating improvement.9 Yancy urges well-intentioned whites to consider themselves precisely as people who harbor racism despite their anti-racist intentions, beliefs, and actions. He conceives of such direct communication as a kind of gift, designed to help well-intentioned whites escape from the racist lies and self-deceptions that cloud their minds. No doubt such a direct intervention requires tact and perhaps even, as Yancy insists, a kind of love. So, on what empirical grounds should we reject Yancy’s model of direct anti-racist (and anti-sexist) intervention in favor of Alfano’s model?

This question leads to a third concern. It is not clear from the text what empirical support, if any, there is for the claim that the relevant virtue of justice is best characterized as factitious and interactionist. Alfano states that there is some evidence that the virtues of tidiness, charity, cooperativeness and competitiveness, helpfulness, eco-friendliness, and scholastic motivation can be understood in this way. In general, though, “we currently lack evidence one way or the other about which virtues” (132) can be thought of in this interactionist way. So, it seems, we don’t know whether the virtue of justice at issue is among those that can be inculcated “by fine-tuning your self-concept and the social expectations directed at you” (132). Given this lack evidence, the status of these pragmatic claims about redressing bias is unclear. Does Alfano present them as hypotheses or as justified by particular empirical research? I worry that the reader will receive the false impression that it is a robust finding that we should not call (merely) implicitly biased people “racist” or “sexist,” and that such a reader will be motivated to adjust their behavior in a problematic direction, for instance away from Yancy’s proposal, because of an inadequately supported claim.

Alfano’s discussion of the pragmatics of blaming implicitly biased people would make for stimulating classroom debate. That said, this text would work best when supplemented by secondary literature that addresses Alfano’s conceptual and empirical assumptions. To this end, Alfano helpfully provides suggested further readings at the end of each chapter. With respect to the discussion about implicit bias, supplemental readings might engage assumptions about the nature of good and ill will, the ethics of expressing anger and blame, the nature of racism, and the empirical status of Alfano’s interactionist theory of virtue.10

Mark Alfano’s Moral Psychology: An Introduction palatably samples topics in moral psychology. It could naturally accompany systematic works like Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s multivolume edited series on moral psychology or John Doris’s Moral Psychology Handbook. Alfano’s book, though, sets itself apart in its accessibility. Students and non-academics will gravitate toward his examples—police brutality, workplace discrimination, mundane monstrosities, and cross-cultural disagreements; he makes philosophy and social science relevant to everyday life. Philosophers and psychologists will marvel at how effortlessly he integrates research from centuries of philosophy and decades of social science. He’s just as comfortable glossing Plato, Aristotle, and Kant as Daniel Kahneman, Anthony Greenwald, and Paul Ekman. Throughout, Alfano resists obvious conclusions and extravagant claims, thus exhibiting a calm, fluid confidence in his restrained theses. This book is as smooth as academic introductions get.

I want to criticize Alfano’s book; critique is the highest form of praise for our peculiar profession of philosophy. But I found his arguments expertly qualified and well-situated in contemporary ethics and psychology. Even as someone who disagrees with his conclusions, I know by the structure of his arguments that Alfano listened carefully to his opposition. I also realize the task of an introductory book isn’t to shore up every argument. So, here I’ll offer expansions on Alfano’s arguments. Specifically, I’ll argue that recent literature on the “backfire effect” complicates some of Alfano’s practical advice. But if we apply Alfano’s ideas to his own solutions, we might surmount their practical shortcomings.

In Moral Psychology, Alfano advocates that a person who is oppressed (or speaking up for the oppressed) should directly confront explicit or complicit oppressors. For example, he advises that people can combat implicit biases by confronting whoever has the bias (74, 78). Also, when discussing emotion, he highlights Lisa Tessman’s observation that people sometimes face a dilemma when regulating injustice-responsive anger: they can (a) recognize any injustice and get angry at it, which leads to all-consuming anger in an unjust world, or (b) get angry in a more measured way, but risk enduring degradation (2005, 124–25; cited by Alfano, 91). He extends this point in his chapter on character to take a dig at Aristotle. Aristotle argues that a virtue of mildness helps us to regulate our anger (2002, 1108a5ff.). But Alfano, following the work of feminist and anti-racist scholars like Macalester Bell and Zac Cogley, argues that anger responds to harms; it’s about more than mere temper. Alfano writes:

Aristotle restricts his theory to adult male citizens in a polity built around satisfying their and only their needs. For such people, injustices are bound to be rarer than for people in oppressed groups. When such privileged citizens do experience an offense, they are likely to have the power and perceived authority to make their anger acknowledged and the fault redressed. They have the luxury to be good-tempered. Someone who systematically faces injustices and whose anger about them is ignored, dismissed, or met with further injustice is in a very different position. For them, being or appearing good-tempered may even contribute to their oppression since it suggests that nothing is seriously wrong. (117)

Alfano’s point on Aristotle is well-taken, even though I think he should also have discussed Aristotle’s treatment of righteous indignation (1108b1ff.), and nowhere does Alfano explain that virtues and vices are inextricably linked to the lifelong project of human flourishing in a community. I even think Aristotle would agree with this advice in the abstract. But the devils of injustice lurk in the details. It matters which person confronts the other and how. It also matters what results from such confrontations, as confrontations aren’t intrinsically good.

An unfortunate truth for academics is that social justice isn’t only about epistemic, moral, or political justification. If it were, history wouldn’t be a “slaughter-bench,” as Hegel once called it (1988, 24). Bad, vicious, and evil people would yield to overwhelming justification against wrongdoings if it were only about reasons. Instead, we must also confront the empirical realities. And if we’re empirical about moral psychology and social justice, then we must admit what works and what doesn’t. I can’t help but hear Aristotle replying to Alfano with something like: “Virtues must be nested within a framework for human flourishing, as we need to consider the effects of emotions and character traits on the overall well-being of a person and community. After all, Nicomachean Ethics and Politics are a continuous project because ethics and politics are inseparable.” In other words, social justice shouldn’t exclusively focus on means or ends, and it shouldn’t separate moral psychology from political psychology. Rather, to actualize justice, we must scrutinize both the goals we want to reach and the winding, forked paths we take to get there.

One recently explored area in politics and psychology is the “backfire effect.” Many experiments document a curious phenomenon when some people are presented with new information that undermines their extant beliefs. Rather than change their minds, some people believe their original opinions more deeply. The backfire effect turns humans reasoning ironic; people in its grip believe more firmly their original opinions in the face of strong countervailing evidence (see Nyhan and Reifler; Trevors et al.; Chong and Druckman; Lewandowsky et al.). American politics has demonstrated this since the 2016 primary elections. Trump boasted that he could shoot somebody and not lose voters, and nineteen women alleged sexual misconduct suffered through interactions with Trump. Yet in November 2017, among Republicans, Trump had an approval rating as high as 85 percent (Marcin 2017). And this is not a single-party problem. Democrats failed to confront Hillary Clinton’s career moves that exacerbated American poverty and extended campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan that murdered (and still murder) civilians. Note, the backfire effect is different from and more insidious than Alfano’s mention of confirmation bias (cf. 119).

Why does the backfire effect matter? Sometimes experience gives counterintuitive results. And academics should yield to this experience in ethical and political matters rather than save theoretical integrity in systematic projects. This is especially the case when academics don’t come from the backgrounds of the people they’re talking about. A recent study by Justin P. Brienza and Igor Grossmann suggests that people from higher social classes are less wise than people from lower classes; they’re worse at finding solutions to practical problems. Additionally, philosophers have long understood how slaves can have deeper philosophical understanding than their masters (see Hegel 1977, §§178–96), and when people live in this world as a person of color, their consciousness splits into self-conception, awareness of how others perceive them, and the complex interplay between the two (see DuBois 1986, 364ff.). Social justice is more than mere academic curiosity and deserves as much rigor as any reputable science or philosophical discipline. For these reasons, any academic should read widely before weighing in on the philosophy of race, gender, or sexuality, and they shouldn’t be surprised that theory might not work out in practice.

So, what do we do with research on the backfire effect, and what can we learn from the recent election in America? I don’t know. But if scholars like Alfano (and me) want to combat biases, psychological distress, and social injustice, then we must offer smarter advice than mere confrontation of the oppressor. Alfano does this for biases; his systemic recommendations—such as reforming application procedures, disarming most police, and getting healthcare workers to treat diverse populations—deserve praise (74–79). But we don’t see this level of informed practicality in discussions on emotion, character traits, or disagreement. That is, how can we regulate emotions (and which ones?), how can we train character (selecting for which traits?), and how should we argue with other cultures, especially when we can’t agree on a policy where one side will be harmed? Even leaving these questions aside, we can complicate Alfano’s explicit advice of confrontation of oppressors. It should be emphasized that, when considering confrontation, we must regard who’s doing the confronting and in what ways. Confrontation might not only be unhelpful; it might actually make things worse for the oppressed or victims of violence (see McKiernan 2016, 150–51). We need to be suspicious of proceeding unstrategically or without tried and tested methods of organizing (perhaps by expanding our catalogue of psychological evidence to include historical accounts of resistance). This is especially the case if we garner any form of privilege or power.

Alfano deserves praise for confronting these issues in his book. But he (and I) need to be more aware of counterintuitive results in the public sphere. Sometimes we intend well and act earnestly on behalf of others, but sometimes it backfires, inflicting the burns of the backfire on the groups that academics advocate for. Maybe we face another Tessmanian dilemma: (1) we combat oppression vociferously, albeit with the risk of worsening conditions, or (2) we quietly resist but face the inevitable cruelty of public indifference to suffering and squandered opportunities to improve. Maybe part of the messiness of politics is that sometimes we need both strategies, and in either case, single solutions won’t work in all contexts. Maybe we also sense imagination’s unfortunate absence in political strategy. Alfano confesses that character—due to its complex interactions with patiency, agency, reflexivity, sociality, temporality, preferences, responsibility assessments, and emotions—is the most complicated phenomenon he investigates (136–37). This can’t be overemphasized, especially since he should include political character traits and group dynamics in the discussion.

As Alfano repeatedly implores, researchers of the moral psychology of biases, emotions, and character traits need to take sociality more seriously. And, as much as anything, this means finding psychological tools to combat oppression, even if they diverge from contemporary academic or political strategies. Academics should also shun overly simplified advice that obscures detail crucial to solutions, and we must acknowledge our privilege in writing pieces that almost no one in public policy or the general public reads. And at some point, we must deal with ugly realities that Aristotle observed two millennia ago: “For the person who lives according to emotion will not listen to talk that tries to turn him away from it, nor again will he comprehend such talk; how will it be possible to persuade someone like this to change? And in general it is not talk that makes emotion yield but force” (1179b26–29). He goes on to add, “And perhaps if someone wishes to make people better—whether in large numbers or in small—by exercising supervision over them, he too should attempt to become an expert in legislation, if it’s through laws that we become good” (1180b23–25). That is, if academics want to change harsh realities, we can’t stay exclusively on manicured campuses. Politics, and maybe force, may be our best means, and both will soil our oxfords.

Alfano already does much of what I advised. For example, he confronts counterintuitive results. He shows how preferences aren’t completely stable or determinate, but how they can nonetheless inform behavioral science (ch. 1). He argues that lack of control and knowledge undermine responsibility, but how we nonetheless can be culpable for certain forms of non-capacity or ignorance (ch. 2). He exhibits how emotions and reasons aren’t completely separable but that some emotions, like disgust, can nonetheless be discounted as providing good reasons (ch. 3). He reveals that it can be good to tell people they’re virtuous because they’ll act virtuously, but cautions us on the dangers of attributing vices (ch. 4). And he explains how cross-cultural studies oversimplify values both when they ascribe to different cultures fundamental disagreement on deep values and when they erase important differences in the ways people value (ch. 5). My cautionary note only extends this pattern to the solutions we find to facing social problems. Alfano has gifted us with a lucid exploration of the effects of agency, patiency, reflexivity, sociality, and temporality on moral psychology. But there is more work to be done to apply the same lucidity and rigor to the practical upshots that Alfano suggests and to the psychological problems in politics, which are inseparable from the lessons Alfano presents in Moral Psychology.

References

Alfano, Mark. 2016. Moral Psychology: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.

Aristotle. 2002. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Christopher Rowe. Commentary by Sarah Broadie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brienza, Justin P., and Igor Grossman. 2017. “Social class and wise reasoning about interpersonal conflicts across regions, persons and situations.” Proceedings from the Royal Society B. December.

Chong, Dennis, and James N. Druckman. 2007. “Framing Public Opinion in Competitive Democracies.” American Political Science Review 101: 637–55.

DuBois, W. E. B. 1986. The Souls of Black Folk. In Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade, The Souls of Black Folk, Dusk of Dawn, Essays and Articles, 357–547. New York: Library of America.

Hegel, G. W. F. 1977. Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

———. 1988. Introduction to the Philosophy of History. Translated by Leo Rauch. Indianapolis: Hackett.

Nyhan, Brendan, and Jason Reifler. 2010. “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Political Behavior 32: 303–30.

Lewandowsky, Stephan, et al. 2012. “Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 13: 106–31.

Marcin, Tim. 2017. “Do Republicans Like Trump? Latest Poll Shows Least Popular President Ever Is Starting to Lose His Base.” Newsweek, November 18. http://www.newsweek.com/do-republicans-trump-latest-polls-show-base-slipping-approval-rating-plunges-715748.

McKiernan, Amy L. 2016. “Standing Conditions and Blame.” Southwest Philosophy Review 32: 145–51.

Tessman, Lisa. 2005. Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Trevors, Gregory J., et al. 2016. Discourse Processes 53: 339–70.