Remember this a timed Quize that at least I need answer’s within 3 hours.
The Questions will be from below description.
Cognitive Biases You do not need to read over the section on cognitive biases too closely, but please do skim/peruse the article as well the articles (you do not need to read too closely). Why are we talking about cognitive biases in an ethics class? While many philosophers and ethicists work within ideal and rational conditions, the reality of human behavior is far from that – as explained by the works of Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, and Joshua Knobe (among many others). If you’re interested in a great book on the topic (this is not required reading, but a great book), I highly recommend “Nudge” by Richard Thaler, if you have not read it already… Our cognitive biases and blind spots have an effect on all our faculties, behaviors and decision-making – our faculty of reason and moral reasoning is not exempt. Below are a few videos with (funny) examples of how cognitive biases affect our behavior subconsciously, as well as a link to a list of cognitive biases an a number of interesting articles (for you to peruse)
List of Cognitive Biases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
(please skim)
The Availability Heuristic & Heuristics in judgment and Ethical Decision-making
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristics_in_judgment_and_decision-making
Ethical Blindspots
Blind Spots: We’re Not as Ethical as We Think
Recent research reveals we are not as ethical as we would like to believe. Professor Max H. Bazerman discusses his new book, “Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It.” Plus: Book excerpt.
HBS Working Knowledge
Ethical Blindspots and How to Minimize their Impact: https://icma.org/articles/pm-magazine/ethical-blind-spots
Cognitive Biases can affect moral intuition
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4197737/
The role of Cognitive Biases in Ethical Decision Making
https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/ambpp.2016.13382abstract
How bias affects ethical decision making: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-anchoring-bias-2795029
PBS Newshour on Wealth & Bias (showed in class): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuqGrz-Y_Lc
The psychology of conformity and obedience: The obedience experiments: In the 1950’s and 1960’s, a series of social psychology experiments revealed human susceptibility to influence, authority, and control.
Asch conformity experiment (video)
The Nuremberg Defense and the banality of evil: The obedience experiments occurred around the same time as the Eichmann trials in Jereusalem. Adolf Eichmann was being tried for crimes against humanity for his role as a primary organizer of the Holocaust. Eichmann’s defense in the trail was that he was “just following orders”, what has become known as the Nuremberg Defense. Hannah Arendt, in covering the Eichmann trial for The New Yorker magazine, described what she saw as the banality of evil:
“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied — as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels — that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani [the enemy of mankind], commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.”
Arendt sees the capacity for evil not as the product of malicious intentions from ethically corrupt persons, but rather with the everyday, unthinking conformity of average persons to overwhelmingly evil systems of control. For Arendt, Eichmann was a normal person, and could just as easily have been any of us. Milgram’s experiments were designed explicitly to test these claims, and found that 65% of people were willing to administer the final, fatal shock. Discuss how the “scripts” that we follow in public or professional settings make it easy for good people to commit ethically wrong acts.
OPTIONAL Videos of Interest: Money on the Mind: https://www.pbs.org/video/money-on-the-mind-1378936308/
Ebay Scandal: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/technology/ebay-cockroaches-stalking-scandal.html
