When we think about ethics and morality, we often think that it is rational. Morality requires making judgments of right and wrong, and making judgments about what is right and wrong is a matter of logic and reasoning. But researchers interested in the psychology of morality are finding that morality is much more embodied and affective than we’d like to think. Specifically, moral judgments have been found to be linked to the feeling of disgust.
Schnall, Haidt, Clore, and Jordan (2008) hypothesized that morality may be more of a gut reaction that is later justified by moral reasoning: “moral reasoning is an important part of moral life, but for most people, most of the time, most of the action is in the quick, automatic, affective evaluations they make of people and events.” (p. 1097) They tested this hypothesis in a series of awesome studies that included fart spray and dried up smoothies. (You have to acknowledge how incredibly cool it is that “fart spray” made it into a top tier psychology journal.)
The researchers asked participants to read and think about several vignettes concerning moral judgments. These vignettes ranged from personal (e.g., whether sex between first cousins is ok, whether it is wrong for someone to falsify their resume) to public (e.g., whether participants would support nondenominational school prayer, whether participants would support spending more of the state’s money for waste treatment); some of them were disgusting (e.g., eating dead dog) while others were not meant to elicit disgust (e.g., stealing). Here is the cool part: the researchers experimentally manipulated the level of disgust that participants would feel. In one study, some of the participants completed the questionnaire in a room that smelled like fart (yes, the experimenters secretly sprayed fart spray into the air), and in another study, they had to complete the questionnaire with a pen that someone had chewed up, while sitting at a table with a cup of old, dried up smoothie and some used tissues, in a chair with a dirty, worn out cushion, in a room where the trash can overflowed. (Folks in the no-disgust condition completed their questionnaires in clean, tidy rooms.) Compared to participants who did not experience disgust, the participants who smelled fart in the room or sat at the table with the gross old food made more severe moral judgments regardless of whether the vignettes were themselves disgusting or not. In addition, this effect was most pronounced for participants who were sensitive to their own bodily sensations (e.g., people who were sensitive to changes in their bodily state), was unrelated to negative feelings (like sadness), and was observed only moral (not non-moral) judgments.
The authors interpreted these results as evidence of “a causal relationship between feelings of physical disgust and moral condemnation”, “an affective basis for judgments”, and that “disgust influenced judgments of non-disgusting moral violations as much as it influenced judgments of disgusting moral violations” (p. 1105-1106). We use our affect and bodily states as information, and in this study, participants used their feelings of disgust as information about whether something was morally right or wrong. So if you think your moral judgments are completely rational, reasonable, and logical, think (or smell) again!
If you are interested in reading this study you can download it from Jon Haidt’s homepage (it’s item#54).
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7 responses to “On The Relationship Between Fart And Morality”
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Oh I'm sorely tempted to send this stuff to all the rational objectivists I know!
This and similar data would lead many to find a totally social/biological evolutionary basis for all moral judgment. Maybe we are just kidding ourselves with this substitutionary atonement stuff and instead should just say, "Pardon me, I farted." After all, it is only a social notion of the "disgusting" we have offended. If moral judgment rests on such shaky ground, then "immorality" of all kinds is an equally flimsy notion, at best.
really excellent post, bonnie. i should introduce this study into my ethics class at school…would create quite the discussion i'd say.
Lauren, you are right. People tend to find it uncomfortable that their faculties of moral reasoning are affected by things totally out of their control. Challenges the whole free will paradigm and our illusion of control.
This is pretty good stuff. I wonder often just what part of my own moral aprobation is about disgust vs what God´s Word says is right our wrong. smelly homeless, homosexuality, or even child molesters etc.
Jesus seems to have embraced all of this and more in his outstreched arms on the cross. Pray for me that I might see these thing in the same way my Lord did on the Holy Cross.
Lauren: I highly recommend Jon Haidt's chapter (in press) on Morality (to appear in the Handbook of Social Psychology; it's item #77 in his list of moral psychology articles/chapters). It's a really good summary of what's going on in the field and he discusses historical and philosophical perspectives as well as psychological perspectives on morality.
Mike: FWIW, I don't believe the authors were trying to push for a totally social/biological basis for all moral judgement though I can see how it could be interpreted that way. The key is affective _primacy_, not affective dictatorship. I think it has parallels with Cranmer's view that what the heart desires, the will chooses and the mind justifies. I am also curious to see what theologians (of which I am not one!) make of these findings. Jesus' harshest words were for the most moral people of his day, so he must have been looking at ontology rather than moral behaviour or moral standards, whereas I don't think studies in the psychology of morality deal with ontology. But you're right, these findings could easily be inferred as saying that our ideas of 'wrong' and 'right' are purely biological/evolved/social. As far as I know, however, I don't think they go that far.
I've wondered about this idea of 'intuitive morality' and how it might relate to a theological discussion of when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Alas, I'm no theologian, so I'll leave that to others. But I do think that Jesus completely upset the 'intuitive' morality held by people during his time, by moving the focus away from how morally (or immorally) one lived, to something much less 'intuitive' than simple examination of ethical behaviour.
bonnie.
you raise interesting points about ontology.
The fact is that earthly justice must judge us as blindfolded lady justice. we are judged by what we do and not who we are. ontological considerations maybe only have to do with applying mercy, but never justice.
in the heavenly kingdom we are judged strictly by who we are (ontology) and not at all by what we do. this goes against reason, which is why, I guess, we are all in a way fake christians. when our conscience troubles us, we cast about for something to do to be justified rather than look to our ontological reality as being in christ.