Episode 28: Moral Persuasion

Dave and Tamler try their best to do a show without guests--we talk about moral persuasion, motivated reasoning, and whether it's legitimate to use emotionally charged rhetoric in a philosophical argument. Plus, we describe how students proceed through the "Stages-of-Singer," and Tamler finally defends himself against Dave's slanderous accusation of hypocrisy about animal welfare.   Links Thomson, J. J. (1971). A defense of abortion.  Philosophy & Public Affairs,1, 47-66. Marquis, D. (1989). Why abortion is immoral.  The Journal of Philosophy, 86(4), 183-202. Ditto, P. H., & Lopez, D. F. (1992). Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63 (4), 568. Ditto, P.H., Pizarro, D.A., & Tannenbaum, D. (2009). Motivated Moral Reasoning. In B. H. Ross (Series Ed.) & D. M. Bartels, C. W. Bauman, L. J. Skitka, & D. L. Medin (Eds.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 50: Moral Judgment and Decision Making. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Dawson, E., Gilovich, T., & Regan, D. T. (2002). Motivated Reasoning and Performance on the Wason Selection Task. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1379-1387. Sam's House, an orphanage in Nepal [sams-house.org]  The identifiable victim effect [wikipedia.org]   Tamler's mediocre TEDx talk on Moral Persuasion [youtube.com] 10 Classic South Park Impressions (including Sally Struthers) [youtube.com] *musical breaks in this episode stolen from DJ Premier and Jay Electronica. Please don't sue.    Support Very Bad Wizards