(no subject)
From: Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things/ By Chana Joffe-Walt and Alix Spiegel
"There is ... a common misperception that when people face an ethical decision, they clearly understand the choice that they are making. Over the past couple of decades, psychologists have documented many different ways that our minds fail to see what is directly in front of us. They've come up with a concept called "bounded ethicality": That's the notion that cognitively, our ability to behave ethically is seriously limited, because we don't always see the ethical big picture."
"One small example: the way a decision is framed [= the way a decision is presented] very much changes the way in which [one views] that decision.... Essentially, certain cognitive frames make us blind to the fact that we are confronting an ethical problem at all."
Framing may be even more important in areas other than ethics, where it determines public rather than private consequences of decisions.
A good example of framing is the abortion “debate”. Look at the issue from a short term ethical perspective and you side with pro-lifers. Look at it from a long-term socioeconomic standpoint and you can’t resist pro-choice arguments.
Another example of framing is political rhetoric that re-defines economic goals in terms of moral choices and individual liberties. This is how we have poor people voting for reduction of taxes imposed on the rich and generally against their own economic interests. Thomas Frank nailed it down pretty well (http://www.tcfrank.com/books/whats-the-matter-with-kansas/)
One of my latest favorites is probably “big vs small government” skirmish. I am pretty sure this comparative adjective framing was intentionally designed because it so well obscures otherwise obvious fact that the size of the government needs to be adequate to its functions (pretty much as the size of any material device has to be adequate to its purpose). "Big vs small" avoids a real discussion of what functions the government should have and how it should be organized to carry them out and instead creates an opportunity to promote private interests in curtailing government's involvement where these interests do not need it.
"There is ... a common misperception that when people face an ethical decision, they clearly understand the choice that they are making. Over the past couple of decades, psychologists have documented many different ways that our minds fail to see what is directly in front of us. They've come up with a concept called "bounded ethicality": That's the notion that cognitively, our ability to behave ethically is seriously limited, because we don't always see the ethical big picture."
"One small example: the way a decision is framed [= the way a decision is presented] very much changes the way in which [one views] that decision.... Essentially, certain cognitive frames make us blind to the fact that we are confronting an ethical problem at all."
Framing may be even more important in areas other than ethics, where it determines public rather than private consequences of decisions.
A good example of framing is the abortion “debate”. Look at the issue from a short term ethical perspective and you side with pro-lifers. Look at it from a long-term socioeconomic standpoint and you can’t resist pro-choice arguments.
Another example of framing is political rhetoric that re-defines economic goals in terms of moral choices and individual liberties. This is how we have poor people voting for reduction of taxes imposed on the rich and generally against their own economic interests. Thomas Frank nailed it down pretty well (http://www.tcfrank.com/books/whats-the-matter-with-kansas/)
One of my latest favorites is probably “big vs small government” skirmish. I am pretty sure this comparative adjective framing was intentionally designed because it so well obscures otherwise obvious fact that the size of the government needs to be adequate to its functions (pretty much as the size of any material device has to be adequate to its purpose). "Big vs small" avoids a real discussion of what functions the government should have and how it should be organized to carry them out and instead creates an opportunity to promote private interests in curtailing government's involvement where these interests do not need it.