Forum: What's so bad about behaving badly? Simon Laham, Emrys Westacott, Urvashi Butalia 31 March 12 

This is down to welcome foreign weldon ideas from the bbc today i'm bridget kendall envy someone is soon over a useful way to raise your aspirations isn't this always wrong or enough false changing well is it time to rethink old conventions new scientific evidence suggests the seven deadly sins owned only by behavior and sometimes can even do good and i have three guys with me today to tempt me from the straight and narrow winning the studio where is the british philosopher professor and race west coast on the line from melbourne is the australian experimental psychologist simon that i am from you deadly when joined by the award-winning indian feminists and historian of ashley tonya lets start by reminding ourselves watch the seven deadly sins all time and then you just written a book about and seems to be very well faster than state can you remind us what they will not and how they came about because he again lost gluttony and greed sloth anger envy and pride on this list has looked reasonably similar for quite a few hundred years now actually look at the history of the deadly sins they go back to about the fourth century and the last of monks living in visit communities and the seven quite fundamental aspects of human nature struck these monks who try to devote their lives to contemplation of god as things to be avoided if they would've actually know seriously devote themselves to the quiet contemplation of god so that's how they started out as a kind of reflections on obstacles to a lot of quiet devotion over the years they became more and more entrenched in christian theology and have cost into weston popular culture more generally works of dante and salsa and even the movies of david fincher i came out to session time i want each of you to tell me what you think is your main sin or vice new simon what kind of anything writing this book i can't realize that i'm i'm pretty much in indulging all of them almost every day but my favorite really has to be gluttony just because we eat three times a day and if we really sit down and enjoy off food and enjoy a drink i would think that makes less really with living our table going to application in minutes of washing what about you what i said just that you don't exist with a gun because i lost off the books all the time and i love to read the closest i could directly by you i would definitely say so i always pretty tempted by the account can good book will is people thinking what about me i thought greens and talk me because i really i'm unable to resist the things i want and that means iu simon but will say books are you washing your memories so simon you what is an experimental psychologist at the university of melbourne has edges the condition that we are she shouldn't be also not too much about a single sentence because they can be a false front so when i lost how to stop become a fulsome wes does a couple of things anyone was interesting things and can say about lust that he'll actually mean a sexual design not lost more broadly construed is that it can actually make you smarter so slicing really counterintuitive when you think about the kind of stupid kind of lustful male that mother stereotype but some what lesson does is because it's designed by evolution to fulfill a particular pressing goal but is getting somebody to bed when it doesn't come to these mental shifts the focus your attention into the present and focus your attention on details and it's this kind of detail focus thought that underpins what psychologists call analytic reasons is just any kind of reasoning that involves taking a problem breaking apart components working with those components and with a solution and what research shows is because lost triggers his detail focused processing you give lustful participants in a study some questions to solve of analytic variety than what you find is they outperform people who are currently in a lustful mindset i can see how that would work as you think about heightened awareness thing you and your people during long winter ) treats the decline care review the things around them but the way you look at this is by looking at the results of psychological tests since it is addressed yet set this this book that i found that i recently done most of his waxing my weapons were collected by binding the stone by other researchers in the field and most of his experimental work and a lot of social psychology so what's if you happens in these sorts of studies is that we such as bring participants into a bar treat they manipulate something for example putting people into a lustful mindset or making them angry or indicating the think about money for example and they see what happens and that's kind of that my approach to this this question with the seams actually enforce identity slack has been seeking to try out when these tests on off i don't can you manipulate us into it and minds that don't need to know how would you test what's on what people felt when they were gluttonous will went interesting findings about gluttony is that it can in the right circumstances it can only make us more moral like is more prosocial so the study done by the research named barbara breeders and she brought hungry participants into the portraits of people she offs to not eat food ' mentality but she brings these people for marjorie and divide into two groups one of the groups she gives a big piece of cake to eat and a piece of cake i believe it's a taste test the next responsive advocate after that she asked them about their donation intentions how much money would they have the will to donate to places like the red cross or doctors without borders and the other group she reverses the order of those tossed donation task first then eating the cake was what she found was that people who had just eaten a big piece of cake much more like donate to charity the people who hadn't the idea being that food and money of both rewarding stimulate and this in evidence suggest that rewarding scenario processed in similar parts of the brain and so he are in some sense substitutable thirty if you are currently hungry and wanting food you what twenty food you can get and the ideas casting substitutable you want to hold onto any cash that you have an assembler internet so that people will donate you could say was is is is is a licensed resource do not indulge ourselves not even feelings of nina mangrum pride what do you think i race with scott i think we tend to want to make a moral lives quite simple by having blanket rules to give blanket condemnations of think that the sort of research that simon uncovers and describes and puts together shows is that actually marla is a lot more completed than with supposed to you and you've been exploring this not from the point here is a psychologist like simon bethesda hotness parliament is quite interesting yes and then for instance i have written on gossiping and on rudeness which again traditionally much-maligned which condemned forms of behavior but when you look when you think about it hard look at it closely look at some of the evidence you find that this all kinds of time hidden personal social benefits that we tend to overlook for instance with gossiping while it's true it cost you can destroy a person with them malicious gossip at the same time talking about other people is a way of finding out about you make your about us and if and when amendment should be talking with you you're a historian and founder of india's fast feminist publishing house eating by this idea of challenging these received ideas about good and patty is seven things you i was very interested what erisa saying that there's a lot of whole losing the kind of experiments that are carried out result if i was in that experiment and united cake at funerals and assignment model should you want with undue delay behavior but i would be delighted to make a donation to something whether or not you don't want that kind of thing proves and you are doing notions of bias invites you would any of those these are notions that actually became real to me when i was a young go then when i started this cooler school where i don't i studied this thing called moral science and i was really quite surprised that morality could actually be a science that but in indiana and in handling the outreaches within yanks have knowledge dealing with regard to be bringing you into these notions is not that simple and they don't exist in this e-mail me the concept of the seven deadly sins is completely foreign to us what to send monastic tradition this time saying it is very much back and it actually does not necessarily operate in a different country contexts i don't know what's of the conclusions we can i control from studies which are not necessarily country conviction that we are going to knock those studies i'm just saying that it can be very different buttons in very different contexts signed p sub foshee raised and spiritually you can reach completely different conclusions from some of these experiments is a bit tricky to the lemonade mind to be sure that your most imposing conditions on a muslim with this book and it was it was exquisite with a possible kind of approach on my with my idea of it was was dressed and put case that forward that these things would be told for long time about for us on over backwards over time there is what got better there are probably a similar number of experiment signaled mall to suggest of these with the things in some circumstances are quite aqua dive force so these drives that talk about the whole story by any means but i think a device you raise an interesting point that the often often comes up when i talk about studies like this and that is while you if it's addition it is someone says what if i was in a study i would do that digitally is like a lot of people a lot of people say that including the kinds of people who are in the studies in who actually end up behaving certain kinds of ways i think what six cycles each has shown us in recent decades of overly a lot of things that drive behavior we offer we are all we think certain things focus to do this all that actually the lots and lots of unseen on appreciated factors that shape the way we behave not think the power of the sorts of experiments that simon and maybe helpful to come save the world isn't quite as black-and-white as complex and lethal but you're behind is the danger of advocating blaring the nation of good and evil shall be having a fixed idea of what's good and positive voltages and moral courage that forces people to stick to sat stunned will that makes life easier i think it makes it makes it much easier to navigate the world you have a rigid set of rules to follow him thought things like motor for example is just downright potty conquered away from it it it it definitely deathly but the purpose of that i'm not really saying that if there is there is no line scheduled between good and bad having specific point of this book is that there's a lot that we are told by convention by tradition by authority that is bad for us and if you actually look at the of its some of that stuff is actually not that i first actually that's a basic point he said we should approach these things conventional morality with with an open mind and with empirical inquiry and see where that gets you an way of washing your perspective is quite helpful isn't it because you're saying and if you engage a traffic on the schooling and him and i you might have a very different view on this because in hinduism sometimes these concepts all much less care can't here is that sometimes there orderlies and he negatively the right and very traditional notions that accepted notions of good and evil is simply don't exist and the fact is that the hidden gold ethics that can affect him about it than others very strongly influence the behavior was not to be put in india today and visit she was dead among that set up because with the democratic state with a secular state coming in nineteen forty seven you get the imposition of the kind of things that simon is talking about here because the state has to define what's good what ebay has to say what the claim what's not and eight using the lord that simply doesn't exist behind her and if it's okay number product there is the the back of the just the eighteen day war is fought between two sets of brothers and being with them and give each other but they have to do it because that is what seems to them to be right and in the end it's the bad guys who go to heaven and the good guys who asked to be in pain and agony on analyzed even though they've done what was supposed to be dead which is what is some what is supposed to be something that maintains that the older the way it should be maintained and brought general jones that's what it is you kill your family to do brothers you steal somebody's wife all that is powerful and of course because it's the greater good of great something that you're fighting for amherst is this a perspective the embraces you look at these marble cook questions seems to me that in most societies personality a night whether that model beautifully modernized secular societies are tradition bound societies would you do have moral codes and honor codes and often these are based on tradition and they often govern such things as the relationship and sexes of the relationship to the generations all who can do what kind of work and it seems to me that time one of the things that comes out of say simon 's work is it that is a unwillingness to shake up traditional thinking about reality i would've thought that evening and throughout india that there was the with traditional moral codes are seeing their own traditional records there are i'm just saying that they're not defined a very theocratic ways in the sense that am and are not defined as what is clearly good all what is clearly evil but within larger rats to write that out moral records and there is his is a morality that has to be maintained and suddenly it governs relationships within families that governs relationships with society with the audit forms of the state which went the nationstates that are absent it just would've found something that's not that clear-cut which convicted things for us a great deal in which sets up attention between modernity and tradition and religious which is the hallmark of all societies which are in transition all recount in the throes of change as india currently is very much all she finds arguing that the seven deadly sins date back to the pool century monastic tradition enough for a very long way from omelette and 21st-century life will so that there is that intentions in and misconceptions about them do you think that the clash of cultures if you like between traditional and adenosine india is deep or just it actually and tonight it's another when looking at what we have in western culture two yeah i think it's deep blood red me know because i don't want to say today but in one society and not in another i think it's just it's that it's conceptualized differently and i think that one just needs to be aware of bad about saying that notions of good and evil do not exist in the society that's complete i would be at but that would be foolishness on my part to say something like that i think big duel but i think it is a different kind of notion of good and evil borrowed from the christian blood of the west " which was imposed on ingo menninger becomes a modern state and the british are looking into and subsequently i which is very different from what we have in the myths and legends and things that we have grown up with and their to set up a very interesting dynamic sometimes clashing sometimes overlap the dissent makes sense i don't i don't make sense yes i wondered whether in immediately one things about double standards does not mean that the device if you like of hypocrisy is something which is a particular problem when we are very hypocritical busy putting many ways you know i mean we like to think of us as for example you'd find many indians single indian is a nonviolent country was a load of rubbish because if you look around and can see how much violence we exercise towards our own people the army look at the cost system which is so deeply a part of d is a legend inmates that i'm talking about which is been handed down to us and which is the excuse for terrible violence towards people who are underprivileged but which then you know seems to because it say it's tradition because it's a socially accepted convention you can say when it's something that we have actually i lived within its part of our lord so yes there is a deep hypocrisy much it's actually brightens the country was always playing something hit the critical place members yet it's been good stead for a long time but what will she summon us what you think in indiana about different vices will seems that people associate with different sexes this is not the case will identify a list to get to to yes i guess the gossip individual but gossip is almost always associated with the manual phone meaning to the pretty much in every society now and i don't know what that's based on the action of serious scientific research of the kind that some reports which shows that it says its policy that many men gossip justice between hamas and fatah penalties that are instantly women didn't know that ' a golf among them so will everything be defined thus the sudden fad faded with just talking but i noticed that the sexual divide when it comes to sins and vices and in the research of it at the most susceptible that the effects will reasonably similar both sexism and there are some differences when when it comes to lost is really interesting different actually when it comes to anger some one of the things that anger is good for when men express anger is actually the basic brings gets in the pay rises if his interesting study that was done with a piece of cantaloupe and found researchers had to dispense witness a mock interview and during this interview is a job interview the interview we will either expressed anger or expressed sadness if it was a male interviewee who expressed anger assistance for that that person should be paid a salary about twelve thousand dollars higher than it was a male who expressed sadness the idea here is that expressing anger have to communicates confidence and tough mindedness decent good cinema rewarded by a high salary but the interesting thing is that if women express anger versus sadness and they suffer the penalty the paypal fee of five and a half thousand dollars and went that that's a really interesting gender difference that i think it happened based on what's expected of of men and women in the west that the male stereotype is different from the female stereotype a meeting of the male stereotype this is heavily grounded in a genji concepts like power incompetence agency in all twenty wares on on the whole the feminine stereotype is based more about communal attributes like caring passion honesty and think of things like that and if you if you if you witness of a woman behaving in a counter stereotypical way that scene that seems to backfire people release of sikh seek explanations for why that woman is behaving angrily cast are typically and potentially costs the as 's as an angry woman shrill woman and has as a result of penalizes the jury didn't get to watch it over your writing group quite similar in that and in your women are passive and nurturing that caring and also to thing is that women have not entered the world of work and a phone was working the same way as they happened with that dead but the numbers and much much more that so these questions of their competence and any of the crediting the time is talking about that as yet hasn't really been made to any great insights that i don't think this an adequate basis for comparison to us when you look at these things that you need bad agenda and of different people in mind i think that some the differences between the genders will always be very heavily relative to the cultural context relevance of issues saying elliott interesting to me that the raw fairly obvious differences in terms of people 's behavior around the world for instance violent crime is almost it is almost always committed by males can be speaking and i think that there is some justice in the idea that it setting our culture empathy physical intimacy i could and would minimal come over the that does not goes with with princeton 's recent bucket like carol gilligan and in moral theory when a sheet she argued that sent on average men will perhaps think about the moral issue of the in law rule governed way as opposed to a more situational and that it is as if it is a fascinating thought we started with the idea of the seven deadly sins were developed by male monks in the pool century so the question is actually on the seven deadly sins appropriate to not just the 21st-century but the price sexes in the tenth century this is before him from the bbc world service program about the virtue of all places the joy of sin and challenging conventional moral wisdom # frost sixty second i get you improve the well and are over this week comes from philosopher emrys west coast and received just one minute to an enemy bridget kendall of my other two guests joining us from new delhi the indian historian and feminists of aussie bretagne and from melvin the australian experimental psychologist simon lamb of course you the bbc world service audience say and research already omits thoughts now a huge moral problem throughout the world is political corruption politicians using that position to benefit the cells at the expense of the public good with a legally or illegally my proposal to reduce the level of corruption everywhere is to impose on all politicians an austerity constraint because faithful thoughts first upon taking office their income from all sources including gifts should be capped at the average wage in the society second the place they live should be valued at no more than the average property value in the surrounding region said in public they should all at the same simple civil service uniform and forth these constraints should stay in effect for five years to believe office the austerity constraint would deter self-serving types from seeking office it would keep politicians more humble and in touch with the way will be people that it would free up palace 's estate mentions the best use and it would promote a new something role model for the young reunion on becoming a respected symbol of selfless public service more candidate with the list for your very much and miss you because neither the dangers meant that this could produce exactly the opposite result they renting for pecans instead of my quality just people with independent means being anyone's one to run for office why would they be the only ones to want to run after all if the young lady politician is median over the bridge then everyone who insists that would be in for papers case you are interested in the size energy for my comment on mind whether this be the one thing that rarely stocking with race-based politicians but they must now should be noticed but i think you have to question of them setting in this country laughed dark suits and winds will be shots anyways they have is beautiful but my major flaws distinguish between committee would have even less luck working out what is going on beneath the external veneer well like cindy u now and we have trouble distinction tuning parties anyway so it might differ the reform would be a should be culturally relative going to the tradition 's sake but i think britain lincoln green togas of the israeli development association the twelfth of october the second republicans ' law history at time of raymond ohashi want to think about if you know all politicians there kind of uniform anyway beyond abridging much where the men where the white cat was dying but in a very white very starched it's the women who don't and i'm just wondering what this uniform thing would do to to women you know one of the main tank is good because he was expecting the worst one of the nice things at least in this part of the word about women politicians other to bring cousin are enjoyed otherwise by the tao is in upon them into a on-demand interesting like the reason that you did it was because there was a report of the coming spot to conferencing china recently when everyone was running incredibly expensive clothes to show off how well did know he is ohashi on this would be a shame if we just let upon the nebula was in the same lincoln green but i is simon what essentially is a really interesting what you decide year of taking money and power out of your equation when it comes to boxing self interests in the common good this really interesting studies in and in psychology that show that even the very concepts of money and power lead people to believe also interested to the visit is a great paradigm which is discounted to sing i guess the listeners can can try this at home so once the psychologist due to test perspective taking which is an integral part of prosocial behavior is to do the following asked people to take a dominant handset must left the right-hand and trace on their full head of seeing us get his coffee like a real capital lindsay e now you can do this in two ways if you join the capital of a such that the three prongs of the any pointing to the right then that's the eso from your perspective a half future when it such of the three prongs appoint the left that's that's the a as it would look from another process perspective also cited that yes also you so he is you will you guys the same summer but if i asked you guys around the perspective taken so basically if you joy as we look from somebody else's point of view i would suggest music you off automatically taking the perspective of somebody else what research shows is that if you make the concept of money saline people 's minds or cause of the palestinian people 's minds then much less like a take out a process perspective that even the very concepts of these things that the concepts and resumes his rules much of downplay shoot i think i ought on balance and shift the scales back towards common good and away from self-interest is as nice guys in a letter to the ambience of a program such as lorena didn't know that contains the raw corruption i do you think will let austerity constraints but everything out to you is actually black competition we are to begin with think it's a brilliant idea because anticorruption really needs to be rooted out and for us he it isn't only at the level of politicians it's all the way through right to the bottom in society so i think it would certainly work to impose austerity constraints but in order to think at one of the things that has only surprised me about corrupt people it is good this seems to be noted the midst of the amount of lands they want a mass and then it was to spend outside and what they do with it some just thinking that this thing five years after the unit they give out by the retirement of omega interested inside out and then billy felt maybe it is possible into their kids i don't know we could extend it is been facetious and weaknesses of business era scratch and the second i'm being a bit facetious benefit the thing that worries me the median wage you in a society that so higher outcries like olivas there isn't actually an average or median wage be the minimum wage in some turnout thousand rupees and then there are people who are binding and billions and billions of rupees so where one place this thing is i like the idea very much as a limitation on rss and how you can post politicians that is that is probably let's leave it back and wrist rest thank you very much i believe all agreed anywhere that political corruption is a vice advisor to fluctuate but if you're listening would like to add your thoughts to get in touch details of our craft from our webpage will contact facebook or twitter and some great responses to most takes six second idea from ibm chief scientist jeff janice you proposed rationing the use of car horns was the rates cool next thing you know your client needs when they when you sweat and charge you accordingly and australian deborah fishburn pointed out was used to hold quite likely to break up a post in front of you when the traffic lights changed and they just thought that well we'll just have to include call appeal court stepper is daniel but let's get back to rethinking of voices and this was to cause your professor of philosophy of alfred university in new york and in your most recent work as you mentioned idea you'd be mounting an offensive rudeness and go sit in on about hobbits understood us is the price you pay for living in a culture that is dynamic to my the rules of polite behavior always changing so how is this true for rudeness well for example in a situation like university fifty years ago students would call that professes professor seven seven doctor simpson now it's quite common full professes to introduce himself by their first name and invites students to call us by assessment not all assistive so students will go ahead professor dave on sally and then deluged the statement of the professor who will immediately go and complain to the to their colleagues about the and impediments of the money of all for that matter when they receive an e-mail that says something like young prop comic classic laura failed and complain about the slack standards for moral standards of the fifth day of trying to detect sudden rueful tenure is university professor make a headset that really what's happening is that this general confusion about the conventions the social conventions because these reflux in fact in some ways the flux is a good thing festival it's in the direction of often loading dock egalitarianism like a nutcase with instead of bending a symmetry of how this professor so-and-so and people selling it some people at being a treating each of the more equally as also i think a good thing because with social conventions and the convention sucks it enables us to take stock and to think typically about what dimensions off which ones want to keep which was once a change instead of unthinkingly just retaining wall with we received from this this is that what you're talking about a bears mission of washington indian society this tension between those who want to keep conventions the weather was and that is in favor of a more molten structure society more egalitarian one yet if i feel it a very odd kind of example it we have is a huge hindu right-wing movement physical movement in india and there are only so the fundamentalist kindle relies the men who are now attacking young women who might be sitting in a bar or pub having a drink because they see that this is not the thing for women to do it's bad it's wrong to drink his advice and tell us these women are dressing in western fillets which is also a terrible advice of these kind of self-appointed guardians of the morality are drawing on a range of pretty outdated kind of ideas about him doing this in hindu culture and turning them into something back of the straitjacket and it sits up but huge tension but there is also no beep of this meeting sympathy with them because people are so scared of what globalization and the onslaught of the waste is doing to our classroom is sensible that time is it very interesting examples as what's happening here is people are showing to the challenging the conventions by breaking the connections that actually is another positive value but sometimes placed on acts that might be considered unethical blue door when i'm in the same way that in the nineteen fifties in the civil rights movement in america when the conventions are broken by a black slice sits together impossible about that gay men holding hands now it okay when it comes now all kissing in public is a challenge that direct challenge the conventions which serves to loosen his conventions and process signed the australian dispatch because some people often think of australians is very straight talking then do you think that they suffer from differing opinions about what straight talking about sweetness that sounds to me that said that however still notice of generational conflicts but it seems also that with any skinny subgroups within within a society astray is a very multicultural society and any subgroups have their conventions and when one subgroup rubs up against another one of the commits a slightly different as the chance to interpret certain kinds of behaviors as being rude would question whether it will constitutes rudeness is a really interesting one and it is quite a subject of subjective one hundred november sixth that i think the key question is always relative or is there such a thing as downright rudeness which you can't get around it is read whoever you are and whatever your point i is i did some funny like to think it's it generally relative because do i define rudeness is that it involves necessarily the violation of social convention and social conventions are depicted relative legitimacy if i agree with everything you know i was just thinking when simon was talking for example you don't cochair you never ever say thank you and when i first came to england and bought something in a shop and didn't say thank you was seen as rule would and it takes it took me a long time to understand that this was the convention did you say thank you ssc or not there is one going to disintegrate you don't set in a sense these are it is quite meditative and what might be acceptable in one country might be seen as rudeness and meaning somebody offers you something to drink and you don't see a summary i have it you just you say no one and they say you must have it amended as a whole adagio go through and find if you accept and that's polite something for move three if he was the we should be too categorical when we think about what's good oh five i'm black-and-white but also houses a sneaking feeling that one have to very careful not to forget that they're all constants that help society what otherwise would be completely antisocial jungle but i wanted and when it is here we are at the beginning of the 21st-century we started by talking about the seven deadly sins involved in the full century is to compile the new list of sins from mage was of the sins and vices that you would pick and race i think i would think students like excessive individualism excessive materialism because most of all a set lack of critical imagination which makes us feel that the system that we live in denial of that happening is inevitable and there is no alternative to it which are you a proxy i can know that's a really tough one anxiously but i would to when pushed to the wall i could say yes excessive individualism and other back office since off social belongings of commitment i'm not sure exactly how to freezing aquino but mean my computer is not the word out that this be booed up then you need to be aware of their right to dignity and and their need for respect to something like that and i really don't have the words for it are you simon is a sin if i was pushed and i think i would agree with emerson of vestry in spirit but i think what was what we want essays i would like to resist this said to him was significantly negative evidence but you will not allow for furloughs at and i think just the idea or is it is kind of found that fifty one doesn't disagrees behind the roman catholic church a few years ago to put forward his list of new sins and include things like stem cell research and drug abuse and pollution and euthanasia things like this amid the labeling of these really complex human as simply sinful i think is just not necessarily since you well all of my igr when i was thinking about this i like cynicism the instinct to reject all values as all actions is governed by calculated self-serving nations which is bloody up the fool back to be values consonants but will save to understand things don't necessarily will wisdom feel self but for the social good as well interesting to note that three out of the four vests came up with some concern about the overriding value that's a writing emphasis on individuality in today's world yes and it ties in with luscious point out to the beneath looking to and since that is what will we've lost and communal toys that will pop the satisfying life.

Crippled window thanks to oh three if you find them of russia britannia and amherst west coast to get more details put costs and links on our website to the bbc and form into a search engine next take a special program from oxidant in front of an international audience social entrepreneurs on how to build equal ships with vulnerable communities in need of help but know from you become the notice here at the forum good week and as usual we leave you with that song this week so it's from down under the sound of the australian check that is enjoying about my chances such as & when elton brand discusses the history and i did find out more visit bbc.

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