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Moral psychology as ethical practice1


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Bogdan Popoveniuc
„Ştefan cel Mare” University of Suceava, Romania
e-mail: bpopoveniuc@usv.ro


AGATHOS, Volume 15, Issue 2 (29): 85-104, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.13946722
© www.agathos-international-review.com CC BY NC 2024


Abstract: The development of GenAI, exhibiting intelligent behavior without comprehension, challenges traditional views that link morality to comprehension, emphasizes the crucial role of moral psychology in advancing humanity and argues for a significant paradigm shift to address the negative impacts of digitalization, virtualization, and increasing reliance on AI in moral and legal matters. It explores the complex recessive relationships between ethics and morality, as well as between moral psychology and moral philosophy. The paper critiques the current state of moral psychology, which is overly focused on positivism and often neglects the nuanced nature of moral judgments. It is argued that this approach relies excessively on “computing thinking,” which diminishes the subjective and emotional aspects of morality. The paper advocates for a humanistic psychological perspective grounded in a comprehensive ethical foundation, emphasizing the importance of emotions, cognition, social evolution, and character development in shaping moral behavior. It highlights the critical role of moral character and critiques purely rational approaches to ethics and morality. This “second-generation cognitivism” (e-cognitivism) must incorporate the enactive, embedded, embodied, extended, and mainly experiential and emotional aspects of the mind. This shift is crucial for preserving human understanding and preventing the surrender to a technological singularity. Considering its profound influence on human self-image, the necessity of embracing a pedagogical and visionary role in psychological research is underscored.


Keywords: e-cognitivism, moral consciousness, scientific image, scientific paradigm, technological singularity


The aporias of psychology as science

The invention of GenAI, by far surpassing the famous Turing (1950) test, proves that knowledge, competence, and intelligent behavior are possible without comprehension (Dennett 2017). Computer programs can outrun human performances at cognition-based tasks simply by manipulating symbols, which we know for sure they don’t understand at this moment (Searle 1980). The moral dumbfounding phenomenon, notable in moral psychology, also gains new significance. As a teacher, I’ve always had this strange feeling that something seemed lacking about some very good responses from my students when they could not develop them further. I preferred to convince myself that they understood, but other subjective motives affected their ability to articulate their thoughts clearly. However, the GenAI was the living proof that the students’ dumbfounding could result from a genuine lack or improper understanding (this alternative being supported by their improper justifications). Understanding is a step further than merely knowing something (Rowley 2007). One can be competent and exhibit intelligent behavior without comprehension. Hence, the moral dumbfounding (Björklund et al. 2000), with all its rightful, but convenable narrative-based contentions (Jacobson 2012; Wylie 2021), discloses the possibility of moral competence without comprehension.

 What can psychology, and moral psychology in particular, learn from the impressive performances of Generative Pre-trained Transformer AI? Roger Mucchielli (1974) contends that human facts have some characteristics that make them incompatible with the approach from the natural sciences. The human fact is global; it cannot be thoroughly decomposed into distinct parts to be analyzed because it is a heterogeneous synthesis, at a different level of complexity, of a multidimensional reality. The additive summation of biological, social, and cultural factors cannot provide an adequate picture of its nature. Human fact is the expression of a set of meanings, values, and concepts experienced by the subject who is acting. As such, it requires comprehension, not only intellectual competence. It is also incomprehensible in the absence of an analogy between the observer and the observed. Understanding psychological experience requires both empathy (cognitive, nonetheless) and implies the impossibility of demoting the subject to the instance of an object without losing the very essence of what is desired to be understood. Human fact means, at the same time, the attestation of an individual presence, that of the subject who lives, feels, values, and which unfolds in time and space as consciousness. Finally, human fact is influenced by the reciprocity of observation. The awareness of the observer’s existence - whether as a virtual presence like God, a social instance such as common sense, or a psychological structure as Super-Ego - alters the unfolding of the psychic fact as such. Consequentially, human fact is inherently moral, as the last three characteristics are morally laden.

 For these reasons, Psychology’s epistemological project to become a hard science is misleading and detrimental. The human psychic is not a physical object like a neural network; it has an informational nature and a genuine design. Its complexity and irreducibleness to physical laws arise from several fundamental characteristics of its mechanisms, among which are the coexistence of heterogeneous motivations and mechanisms, their “impurity” within any behavior, and the fact that there is not (always) a single explanation of conscious impulses. From an epistemological perspective, there always remains a dependence on theoretical understanding and perception of the world in the sociocultural context. Psychological knowledge involves a complementary First-person - Third-person or an emic-etic approach (Headland et al. 1990). “The subjectivity of consciousness is an irreducible feature of reality” (Nagel 1986, 7). Without it, we couldn’t do any objective science, not even psychology. The “scientific image” of the psychic (Dennett 2017) or “a view from nowhere” (Nagel 1986) distorts our understanding of the human psyche and could be detrimental to the evolution of (self-)knowledge in our species.

 The main reason is that psychology has a self-referential epistemology. Thus, any conception of psychological functioning affects cognition. Aside from neurological studies, which serve as a complementary aspect that of deciphering the biological underpinnings of human psychology, a comprehensive, integrative, and inherently self-referential psychological theory is needed for experimental research. Any experimental study is constructed based on theoretical supposition. The instruments used are limited to their proprieties. You can study the water in which you are diving using a thermometer, a spectrophotometer, or a refractometer. Each can give you only the presumed qualities. Analogous, selection bias is present from the very beginning of any research in psychology. Most of the grand theories on human psychology are inevitably based on faith-based systems and on some common-sense conceptions. Their first principles are bound to be untested and untestable by nature (McAdams & Pals 2006). These principles are confined to what can be understood through human phenomenological experience. Similarly, moral psychology inevitably relies on general theories (common or philosophical) on morality that are part of human self-image. Any progress in scientific psychology (“scientific image”, in Dennett’s terms) brings about changes in common conceptions (manifest self-image), which will create new hypotheses and research, changing the scientific image and so on.


Complexity of moral psychology

The moral realm has its own aporias, and the relation between ethical considerations and human psychology is complex and multifaceted. This connection involves not only how moral beliefs shape individual behavior and thought processes but also how psychological factors influence our understanding of morality. The interplay between moral values and psychological experiences can lead to conflicts, ambiguities, and profound insights. This and the following features highlight the need to examine both aspects to fully understand moral psychology.

 First, there is no clear distinction between moral/ethical and immoral/unethical, despite how obvious it may seem. Any rational delineation rapidly encounters anecdotic counterexamples, insoluble dilemmas, and opposing interpretations. Moral competence is based on character formation, meanings, and intersubjective negotiations within a (shared) space of understanding.

 Second, people’s conduct in life is oriented by their values - those “trans-situational goals, varying in importance, which serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or group” (Schwartz 2017). These values cover the entire range between selfish assertiveness to moral prosocial behavior (Hinde 2009). Individual morality was evolutionarily built by the requirements of managing the relationship between individual and group’s needs, survival and welfare of the groups, and relation with nature (Schwartz 2017). However, only the social-focused values from Schwartz et al. (2012) hold true moral significance, even as nature-focused values gain recognition for their moral relevance in the context of climate change and resource depletion. From Schwartz’s values catalog, only self-transcendence values of universalism and benevolence can be considered moral values per se. In comparison, conformity and tradition, while group-oriented, may conflict with equally righteous needs of other groups and subject to become unethical. Value pluralism holds that values are not mutually exclusive, allowing for a more nuanced approach to moral dilemmas compared to moral values relativism or fundamentalism. The distinction between morally “good” values and individual or group “valuable” values is crucial. It is not easy to differentiate values that form the ethical infrastructure (“infraethics”) (Floridi 2013) and morally “good” values or “truly” ethical values. Some of the purported moral “foundations,” such as loyalty, authority, or spirituality (Haidt 2012), are not ethical per se. “High levels of trust, respect, reliability, privacy, transparency, and even freedom of expression, openness, and fair competition” facilitate good decisions and actions but also can form the group-bonding base for a cohesive, efficient society of Nazi, terrorist, or fanatics (Floridi 2013). Evolutionary foundations, rules, or rational utilitarian decision-making cannot secure the morality of judgment and conduct. The ethical character of morally good deeds lies in a sort of comprehensive virtue practice. Similar to the exiled concept of character from psychology, for the sin of resisting operationalization, virtue ethics is unrightfully dismissed by failing the situationist challenge (Ahlenius 2021) to provide action guidance (Annas 2014). Virtue and character cannot be acceptably computed on a trait-based model of personality, so they were largely sidelined in psychological research.

 Third, the a priori cognitive mechanisms of moral intuitions add another layer of complexity to the intricacy of the affective-cognitive foundation of moral judgment. Not only are moral judgments based on deontological or utilitarian reasoning, as most psychological research studies seem to support, but the infra-logic of moral intuitions comprises complex heuristics as well. Individuals can arrive at the same “gut feeling” of good or bad on different or combined paths: the role-model entity assessment, action analysis, or consequence tallying. As such, moral intuition can result from integrating agent-based heuristics of virtues, deed-based heuristics of rules, outcome-based heuristics of consequences, or a combination of them (Dubljević & Racine 2014). All three main ethical theories have their specific heuristic. Thus, there is no rule-based, algorithmic system or utilitarian calculus for judging and deciding ethically in daily life. The valid application of rules or utilitarian decision-making reasoning requires (self-)reflexivity, as much as a virtuous approach, to result in sound and suited conclusions due to the richness of human contexts and experiences. Sound moral judgment in complex matters implies at least three types of reflexivity, all based on higher abilities for critical thinking: hetero-reflexivity associated with normative ethics, the evaluation of the principles that justify moral judgments; intro-reflexivityevaluated by the research in the psychology of neural, cognitive, and affective processes involved in moral judgment; and self-reflexivity or metaethical analysis of the purpose of morality, the status, and nature of moral judgments. Therefore, to secure the moral reasoning for perverse twisting, reflexive management of all is required for moral competence, a concept that is highly polysemous in popular culture, scientific research, and philosophy (Lind 2008).

 Fourth, because our moral psychology depends on consciousness, and since our own conscious intuitions shape how we understand consciousness, this enmeshes the scientific explanation (Sattin et al. 2021). As the latest trends in the psychology of consciousness suggest, the consciousness itself looks more like an underlying automated moral compass than a user-dependent control panel. The consciousness did not evolve primarily for individual survival but rather for the social purpose of enhancing communication among humans. Even subjective awareness may not have as much of a direct causal influence as it is essential for interactions in social contexts (Halligan & Oakley 2021). This perspective challenges naïve traditional perspectives on the autonomy of consciousness, arguing that it primarily fulfills a moral function. It basically sustains the species as a whole rather than individuals. Facilitating social interactions and the sharing of ideas and emotions among individuals primarily contributes to collective survival and well-being (Halligan & Oakley 2024). This view aligns with the conception of the self as a mental homeostasis sustained by soft-wired semantic encapsulation and auto-organization of informational cognitions. It emerges as an “unnatural” break with nature, which is possible only through “collaborative and cumulative effort by generations through time” (Floridi 2011, 560). The consciousness, “our personal user-illusions” “enabled by the installation of a virtual machine made of virtual machines made of virtual machines,” developed evolutionarily and is molded through ongoing communication processes as we share information and seek reasons with others (Dennett 2017, 341). What defines us as human, or our human essence, results from our existence in communities. We are a “selves-created” community of intelligent beings. Morality always implies (mutual) furtherance, an abstract, presumed or lived “I-Thou” relation with an “Other” (Buber 1970). The highest and most complex states we can experience, such as love, self-actualization, or self-transcendence, are intrinsically moral and arise from the irreducible authenticity of human consciousness. These states involve transcending Selfhood toward Otherness, whether that is in individual relationships, collective connections, transcendent relations or our symbiosis with the natural world. The moral dimension forms the genetic bricks of evolved consciousness. “Selfhood of oneself implies otherness to such an intimate degree that one cannot be thought of without the other” (Ricœur 1992, 3). Yet, living in an environment filled with artificial cognitions fosters instead a monological “I-It” relationships among isolated and self-contained individuals and threatens the dialogical moral “I-Thou” intersubjectivity.

 As a result, ethical normativity is underivable from physicalism because it is the product of autonomous conscious agents, even if their comprehension and their “space of reasons” (Sellars 2007) are largely determined by their biology. The moral meaning is context-dependent because it results from the complex intricacies of our self-narratives, constructed in time on the collective world of shared ideas through communication. Cognitive processes of constructing meaning have an interpretive nature and not a causal determinative one (van den Berg & Corrias, 2023). The existential moral experience (moralische Erlebnis), rather than intellectual understanding, is what truly inspires, motivates, and guides our ethical reasoning (moralische Erfahrung) (see Heidegger 1972; Kim 2005). Our lived experiences and emotions shape our moral beliefs and decisions more profoundly than abstract concepts or theories alone. Morality is inextricably intertwined with the bodily sensations and emotions within cognition in an unmitigated experience (Erlebnis), This connection gives rise to distinctive features of moral reasoning related to non-neurotypical conditions such as autism or psychopathy. (Clarkson et al. 2023; Dempsey et al. 2020; Margoni & Surian 2016; Moran et al. 2011). The approaches in moral psychology should be qualitative and quantitative alike, both nomothetic and idiographic, and rely rather on explorative than confirmatory methodology.


The recessive relationship between moral psychology and moral philosophy

Moral psychology and moral philosophy are in a correlative opposition of recessive relation: independent, standalone views in a mutual relationship in which each contributes to the existence of the other (Florian 1983). They perceive each other as opposites due to moral philosophy’s anxiety over evolutionary debunking, which is viewed as undermining its uniqueness, and moral psychology’s concern that normativity may threaten its objectivity. Nevertheless, they are founded upon and support one another, as they are genetic ones. Our psychological mechanisms, uncovered through empirical research, inform (meta)ethical theories that serve as the foundation for further moral psychological studies.

 The recessive dynamics more effectively capture both the permanence of each theoretical construct and their alternating primacy, as observed in the evolution of psychological paradigms (Popoveniuc, 2023). Other alternative concepts miss the complexity of the mutual relationship of these two epistemological paradigms. They are not in a dialectical relationship because no higher synthesis can resolve their opposition. Also, they are not parallel because they imply a fundamental relation of mutual and reciprocal references. They are not just complementary because, in this case, both receive equal stands, and there will be no rationale for changing their primacy in time. The correlation implies a mutual dependency in which one thing affects or depends on another, while these two principles form standalone weltanschauungs. Lastly, a recessive relationship differs from derivation, where the first term produces the latter.

 Ethical theories form the base of psychological theories on human morality. Psychologists often overlook that theory is a tool, and as Kurt Lewin said, “there is nothing more practical than a good theory.” Empirical research in moral psychology is built on classical ethical theories and, not surprisingly, finds empirical support for any of these ethical theories: deontologism versus utilitarianism in dual process theory (Greene 2008), dual-account theory (Crockett 2013; Cushman 2013) or dyadic morality theory (Schein & Gray 2018), theory of moral sentiments in the representational approach event-characteristic-emotion (cognitive and emotional integration theory) (Moll et al. 2008) and virtue ethics in many other (see Anscombe 1958; Bright et al. 2014; Campodonico & Navarini 2020; Cohen & Morse 2014).

 Psychological theories are inherently self-reflective, as they are products of the human mind attempting to understand itself. Psychological research hypothesis carries implications, creating a circular, or self-reflective, relationship between the theories and the subject matter. The scientific knowledge of moral mechanisms provides empirical support that forms the basis for further re-evaluation and refinement of ethical theories. Consequently, psychology is the most self-reflexive scientific social institution, and because of this, it cannot be moral value-free. Research in moral psychology is grounded in ethical systems, which are supported or amended by empirical findings and hence subject to change based on new evidence, not solely philosophical abstract reasoning.

 The most cherished moral values can either be enforced or fade their credibility and legitimacy. Unlike the subjects of physics, the subject of research in psychology cannot be treated as an object. It is nearly impossible to eliminate wishful thinking or motivated reasoning in psychological research practice without surrendering to a purely positivist understanding. Moral psychology can’t hide after its purely epistemic scientific role and “plead ignorance” when tasked with providing a neutral explanation of moral phenomena because it cannot. Consequently, the distinction between “descriptive” and “normative” accounts of moral cognition is often artificial and misleading, as the primary research paradigm in psychology does not fully embrace evidence-based theories. Therefore, if research in moral psychology is conducted uncritically, it risks reinforcing existing theoretical assumptions since ethics is a product of human reasoning, and the theoretical foundation of research should relate to this reasoning rather than to the nature of the object it studies, the moral per se.


The vital ethical relevance of psychological research

Ethics without moral psychology is empty; moral psychology without ethics is blind. Moral phenomenon is an essential human reality embedded in its manifested image, and the behavioral scientific approach is only a guessing experiment. Equally, all ethical “rational” solutions have been contradicted by human history, highlighting that all rational social utopias eventually devolve into terrible dystopias. Human psychology evolves slowly and needs time to progress through learning and experiencing in human communities. Our moral conduct is evolutionary and habitual driven by moral intuitions or disposition (Annas 2011). Nonetheless, these that can be educated (Sauer 2022).

 Human moral grammar, being innate, must be evolutionary, even though shaped by social norms and cultural conditioning. Although it is very slow, it can and must change over time. From here, the tragedy of the fast pace of technological advancement, which changes the social environment so rapidly that the evolutionary progress of moral cognitive architecture can’t keep up with it. The hubris of human reason instantiated in objective scientific knowledge and juridical harness of human society poses an additional danger. The top-bottom legally or politically imposed regulations or ideologies are vulnerable to twisting if they are too inconsistent with or do not consider the existing moral psychology (see, radical political correctness movement, utopian progressist one or communism versus extreme right conservatism, fundamentalist traditionalism or anarchism ideologies). The top-bottom rationalist perspective is directly or indirectly antibiological. The bottom-up biological perspective is anticultural, mitigating the importance of human reason and agency. The first paradigm is dangerous because it relies on abstract higher principles of the City of God that can lead to moral atrocities in the City of Man - immoral communism, national socialism, or religious fundamentalism, among others. The latter poses a danger because it reduces humans to mere organic beings unconsciously mastered by primitive impulses and views ethics as simply a by-product of evolution and the common living. So-called “objective” or “rationalist” perspectives impose unrealistic and unattainable expectations that people cannot meet in practice. Moral emotions are more powerful motivators for moral behavior than moral judgment (Cabezas 2011). Any rationally designed social system, either Law or advanced AI, is inadequate for sustaining a moral society because knowing right from wrong is insufficient; you must care (Cima et al. 2010). All past political regimes built solely on abstract ethical principles have resulted in the worst possible immoral nightmares whenever implemented. Therefore, the goal of ethical or “nanny” AI is a utopian lost cause from the beginning. Even so, the outdated praise for reason from the rationalist cognitive approach still aims to eliminate the affective component (see Curzer’s 2014 model). However, both reason and emotion are equally needed for moral conduct, which involves moral sensitivity and motivation, and they are inevitably immersed in the “undesirable” reality of moral character (Yang & Raine 2009).

 In the current paradigm of moral psychology, developing an integrative theory of human morality based on character integrity (Kaptein & Wempe 2011) is a challenging task. This difficulty arises from epistemic aversion to entities that resist operationalization and instrumentalization because they can’t be modeled by computing thinking, which is prevalent in cognitivist research. As a result, the focus on quantifiable measures often overlooks the nuanced aspects of character and cognition that are essential for a comprehensive understanding of human morality. Nonetheless, moral character represents the sole object and the subject of moral psychology. The paradox of moral psychology can be expressed as follows: it is not helpful to do moral philosophy until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology (Anscombe 1958, 1), but we can’t make moral psychology without a deep understanding of moral philosophy. They are mutually reinforcing. Ethics and psychology are recessively co-generic. They can’t be superficially reduced to the idiosyncratic perception of an epoch, as presumed by the ethical neutrality of scientific psychology. There is also another critical difference. In other fields, the gradual replacement of the manifested image by the scientific image is both appropriate and beneficial for advancing human knowledge. However, in psychology, this goal is self-defeating and, finally, self-destructively while it aims to replace the human manifest self-image with the “scientific image.” The manifest image is “the framework in terms of which man came to be aware of himself as man-in-the-world (…) the scientific image cannot replace the manifest without rejecting its own foundation” (Sellars 2007, 374, 389). This process will endanger the fundamental nature of our individual and collective human identities. Being co-generic, the disjunction of scientific and manifested images in moral psychology is akin to an epistemic discordant psychosis. The scientific image, being self-reflexive, is eroding the lived moral experience. Intellectualization and virtualization of moral understanding dissolve social fabrics faster than individuals’ moral progress. This would entail the end of human intelligence and the beginning of a new post-human species.


What is wrong with the present paradigm of psychological research?

The finality of the research is of a practical nature: to improve, to use, to change nature, including human nature, for people’s benefit. The finality of psychological research cannot be simply the truth because psychological knowledge is in the above-mentioned recessive relation and changes its object, the human subject. There is no immutable truth about human morality but a recessively evolving one. Therefore, the finality of moral psychology is additionally ethical and pedagogical. The pervasive and elusive effects of motivating reasoning and wishful thinking are more prominent than in any other research domain and require more than simply formal compliance to methodological rules of research conduct. Researchers also have implicit theories on human psychology that unconsciously shape their judgment and must be mastered to ensure the success of scientific study. Those studying morality must undergo personal development, much like psychotherapists, because the subject is closely tied to their most cherished and profound aspects of personality - specifically, their moral identity. Unfortunately, psychological education looks rather as an epistemic fabric line that produces mostly “generative pre-trained transformer” researchers, competent in transforming psychological phenomena into operationalizable and computing-ready variables, mostly incrementally and deducting objective relations between data. Competent, but with narrow comprehension. Researchers in psychology must be epistemologically self-aware, capable of deep critical thinking, cultured, and well-versed in related domains such as anthropology, sociology, or philosophy. Statistics is only a tool, not a methodology for psychology. Conventional statistical significance is often regarded as a deeply revered idol in research. The mesmerizing effects of p-value, statistical thresholds, and model fit overshadow more meaningful interpretations of data, leading to an overemphasis on numbers rather than the underlying concepts and complexities of the studied phenomena. The era of ethical ivory tower theorists is dawn, as it is the time of positivistic research conducted solely for its own sake. This can be more easily, accurately, and efficiently made by our latest wonderful creation of GenAI. Any psychological research must be based on a comprehensive ethical foundation because the resulting knowledge will be integrated into people’s self-image. Likewise, this knowledge should be commonly shared and promoted, not withheld primarily for political, economic, or military purposes. A purely objective scientific image is not for humans, but for general intelligence; it is an instrument, not a purpose. In moral psychology a scientific “perspective from nowhere” – an image for a “pure intellectual faculty” – is not only impossible, but also undesirable.

 Nonetheless, the pedagogical role of psychological research is to improve our self-understanding. It must assist people in overcoming, at the level of the manifest image, the fundamental illusion of reason as an independent, autonomous reality fully mastered by individual will. The reasons or thoughts we are aware of are only a tiny part of the myriads of sub- and unconscious reasons fighting for a place in the consciousness theater. Their success depends on the emotional and affective loads, character weaknesses or tendencies, and consistency with our self-narrative. Also, it must help people to abandon the illusion of immediate access to the reality of things, people, or events. A transcendental conceptual network constructs our access to reality. The development of humans is simultaneously natural and cultural. It cannot be approached in hard sciences style. Their methods cannot grasp the “third nature” of consciousness, the very one that makes possible the scientific image that it is supposed to explain. The fundamental and genuine attributes of consciousness - free will and autonomy - exist solely within the space of reasons, protected by a cognitive membrane, and are supervenient, although feedback-driven, to its biology and environment. They cannot be accommodated within a fully deterministic and „objective” scientific perspective. Rational relations, such as justification and meaning, are part of human concrete experience irreducible to causal relations of the physical part of the Realm of Law (McDowell 1996). They would be epistemically suppressed by scientific image that will become increasingly unintelligible to human understanding. Consequently, human comprehension will depend entirely on AI alien language and “objective” perspective for translating, interpreting, and explaining the complexities of the scientific representation of its own reality.

 The cognitivist perspective, heavily computer-based, constructs a wicked scientific image of a human psychic, which is fragmented, partial, and fractured, an assembly of cognitive cogwheels that erase the heterogeneity of affective and intellective. In Heidegger’s (1953/1993) terms, cognitivist psychology, as a social institution for generating scientific knowledge, involves a technical approach to its subject matter. It is “enframing” the human psychic as a “standing reserve”, a resource or object available for use. It “sets upon” or “challenges forth” the psychic. This positivist and functionalist perspective focuses not on the nature of the psyche itself but on its behaviors and how those behaviors can be predicted and controlled. It sacrifices the richness and authenticity of “who” for the accuracy and predictability of “what.” The positivist methodology can only address to idem-identity (sameness) - the traits that remain “the same” over time - while neglects completely what defines the core of (personal) morality, the ipse-identity (pertaining to the subjective selfhood), “in the sense of the self-designation of a subject of discourse, action, narrative or ethical commitment” (Ricœur 1992, 335).


The pedagogical role of psychological research

Research in moral psychology should integrate the study of isolated aspects of moral conduct, behavior, and specific decision-making mechanisms within a holistic framework. By doing so, it can avoid the pitfalls of fragmented knowledge, which is often used primarily for pragmatic purposes, such as marketing, political influence, propaganda, etc. The advantage of scientific knowledge is not fully utilized in education to promote a more accurate, meaningful, and sustainable representation of human reality, which is essential for countering the ingrained and occasionally harmful self-images of obsolete conceptions. Students graduate without common scientific knowledge about manipulation mechanisms, automatic moral intuitions and decision-making, cognitive biases, and the minimum cognitive endowment necessary for a reflexive citizen. They are vulnerable to errors, manipulation, deception, and control.

Psychology, particularly moral psychology, must also be ethical. Its approach should focus on providing valid knowledge that promotes self-awareness and personal development, both for researchers and beneficiaries. It may seem idealistic, but otherwise, it is questionable for misconduct. Technological progress is epiphilogenetically intertwined with the human species (Stiegler, 1998). The current rapid pace of technological advancement is disrupting evolutionary equilibrium, adversely affecting human psychological health, and threatening the future of humanity. Psychology must contribute to moral enhancement to help prevent humanity’s self-annihilation, as technology grants so much destructive power at the hands of so many morally disabled individuals. This requires discarding the epistemological spells of “computational cognitivism.” Computation ceased to be just a tool; it became an instrument of psychological knowledge and a part of the human environment. Hence, it not only assists but also builds the understanding paradigm. Cognition and, to a higher degree, consciousness are virtual structures “disengaged from the external environment in favor of an autonomously constructed world of meanings and interpretations” (Floridi 2011, 560). At this moment, the world is immersing in computationality. This shapes and directs our scientific image. Computational cognitivism creates and transforms human knowledge and cognition. Any tool, especially the informational ones, represents an extended cognition (Kiverstein 2018). To save human cognition from its self-defeating, in front of the overwhelming evolution of AI, the psychological paradigm must evolve into a “second generation” of cognitivism, e-cognitivism, where “e’s stand for theories bringing to the fore the enactive, embedded, embodied, and extended [but also, “experiential” and “emotional”] qualities of the mind” (Kukkonen & Caracciolo 2014).


Psychology as Social Pedagogy

The implicit theories people have on human nature, moral character, needs, motivations, values, or social institutions deeply impact lawmaking and enforce social policies, human rights, and (judicial) responsibility (Dweck et al. 1995). These implicit theories usually operate outside of individual awareness. Yet, they can be informed, “educated,” and changed using psychological paradigms. The ethical responsibility of psychological research is evaluated based on its significant impact on legal, political, and cultural areas, such as the implications of depathologizing sexual orientation and gender identity, or conversely, the pathologization of pedophilia or personality disorders.

 Currently, scientific output is primarily used for enhancing economic and political management, often used for manipulation and control. While part of this knowledge is integrated into public policies, it is not widely accessible as a widespread asset for the general population, as a resource for defense against manipulation, or as a common tool for personal development or moral progress. Most people primarily access only derivative products of this knowledge through media, books, and television. These are often of questionable quality, promoted for marketing purposes and profit. A valid humanistic psychological understanding is vital for the moral enhancement necessary for society’s survival and welfare. As the evolutionary adaptation is slow and cruel, some deceive themselves by thinking of moral bioenhancement as a working solution (Persson & Savulescu 2012). However, the peril of maleficent implementations and its questionable scientific base make it more hazardous than Floridi’s (2014) technological gambit solution for the climate change problem. The current epistemic digitization of human cognition from psychological research poses more significant risks than the actual digitalization of our cognition and self (Chan 2022) fostered by the pervasiveness of digital technology. The scientific valid knowledge made possible tremendous technological progress and the sustainability of social institutions, but also changed man’s self-image. Any science is naturalistic, and its paradigm is based on postulated natural entities. When the “natural” environment is largely digital and conceptual instruments are computer-based, the models of the psychic are regularly (structural equations) modeled, programmed (contrary to evolution), and algorithmized, then the brain-computer analogy becomes a reality in the scientific image. Being self-reflexive, the scientific image damages lived moral experience when it is unsuitable. Intellectualization and virtualization of moral understanding weakens the social fabric faster than individuals’ moral progress. The epistemic trend of the scientific image of man is toward the complete depletion of its image by all humanistic idiosyncratic elements, resistant to operationalization, measurement, prediction, and… control and to make humans “understandable” for computing processing and analyses. “If man had a radically different conception of himself, he would be a radically different kind of man” (Sellars 2007, 374). Instead of informing the manifest image of itself, the widening gap between the manifest image and scientific image makes the scientific valid knowledge about man increasingly incomprehensible for human cognition. Our “user competence” is growing but dependent on an incomprehensible paradigm suited for AI. The current paradigm in moral psychology, if not reevaluated for its ethical role, risks facilitating the self-extinction of organic intelligence, bringing us closer to the prophesied Technological Singularity (Kurzweil 2006).


Conclusions

Psychological knowledge should be more widely applied in education to help individuals consciously and reflexively analyze their own internal experiences. While the concept of metacognition - thinking about one’s thinking - is a common trait among modern humans, it often lacks genuine self-reflection. This superficial level of metacognition can be seen as a form of pseudo-self-reflexivity. Paradoxically, this kind of self-understanding can also be a competence without comprehension: an automated constructed self-narrative supporting the feeling of comprehension without being genuinely understanding. Not all forms of metacognition can be considered self-reflexivity. Thinking about my own thinking at the same flow of naïve thinking is a quasi-self-reflexivity. It lacks the fundamental drive of “Why am I thinking this?” or “What makes me think what and how am I thinking?” Otherwise, people remain trapped in their own narrative, seeking consistency and finding (meta-)arguments to support their way of thinking instead of questioning whether their thoughts are justified, valid, or correct. This deeper exploration of one’s psychological life is essential for developing moral-democratic competence, which is crucial for mitigating the risks posed to the sustainability of an over-technologized humanity. To foster this genuine self-understanding, the scientific model should promote a mixed approach, such as heterophenomenology (Radner 1994), which genuinely helps people increase their self-awareness and mutual dependability on a valid interindividual base. The role of scientific image is decisive because it aims to be the most accurate, free from errors and illusions, although not perfect, but incrementally perfectible. Psychological science is vital in creating a valid image that seamlessly integrates lived experience with objective knowledge. It acts as an openly collective peer review of thoughts and actions, fostering constructive debate and questioning, while enabling us to fully experience and appreciate the evolutionary gift of shared conscious life.


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1 Ideas presented at the 25th World Congress of Philosophy held in Rome, August 1-8, 2024.