The Moral Psychology of
Conflict of Interest
Paul Thagard
University of Waterloo
1
The Moral Psychology of
Conflict of Interest
1.
2.
3.
4.
Conflicts of interest
Moral psychology
The GAGE model
Applications to
conflict of interest
5. Other affective
afflictions
6. Normative advice.
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Conflicts of Interest
• Government official entertained.
• Business executive conceals information.
• Medical researcher motivated to show that a
drug is effective.
• Physician omits procedure.
• Accountant pleases company.
• Professor supports student.
3
Waterloo RIM Park Scandal
• 1999: Waterloo,
Ontario decides to
build large sports
facility.
• 2000: City council
signs what they think
is a $112 million lease.
• 2001: Discovery that
true cost is $227mil.
4
Waterloo Conflict of Interest
• 2003: Judicial inquiry
finds that the city
treasurer and the chief
administrative officer
had conflicts of
interest resulting from
social contacts with
leasing company.
5
Questions for Moral Psychology
• Why do conflicts of interest arise?
• Why are people often unaware of their
unethical behavior arising from conflicts of
interest?
• How can immoral decisions arising from
conflicts of interest be avoided?
6
Approaches to Moral Psychology
• Philosophical reflection: Plato, Hume, etc.
• Psychological research: Piaget, Kohlberg,
etc.
• Psychologically informed philosophy:
Brandt, Flanagan, Johnson, etc.
• Affective neuroscience.
7
Affective Neuroscience
• The study of emotional systems in the brain.
• Researchers include: Damasio, Davidson,
LeDoux, Panksepp, Rolls, Greene.
• Conjecture: affective neuroscience is
relevant to understanding conflicts of
interest and other moral decisions.
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Neural Mechanism
• GAGE model: Wagar & Thagard,
Psychological Review, 2004.
VMPFC
Amg
Somatic state
HC
VTA
To Action/
Overt
NAc
9
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Key Brain Areas
• Prefrontal cortex: responsible for
reasoning.
• Ventromedial PFC: connects input from
sensory cortices with amygdala etc.
• Amygdala: processes emotional signals,
especially fear. Somatic input.
• Nucleus accumbens: processes emotional
signals, especially reward.
• Hippocampus: crucial for memory
formation.
11
How GAGE Explains Phineas
• Damasio: Effective decision making
depends on integration of cognitive
information with somatic markers.
• Damage to VMPFC prevents this
integration.
• GAGE shows a plausible mechanism for
integration that is disrupted by VMPFC
damage.
12
GAGE Mechanism
• Mechanistic explanation: Identify
organized parts whose properties, relations
and interactions produce regular changes.
• Parts
– Spiking neurons: Spike trains, not just
activations as in old connectionist and PDP
models.
– Neurons organized into separate brain areas.
13
GAGE Mechanism
• Processes:
– Emotional valence requires coordination of
VMPFC, amygdala, hippocampus and nucleus
accumbens.
– Coordination occurs because of temporally
coordinated spiking patterns. Analogy: band.
• Output: positive or negative attitude toward an
action.
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Normal Functioning
• Decision making requires emotional
evaluation of potential responses to a
situation.
• Hippocampus (context) controls VMPFC
and amygdala throughput in nucleus
accumbens, which forms a gateway for
somatic markers.
• VMPFC feeds an appropriate emotional
signal into the nucleus accumbens.
15
Malfunctioning in Phineas
• Damage to VMPFC means that there is no
appropriate input to the nucleus accumbens
summarizing the emotional value of the
behavioral options.
• Hence Phineas Gage (and people with
similar damage to VMPFC) make poor
decisions. They simply can’t judge value.
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Iowa Gambling Task
• Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, and Damasio,
Science, 1997.
• Participants make card selections from four
decks, with rewards and punishments.
• Normal participants unconsciously learn to
pick from good decks and avoid bad ones.
• VMPFC damaged ones don’t learn.
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GAGE Simulation
• 700 spiking neurons with 670 connections,
organized into VMPFC and other areas.
• Full network was able to learn to prefer
good over bad decks.
• But when the VMPFC is lesioned, GAGE
prefers bad decks, which offer immediate
rewards.
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Schacter & Singer, 1962
• Participants injected with epinephrine had
different emotional experiences based on pleasant
and unpleasant contexts.
• Hippocampal-determined context drove GAGE’s
behavior when the nucleus accumbens was
presented with two different VMPFC
representations simultaneously.
• Implication: we don’t know sources of our
emotions.
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Lessons for Moral Reasoning
• Deciding what is right and wrong to do in a
situation requires integrated processing in
multiple brain areas: VMPFC, etc.
• We have no conscious access to how this
integration is carried out.
• Hence our emotional reactions to potential
behaviors may have causes other than the
ones we think are operating.
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Conflicts of Interest
• John Ford, Waterloo city treasurer.
• Thought he was doing the right thing based
on his awareness of his concern for the city,
his job, etc.
• But positive emotional evaluation of MFP
option was based on positive associations
with Robson as much as content.
• Trust was tied to the salesman.
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Cognitive/affective process
• What comes to consciousness (do X) is an
emotional feeling that X is desirable.
• It is based on interactions among the VMPFC,
amygdala, hippocampus, and nucleus accumbens.
• Somatic markers that arise may come from
morally irrelevant sources, e.g. fun and personal
motivations.
• But there is no way to know the source of the
somatic markers that result.
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Allied psychological findings
• Wegener: illusion of conscious will.
• Loewenstein et al: risk as feeling.
• Slovic et al: affect heuristic.
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Moral Consequences
• People are incapable
of knowing whether
they are acting
appropriately or out of
conflicts of interest.
• Conflicts are likely to
lead to intrusion of
morally objectionable
factors.
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Related Affective Afflictions
•
•
•
•
Self-deception
Motivated inference, rationalization.
Weakness of will
Empathy gaps
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Self Deception
• Some philosophers have been puzzled about
how self deception can be possible.
• The GAGE model shows that it is not only
possible but likely.
• We do not know all the emotional causes of
our actions, so reasoning naturally finds
appealing rather than actual explanations.
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Example of Self Deception
• Preacher in Scarlet Letter: Dimmesdale. See
Sahdra & Thagard, Minds and Machines, 2003.
• Evidence supports conclusion that he is a sinner
and hypocrite.
• But he attaches value to believing otherwise, and
so does, without knowing why.
• Beliefs accepted based on emotional coherence.
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Rationalization
• People find self-justifying explanations of
why they acted as they did.
• Motivated inference: goals such as
maintaining self-esteem affect inference
about ourselves and others.
• GAGE: beliefs are affected by somatic
markers and cognitive/affective integration.
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Weakness of Will
• Appetites and past experience may be
source of strong somatic markers: Sex,
food, alcohol, gambling, etc.
• Rational calculation (prudential or moral)
may not be able to override urges,
especially in presence of strong stimuli:
nucleus accumbens.
• Cognitive/affective integration yields
irrationality.
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Empathy Gaps
• Loewenstein: Hot-cold empathy gap.
• People in one emotional state are poor at
predicting their preferences and behavior in
very different emotional states.
• E.g. sexual arousal, depression.
• GAGE explanation: prediction requires
simulation, which is deflected by current
somatic markers.
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Review
• Conflict of interest is an “affective
affliction” like weakness of will, selfdeception, motivated inference,
rationalization, and empathy gaps.
• All these affective afflictions are caused by
strong emotional influences in
cognitive/affective decision making.
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What is to be done?
• Conflicts of interest and other affective
afflictions are ubiquitous and insidious.
• How can they be overcome?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Avoid emotions and use analytic methods.
Avoid conflicts.
Disclose conflicts.
Have social oversight.
Informed intuition.
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Avoid emotions?
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Other solutions?
2. Avoid conflicts of interest altogether.
–
usually not possible.
3. Disclose conflicts of interest.
-
does not overcome affective problem.
may make things worth: Cain et al.
4. Social oversight: not always possible.
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Informed Intuition
1. Set up the problem.
2. Reflect on the
importance of goals.
3. Examine basis of
beliefs.
4. Make intuitive,
emotional judgment
based on full
assessment.
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Conclusions
• Decisions are based on cognitive/affective
integration.
• Integration requires interaction and coordination
of multiple brain areas.
• Lack of access to this process inclines people
toward conflicts of interest, self-deception,
weakness of will, empathy gaps.
• Normative aids: make decisions explicit and
social. Informed intuition.
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Web site
• http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/
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