Heffner: I am Alexander Heffner, your host on the Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome David Redish to our broadcast today.

He is the Distinguished University professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, a poet, playwright and scientist.

He is the author of the book, Changing How We Choose: The New Science of Morality.

Welcome, it's a pleasure to have you here today.

Thank you, David.

Redish: Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Heffner: David, what do you mean by a new science of morality?

Redish: I have to say it was a surprise to me to get there.

Uh, I'm sure it's a surprise to everybody.

Uh, I think that if you think about science and morality, we always think of it in a descriptive way.

That is how do humans react to moral questions?

But what I realized a few years ago as I started to do this work is that there is actually prescriptive science as well, that is, there is science that tells you how to do something.

And we call that engineering.

And what I realized is that if there was a goal that we could identify for moral questions, what it what we would be in is an engineering world.

And what we'd be asking questions about how do you build better moral codes that are better at achieving that goal, whatever that goal turns out to be.

Heffner: Some folks will hear the science of morality and be concerned.

It is a revival of eugenics or something of that nature.

And, and of course, it's not.

But how do you dissuade or dismiss that?

Because anytime you inject morality into a scientific question, you raised these, these concerns.

Redish: Absolutely.

Thank you for asking that.

It's the key here, is that what I mean, in some sense, a science is a language to discuss questions in.

And what I'm saying is that we now have a language with which to talk about moral questions.

I'm not gonna produce answers yet, I mean, hopefully science will get there, but what we have is as we understand what these moral goals are, we can ask what are the moral codes doing in attempting to reach that?

And I think one of the big issues for things like eugenics and stuff was that the moral goal that those people were aiming for was the wrong one.

It was not actually what moral codes are in fact aimed at.

So in, in some sense, eugenics is a moral code, but it's a bad one.

It's a moral code that does not achieve the goals that humans have been designing moral codes for thousands of years to achieve.

Heffner: It is not an aspiring inclusive moral code, the end result, uh, if not the means getting us there, um, in the history of eugenics is exclusive.

Redish: Exactly.

Heffner: What do you think the layperson, uh, who any person who believes their ought to be some kind of ethical or moral grounding or foundation in the way we interact, uh, how, how can they, um, at all learn from what you're putting forward in this book in, in a, in a tangible, actionable way?

Redish: Absolutely.

So there are kind of three pieces that I think would be, uh, tangible to, uh, general audience.

And I want to emphasize this is in a book for a general audience.

This is not a, uh, a book for my colleagues for the scientists.

I hope they read it.

I hope they like it.

But truthfully, this is for a general audience.

Uh, the first one is actually an insight that goes back to my previous book called The Mind Within the Brain, which is you are not a unitary being, you are a collection of selves.

And that those multiple selves interact with the world in multiple ways.

So the you that falls in love is still you, but it's a different part of your brain than the you that decides where to go to college or the you that decides how to hit, whether to hit a baseball or not.

And the first thing is to start seeing how the social structure of our world interacts with those decision systems.

And for me, that's been one of the most interesting things to see.

Like, I mean, I see this everywhere now where I can see, oh, this, this discussion I just had with a student is very different, you know, because that student is coming at it with this emotional perspective, right?

And so I have these to see that that connection, that's in some sense the first one.

The second is once you see the actual goal, and I think that's something that we maybe want to get to, is to figure out, to talk a little bit about what that goal is.

I see that goal everywhere now, and I now find myself using that in talking to people.

So, you know, which is about one of the main things is it is possible to create a world where my helping you actually makes my life better.

And once I see that, I actually use that in talking to people to explain like, this is why I'm doing this for you because your success will be my success.

And then the third piece is there's a policy discussion to have.

And, and I'll be honest, that policy discussion is very much outside my lane.

I'm a scientist.

I come, I'm a neuroscientist.

I study how humans and other animals make decisions, but this has policy consequences that I think need to be discussed.

And I think it's something to, to have a discussion about.

I mean, in general with the community and that the community should be discussing.

Heffner: What do you mean by that?

In the third category, the, the policy discussions that audit be inspired by this subject?

Redish: Right.

So, so maybe the fir if I could, can I, can we go just a quick step to talk about what the goal is?

Um, so the insight I think is that what we call moral codes are designed, and I think they are designed to, um, create what's called an assurance game, a game, an interaction between people, whereby the best thing for me is the best thing for you.

That is a game, a world, an interaction, a situation where that cooperation is better.

And one of the things that the assurance game has, this is a, a, a thing we can study scientists study this interaction and this, this kind of a, uh, social, we call it meso economics, kind of the middle level, how small groups of people interact with each other.

And this game turns out to have two stable states, one in which we all help each other, and we work as a community and we create a community and another where everything splits apart and we're all on our own.

And to put it bluntly, that's a stable situation, but it's a worse situation.

It's a worse situation, not only for the community, but for all the individuals within it.

And I think that one of the things that I've started seeing is that there are policies that drive us towards that cooperative world or towards that you're on your own world and some of them are better than others.

Heffner: David, I'm fascinated by the way, in that first response you asked us to decompartmentalize, if you will, the decision making authority and understand, you know, why we're so revved up about whether we're pro-choice or pro-life.

And then, you know, most of us are not gonna say, oh, we won't have the Spicy McChicken sandwich.

Uh, if someone's offering you a, you know, a, a Chick-fil-A, now there, there are decisions we make about, you know, where to eat fast food.

And, and there are many of us who are passionate about organic food and, you know, respectful, ethical consumption.

But there are decisions that become politicized.

And that's what I really hoped you could offer some insight into.

Kind of as the decision making seems more and more grave and substantive to us, is there any way we can step back and, and kind of ease ourselves a little bit into those, um, grander more impactful decisions?

Redish: Yeah, so there's two things that I think are important to recognize on these decision processes.

Uh, one is when we're making a decision in the moment, it is, uh, there is a complex process that we understand and we can talk about.

And that processes interacts with the various kinds of learning that we've done, the motivations that we've learned to be, to be motivated by.

Um, so things like, um, what's called implicit bias, for example, is a interaction of how you respond to other people based on your past experiences.

And there are ways and techniques that we know that can help shift us in various components with that, whether we learn more about the different pieces of that decision process.

The other thing is that we have to recognize that a lot of our decisions are, um, I'm trying to think of the right way to describe this.

They have many components in them, some of which are merely tribal markers.

They're merely ways of marking who the community we are in is.

And we need to be recognizing whether that's what we're actually making our decision based on, or whether our decision is based on what we actually want.

Heffner: It's certainly worth recognizing that decision making pre-2020 and decision-making now in the present era must be informed by what society experienced over these last few years.

Redish: Absolutely.

And of course, decision making pre 2020 was informed by what society had experienced before that, right?

Heffner: Which was not, you know, not a pandemic for a century or longer.

Redish: Right?

But there were other social changes that had happened.

You know, I think of, for example, the difference in how we treat mental health from my parents' generation to, to my generation, to my kids' generation, right?

It's a completely different social structure of what's, um, you know, uh, what's understood, what's known, who knows who's having trouble, things like that.

Um, in fact, even a lot of the terminology, right?

We talk for example now about neuro divergent as saying somebody who has a sensory sensitivity is not necessarily somebody who needs to be fixed, but we can talk about how we can change the social structure to make it easier for them.

One of my favorite stories is some of these museums now have special days where they basically turn all the sounds off, and it's specifically designed to be a low sensory day.

And so somebody who has a sensory sensitivity can go and appreciate art and can be part of that.

And it becomes this very small social change that becomes inclusive and lets, you know, for all we know, one of those kids is gonna turn into the next great artist, right?

This is, this allows us, these small changes allow us to enable people to contribute in these kinds of ways.

Um, so when you think about things like, uh, how to communicate about pandemic questions and things like that, a lot of it is normalizing.

Um, things like masking.

I mean, you know, I remember that in some cultures such as, you know, Japan for example, it's been the normal culture that if you are ill, if you have a cold, you show up to work with a mask or you don't show up to work, right?

If you show up to work and you're, you know, have a cold or something, that would be, you know, that would just be a cultural unacceptable, you know, unacceptable, right?

And so there are these, these changes that are happening, you know, I mean, for example, in much of, um, uh, the university for example, now everybody keeps a mask in their pocket.

And if somebody wants to mask, that's the fine.

And if anybody around you wants to mask, this is the policy in our, all our classes.

Now, if the people sitting around you ask you to mask, you say, sure, and you do, but you don't have to.

You can move to another part of the room.

But if you're gonna be right there, I mean, it becomes this cultural structure.

And part of that decision making process is cultural structure.

Part of it is habit, right?

Making it into just, well, you just always have a mask in your pocket if you need it.

Part of it is emotional, part of it is the, uh, you know, you just get, you know, you, you recognize these kinds of things.

And part of it is deliberative, part of it is being conscious of what the issues are and knowing actually what is the, the logic and the sequence of this.

Heffner: What about the, the decision making authority of these states now that are basically deciding that women can or cannot, um, access reproductive health, uh, care, which we know means, um, you know, puts the lives of prospective mothers and women in the balance?

Redish: So I wanna be very careful with, with, with, with this discussion as, as you know, um, as, as someone who, who does not actually bear children, although my wife has, I have kids, uh, I, I think there's a couple of things to say.

One is one of the things that has been true over the generations over many, many thousands of years is that we have increased the size of the community that we call a community.

That is the number of the sets of people that we believe should be part of that decision making process.

And I will say every woman I've ever known is an a, you know, is capable of making her own decisions.

And I would not presume to instruct anybody about decisions like that.

I think that, um, one of the things we can ask is how well are we guiding ourselves towards one of these assurance games where, what is the best for the individual choices, also best for the community?

And I think it's very clear that those, um, abortion bans are in fact not better for the community.

In fact, I mean, I would have to go check the data, but my understanding of the data is that actually, if you really don't want abortions to happen, the best thing to do is to provide economic resources for, uh, new mothers to provide, um, um, uh, you know, prenatal care and to provide childcare and daycare and all of these things that many of the, uh, same communities that are imposing these restrictions are also against.

I mean, if they really were, if their goal really was to reduce abortions, there are ways to do that, that are very, in fact, that create assurance gains, right?

Heffner: One thing that's been proposed is baby bonds, you know, and, and in, if you want to incentivize a culture of, of parenthood and, and, uh, uh, children, um, you know, I, I don't want to be crude, but I think it's as a public policy matter, it is ultimately more humane, uh, to offer monetary support.

Uh, I don't it to be perceived as a bribe, but in, in, you know, have this child and you'll get a $10,000 grant.

Redish: One needs to be- I'm sorry, go ahead.

Heffner: No, but, but we live in a, in an economy that is anti children.

We live in an age that is anti children.

So if you want Americans to have children, then ensure that there's some foundation for those parents and children.

Redish: So I, I think it's, it's important to note that one of the, one of the things that I, I always worry about in the kind of language we're using for this new science of morality is people think it's all about money.

And there's actually some really wonderful examples where putting down money as the incentive actually makes things worse.

We can talk about, like, there's the, this famous daycare and Haifa example, um, which we can get to, but I think that what we can say is making the economics of raising children different would have a much, very different effect.

And in fact, we know this, right?

So one of my favorite examples of this is the state of Minnesota, which I'm, I have to say I'm proud, very proud of, uh, just implemented free school lunch for all, uh, K-12.

And, um, the, the best part of this is it's a win-win-win, right?

It's, um, it's, we know that people learn better when they're not hungry.

So these students will, you know, who are food insecure will get, get lunch, they will learn better.

There's actually breakfast as well.

I believe they'll get lunch, they'll get, they'll get food, so they'll study better.

So they'll do better in school.

Second, there's no more, uh, shaming that goes on because everybody eats these, right?

I mean, don't forget, right?

These are, hi, these are teenagers, right?

They're gonna come in, I don't care if they've had breakfast in the morning, they're going to eat a second breakfast.

So everybody's eating breakfast, right?

And then the third thing, which I think is really interesting and an important thing policy-wise that is, um, missing in a lot of this discussion is it turns out it's actually cheaper to give breakfast to everybody because keeping track of the means testing turns out to be more expensive, right?

One of the points I make is that the library doesn't check to see if you can afford a book.

They just let you take the book out and got it.

So I think that, you know, we don't need to make this about money.

We can make this about is the culture supporting, you know, that kids won't be hungry.

Heffner: It's still a result of Governor Walz, and the pocketbook of the state saying, you know, in effect, we want to fund those lunches.

So it, it is still money, it's just presented differently.

It's food, it's not, doesn't have the appearance of right, we're gonna give you this cash, right?

Redish: And that being said, it, we should point out that the child tax credit that was implemented during one of the COVID, um, budget things, um, had a huge effect on child poverty.

And it's really a shame that it's been reduced.

But no, you're absolutely right.

There is money involved in that stage.

That's right.

But this is also about communities, right?

This is the community of Minnesota that decided they wanted to do this, and it was, it, it has great support from the state, from the people of the state.

And, and all- Heffner: Fair enough.

Redish: This is about communities making a community decision to come together to create structures that are inclusive, that provide for individual, uh, decision making within that, uh, positive structure.

Democracy is part of this new science morality because it's one of the tools, it's one of the eco, it's one of these moral codes that we've created that turns out to be quite good at improving on these things.

In fact, one of the problems is that the states where these are having issues are actually states where democracy is weak and is having trouble, and where not everybody is allowed to vote and where things are gerrymandered.

So part of it is also that to really understand, to really, you know, to create a better community, you do want to have democracy where everybody is voting and the voting is in fact, uh, you know, where it really is.

What is the whole community coming together on?

Um, the, the other thing is when we look at this, we have to look at, there are moral codes that are constructed to control people.

And the argument in the book is that those are worse moral codes.

That the moral codes that create, what are these assurance games?

These games where these situations where what I want as an individual is in fact to work with the community and that the community is doing better for me, right?

And is not taking the individual, slavery is a moral code.

It's a bad moral code, right?

And it's a bad moral code because it doesn't achieve the goal of this assurance game.

And so what we can ask is, we can say, when we compare moral codes between, you know, states, um, we can ask which ones are better and which ones are worse.

And in practice, in the long run, the better moral codes do generally win out.

The problem is of course, it takes a long time and it's slow.

And part of the idea would be to, you know, by being able to identify this, we should be able to move it faster hopefully.

Heffner: You say it's a moral code, people hear that, they'll think it's not a moral code, it's an immoral code.

Um, is that what you mean?

It is, it is inhumane.

Um, but people still believe in the morality of something that is inhumane or immoral.

Redish: Right?

So what I wanna say when I say, I mean, yes, these, some of these things are immoral.

Absolutely.

What I mean is that when I say something's immoral code, I mean it lives on that moral spectrum.

And so you can then, one of the things this book allows us to do is because we have this goal, we identify this goal, we identify that engineering has prescription to get us better to this goal, we can ask this set of social constructs, which, where does this sit on this moral spectrum?

Is it good morality or is it bad morality or immorality?

And the argument is that what we need to recognize is that there, you know, a lot of these things, this is not moral relativism.

In fact, there is, we can say, you know, these codes are bad and these codes are better.

And we can actually look at that from a scientific question because we have an engineering goal.

Heffner: David, neurologically speaking, what's different about what's going on in our minds when we're deciding whether we want to have Chick-Fil-A versus McDonald's compared to an important political debate that, that we're taking a stance on, like what's, what's happening differently and firing differently?

Redish: Well, it actually depends on the person.

Um, so there are these three decision systems that we have that kind of matter, one of which is you can think of it as actually planning.

And it turns out we really are imagining future outcomes and thinking about what the consequences are.

Another one is, um, what we call procedural or habit.

Think of it like muscle memory.

So hitting a baseball kind of stuff.

And the third one is kind of, it's called instinctual within the science.

It's called Pavlovian.

But we can think of it as instinct or going with the gut.

If you work on reacting by saying, oh, this person's hurt, how do I help them?

Then you're gonna react that way in the moment.

If you react by seeing something and saying, I don't want any part of it, right?

That's going to train you to react that way in the moment.

So a lot of the key is how do we, how do we change our social structures?

How do we change our environments that we live in so that these decision systems come up with the answers we want them to come up with that make the world a better place for everybody?

Heffner: David Redish, the author of Changing How We Choose the Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota.

Thank you so much for your insight today, David.

Redish: Thank you for having me.

It was a lot of fun.

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