#1287 Audun Dahl - Between Fixed and Fickle: Why Our Moral Views Keep Changing

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Ricard Lops, and today I'm joined by Doctor Irvan Dah. He's associate professor of psychology at Cornell University, and today we're talking about his fascinating book Between Fixed and fickle, Why Our Moral Views Keep Changing. So, Doctor Dahl, welcome to the show. It's a huge pleasure to everyone.

00:24 Audun Dahl: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:27 Ricardo Lopes: So I mean, it's not the first time that I have a moral psychologist on the show, but let me start by asking you this, particularly for people in the audience that might not be familiar with this subject. So how do you approach morality and moral views, moral values from a psychological perspective?

00:47 Audun Dahl: So, uh, to, to, uh, see what's distinct about the uh psychological perspective, it might be useful to contrast it with what's not. What I call a psychological perspective. So, a lot of the times when we encounter people who hold moral views, especially those we disagree with, our first response might be to say, oh, that's wrong, or I disagree with that, or let me convince you otherwise. Uh, THE psychological perspective, what I mean by the moments of moral psychology, uh, is that we, uh, are those processes where we try to understand why the person arrived at the View they have, you know, so where did that view come from in their own life history or historically, and how is that moral view, uh, changing, uh, or affecting, guiding their, uh, emotions, their judgments, their reasoning, their actions. So it's, it's the, it's the time when we, moral psychology means to try to understand the moral views of others before or instead of judging them. And what do we do as, as a scientists who study morality from a psychological perspective is that we take this thing that we all do, which all try to understand each other's moral views, uh, at times, we try to turn that into a science, uh, and that means, uh, doing, you know, designing studies, it means collecting data, it means analyzing data, and it means drawing conclusions, uh, using more rigorous and resource intensive methods to try to reach more reliable conclusions. So, for example, you know, if I I have a student in my class who cheats, uh, then, you know, I, I might react, oh, that's terrible, uh, but I could also ask, hmm, I wonder why they cheated, why did they decide to cheat on my test, uh, and then if I want to do research on that, I might do, you know, a study where I interview, uh, uh, participants about Why they sometimes decide to cheat, I might ask them whether they think it's OK to cheat in certain situations. I might do an experiment where I observe them and see whether they decide to cheat. So that's, you know, what, what, uh, approaching morality from a psychological perspective means for me and also what it means to turn it into a science.

02:50 Ricardo Lopes: Right, so, uh, but what are the most common views that people tend to have when it comes to moral values and whether they change or not? I mean, in terms of the sort of folk psychological views that people have about it.

03:08 Audun Dahl: Right, so obviously there's, there's lots of things that people believe, as morality is something that we see everywhere, something we think about a lot. Uh, ONE particular view of morality that I'm interested in, in this, in this book, is the idea that certain, uh, moral truths are, you know, fixed and obvious, uh. Things like, you know, violence is wrong, slavery is wrong, uh, or, or that it's good to help people, it's wrong to lie, good to be honest. Uh, THOSE kinds of, of things seem kind of obvious, seem kind of not in need of a, a, uh, justification or a reason. Uh, AND then, uh, we, but then we encounter people who Living now or living, you know, a long time ago, who don't share those views, uh, we can think of people in the United States, obviously we think a lot, talk a lot about the history of slavery, so why could somebody who seemed to otherwise you know share many of our values, uh, practice slavery, somebody like Thomas Jefferson, for example. Um, SO, uh, the, and then the to make sense of This, and why is it that some people don't see the kinds of moral views that, that we think of as obvious, uh, people often resort to what I call the fickle view of morality, meaning thing, well, they must be blinded somehow by, uh, amoral forces, by selfishness, by, uh, obedience to authorities, by unruly passions, they must be. BLINDED from these obvious moral truths, so they see what I call a, a fickle morality. So that's one kind of, uh, I guess I call it a story uh of morality that is quite common both inside and outside sciences, actually, this idea that certain moral truths are obvious, and whoever doesn't see them, whoever changes away from them or never changed into them, uh, must have a fickle uh moral sense.

04:52 Ricardo Lopes: Right, so, uh, but I, but I mean, in the book you talk about the ideas of fixed truths and fickle moralities. I mean, do people tend to hold both of those ideas and what does each of them mean exactly?

05:11 Audun Dahl: Right, so, yeah, it's the fixed, fixed part is the kind of the, the, what I use, what I call the fixed uh uh view of morality is the idea that there are these moral truths that are kind of obvious and, uh, and self-evident and unchanging, um, and the fickle part is our theory of why not everybody can see those seemingly self-evident. Obvious fixed moral truths. Uh, SO that's kind of how those two ideas operate in concert, that the, the, the fickle is a kind of an empirical theory, a testable theory of why people, uh, people have the moral views they do, why their moral views change. So, you know, for example, I, I was talking to a, uh, somebody at a birthday party for a young child, uh, you know, a few, a few months. Months ago, and we got to talking about uh why some people in this, in this country are supporting, uh, uh, voted for uh President Trump. Um, AND this person who is obviously a liberal, um, uh, and as most people are in the, in the academy, uh, at least in the, the social sciences, he said, um, well, maybe they're just dumb, um, and that is to me, you know, a fickle. Theory of, uh, morality. It's the idea that, well, any sane person would see that President Trump is, is a bad person, you know, and if whoever doesn't see that must be dumb or evil or, or, or somehow otherwise deviating from the moral path uh for a based on, on amoral forces. So that's not, that was to me a very an instance of what I call the fickle view morality.

06:43 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, but the funny thing is, and of course we're going to get more into that when it comes to how people develop their set of moral values and how they might change in different situations, different contexts, and over time. But I mean, the funny thing here is that people with opposing moral views have that exact same idea. About people who have a different set of moral views, right? I mean, they both think even if they have different moral views that everyone should have their moral views, and if they don't, they're stupid or wrong or blind in some way, right?

07:28 Audun Dahl: Exactly, yeah, no, you see this kind of rhetoric and these kinds of theories of moral disagreement. These explanations of moral disagreement from all sides of the, the political spectrum. This is not unique to the, the, the liberals, nor is it unique to, to conservatives, you know, I think that, you know, when, when I say when, when Trump and he says things like that, there are these, you know, um, that, that they're crazy evil socialists, uh, or, or, you know, whatever word is, I mean, that's also a theory, uh, of why some people disagree with him, right, uh, uh. So, uh, I think if you look historically, uh, among political leaders, um, it is quite common to, to, to deploy these kinds of theories, uh, of the other side that makes the, uh, the, makes the other side seem not, you know, genuinely disagreeing for sort of sound reasons, but just unhinged in some way. You know, the historian Richard Hofstadter calls it, called it the, the devil theory of Social ills, meaning that all moral problems are basically simple, and whoever doesn't see them must be, you know, uh, driven by, by evil or, or madness. So absolutely, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's a common view on all sides of the spectrum, and, and I think it's strategically used by, uh, by leaders and by pundits and others to kind of inspire followers to go along with them and, and, you know, steer clear of the, the crazy people on the other side.

08:51 Ricardo Lopes: And why, why is it that people, or at least apparently people tend to not like others who change their moral views?

09:02 Audun Dahl: Well, so, I think it depends on where the change is going, right? If somebody, you know, sees the light, and, uh, you know, starts to agree with us, of course, we, you know, we would like that person, uh, but, you know, if they, uh, abandon, uh, a moral, or seem to go against a moral principle that we think is obvious, and we thought they were, you know, holding themselves to, it seems as if they didn't really mean it, uh, or it seems as if they are more Moview was not really uh, a reliable one. So, a very, you know, common, uh, way of, of approaching, you know, cheating, for example, I mentioned that earlier, whether it's romantic cheating or also, um, student cheating is to think, well, look, here are all these people who seem to value honesty or who seem to value, um, integrity, and yet, uh, when they have the opportunity to cheat on the test, they go ahead and cheat anyways. Uh, SO, uh, more, these kinds of Moral changes, what I, you know, refer to in the book as situational moral, moral changes, that can very often seem, make, you know, morality seem untrustworthy, as if it seems like, well, people might pretend to be care about honesty, but in reality, and when it suits them, they will go ahead and turn off their moral sense and cheat anyways. Um, SO these are, those are the kinds of changes when people sort of deviate from, uh, from the, um, The presumed, uh, obvious moral principles, uh, that, that people tend to disapprove of and be very disappointed by and, and can, you know, get disappointed not just in those particular people, but even in, in some cases in morality or humanity as a whole. Uh.

10:32 Ricardo Lopes: Um, WHERE do our moral values stem from? I mean, do, is there anything innate to them? Do they have, for example, uh, genetic basis? Do they stem mostly from our environment and different kinds of environmental influences that might play a role here? Basically, how do we develop our moral values?

10:59 Audun Dahl: So, by, you know, around the, the 3rd birthday, you know, most kids in, in all communities that have been studied so far, seem to deve seem to develop ideas about right and wrong ways of acting. Um, AND, uh, you know, so, and where does that sense come from? Well, uh, as you said, you know, it's, it's, it's one great way of framing that question is whether it's innate or is it learned, uh, and The, uh, I personally don't particularly like that framing as, as I talk about in the book, um, it, because, well, it's, it's often very unclear exactly what, you know, it's supposed to mean that something is innate. We could, of course, say, you know, innate means present at birth. Well, if you look at a human neo neonate, uh, you know, they, they do not show. A concern with right and wrong ways of treating other people. Um, THAT, you know, that sense where kids start protesting against violations that don't affect them, that they show guilt over their own violations, the kind of morality that we really need to get this, make the society work, are only evident, you know, in the, uh, around the, the 3rd year up to the 3rd birthday. And by that time, the, the kids have had such a rich, uh, social experiences that it becomes, in my view, impossible and unfruitful to try to uh separate, uh, the, what comes from nature, from what comes from, from culture, for example. Um, AND, and, but, and, in, in rejecting that dichotomy, I'm also, um, saying that we shouldn't think of morality as something that's simply inculcated by parents, as some, something that kids are merely or, or incorporating, uh, from their parental views, because if you look at the conversations and interactions that are happening between parents and young children from an early age, and, and certainly in the, in the 3rd year, uh, they're not, um, Just a matter of, of parents telling their kids what to do and then the parent, the kids going along with that. There are struggles, there are disagreements, you know, kids sometimes thinking that they have the right to do something that the parents don't think they have the right to do, right? So, of course, parents are very important for helping kids, um, develop a moral sense. For example, parents can point out how, you know, kids hate. IS affecting other people, how hitting causes pain. So parents are very important, but that importance doesn't reside in, in simply sort of instilling, indoctrinating kids with moral values. Every human through these early interactions and throughout our lifetime, we have this ability to say, uh, despite what my parents are telling me, I think that's wrong, you know. And, and that, you know, talking about moral change, that is how we can have these radical moral changes from one generation to the next, where a younger generation can come up or rise up and say, you know what, I don't like the way we're doing this. I don't like the way we're treating women, or I don't like the way we're treating uh uh racial um or gender minorities, uh, in this society. So, The, the, where, where does morality come from? It's from those, uh, the, the kids grow and and youths, sort of growing ability to form views about right and wrong ways of treating others, partly informed by what other people are telling them, but also partly informed of their own sense of what kinds of, what kind of society they think we ought to live in.

14:09 Ricardo Lopes: Right, but I mean, do we know if, for example, aspects of our psychology like personality, uh, affective psychology in the sense that, for example, perhaps different people react emotionally in different ways to the same. Kinds of behaviors, whether they stem from themselves or other people and to similar kinds of situations. I mean, do we know if things like that personality, emotion, and so on influence the kinds of moral values that we have?

14:50 Audun Dahl: Oh, so certainly, you know, uh, uh, lots of those, uh, things influence, uh, our moral, uh, views. Um, I was just talking to a colleague of mine about David Pizarro who's done some research on, on the relation between disgust and moral views, and then it turns out that, you know, people who are so-called super tasters who have these, you know, really, um, um, acute senses of, of, of, of, um, tastes, um, are on average, uh, more. LIKELY to be, um, you know, to, to be, uh, conservative or lean more conservative. Uh, SO just as one kind of weird relation between a moral, political orientation, and a, in this case, the sensory process. So, lots of things, uh, inform our, uh, and guide our development of our moral views, and you could, you know, if you do correlations between genotypes and moral views, you can certainly find sort of correlations of that sort, um, but the, the The way in which those other factors um are guiding our moral views is never automatic or never or rarely automatic or pre-programmed in some sense. Uh, WE are, it's, it's always or largely happening to, uh, kids, youth, adults, taking those experiences, and, uh, letting those inform their judgments but their reasoning, about how we ought to, to treat each other. So, you know, of course, is somebody who is, who's uh very uh open to new uh things and has lots of good experiences with, you know, uh, with new things, uh, might think, oh, everybody would benefit if our society was more progressive, changing more and so forth, um, so, uh, why don't we, you know, adopt a more progressive attitude towards, you know, towards political issues. Uh, BUT that person, even if there's a personality trait of openness to experience that pre uh predicts a liberal, uh, orientations, that Connection isn't automatic, but it's happening because that person is taking their own experience of the world and letting that that inform their views about how we ought to organize our, our social lives. Um, SO, so yeah, so you're absolutely right, but it, it, it matters how that connection happens, uh, and, uh, I mean in the book I argue that, uh, these, these changes are largely happening because uh people are, are reasoning about, um, how they ought to or how people ought to live.

17:04 Ricardo Lopes: OK, uh, we're going to get into that. So, um, how is moral change studied scientifically? I mean, what, what is, what are the best ways of studying it?

17:18 Audun Dahl: So it, it really depends on the particular kind of change we are interested in, uh, you know, with, with children, if we look at developmental, uh, moral change, uh, I know that which we, we've been, for example, very interested in the, the emergence of kids' views about, uh, about hitting. So why, how do kids, they figure out that it's wrong to hit others, and how do they distinguish between wrongful hitting and high fives, for example. So to study that, we need a couple of things. You know, first, we need to know, you know, what kinds of experiences are kids having in their, in their everyday lives, you know, so for example, you know, are they hitting others? How are other people reacting to that? So we've done observational studies where we look at, uh, you know, how parents and others respond when kids are hitting, hitting them, and how that compares to other kinds of violations that for example, we're seeing that, you know, that, that parents often refer to the pain that's caused, they Often you use sterner tones of voice when the kids are, when young kids are hitting versus, uh, for example, when they're just making a mess. And the next question then becomes, OK, how are kids making use of those experiences, and then we can go into the lab and do experiments, or, you know, right now, for example, we're doing some studies where we're showing kids videos of other kids hitting each other, you know, sometimes we use real videos, other times we, we use, um, uh, use, uh, cartoons, uh, and we We are seeing, OK, what are the factors that kids are tuning to, uh, to decide, you know, what's the difference between a high five and a punch in the face, for example. Um, SO you can use both naturalistic and parental reports and also experimental methods, sort of tease out what is it that, that kids are receiving and what are they doing with the things that they're receiving to form moral views. Um, IF you are interested in situational, uh, moral change, so for example, um, That's something that you know the book talks about obviously, uh, so going from thinking, well, cheating is, is, is wrong to thinking, well, in this particular situation, it might be OK, uh, you can go in and, and interview people and ask them, OK, you know, why did you cheat in this particular situation? So like we've asked like to students to tell us, OK, what's the time, when's the time when you cheated in a class, and why did you do? That, and did you think it was OK? You can take that information and you can manipulate it. You can do an experiment where if they say, well, I, I thought the, uh, the, the, the assignments, the exam was really dumb, and stupid and pointless. So, I thought there, I was not gonna learn anything from it, so, um, I decided to cheat. If, if sort of, if, if that is a factor, then we can try to manipulate that and you'll see. Whether cheating rates differ between sort of meaningful and meaningless tasks in the lab, for example, we think we can do experiments where we manipulate, um, the particular situations, people are asked to judge, so we can say, OK, are people more likely to think it's OK for somebody to cheat when the person is asked to do something, you know, that's really meaningless and, and stupid versus something that seems like a really useful learning experience. So, the, the, the methods that we use to study moral change in psychology always depend on the kind of question we're asking, which change are we trying to understand here?

20:17 Ricardo Lopes: Right, uh, so, I, I mean, but when moral changes occur, uh, can they occur due to something like selfishness, unconscious effect, or just blind obedience? I mean, do they necessarily need to change through, uh, reasoning, or, or can it be just through those more, let's say, subconscious processes?

20:46 Audun Dahl: Right, so, the, uh, of course this is an empirical question. In principle, you could imagine that people would change their moral views, uh, in response to seemingly irrelevant factors. Uh, YOU could imagine that, you know, whenever somebody felt a pang of disgust, that they would condemn whatever action they were confronted with, even if that disgust. Had nothing to do with the, with the, the action under evaluation. So, this is, there were some, you know, over the past 20 years, there's been a lot of interest in this kind of phenomenon called uh incidental disgust, you know, so you, you discuss some, somebody, for example, by hypnosis, this is a work by, by, uh by John Haidt and, and his collaborators. Um, YOU discuss people, for example, by hypnosis and then You see whether their, uh, judgments of some action, for example, if somebody stealing a library book, uh, changes. And, uh, sure, you know, you found, you, they found in these studies, uh, that, uh, there was a, you know, an effect of, of the incidental disgust manipulation, you know, some of this has been, you know, not been replicated, but, you know, uh, on average, uh, there, there seemed to be an effect in, in some of these studies. And they found that, sure, yeah, you could, you could, you might be able to push people around a little bit, but the effects are very, very small, right? You can push people on a scale from 0 to 100, you can maybe you can push them from like, you know, thinking it's uh 65 wrong to thinking it's 72 wrong or something like that. You don't, you're not gonna get, uh, by using incidental disgust, you're not gonna get somebody to think it's wrong to save a drowning, drowning child, right? Um, SO yes, these, these phenomena, these, these, uh, amoral forces that operate at least partly outside of our awareness, uh, can affect our judgments, but the effects tend to be very, very small. Um, AND, uh, when we look at selfishness, for example, there's, you know, it's easy to look at, at, say, at cheating, at students, uh, cheating and thinking, uh-huh, you know, they're cheating because they're selfish, and they're excusing their own cheating, uh, because they're selfish, but, um, The, it turns out, you know, we've done some research on this, that if you ask other students who have no involvement in the situation, um, where the, this particular student, uh, cheated, um, and you think, oh, was it OK for this person to cheat when their mom was in the hospital and this instructor was really, you know, inflexible and the assignment seemed kind of pointless, um. We get, uh, similar evaluations by uninvolved third parties as we do, uh, for the person who actually uh did it. And what that means is that the person who is, who's thinking it's OK to cheat in this particular situation isn't necessarily being selfish, uh, because they might well, and evidence suggests they would, uh, grant the same right to cheat. TO another person in the same situation. Um, SO it's rather than selfishness, it's what, you know, philosophers sometimes call an agent favoring prerogative, meaning the, the right to, to prioritize your own interests, uh, over one's own interests, uh, over, um, uh, moral principles that, that otherwise apply, for example, the principle of not, not cheating.

23:47 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, BUT in what ways can we change our moral views through reasoning? How does that, uh, uh, uh, occur exactly?

23:57 Audun Dahl: So the, in the book I offer this, this three-part account of how, or where, uh, people can change their, um, their moral views, uh, based on, on reasons, you know, the one is, um, that you could, uh, you could change your moral concerns, um, so maybe the most A dramatic example of that is when, uh, kids go from, in the, you know, infancy and toddlerhood, you know, hitting people without seeming to care much about it, to, uh, by age 3, thinking that actually it's wrong to harm others because you're, you know, that, that, that, that, that, that's just generally wrong. It's wrong to hit because you're causing harm. Um, SO, or, you know, when people go through a religious conversion, they suddenly acquire new, uh, concerns with abiding by religious rules that they didn't have before. So that's 11 place where somebody could see a reason to adopt a new belief, um, and, and hence, you know, uh, uh, in a, in a, in a god they didn't believe in before, and hence acquire new concerns that shape their views about right and wrong ways of, of acting. The second kind of source of um of, or locus of moral change uh through reasoning is uh what I call connections, meaning uh how we connect a particular moral concern to a situation. Um, SO, uh, for example, uh, if you, you know, thought that it was totally fine to drive around in a gas-powered car and fly around the world, um, because, uh, you know, that you need to get places, and then, uh, suddenly, you become convinced that, you know, actually, um, the, the, this, all this traveling by gas-powered vehicles is, uh, helping to heat the planet, uh, which means, uh, that the climate is gonna change, which means that it's gonna be harder to be a human, um, you know, maybe next year and maybe in 100 years, but somebody's welfare is going to be affected by all this gas-powered by all the fossil fuels. And now, it's not that your moral Concern with human welfare has grown or expanded or changed, it's that you're now seeing um that concern of preventing harm to others, uh, other things being equal, as relevant to a new class of actions, meaning that the burning of fossil fuels that you didn't, you know, think of as relevant before. So the, how we connect our moral concerns, uh, to new situations is another, you know, locus of, of moral change, uh, by, by reasoning. And then the third, uh, locus that I, you know, talk about in the book, um, I, uh, what we, what I call coordinations, uh, so, meaning how people are balancing, uh, competing concerns. So, for example, you know, somebody could think that, uh, well, I, I know that fossil fuels are, you know, harming the, the planet in the long run, and, and that, you know, they're contributing to global warming, but I also think that I have the right to, to, to promote my own interest and drive around, and I think everybody else has the right to do that. But, you know, over time, for example, Recognizing the severity of the consequences to the, to the, to the future, uh, somebody could think, come and think, well, you know, actually now my priorities are changing a little bit. I'm changing how I'm balancing the concern with my, uh, our welfare right now and the future welfare, and now I'm willing, recognizing the severity of what we are doing to the future, now I'm gonna, you know, make some more sacrifices, um, um, because I think it's morally required, um, uh, to my own welfare so as to protect the future. So, uh, changing concerns, changing connections, changing coordinations are sort of the three places of moral change through reasoning that I talk about in the book.

27:26 Ricardo Lopes: But when it comes to moral reasoning, I mean, isn't it common for people to sort of come up with moral reasons for their behavior after the fact? I mean, in the sense that, OK, it's not necessarily that they've already done something and then only after that they come up with reasons to justify their behavior to other people. I mean, I guess that. Also can happen, but I was thinking more along the lines of, OK, so they, they already want to do something, and then it's only after they want to do that that they come up with moral reasons to justify them wanting to do that. So it would work as a sort of a post hoc rationalization. I mean, doesn't that happen at least sometimes,

28:21 Audun Dahl: so. It's the most obvious case of, of post hoc rationalization, um, would be, as you allude to, where people are asked to explain their behaviors to other people, and they might have had reasons, uh, to have for their initial actions that they don't think other people will buy. So the one example I use in the book is there is, um, Is, is Mitch McConnell, who is the, who is the um Senate Majority Leader in the US uh Senate at the time, who, you know, uh, during the last year of the Obama administration, uh, was, um, asked, uh, to, or, or, or to, to, to have a whole hearing and a vote on a nominee for the US Supreme Court, cause uh, a, a seat had opened up. And, uh, McConnell refused, uh, saying that we shouldn't, you know, fill a Supreme Court seat in an election year. Um. It's, it's, uh, it, he was also then later after this whole, you know, thing died out and, you know, there was no hearing, there was no vote, and, and then Trump was able to fill the seat. Uh, McConnell was asked, and 00, what if there had been a Republican president who had been nominated, who had nominated a, a candidate, um, at, uh, for the Supreme Court in the election year, and then McConnell said, well, of course we'd fill the seat then, and indeed, you know, that's what McConnell did, uh, later when, when Trump in the election year, uh, had an opportunity to fill a Supreme Court seat. Um, SO in that case, you know, McConnell was sort of, I guess, offering a kind of post hoc rationalization, a public rationalization for his action. But the initial action, his action was not, you know, uh, unconscious or, or sort of blindly, uh, selfish. He had a very principled reason. He wanted to have as many conservative judges on the Supreme Court as possible, and that was his mission, that was his principle, uh, and he, but he didn't want to reveal that because it wouldn't go over very well, um, but it was a principle he, uh, clearly believed in, um. So, uh, the, the, that's, that's why this is where I think the, the science of morality is, has a particularly useful role to play because, uh, we can study people, um, people's reasoning and people's changes, uh processes of change, um, in context where they're not in a position of defending themselves publicly. You know, of course, when people are defending themselves. Publicly, they are, sure they might be concerned with being honest, but they also have lots of other things to worry about, you know, the, the, the, uh, you know, being, you know, on the stand in a court, you know, accused of, of, of crime, for example, is an obvious case where people have lots of other considerations aside from mere honesty to consider when they're deciding what to say. Um, AND, uh, so, uh, That's why we surely, uh surely people uh can say things that are sort of inaccurate or falsified to the rationalizations of their actual decision making, but that doesn't mean that their initial decisions weren't based, also based on reasons, on the other reasons and the ones they're divulging in public. Um, ANOTHER I think useful, uh, case, um, Which I think, uh, you know, is clearly real and deserves, uh, study is when people have done something, you know, horrible, you know, done something that harmed somebody, sort of they, you know, like, uh, clinical psychologists, uh, talk about moral injury, the moral injury having killed somebody in war, for example, or, or having done something else that, that's really hard to live with, even if they thought it was just. AT the time, the people may have to reappraise that event in order to be able to live with themselves, and there's lots of interesting research from, you know, motion regulation and coping literature, uh, literatures, um, showing how people can sort of reinterpret events, uh, after the fact, um, in order to better live with it. And I definitely believe that that's, uh, um, true, but the The, the, the version of sort of post hoc rationalization that was, you know, advocated by many people in the moral psychology literature for a while, where people were said to routinely make sort of automatic decisions, unconscious decisions, and then concoct a post hoc rationalization afterwards, that I just don't see much evidence for that actually happening.

32:20 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, OK, so, so that view, uh, I mean, just for me to get a better sense of that, uh, that view is no longer, I mean, supported by the science, or most moral psychologists no longer believe it's true, or, I mean, what happened there exactly?

32:41 Audun Dahl: So, uh, I think people have become much more skeptical of it. I'm, I'm probably even more, and have been all along more dismissive of that, uh, because I never thought the evidence held up very well. Um, I think you hold, and there's still, you know, psychologists who, who endorse what I call the fickle view of morality. Well, the more, I guess I would call it a more pessimistic view of, of moral, um, functioning than, than I do, um, especially with regards to the, the role of reasoning. So that's, you know, that's why I wrote the book to try to argue against, uh, some of these people, but I think take something like, uh, moral dumbfounding, which was became a very, very, um, Uh, um, prominent phenomenon for a long time in the early 2000s, so the,

33:24 Ricardo Lopes: and, and then yeah, there's that example. I read about it in Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind, but I don't think it comes originally from him. It, it's probably from another person that, that example of incest between siblings, right, where people, where people are sort of. Disgusted at the idea, but when, uh, uh, they are asked why they have that sort of reaction, they come up with reasons that don't really make sense in the particular context or, or the particular case that is described, right,

34:02 Audun Dahl: right. So it started with, um, with a, uh, senior thesis study that a study at the University of Virginia, uh, supervised by, by height, um. And, um, you know, the, yeah, the, the basic, uh, finding, uh, was, uh, allegedly that the people were unable to explain why it was wrong to, uh, for two siblings to have sex while on vacation in, in France, where else, um, and, uh, uh, and, uh, the, uh, the experiment, uh, stipulated that these two siblings were using all sorts of birth controls, it was virtually impossible for them to become pregnant. Um, AND, uh, you know, then, you know, sometimes people would say, well, you know, maybe they, uh, the participants would sometimes say, oh, maybe they get pregnant, or, you know, maybe something bad would happen, and then the experimenter would always respond, well, but actually, no, no harm ensued, you know, nothing bad happened. Um, SO, you know, that was, you know, made a huge splash and it sort of strengthened this idea that people, you know, eventually were unable to explain their moral judgments, even though they thought that it was wrong for these two siblings to, to have sex in, in France. Um, AND, uh, but, You know, later research, both in conceptual and empirical grounds, have challenged this, you know, finding the right people can't provide justifications. It's very difficult to get people to say that they don't know why they make a particular judgment, and most, most of the time they can offer justification for their, their judgment. Uh, THAT people didn't actually believe, um, that the act was harmless, even though the experiment, uh, stipulated it. And also, you know, this is a philosopher named Daniel Jacobson who pointed this out, that the sort of the hall of the, the setup with the experimenter, um, arguing that, well, you know, that it, it was, uh, it was harmless, you know, nothing happened. Uh, HE, he pointed out in a, in a, in a, in a sort of rebuttal. To this, this, um, dumbfounding phenomenon that it's, it's actually not so relevant what turned out to have happened to these siblings. Uh, WHAT, if you're evaluating their actions, you know, we know this from much other psychological research, what really matters is their mental states at the time, and at the time, they really have no basis for knowing that this act would not cause irreparable harm to their relationship. Um, SO, Jacobson has this, uh, example, this thought experiment where, you know, it talks about this couple who decides to, who has kids, and they have, you know, um, uh, savings that they're, you know, wanting their kids to inherit, and they, um, They, uh, they decide to go to Las Vegas and gamble the money, and woohoo, they win. And now suddenly they're, you know, inheritance of these kids is, is, you know, quadrupled. Um, BUT still, even if that turned out to be a good thing for them to have done in the end because they lucked out and the, and the roulette wheel, um, it was not a good decision. It was a bad idea to do this. Because it was, it was reckless because from everything they knew before going to Las Vegas, um, chances were they were gonna lose the money, right? So, so, the fact that something turned out to be OK according to the stipulations of the experiment, doesn't mean that the, the two siblings had a reason for knowing it beforehand. So for all these, these reasons, this, this, uh, uh, this, this finding of moral dumb. Founding, that's kind of a, a, you know, a, um, a fundamental fact of our moral um operations, um, is, is, has, has been rebutted and, and critiqued and, and I think uh largely debunked at this point such that there are few people, few, few psychologists who study, um, you know, uh, moral psychology who, who take that for, for granted anymore.

37:31 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so, uh, and why is it that people from different time periods and different places hold different sets of moral values, what explains that?

37:44 Audun Dahl: So, so here again, I sort of employ this kind of tripartite scheme of the uh changes in concerns, changing in connections, and changing in coordination. So, oh, I can, well I can go into each, but, but just the, the, the general um I The claim of the book is that in order to understand these moral changes that have happened throughout history, some of them very radical, with regards to democratic norms, with regards to slavery, with regards to public executions, with regards to, to voting rights for women, um, to understand, uh, why, uh, people, um, used to accept things that we no longer accept, we have to understand the psychology of those individuals, um, at the time. Um, SO, and 11, thing I talked about at length is, is the sort of the idea of human equality as a relatively, um, and the idea of human rights as a relatively new, uh, discovery or, or new invention as the historian Lynn Hunt says. Um, SO, so much of our ideas about, you know, universal human rights, um, The idea that we shouldn't discriminate against people based on their race or their gender when it comes to voting, when it comes to employment, housing, uh, is based on the idea that humans are for, um, for all most purposes, um, equal, um, across, uh, gender and racial, uh, and other lines, uh, meaning that knowing what somebody's gender is or somebody's race is doesn't tell us anything about their capability. For owning a home, for functioning society, for forming political opinions and so forth. But the, but the idea of this kind of equality, you know, is, is really, uh, relatively new and, and, you know, what seems obvious to us, um, is, was, was the opposite of obvious, uh, it is obviously false, not obviously true to a lot of people living, or most people living in the 16th century, 17th, and even 18th century. Uh, AND what, if you remove that assumption, um, that people, that, that people are equal, if you take away the idea, uh, that people are equal, um, a lot of the moral views, uh, that we hold today about voting rights, about, um, basic, um, democratic values in a fall away, um, or at least are, are, are severely undermined. Um, SO, and that's one example of how, uh, people People, um, can, can form, you know, uh, the, the people in history have sort of, um, have taken time to develop moral concerns, for example, with universal human rights, by, by slowly learning to recognize that we are far more similar than we might have seemed, have seemed at one time. And, and sometimes you see these kinds of, of, of the beliefs and the rights kind of uh developing, you know, in, in, in You know, in somewhat asynchronously. So, and one interesting figure I've talked about in the book is, is Abraham Lincoln, the, the, the president of the United States during the Civil War. So Lincoln, um, who's had this uh very evolving view around a race and slavery, um, there's a wonderful book by historian Eric Foner, who, uh, called the, The Fiery Trial about Lincoln's relationship to, to slavery. And Lincoln, uh, for most of his life, as far as we, we know, was opposed to slavery, um, but at the same time, um, he was, he was, he held very racist views. He did not think that, that white and black people were equal. Um, HE came to, uh, to see them as more equal later in his life, but initially he did not argue that they were equal. He just thought that they were sort of Equal enough to not enslave each other, meaning that, that black people should not be, be enslaved. Um, SO, it's, it's by digging into the psychological realities that these people were living in, that we can come to understand why what seems so obvious to us, for example, the idea of universal human rights, did not seem too obvious to them. And the point here is not to To excuse them. I mean, some, in many cases, it's, you know, I personally think that they should have known better. I mean think of somebody like Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence, saying that it was self-evident that people had inalienable rights, uh, and yet enslaved, you know, hundreds of people on this plantation. Um, THEY, I, I have, uh, no interest in, in sort of, in, in, um, condoning his behavior, uh, but I think I want to understand it. I want to understand how his morality works and the the morality of his contemporaries worked because it tells us something about human morality. Um, SO that's the, the project here and, and, uh, to, to understand that we need to step into their psychological realities and dig into the particular beliefs they held, for example, this belief that, that humans were not equal.

42:21 Ricardo Lopes: So I mean, do you think that if we look at things in terms of moral progress or moral regress, that if in the future even, I mean, people who are part of our current societies. Western societies, for example, if somewhere in the future they find themselves in another, in a new set of circumstances and even intellectual circumstances that there could be moral regress.

42:56 Audun Dahl: Uh, YEAH, I mean, I think some people would, would, uh, say that we're living through the moral regress now, you know, that, uh, and, and in fact, the fear of, of moral decline is, is very widespread, um, so meaning that, that there is some, some interesting, uh, research by Dan Gilbert and, um, and, uh, some other, uh, folks about how there's a, you know, Uh, across multiple societies and across multiple times, uh, people, uh, on average, feel that morality in their lifetime is sort of declining, the moral level of society is declining, sometimes it peaked around their birth, and then, you know, goes down. Um, SO there's a lot of, of fear, uh, that morality is, is getting worse as we are in the process of regressing, morally speaking. And then people are engaging in various um efforts to try to fight that, you know, of course, for, for in the sort of prototypical conservative view, it's gonna try to return to an earlier state, uh, for the more sort of uh left leaning or progressive views, often it's trying to aspire for a new kind of uh future that, that, that, that overcomes the moral flaws of, of our present, um. But yes, absolutely, I think it's, it's very possible to, for views that were, um, you know, once abandoned or thought of as, you know, unthinkable to sort of gain ascendancy again, um, so, so that's, I don't think, uh, that, um, you know, the, the, the arc of the moral history is, is sort of, is, is always sort of going in, in one direction, um, and you know, it's, uh, it. I mean, in empirically, psychologically, and we're, we're not, as I talk about in the book, we're not really in a position to say that morality is, is getting better for these questions of what's better and what's worse and not really empirical scientific questions, there are questions for all of us, um, but even, you know, as, as a, you know, a person stepping out of my, you know, role as a researcher and just, you know, evaluating society around me, I don't see any reason to think that morality, the moral. You know, standing of society will always uh move, um, in upwards and upwards. Uh, THE Obama used to say, he used to like to quote uh Martin Luther King about the arc of the moral, the, or the arc of the moral history or the history arc of the moral universe, uh, bending towards justice, but, uh, in that, during that bending, there's a lot of zigging and zagging as well. So that seems, you know, very plausible to me, and I don't, and, and I think Um, we, we need to use the evidence, uh, from psychology to try to make sense of that, to try to understand why is it that, uh, we are, uh, having kind of reactionary movements, for example, feeling that why, uh, do a lot of people, uh, feel on, on the, uh, on the political right, um, in the United States right now feel like, uh, the progressive movement, uh, went too far around the, you know, during the, um, The, uh, the Biden administration, for example, why, why there is this kind of counter reaction, and I think that one, you know, role of, of science and, and of psychological science and morality in particular is to make sense of those kinds of counter reactions, uh, without, you know, necessarily, but it's not our job to pass judgments on them as, as, as researchers, but to try to make sense of them.

46:01 Ricardo Lopes: So I mean many times people ask themselves and other people why certain things that we tend to them as being atrocities happen and why sometimes A huge number of people seem to participate in them. So let's just pick the example of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. I mean, do the psychology have an explanation for that as to why perhaps in certain circumstances people would be willing to participate in those kinds of acts?

46:43 Audun Dahl: Yeah, I, I do think that, that psychology has something important to say about that. And in, in fact, you know, really since the, since World War II, a lot of psychology has been dedicated specifically to try to understand these kinds of atrocities, how they happen, why they happen, how to prevent them, and, and so forth. And I do think, you know, morality, excuse me. Morality isn't, uh, the full story there, but it's part of the story, you know, uh, and it's not the full story because people sometimes engaged in atrocities that they know to be wrong at the time, but they're not, they nonetheless feel pressured to do so, so, you know, my point isn't that people always do what they think is, is morally right, um, but morality is, is part of the story. Because, uh, if people, um, see themselves as having a moral license to, um, commit atrocities, uh, or at least thinking, finding it less condemnable or more acceptable to commit mass murder and to attack their neighbors, of course, they're gonna be more likely to do so. And, uh, the, I think the, the, what we know about, uh, when these kinds of genocidal, um, Horrors happen. Um, IT is, uh, very often, uh, when people, when, when enough people have been put in a position where they, where they think that they are under threat, that they think that they're under attack, you know, this is clearly, um, the case of, of, uh, in the Iranian genocide, and even, you know, in the, uh, in, in, in, in Nazi Germany leading up to World War II, um, Jews were, were Presented as a, uh, threat to German society and to the German nation, and a threat that needed to be eliminated. So, um, and you know, it's a wide-held principle in, in morality, uh, that people have some rights to self-defense, and you could see that the, the leaders of these kinds of genocidal, um, movements and genocidal projects are using, are leveraging that principle of self-defense to an Extreme degree by portraying some group that in reality isn't poses no threat, of course, to society, um, but, um, to present that community as a threat that needs to be, um, uh, be fought before they come and, and, and take over before they, they, they, they, they ruin us. Um, SO I think that, that, that moral psychology absolutely can help us make sense of that, you know, another thing. Of course, there is also the idea of, of dehumanization, which we also see a lot of dehumanizing, you know, um, rhetoric and the, with the, in, in those, um, instances, those, those genocides we've talked about now, uh, where people, you know, describe where the, the, the attackers, um, describe the other, the victims as, as vermin or as cockroaches and using other kinds of animalistic language. Well that's That's playing on the sort of the, the idea that humans are not equal, right? This, this, this, this idea that, uh, that, you know, what still is now much more accepted than it used to be, but still not accepted by everybody that, that humans are basically equal when it comes to fundamental rights. Um, YOU know, obviously in, in the case of, of Nazi Germany, which I know a little more about than the Rwandan case, um, there was, there was, there was an explicit theory that, uh, some people were less human, less worth, uh, than others, that the Jewish people were sort of a lesser kind of human than the, the Aryan, um, people, and that that gave the Aryan people a right to kind of to, to, to abuse or to throw out the, the, the Jewish people who had fewer rights. So, yes, in a sense, we've acquired an idea of human equality, more so, it's more widespread now in the 21st century or even the 20th century than it was in the 18th or, or 17th century. Uh, BUT, uh, it's not, uh, completely there, and it certainly wasn't completely there early in the, um, in the 20th century where, you know, ideas of, of racial differences were widespread, not just in Nazi Germany, but in the United States and Britain, and lots of places around the world where people had the idea that racial differences were so great that uh they came with, with different rights to self-determination, for example.

50:54 Ricardo Lopes: But I mean those circumstances that lead people to participate in, for example, a genocide, anyone could find themselves in those circumstances, right? I mean, no one, or I mean anyone could be susceptible to that in a more voluntary or a more coerced way, correct?

51:19 Audun Dahl: Well, I, I don't know if we could say that just anybody would participate in, in genocide. Uh, I think that, uh, there, there are, you know, books and, and big debates that we don't have to get into here about that, about a particular personalities that, that go along with this, you know, for example, there's been, there was a debate between uh Browning and, and Goldhagen regarding the, these police battalions that were killing, um, Jews in, in, in Poland and Eastern Europe, and whether they were, you know, particular, you know, personalities or not, um. Uh, THERE was the, there's work by, you know, the, the old classic work by Theodore Adorno and his colleagues about the authoritarian personality. So, there are, you know, real questions about whether there are some people who are more susceptible to participate in these kinds of attacks than others, um, but we could, we could see that they're in a, under some psychological conditions, you will have more people willing to engage in these, and one of the conditions. Uh, THAT enable, uh, a, you know, or heighten the possibility, the probability of a kind of, um, genocidal attack or, or, or otherwise a kind of exclusion of a whole group of people based on race is when you have a whole country that to a lesser or greater degree, um, embraces the idea that humans are not equal. And if you have a society where it's widely believed that some groups of, of humans are, are, are. Elevated above others, that is a risk factor, a desire level for a kind of um uh uh attack against the, the, the group deemed lesser, right? So, so that, um, that weakens, and, and, you know, that is a much broader, you know, broad, that was, that was in, in Germany and many other places, much more broadly held, held view. There were a lot of people who, who were not, you know, actively participating in, in the um In the, um, you know, expulsion and extermination of, of Jewish people during World War II, who were nonetheless, you know, anti-Semitic, um, and that was, you know, part of the, the what made it possible, um, the what made the, the horrors possible.

53:21 Ricardo Lopes: Right, so, uh, there's a, I, I mean this discussion has been going on forever, but and uh I don't know if it will be solved, it will ever be solved, but, um, there's a discussion in moral philosophy and ethics, uh, as to whether there are really any objective moral truths out there. I mean, people who I think there are usually fall on the side of moral realism and people who think there aren't fall on the side of moral anti-realism. Do you think that moral psychology and developmental psychology can contribute to that discussion?

54:03 Audun Dahl: Well, I, I don't think that, uh, moral, uh, psychology and empirical science can tell us whether there are, are objective, uh, moral truths, um, because, uh, the question of moral, uh, truths is not an, an empirical scientific question, you know, there's been something recognized by philosophers for a long time from, from Kant or Hume and, and, um. And others, um, that you can't, you know, prove with empirical methods that, you know, something is morally right or morally wrong. Um, THAT doesn't mean that there is no objective truth, it's just not, you know, something science can, can tell us. Uh, WHAT science, the science of morality can tell us, um, is that, is whether People believe uh that there are objective moral truths and you know with regards to very, at least very basic moral truths, um, uh, people do believe that, so for example, the, the, the work by Jeff Goodwin and others finding that most people are objectivists when it comes to things like, you know, it's wrong to harm somebody for no reason, for example, um, but, um. What's, uh, psychology, uh, can also show us is that there are certain moral views that are very widely held, and you know they tend to be the very ones that I was just alluding to, uh, meaning that, you know, people everywhere, uh, think it's wrong to engage in unprovoked violence. Uh, THIS is not, you know, uniquely Western or American or any other kind of value, but this is a widely held view. Um, SO, so, and I think both of those findings, both the people that have embraced objectivist views and especially the fact that Excuse me, um, that, um, these, uh, certain moral, fundamental moral values are, um, universally shared or near universally shared, um, that, you know, can, can feed into, inform the debate about whether there are objective moral truths, and it seem to make, you know, the case easier for the, uh, philosophers and, and other people who are, who are debating this, uh, if there is some kind of, uh, if there are certain, um, Uh, the fact that there are certain moral views that are so widely shared, uh, that seems to make it easier to, to make the case that there are objective moral truths, but uh, there's always an extra step, you know, it's never simply an empirical scientific question whether such truths, uh, exist, and I happen to believe them, believe that they are objective moral truths, but I don't believe that, you know, that I prove, can prove that in my research.

56:22 Ricardo Lopes: Right. I mean, let me just ask you one last question, because I, I mean, I see a lot of this when I have discussions or conversations on the show with moral philosophers and ethicists particularly. Um, I mean, earlier we talked about post hoc rationalization. Uh, SOMETIMES I, I have the sense that, uh, for example, philosopher moral philosophers already have a conclusion in mind when it comes to, uh, a particular moral truth or what a particular moral truth is, and then they just Work backwards in terms of coming up with explanations as to why that moral truth is a moral truth basically. So because I mean sometimes I keep asking them, OK, so why, OK, so what supports that moral truth, and I know it. Uh, IT'S this, and then, OK, so why is that true and then it's that, it's that, it's that, and then we always arrive at the point where, I mean, you just have to accept as a fact that a particular, uh, premise is correct because you uh there's not, you can't go further backwards to explain, I mean you just have to. TO accept it as a moral principle basically. So do you think that there's perhaps anything coming from moral psychology that would have anything to add to that? I mean to explain where the reasons that people give for their Uh, moral values, where, where they come from at the end of the day and whether that also applies to moral philosophers and ethicists and perhaps there could be some sort of, uh, I don't know, post hoc rationalization and when it comes to developing a moral system or something like that.

58:41 Audun Dahl: Interesting. Yes, so, and, first of all, um, I don't think that the evidence supports the idea, supports the idea that, that people are routinely, uh, forming their moral views on automatic grounds, and then they're coming up with post-op rationalizations after. I don't think there's much evidence for that. Um, WITH respect to how moral philosophers operate, uh, I, I mean, I, I, I remember I was speaking to a colleague, a friend of mine who's a moral philosopher who's saying, well, there, there, there is a sort of a school of, of thought and philosopher we use it, you, you take the most extreme position you can argue, you can responsibly argue for, or you can sort of sensibly argue for as a kind. Of just uh an intellectual project and for, and I still wouldn't call that, uh, post hoc rationalization in the sort of in the general sense, uh, or in the sort of in the pejorative sense because there's still a sort of reasoning, uh, but, but yes, they are sort of perhaps you know seeking out a position and then you know, trying to buttress that with the strongest possible arguments, um. I think it's to, to understand and excuse me, and relate the, the, you know, the ordinary, you know, moral reasoning that we all engage in from the sort of project of moral philosophy. Now it's, it's Important to recognize that, you know, in, in the ordinary moral functioning that we all engage in, um, contradictions are sort of like just part of the game, you know, that, that we have moral principles that are just intention and there's no easy way to resolve them, and I, I don't think it's because they're irrational. I think It's because the world is complicated, uh, you know, I wouldn't take the fact that in, in physics, uh, I think it still is the case that, that they have, you know, the, the wave, uh, uh, view of light and the, the wave theory light and the particle theory light are, you know, seemingly in contradiction, but I don't think that's because physicists are irrational. I think it's because it's a complicated phenomenon. In philosophy, uh, there is a pressure for internal consistency, and there is a project of seeing, can we demonstrate that. All moral principles can be subsumed either descriptively or prescriptively under a single uh principle, uh, such as the utilitarian maxim of, of, you know, of maximizing, uh, net welfare or the categorical imperative or some other kind of, uh, recipe for, for morality. Um, THAT is a, you know, distinct, uh, Project, uh, where that, that where you are, you know, trying to see, OK, what's, OK, if, if this is, you know, this is conspris like if this is, these are moral truths, how is that possible, right? How can we demonstrate that this is a, that this is a sort of epistemological possible thing to make these kind of IPR what he called a priori synthetic judgments about right and wrong ways of, of acting, um, so. I think it's, uh, the, the, to me, the, the, the scientific uh project, uh, uh, or the, the scholarly project of moral philosophy in those cases is more akin to, um, hypothesis testing in empirical science where you have some hypothesis, like I think this is, you know, this might be true, and now let's explore if the evidence or in the philosopher's case, the arguments support it. Um, SO, I guess you could call it. Post hoc reasoning because, you know, there, there's an hypothesis that's then, that, that, that's, that's then being explored, uh, but uh again I wouldn't, if that is post hoc rationalization, then you know, I wouldn't use it as a pejorative thing. I would use it as a, as a sincere intellectual project to try to see what can we prove, um, uh, what's the conjecture and that's yet to be proved in mathematics or in moral philosophy and what can we actually demonstrate.

1:02:12 Ricardo Lopes: Right. OK, so the book is again Between Fixed and fickle, Why Our Moral Views Keep Changing. I'm of course leaving a link to it in the description of the interview, and Dr. Dah, just before we go, would you like to tell people where they can find you and your work on the internet?

1:02:31 Audun Dahl: Uh, WELL, the, the, uh, you mean my URL, my, my web, uh,

1:02:35 Ricardo Lopes: yeah, if you have a website, social media, and so on, yeah,

1:02:39 Audun Dahl: yeah, so I definitely have a web page. We have our lab has a webpage, uh, that you can Google. It's called the Developmental Moral Psychology Lab, and I have a web page at the, uh, at, at the, um, homepage of the Cornell Psychology. DEPARTMENT that where you can find me. So if you Google me, you'll, you'll find that. I'm not on social media, to my credit, I think. Uh, SO you won't find me there, at least in any interesting sense. Uh, BUT yeah, uh, do feel free to reach out. I'd love, I always love to hear from people and, and see how they react to the book. So thank you very much for, for having me here and, and for anyone who's listening.

1:03:11 Ricardo Lopes: Well, thank you so much for doing this. It's been a fascinating, a fascinating conversation.

1:03:16 Audun Dahl: Thank

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