DAE here experience morality as a "felt sense" like I do, and does neurotype impact which things are "registered" as moral by our bodies / nervous system?
Trigger Warning just in case anyone has traumatic experience regarding religion/morality, and discussion contains mention of World Cup
I've been aware that I'm autistic (and what autism ACTUALLY is) for about 3 weeks now, and because my special interests are anthropology, social systems, human behavior, choice, trauma, and oppression, I have fit this new lens into my frameworks quickly and with high success for pattern recognition. Something I have been encountering is a pattern I'm starting to think of as the "felt sense" of morality. I think this could be a broad category, and it could encompass anything from discovering there's meat in your food if you're vegan by choice for moral reasons, and having an unpleasant physical response, to having internalized prejudice which results in a feeling of disgust upon meeting individuals of a particular demographic which you consider to be "immoral" (to be clear, I would consider this to be a false "felt sense" of morality because I consider dehumanization and oppression to be wrong, but I do think it still would fit here because it would be a sensory experience related to the perceived moral judgment), etc.
What I'm starting to notice is that certain kinds of moral interpretation appear to result in a "felt sense" for my autistic friends and myself (usually around things related to abuse of power) whereas other kinds appear to result in a "felt sense" in people who I perceive to be allistic in my personal life (usually related to in-group and out-group dynamics or related to social status or dictated rules, such as that of religious texts or leaders). I worry I'm just viewing all of this with a bunch of bias, so I'm curious about others' experiences.
tl;dr - do Autists primarily experience sensations related to morality in rejection of power-over?
Do non-Autists primarily experience sensations related to morality as a way to maintain status quo? And specifically, does anyone have counter examples to either of these?
This was the conversation that really got me thinking about this - it happened recently between a random stranger on the internet and myself, regarding the choice to watch the World Cup. To be clear, I am aware that I have no idea what this person's neurotype is - this was just what got me thinking about what I've noticed with people I know in real life:
Stranger: I was hoping he would do another World Cup special. John Oliver has successfully made me feel paralyzingly guilty for watching The World Cup, but I’m so grateful that I now know how awful things are.
Me: What if you didn't watch it? Edit: to be SUPER clear, this is not judgement and it is not meant to be rhetorical. I don't watch sports so I know I can't relate to the experience of those for whom it is important - but I am truly curious, What are the consequences for an individual, if you skip it? What is the cost to you - what do you lose / miss?
Stranger: it’s the same reason John himself admitted to watching it. We love the sport and it also means a lot more to certain countries than others. I think you’re implying that there has to be something huge or life or death for us to feel compelled to watch it, and I’m not sure why. I could ask you the same question about why you watch your favorite TV show. What will you lose by not watching it? It’s not a matter of losing anything, it’s more a matter of /gaining/ pleasure from watching something that interests and entertains you. Obviously, we won’t die if we don’t watch it, but we enjoy it. Soccer/football means a lot more in other countries than america and for a lot of people it’s culturally significant to keep up with it-especially if everyone else around you is watching it and talking about it. It’s just part of the zeitgeist. We watch it for the same reason you might watch the Oscars or the Grammys or the World Series or even just your favorite episode of Friends-not because you’ll lose something if you don’t, but because you’ll gain something if you do.
Me: I don't really watch most television, although I can extrapolate the metaphor to games I play and that would fit I think? Reading your response though, I wonder if this is a neurotype distinction. I don't believe I would get anything out of what I enjoy, if I knew it would be at someone's expense. When I do know that a particular thing is obtained at someone's expense (let's take sweatshop clothing for an example), I have physical, literal symptoms of illness while considering purchasing or wearing them, and I've always considered this to be a sensory sensitivity projection of emotional experience which I associate with my autism. Thank you for responding, I appreciate it. I can't relate to what you're describing within this context, but I can understand it conceptually to be similar for you to my everyday experience of things I enjoy doing and I can wrap my head around what it would mean for the context to have no bearing on it.
Posted Nov 22, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC