The Process of Moral Decision - Term Paper Example

Moral Decision Making Mechanisms al affiliation Moral decision has always been a difficult thing to make. To make the one means to refuse from something and to make a sacrifice. The price may sometimes seem to be too high. In some situations people receive responsibility for life and death of others. It is incredibly difficult to find a solution to such a moral dilemma. That is why the mechanism of moral decision making is really interesting to analyze. There are two basic approaches, describing this process. The first one, offered by Hume, insists that moral decisions and judgments are based on emotions and intuition. On the other hand, Kant states that a moral judgment may be made through reasoning only. However, most of the recent researches tend to describe how these two approaches may be combined. There is one more model of moral decision making. It describes universal moral grammar. The link between language and morality became a subject of many successive researches. It was proven that people tend to be emotional rather than pragmatic when dilemmas they face are described in their native language. Thus, they tend to take moral decisions. On the other hand, people tend to be pragmatic when dilemmas are put in a foreign language. Key words: moral decision making, moral dilemma, emotions and intuition, reasoning, universal moral grammar. Moral Decision Making Mechanisms The process of moral decision making may be regarded one of the central issues of moral psychology. This is a subject of numerous researches. It is worthy to mention one of the newest ones, published in Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Its aim is to investigate factors which influence the process of moral decision making. Most people would like to think that their decisions are always well-thought-out and rational. However, research results show that moral decisions are usually based on intuition. Human emotions seem to direct intuition. It creates an inner feeling that either everything is alright or something is wrong. In some cases people may resist these first reactions. Mett Feinberg and his colleagues suppose that it may be a result of reestimation (Feinberg, 2012). This process amortizes the intensity of human emotions and makes people try to understand why they experience them. There were several experiments in course of which participants were listening to stories, describing certain moral dilemmas. Those who faced these dilemmas committed obscene deeds. Participants of the experiment were later offered to think through all the possible scenarios of dilemma resolution. Their final solutions were not necessarily based on intuition. These results show that people may regulate their emotions which, nevertheless, may be helpful in the process of moral decision making. Thus, judgments based on emotions may be controlled and altered. It is a popular plot of many comic strips when the central character must choose between lives of a loved person and a group of strangers. To save a group of people means to make an ethical, or utilitarian decision. According to the principles of utilitarian moral theory, it is immoral to sacrifice lives of many people in order to save only one person. At the same time, such an approach towards morality seems to be too idealistic to be applied in modern life. That is why comic characters, as well as real people, always try to find an alternative solution. While dealing with moral dilemmas people often resort to imagination in order to visualize all the possible scenarios of the sequence of events. Elinor Amit and Joshua Greene wanted to investigate the role of visual images in the process of moral decision making. Two groups of participants took part in their experiment. Participants of one of the groups were visual-oriented, while participants of another one – verbal-oriented. Both groups were offered to solve certain moral dilemmas. Visually-oriented participants tended to use their imagination in order to visualize possible consequences of their actions. Most of them preferred to take a moral decision, rather than pragmatic (Amit & Greene, 2014). At the same time, it is necessary to remember that ethics may be regarded quite a subjective category. An unlimited number of personal decisions cannot be called its subject because all the situations people face are unique in their own way, while ethics is supposed to provide universal behavioral patterns and rules for all the possible circumstances. That is why it is appropriate to talk about two types of morality which may influence the process of decision making. Absolute morality, the first one, means that there is a certain strategy and action plan which may be applied to solve a moral dilemma under any circumstances. In other words, it is always possible to find the right course of actions. However, some actions are too relative to be defined either as good or evil. For instance, the commandment “Do not kill”. Those who follow principles of absolute morality would always stand against any kinds of murder from war to abortion and euthanasia. Nevertheless, euthanasia or abortion may be the only problem solution in some circumstances. Another type of morality is relative one. Its principles are much more liberal. According to them, the course of actions a person may choose always depends on a situation. The commandment “Do not kill” may be a good example too. Thus, abortion may become a moral decision in case a baby can be born with a disability. Abortion has always been a controversial issue. There are two groups, engaged into debates – pro-life and pro-choice groups. Pro-life group may be an example of absolute morality, while pro-choice group advocates principles of relative morality. Moral dilemma is often defined as a necessity to choose between two alternatives, though both of them lead to more or less unpleasant results. Moral dilemmas have no right decision. A person will have to make a sacrifice in any case. Any decision will definitely lead to certain losses. Thus, to make a moral decision is a difficult thing to do. In order to solve a moral dilemma a person is supposed to make a moral choice. For instance, a person needs to decide “Shall I break the law and save a life of a person”” or “Shall I obey the law and let someone die?”. The way a person prefers to act is an important source of information about his or her mode of thoughts, especially if to take into consideration specificity of this conflict. Possible solutions are diametrically opposed. There is a number of models of moral decision making. One of them was mentioned above. Being elaborated by David Hume, it emphasizes the role of emotions and intuition. Its main idea is that moral judgments are always based on emotions . Hume compared nature of moral judgments to the one of human feelings. People do not take any efforts in order to feel taste or smell, or to hear music. That is how people assess possible actions. Good deeds evoke positive emotions while bad deeds – negative ones (Hume, 1738). According to one of the final Hume’s conclusions, human reason shall always remain a slave to human passions. It should never gain dominance over them. He also insists that people possess inborn moral sense which let them make moral judgments on the subconscious level. Reasoning is supposed to be subjective to this driving force. Thus, Hume considered moral qualities of a person to be a result of his or her normal development. However, it is possible to provide another example of a model of moral decision making, offered by Immanuel Kant. According to him, the level of a person’s morality is always a product of their mental abilities. Pure reason is always practical. It gives people universal rules, which may be regarded moral laws. The set of universal principles is what guarantees people the right choice. These principles are applicable to everyone (Kant, 1785). Conscious reasoning is considered to be the only process which may help people form certain moral judgments and come to a moral decision. Emotions and intuition may only lead a person up the path. According to this principle, first it is necessary to think the matter over. Only after this it is possible to form any judgments. The key difference between the two mention models lies in the scheme of moral judgments making. According to rationalist approach, any moral judgment is preceded by the process of reasoning. On the contrary, as Hume insists, people subconsciously base their moral judgments on their emotions and intuition. It is important that a person is regarded to be conscious about the reasoning process only. All the preceding stages are automatic and subconscious. It is even possible to assume that a person faces a moral dilemma when tries to choose between Hume’s intuition and Kant’s reasoning. However, most subsequent researches, like the mentioned one, are based on these two models and may be regarded their variations. There is one more model of moral decision making which is worthy to mention. This model was elaborated by Mikhail and may be regarded an analogue of Noam Chomsky’s theory about universal grammar. Mikhail was the first researcher to notice the link between language and morality, that is why he assumed the existence of the universal moral grammar. It means that a person possesses certain range of moral instincts. There is also a mechanism which enables people make moral judgments, based on certain subconscious principles (Mikhail, 2007). According to this logic it is also possible to assume that each culture creates its own moral grammar. Thus, cultural differences are manifested in the following way. Universal moral grammar contains a certain range of rules and values, while each culture creates its specific exceptions. Consequently, it is impossible to talk about any absolute truths, moralities, and rules. People lose an opportunity to master moral grammars of foreign cultures the moment they manage to master moral grammar of their own culture. The process of moral judgment making is slightly different as well. It is activated by the process of analysis of causes and consequences. Emotions are experienced only when the moral judgment is made. Thus, emotions may predetermine only deeds, but not moral judgments. This model seems to be especially interesting if to take into considerations results of researches, conducted by Albert Costa and Boaz Keysar, the University of Chicago. It is usually considered that language can only pass information, but not change it. However, a number of experiments show that the way a person answers may depends on a language. For example, there was an experiment with Chinese-English bilinguals. These people were asked to fill in a questionnaire, revealing the level of self-respect and self-esteem. Those who received a questionnaire in English demonstrated much higher level of self-esteem in comparison to those who were given a questionnaire in Chinese. It goes without saying that questions were the same in both kinds of questionnaires. Language was the only difference. Such a variation of answers may be explained by cultural differences. Questionnaires in English made the respondent set themselves up for American tendency of self-respect. At the same time, respondents to the questionnaire in Chinese demonstrated traditional virtue of modesty. Costa and his colleagues called it “foreign language effect” (Costa, 2014). Results of these researches are especially interesting if to talk about moral issues. Costa and Keysar insist that people prefer to make rational rather than moral decisions when they need to use foreign language in the process of decision making. They provide an example of moral dilemma with a trolley – “in the "footbridge" dilemma, you are positioned on a footbridge over a train track with the trolley speeding toward five workmen” (Caldwell-Harris, 2014). Respondents are asked to choose between lives of five people and life of one person. All of them are strangers, but in order to save five lives the respondent has to sacrifice life of the sixth person. The respondent needs to push the sixth man off the bridge because his body may stop the trolley. Most of the respondents were shocked and horrified by the perspective to become a reason of another person’s death. Such a deed seems to be totally immoral, though it does not contradict with principles of absolute morality. Respondents were asked to indicate how acceptable such a variant is. The general rating was between 12 and 20 percent. It was found out that medial prefrontal cortex is not active in this case. Instead, activity belongs to emotional center of the brain. Another group of respondent was offered to solve the same dilemma, but this time it was described in a foreign language. Emotional center of the brain was not expected to be as active as in case with native language. On the contrary, respondents were expected to be more pragmatic. Costa and Keysar proved this statement. The permissibility rate turned to be about 33 percent (Costa, 2014). Thus, it is possible to say that moral values and priorities play a major role in the course of moral decision making. They may be treated as the highest level of generalization, representing the mindset of a certain culture. These are good and evil, justice, happiness, meaning of life, and so on. Being formed years ago, these concepts represent universal aspects of moral relationships between people. That is why they are common for representatives of any culture. However, morality and the concept of norm are rather subjective and relative categories. In modern world it is hardly possible to find a paragon of virtue which would be a guide for those who face a moral dilemma. A lot of people think the only thing which may help them solve certain dilemma is religion. Nevertheless, every religion has its own traditions and norms. For example, Hinduism does not always prohibit murder. It accepts that it is impossible to avoid murder under certain circumstances, that is why murder may sometimes be the only dilemma solution. According to monotheistic traditions, any murder is totally unacceptable. For instance, Christians have always been against abortion. It is wrong to equal religion and morality. As Hume has noticed, the most horrible crimes were regarded compatible with god-fearing devotion. That is why it is wrong to make any conclusions about a person’s level of morality only on the basis of his or her relation to religion. Religious obedience does not always mean a person possesses high level of moral development, even if their faith is sincere. References Catherine L. Caldwell-Harris. (2014). In a Foreign Language, “Killing 1 to Save 5” May Be More Permissible. Scientific American. Retrived from: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-a-foreign-language-killing-1-to-save-5-may-be-more-permissible/ Costa, A., Foucart, A., Hayakawa, S., Aparici, M., Apesteguia, J., et al. (2014). Your Morals Depend on Language. PLoS ONE 9(4): e94842. Elinor Amit, Sara Gottlieb, and Joshua D. Greene. (2014). Visual versus Verbal Thinking and Dual‑Process Moral Cognition. New York: Guilford Publications. Feinberg, M., Willer, R., Antonenko, O. & P. John (2012). Liberating reason from the passions overriding intuitionist moral judgments through emotion reappraisal. Psychological science 23 (7), 788-795. Hume, David. (1738). A Treatise of Human Nature, Book III: Of Morals. Washington: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Kant, Immanuel (1785). Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, ed. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (10 ed.). UT, Salt Lake City: Project Gutenberg. Mikhail, J. (2007) ‘Universal moral grammar: Theory, evidence and the future’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11(4): 143–52. Read More