Reasoning about ethics and moral judgments

Everyday we are confronted with moral dilemmas - my boss has taken credit for my work, do I go and tell my super boss, or do I confront my boss to reclaim credit?  The traffic cop stops you and wants a bribe. Do you pay the bribe or demand to pay the applicable fine and take a receipt? Do you pull a loved one off life support after the doctor has told you that there is no hope medically?

A moral dilemma occurs only when we are undecided about a course of action, which happens once in a while, but moral judgments happen all the time. At work and outside it,  we continuously pass moral judgments on just about everything around us. Several of these judgments are followed up by action. A student cheated on an exam - he is given a 'F' grade. At work an employee lies about some critical work - and they are fired. We make moral judgments about peoples based on their lifestyles, sexual orientations, skin color, class or caste in society and education. Our treatment of people are based on these moral judgments.

Moral judgments make a huge impact on everyone's lives. A public officials acts of corruption or nepotism can have devastating consequences on the underprivileged or unconnected. Creation of laws around religious texts can end up justifying or facilitating inhuman acts towards those not belonging to the ruling faith. Hiring and firing of employees are subconsciously or openly biased depending on our prejudices - a reason why LGBT community finds it extremely difficult to find jobs or acceptance in society. Moral judgments are not always discussed openly, but the decisions based on those are often couched in rationality and innocuous reasoning.

If we have consciously evaluated our moral principles and accepted them, then we are indeed responsible for them. However many (author included) do not always consciously examine critically the moral principles we adopt. We are often not even aware that we are making moral judgments and taking decisions based on them in several situations. It is my belief that if we brought these principles to the surface and examined them as dispassionately and logically as we can, we then operate with greater confidence that our decisions are more grounded in reason and rationality, which in turn would result in fewer uncertainties and moral dilemmas.

Moral reasoning is one of the modules I discuss in my workshops on critical thinking.

Moral principles and moral judgments

Our moral judgments arise from our beliefs, opinions, prejudices - which we adopt as our moral principles. Many of these principles are passed down to us by family and society. We often accept these moral 'principles' unquestioningly. Our moral judgments are derived from these principles, and when we don't have a ready principle, or the one that we hold is inconvenient for the situation, we are are thrown into a moral dilemma.

 While moral judgments about people in public does not have an immediate impact on our lives, our judgments about conduct of bosses and colleagues, children, parents and friends have the potential for causing major disruptions in our lives.

Moral deliberation

If we examine how we deal with issues like this, we are likely to find that we go through a phase of moral deliberation to decide a course of action . The deliberations revolve around 'what is the right action according to our conscience or what  would give the greatest happiness to the largest number of people (maximize happiness), We are also likely to hypothesize about what a person with  good character do in a situation like this and so on. It goes without saying that opinions of family, friends and your interpretation of the public perception would also play a role in your final decision.

In short, our moral deliberations follow two major moral reasoning principles one or more of the four major perspectives in Moral reasoning: Utilitarianism, Deontolology, and virtue ethics.

Moral Reasoning principles

If separate cases aren't different in any relevant way, then they should be treated the same way, and if separate cases are treated the same way, they should not be different in any relevant way.

We are familiar with children often telling parents that their decisions aren't fair, at work you see colleagues complaining that while their work is as good as someone else, they have received smaller increments. In short, to be morally correct, it is expected that one is consistent in treatment of similar cases - lets call this the consistency principle.

If someone is seen to be violating the consistency principle above, then the burden of proof is upon them to show that he or she is in fact not violating the consistency principle.

If a professor gives different grades for papers that are equivalent in all respects, he is probably being inconsistent and unfair. When a shop salesman treats people different based on caste or color, he can probably be seen as being inconsistent in his treatment of people. In cases like this one can ask for an explanation why similar cases are being treated differently. The burden of proof of clarifying why they are being treated differently will be on the Professor and Salesman respectively.

Utilitarianism - a perspective born of Consequentialism.

Consequentialism says that the morality or immorality of an action can be decided based on the consequences of that action. Utilitarianism is a school of thought that has consequentialism as its basis.

Utilitarianism says that the morality of an action depends on what is the action that produces the greatest sum total of happiness of all the affected/concerned people. Utilitarians will weigh the pros and cons of an action and choose the alternative that maximizes happiness. It is important to note that Utilitarianism weighs ones own happiness at par with others happiness.

However there are some inherent problems in Utilitarianism. It does not recognize the rights of people. If a family were to decide that one member of the family will be permanently designated to take care of all the chores of the family, the sum total of happiness of the family is more than the unhappiness of a single individual. Nor does it take into account the intentions of people.


Deontology

Immaniel Kant recognized the inherent problems in Utilitarianism. He said for an act to be morally praiseworthy, it must be done not to meet some objective, but simply because it is right.

  He said that it was not praiseworthy to not speak behind a friend's back because you want to continue being friendly with him. Similarly keeping a promise to earn a good reputation is neither praiseworthy nor worthy of blame. For an action to be morally praiseworthy, the only intention for the action should be that it is our moral duty. . It follows that when evaluating an action, it is not the consequences that matter, but the intentions behind the action. In Kant's opinion, the only truly praiseworthy intention - is that according to which you do something for the sole reason that it is your moral duty.

Virtue Ethics

Another approach to moral reasoning, predominant in Greek thinking and apparently making a comeback of late is  'Virtue Ethics'. This approach focuses on 'How to be', and not 'what to do'. It was the belief of the Greeks that it was important for a person to achieve psychological and physical balance. A person not in balance will not know how to assess a situation and will under react  or over react to a situation. They will not know their limitations. To achieve this balance one of the requirements is to be virtuous.

All of us want to be persons of good character, and Virtue ethics does seem a good moral approach to take. However Virtue ethics does not address all the moral dilemmas we are likely to come across, and we may still have to deliberate what is the right moral action in some situations.

Moral reality

How do we know what our moral duty in any situation? Some say that our conscience will tell us what to do in each situation. Others believe that religious texts such as the Bible or Bhagavad Gita will guide them on their moral duties. Whatever the situation, our moral deliberations are likely to involve multiple factors - our conscience (our conditioning on right and wrong), religious texts, what the priests or religious leaders of the current day preach, accepted norms in our peer groups and family, and maybe what we think a person of good character we know would do in a situation like this.

Some people may choose to believe that morality is relative and/or subjective - that is what is right morally depends on the situation, or depends on the circumstances of the individual. But thinking critically about moral reasoning will show that morality is not as subjective or as relative as we may think it is. Thinking critically about how we reason from the time we are in school or college is likely to hep us be better grounded, and also more confident in our approach to various issues requiring decisions on what is a morally correct action.