Right, Wrong, Maybe... but WHY?

Morality is a tricky subject to talk about. Many wonder what makes something "good" and what makes something else "bad." Think of stealing a loaf of bread. Most people would say that steal is wrong and it should not occur. Now, think of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, he stole bread in order to fed his family as they were poor and starving and was punished. I know I didn't think it was right for him to go to prison for so many years for stealing a loaf of bread. What about his family, did they die from starvation when Jean never returned? Do you think this was still wrong of him to do? He stole, but he did it for the right for his family to be fed, isn't that a good answer? I'd say so, but not everyone agrees.

Moral psychology has long been dominated by rationalist models of moral judgment. A rationalist's approach to morality is thought that moral judgements and knowledge are reached mainly through the process of reasoning and reflection. Moral emotions such as sympathy may sometimes be part of the reasoning process, but moral emotions are not the direct causes of moral judgments. In rationalist models one briefly becomes a judge before passing judgment on a specific case of possible wrong doing such as to steal or not to steal the bread. 

Lawrence Kohlberg

Lawrence Kohlberg, developed a method to look at the stages of reasoning that lead to decision making. Kohlberg created a study that involved an interview and a fictional scenario. In the scenario a man named Heinz was placed in a moral dilemma when he needed a particular drug that would save his wife's life, but the drug store refused to sell it to him.

After participants read this scenario, they were asked whether Heinz should steal the drug or not. He follows the rationalist modle because he believes people reason about their actions and then come to a conclusion about what they should do. With this study, Kohlberg used the participants answer and explanation to develop a set of stages for morality, there are three categories and then two sub-categories for each level. The higher the level of morality, typically means the more intelligence in thinking.

Kohlberg's Moral Stages

There were a few flaws that were in this study that could make it less viable such as the group of participants were all white males in private school. There were also only forty participants in this study which does not give a good variety of the population either. The lack of variation in the participants reduces the accuracy of the processes.

Jonathan Haidt

A newer theory tot hinting about moral psychology is with a model called the Social Intuition Model created by psychologist Jonathan Haidt that focuses his research on morality. Haidts idea of Social Intuition is that people use their intuition to make decisions and not reasoning. In his paper, The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment, Haidt describes the differences between moral reasoning and moral intuition. Moral reasoning is the conscious act of mentally reconfiguring information of people that make moral judgments. Moral intuition is the unconscious conclusion of moro judgment that includes a strong emotional connection. As this is unconscious, people do not realize that this process is occurring.

The best way I can understand how Haidt is thinking is through this chart from the Time website that was written by Jonathan Haidt himself to explain more of his theory that many people have criticized.

The scenario that Haidt creates in his paper is one of a brother and sister that, while in France, decide to explore their sexuality and make love to each other, afterwards they feel closer and aren negatively effected at all by this experience. They are both cautions and each use a form of birth control. After reading this, the participants in this study were asked if this was right or wrong of them to do. Most people would that it is unacceptable and morally wrong, the next question is why, and that is what trips people up in their answer and are then placed into the 'dumfounding' category in the the top left.

 The siblings are in France where incest is legal so there isn't an issue with the law, they are both using a form of birth control so the possibly of a child with deformities is slim to none (and if there was a pregnancy she could get an abortion), and neither of them are negatively effected emotionally by this act. This leads to the final answer one might think of "it's wrong because its gross," but where does that fit in on Kohlberg's chart? Answer: It doesn't, but it does fit with Haidt's, which has a totally different view on morality.

Okay that's great that one chart explains the answer and one doesn't, but, where does this leave morality?

Tamier Sommers goes further to analyze Haidt's experiment and discovered that human make a decision on a conclusion for a situation but they skip over the "why" until possibly asked. Haidt brings up situations similar to the sibling scenario that William Saletan describes in his article about the theory. Some of the question that may interfere with the thought of morality are questions like "Is it wrong to have sex with a dead chicken? How about with your sister? Is it O.K. to defecate in a urinal? If your dog dies, why not eat it?" These question explore the dilemmas of "what is right and what is wrong."

With this in mind, how are we able to decide on what is "right" and what is "wrong"? Was it right in the end for Jean Valjean to steal the bread or was he justly punished? Should the siblings be allowed to perform incest or is it really a bad action? With keeping in mind Kohlberg's the stages of morals, we must also have the options of our personal judgment whether they have evidence or not in order to see as many sides of an 'iffy' situation as we can.