ETHICS |
Chapter Two : Moral Development |
Section 4. Stages of Moral Development |
(NOTE: You must read only those linked materials that are preceded by the capitalized word READ)I
Where does morality come from? Does it come from religion? Many people think so but evidence indicates otherwise.
READ: Morality is not in need of a belief in a deity.
READ:Morality is independent of both a belief in a deity and religion itself.
READ:
READ:A non-religious basis for morality is superior
because religious morality is too rule based (principles) and restrictive
and less flexible than alternative approaches. People often
think and many claim that morality is dependent on religion. Some claim
religious morality is superior to secular morality. Some refer to the
nearly universal association of morality with religion on planet Earth as
evidence in support of their claims. This is backwards!!
Religion is
dependent upon and follows from morality and not the other way around.
Research is
showing that morality is linked with and dependent upon both physical
structures and functioning of the brain and on cultural inheritances.
MORALITY
results form both GENES and MEMES !!!
Neuroscience is
finding the brain structures and functioning that make for the "ethical
brain". How is this so? Humans are social animals and as Aristotle put
it zoon politikon. As such they have evolved in part due to a capacity
to relate to others and have empathy and sympathy for others that serves as
the base for acceptance of basic rules of conduct needed to live with
others in relative peace sufficient to support social or group life and then
the advantages of social life. Evolutionary Psychology is finding/hypothesizing the evolution
of moral notions as an expression of the hardwiring. The brain appears to
have structures evolved and passed on through our genetic makeup (GENES) that provide for EMPATHY and SYMPATHY and
CONCERN for OTHERS. These each in some way enhanced survival ability for
the social species of homo sapiens. Morality is a result of and expression
of those operations. Particular moral expressions or rules are enunciated
and passed on as cultural inheritances and thus MEMES.
The primatologist, Frans de Waal, was on of
many who have argued that the roots of human morality lie in social animals
such as the primates, including apes and monkeys. The feelings of empathy
and expectations of reciprocity are necessary for the behaviors needed to
make any mammalian group exist as individuals living in the midst of others.
This set of feelings and expectations of reciprocity may be taken as the
basis for human morality. Neuroscientists are locating that sense in mirror
neurons in the brain.
“Morality is as firmly grounded in
neurobiology as anything else we do or are. Once thought of as purely
spiritual matters, honesty, guilt, and the weighing of ethical dilemmas are
traceable to specific areas of the brain. It should not surprise us,
therefore, to find animal parallels. The human brain is a product of
evolution. Despite its larger volume and greater complexity, it is
fundamentally similar to the central nervous system of other mammals.”---Frans
de Waal’s Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other
Animals (1996)
Everywhere
humans are found and where evidence exists of human culture there is
evidence of a sense of morality. While the particular moral rules may
not be the same there is significant similarities and a commonalities in
purposes served by moral codes. Morality is needed for human community
and humans demonstrate this world wide. There is evidence that all
societies have morality. Is this because they could not exist without some
sense of how we are to behave? Human beings are social beings -they have
language which is a social creation. Humans could not live in groups without
some sort of sense of how to behave in ways that enhances the survival of
the group- hence sympathy and empathy are needed and they are part of
the basis for morality: a moral sense.
There is now
the study of Evolutionary Ethics and part of that is James Rachels’ Created
from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (1990) and Frans de Waal’s
Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals
(1996). Both claim that coming to grips with our moral sense involves
looking not toward heaven but rather toward our fellow members of the animal
kingdom, particularly the three great apes."--Tim Madigan
“The moral nature of man has reached its
present standard, partly through the advancement of his reasoning powers
and consequently of a just public opinion, but especially from his
sympathies having been rendered more tender and widely diffused through
the effects of habit, example, instruction, and reflection. It is not
improbable that after long practice virtuous tendencies may be inherited.
With the more civilised races, the conviction of the existence of an
all-seeing Deity has had a potent influence on the advance of morality.
Ultimately man does not accept the praise or blame of his fellows as his
sole guide, though few escape this influence, but his habitual
convictions, controlled by reason, afford him the safest rule. His
conscience then becomes the supreme judge and monitor. Nevertheless the
first foundation or origin of the moral sense lies in the social
instincts, including sympathy, and these instincts no doubt were primarily
gained, as in the case of the lower animals, through
natural selection.”--Charles
Darwin, The Descent of Man,
"Conclusion"
In
The Ethical Brain
by Michael Gazzaniga (Dana Press: NY, 2005) the neuroscientist describes
experimental evidence to support his claims that the left hemisphere of the
brain operates to unify the various systems within the brain and serves as
an interpreter to fashion stories that become the personal beliefs of each
person. Humans need beliefs and belief systems to
make sense of their sensory inputs. The human species reacts to events
and the brain interprets the reaction. Out of those interpretations
there arise the beliefs by which people guide their actions. Some of
the beliefs lead to rules by which people will live. And so there
emerges a a moral sense upon practical considerations. The left
hemisphere continually functions to interpret events and to create stories
to accommodate the sensory and ideational inputs. Whenever there is
information that does not fit the self image created by the interpreter or
the conceptual framework or belief system previously held and operative,
then the interpreter will create a belief to make sense of it in some manner
or hold it in some way relation to previous information and beliefs.
The human species has a core set of reactions to challenges. Humans share
similar reactions to situations. They share the evocation of empathy
and sympathy. Humans have mirror neurons that evoke this reaction.
Other primate also have such mirror neurons. They appear to make a
social life possible. Gazzaniga holds that there exists some deep structure
in the brain driving not only a certain common set of values as expressions
of the evoked responses but also the need to create cultural edifices or
social constructs for moral codes. Thus religion evolves to satisfy
that drive.
Religions may
have begun from a instinctual reaction common to humans. It evolved
into a social support system and system of rationalizations (beliefs) that
attempt to make sense of the individual responses to one another and to
situations faced by all humans.
Gazziniga holds
that there are neural correlates of the religious experience in the temporal
lobes of the brain. Temporal lobe epilepsy has as one of its symptoms
a hyper religiosity.
Gazziniga holds
for the possibility of a universal ethics for all humans based on the most
basic of evocations shared by all humans. Current research utilizing
moral sense testing is producing interesting findings in support of the
hypothesis of a genetic base for morality in humans.
For Gazzaniga
humans want to believe, they want to believe in a natural order and they
want a codification of their most basic empathetic responses towards others.
Gazzaniga wants science, as neuroscience to assist the human community to
have what it appears to need and based on the best information available.
So humans are
hardwired and programmed for morality and religion rides in on that as a
context in which the programming results in producing a fuller expression.
This in turn is culturally transmitted and thus the human impulse is most
often being routed through religious institutions and practices.
There is
consideration given to the impact of looking at morality as rooted in the
evolution of the species and in the neural endowment of human brains.
READ:
Is “the new neuromorality” a threat to traditional views of
right and wrong?
by Cathy Young
in reason on line August/September 2005
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Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, in Moral Minds (HarperCollins 2006) holds
that humans are born with a moral grammar wired
into their neural circuits by evolution. This system in the brain
generates instant moral judgments. This was needed in part because
often quick decisions must be made in situations where life is threatened.
In such predicaments there is no time for accessing the conscious mind.
Most people appear to be unaware of this deep moral processing because the
left hemisphere of the brain has been adept at producing interpretations
of events and information and doing so rapidly thus generating what may be
accepted as rationalizations for the decision or impulse and response that
is produced rapidly by the brain without conscious attention even being
possible.
Hauser has presented an argument with a
hypothesis to be tested empirically. That process is underway . There
is considerable support for it already gathered in work with primates and in
close examination of the works of and research now being conducted by moral
philosophers as well as by primatologists and neuroscientists.
Marc Hauser and Peter Singer
"Morality without religion"
by, December, 2005
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/recent/HauserSingerMoralRelig05.pdf
Consider the
following three scenarios. For each, fill in the blank with morally
“obligatory”, “permissible” or “forbidden.”
If you judged
case 1 as permissible, case 2 as obligatory, and case 3 as forbidden, then
you are like the 1500 subjects around the world who responded to these
dilemmas on our web-based moral sense test [http://moral.wjh.edu]. On the
view that morality is God’s word, atheists should judge these cases
differently from people with religious background and beliefs, and when
asked to justify their responses, should bring forward different
explanations. For example, since atheists lack a moral compass, they should
go with pure self-interest, and walk by the drowning baby. Results show
something completely different. There were no statistically significant
differences between subjects with or without religious backgrounds, with
approximately 90% of subjects saying that it is permissible to flip the
switch on the boxcar, 97% saying that it is obligatory to rescue the baby,
and 97% saying that is forbidden to remove the healthy man’s organs. . When
asked to justify why some cases are permissible and others forbidden,
subjects are either clueless or offer explanations that can not account for
the differences in play.
Research in
Neuroscience has proceeded so far as to call into discussion how humans
are responsible for their actions and the degree to which all ethical
thinking or morality is merely post facto rationalizations for the near
automatic responses made to situations by the brain. READ:
The Brain on the Stand
by
Jeffrey Rosen on recent scientific work and its implications.
Morality may be
rooted deep in the evolved workings of human brains with its mirror
neurons and the opera
Parents
Siblings
Friends
School
Religion
Media- television, films, videos, music, music
videos
Advertising
How exactly each person develops their ideas
about right and wrong is a subject being studied by psychologists. This type of study is part of what is known as Moral
Psychology. One of the most
famous of the psychologists who does such studies is Lawrence Kohlberg. He has a theory of moral development based upon his research with
people from very young ages through the adult years.
His work confirms and expands upon an earlier
theory by the American Philosopher John Dewey.
The American philosopher and pragmatist, John Dewey ,
held that people progress through stages of moral development. They
start out making decisions with a focus on the self and gradually progress
to a concern for self and for others as well. Some reach a point
where in thinking about what would be the morally correct thing to do
might even reach a point where concern for others and for principles would
take precedence over the concern for the self. Dewey enumerated three
basic phases: pre-conventional, conventional , and post-conventional to
describe the progression in moral thinking and focus.
Lawrence Kohlberg, an American psychologist, conducted
a number of experiments and found that there are marked stages for the
development of moral thinking. The experiments have been repeated
numerous times and his basic findings have been duplicated. His
research confirmed Dewey's basic idea. Kohlberg distinguished six
distinct stages.
Stages
of moral development
John Dewey
Lawrence Kohlberg
I. Pre-conventional : concern for self
1. Reward / Punishment
I. Pre-conventional
concern for
self
2. Reciprocity
II. Conventional: concern for self and
others
3. Ideal Model -Conformity
II.
Conventional concern for
self and others
4. Law and Order
III. Post Conventional: concern for others
5. Social Contract
III. Post Conventional
concern for
others
6. Universal Principles
To understand each of these six stages read:
READ:
Kohlberg’s Theory by Robert N. Barger
at
http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/kohlberg01bk.htm
Kohlberg used scenarios to elicit responses
from his subjects concerning their thinking about what makes an act right
or wrong. He was less
concerned with their answer as to what they would do or approve of in
others as he was interested in their reason for thinking as they did. Here is a simplification of his famous Heinz Scenario:
How would you solve the following scenario which Kohlberg used on
his research subjects ? A man named Heinz had a dying wife. The wife had an almost fatal
disease. The local druggist owned a $20,000 drug that could save her. Heinz could not raise the money in time and he certainly did not
have the cash to buy the drug. Heinz therefore made a decision and that night he broke into the
drug store and stole some of the medication. Should Heinz have done that? Why do you think that?
Kohlberg thought that fewer than 25% of people ever progress beyond
the fourth stage and do so because of some event that presses them to
develop further.
Events can force a person to move further. The decision to have an abortion, to resist the draft or to assist
your mother lying on her death bed to die quickly and with less pain and
suffering are the sorts of events for which individuals must come to face
just what it is that makes an action right or wrong. It is at those times and through those events that individuals come
to learn what their values are, who they are and what their moral rules
will be. Consulting with
friends and religious advisors about such matters will bring much advice
but leave the decision-making about the rules and the actions to the
individual. Here is additional information on Kohlberg and
his theories: Explanations and examples Books and Criticisms:
READ
The Moral
Instinct by Stephen Pinker For more recent studies
READ: Learning Right
From Wrong
What of the those without an "Ethical Brain"
What of the Psychopath and those lacking in Empathy and Sympathy?
Brain
scans of convicted serial killers who are diagnosed as psychopaths with the
lack of empathy and sympathy indicate abnormal brain patterns. There may be
connectivity abnormalities in the orbital cortex region of the brain.
The cortical limbic system may be linked to the behavior patterns many would
deem to be immoral or even evil. So human thinking concerning morality and what is the good changes over time
as humans have more experiences and mature. What then is the outcome? What
is the idea humans arrive at concerning the moral good? Well it should be no surprise to learn or realize that not all humans hold the same ideas about the good and some think that there
is no possibility for all humans on earth to hold common ideas about morality. Some
believe that there is not and cannot be any ethical theory that would provide
principles for determining moral rules and codes that would be accepted by all
human beings. There are a variety of views that do not hold for any universal morality or
universal ethical principles. They are variations on Relativism and that
is the topic of the next chapter of this text. ===================================================== Proceed to the next section of the chapter by clicking here>>
section. ©
Copyright Stephen O Sullivan and Philip A. Pecorino 2002. All Rights
reserved.
1. A runaway trolley is about to run over five people walking on the tracks.
A railroad worker is standing next to a switch that can turn the trolley
onto a side track, killing one person, but allowing the five to survive.
Flipping the switch is ______.
2. You pass by a small child drowning in a shallow pond and you are the only
one around. If you pick up the child, she will survive and your pants will
be ruined. Picking up the child is _______.
3. Five people have just been rushed into a hospital in critical care, each
requiring an organ to survive. There is not enough time to request organs
from outside the hospital. There is, however, a healthy person in the
hospital’s waiting room. If the surgeon takes this person’s organs, he will
die but the five in critical care will survive. Taking the healthy person’s
organs is _______.
Importantly, those with a religious background are as clueless or
incoherent as atheists.
These studies begin to provide empirical support for the idea that like
other psychological faculties of the mind, including language and
mathematics, we are endowed with a moral faculty that guides our intuitive
judgments of right and wrong, interacting in interesting ways with the local
culture. These intuitions reflect the outcome of millions of years in which
our ancestors have lived as social mammals, and are part of our common
inheritance, as much as our opposable thumbs are.
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A cognitive neuroscience perspective on psychopathy: Evidence for paralimbic
system dysfunction
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