The Nature of Moral Thinking

2-19-00
by Matt Landreman

I want to be a good person. We would call anyone who did not "abnormal." A person without a moral sense would, in an important way, not be human. We all have this drive to do the right thing, but what is the right thing exactly? Two people can debate for hours whether something is right or wrong without seeming to make any real headway. Each seems to stand behind different principles, with no apparent way to evaluate which is better. Is there no hope? Is humanity making progress, learning slowly to be better? Or are we just running in circles, vainly looking for answers that do not exist? For a subject so close to the day-to-day life of every person, morality is extremely hard to pin down. It is very unclear what is happening when we think moral thoughts, make moral decisions, or have moral discussions.

There is a way to understand it all, but it is counterintuitive. To really understand ethics, we need to let go of preconceived notions of what the mind is, and what right and wrong are. Just as our intuition that heavy objects fall faster than light ones is incorrect, we have to let go of intuitions when we recognize them as incorrect. In the end, however, we will find that it is still possible to be a moral person. We will have to explain what morals are, how we have come to think in moral terms, and how to live a moral life. While we can let go of our ideas about what ethics is, we cannot ignore the fact that we think moral thoughts all the time.

Before we venture into the territory of ethics, however, we must begin at a more modest level. Ethics is about making decisions, about what we should do when presented with several options. Even the most abstracted ethical statements relate to action: the "inalienable rights" of the Declaration of Independence are ideas about the proper choices that the government should make, for example. We can talk at great length about ethics without seeming to get anywhere, but it is through our actions that morality affects us in a real way. For this reason, will introduce my position on ethics with a discussion about the psychology of decision making. Understanding what happens when we make decisions in general will give us insight into what happens when we make a moral decision.

Particularly, I want to discuss the interplay of desires, reason, and decisions. Let us look at some of the ways we talk about these concepts, to see what conclusions we can draw about the mind: "I wanted to stop eating so much but I just couldn’t." This statement suggests that a person can be weak-willed and not be strong enough to do what they want in the long-term, but only in the short-term. "I know that it is wrong to steal, but it won’t matter this once." A person can decide to ignore what they reason is the right thing to do. "He doesn’t know what’s good for himself." A person can be unable to recognize what they truly want. "She reasoned out what to do." Reason can make decisions. Plato constructed a theory of the mind which seems to make sense of these statements. In the Platonic mind, the will is separate from all desires. The body presents the will with several desires, and the will decides what to do. Reason has a special role, as the origin of action. If the will is weak, a desire might motivate one to act in a way other than their reason tells them.

Another view of the decision-making process was expressed well by Hume. In contrast to Plato’s model, Hume says that there is no reason looking over the desires. Whichever desire is strongest will always win. In the case of the unsuccessful dieter, we might say, "He wanted to lose weight, but he had a stronger want to eat." Reason still has a place, however – it informs the desires. If I look at a person about to be hit by a car, my reason tells me that the impact will cause the person pain. Yet, that fact alone does not motivate me to act. Somewhere in my mind there is a desire that says, "Act to prevent pain to others," and it is this rule that is responsible when I pull the pedestrian out from the path of the car.

Most people I suspect would agree with Plato’s model more than Hume’s. It feels like I have free will to make decisions. I think through a problem, aware of the possible choices I have, and I have a distinct impression of deciding to act. I know the experience of wanting to do something, but not feeling able to do it. Hume’s model seems too simple, incapable of explaining the nuances of the thinking process.

Yet, Hume’s model must be correct. We cannot allow a supernatural center of reason to be a part of our mind. If reason is how a person makes a decision, how does reason make a decision? It must make decisions according to some set of rules. Also, Plato’s model makes the reason to be unacceptably non-physical and mysterious. While of course we cannot prove that we will not find otherwise in the future, with the scientific evidence we currently possess it certainly seems that everything in the universe is like a machine. Everything has parts that interact according to certain rules. Every effect has a cause. A center of reason which is its own cause has no parallel anywhere else in the world, which should lead us to suspect that our intuition is leading us astray.

Plato’s model has a great problem that Hume’s model does not. Suppose a car is about to hit my friend, Bill. This fact is not itself a cause of any action. It does not cause the wind to snatch him up into the air to safety. The wind does not care if Bill lives or dies. I, however, do care. The fact that Bill is in danger, together with my concern for Bill’s safety, is what causes me to act. Without this accompanying desire, the fact of Bill’s dangerous situation does not influence my behavior. Desires are different from properties of objects in the world because they have this special property of motivation. Now, consider what this situation would be like if my mind were constructed as Plato thought it was. In my mind, my Reason sees several things. It sees the fact that Bill is in danger. It sees the fact that I care for Bill’s safety. But what moves my Reason to act? If my decision-making organ is separate from my desires, it will see my desire as just another fact. My concern is a fact about me, which has no influence on my Reason’s choice unless my Reason itself was concerned for my concerns. Now my Reason has its own set of desires, separate from my own. If we ask how my Reason makes a decision, we only move the problem one level deeper. There is no way out. At some point, the decision has to be made in a mechanical way, just the way everything else in the world happens. At some point, the desires have to be summed up, as the stronger side wins.

Hume’s model solves this problem. Our minds are just collections of desires, and we do in practice whichever choice has the most support. We can think of desires as rules for how we actually behave, similar to lines in a computer program. My concern for Bill can be written in a computer-like language: IF DANGER_TO_LIFE(BILL)=HIGH THEN HELP(BILL). Just as this line in a computer program would translate a fact represented in the computer’s memory into an action taken by the computer, similar rules encoded in our brains translate factual information into action. Hume’s model must therefore be correct, because the alternative viewpoint cannot explain motivation.

So far we have only talked about desires in general. We are now ready, however, to venture into morality. As we had to discard some old notions about decision-making in the paragraphs above, we will now need to rethink our ideas about moral desires.

One notion that we will have to reconsider is the conscience. We usually think of the conscience as outside the decision-making process. We picture it sitting outside of our actual Reason, reminding us of what we should do. It seems we have the choice, however, whether or not to follow its advice. Unfortunately for this model, though, we just discarded the notion of a Reason that listens to advice and makes its own decision. We will have to work the conscience into our psychology in a new way.

The solution is that the conscience is just another one of our desires! Far from being a commentator outside the decision-making system, it is instead a part of it. Among the various psychological drives vying for control of our action, the moral drives are in no way separate. An example will help to illustrate this idea. Suppose I am considering stealing a piece of candy from a store. I feel a desire to take the candy. I also feel another desire to not take the candy. We happen to call the former "bad" and the latter "moral," but the two compete on the same level. I will proceed to act according to whichever drive is stronger. Either way I will regret something, either the fact that I did not get the candy, or the fact that I acted in a "bad" way.

What, then, is the nature of these moral desires? Why do we have them? They seem to drive us to act in ways that are not in our interest. As with any other historical question, we will never be able to trace back to learn the details of the answer. However, a very compelling explanation is offered by two evolutionary theories: sociobiology, and memetics. Sociobiology asserts that our behavior can be explained as a product of biological evolution. Species that evolved the capacity to think in moral terms stand a better chance at survival to produce offspring with the same genes. "Moral" individuals come to dominate the gene pool. Similarly, memetics describes how ideas evolve in a culture. Ideas of limited altruism and generosity fare well in a society. These beliefs travel among individuals and get passed on to others. The details of how each process works are beyond the scope of this essay, unfortunately. No one can deny that both types of evolution must be occurring. Even with the old notions of how decisions are made, it cannot be denied that "bad" people are less successful and passing their behaviors on to others than the average decent person.

One simple example of the benefits of altruism is the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Two individuals, thinking perfectly rationally, come to a decision that is less than optimal. If the prisoners had a moral sense however, they would be able to solve the Dilemma. A desire to help the other and cooperate leads to an increased reward for both. While the Dilemma is extremely simple, there are many situations in the real world with a similar arrangement of payoffs. Species and cultures with a moral sense could achieve more than those without, and so natural selection has tended to make ethical thinking an important part of us.

Where does reason fit into all of this? We have discarded the notion of Reason sitting above our desires and deciding among them. However, it seems clear that we use reasoning to make decisions, even moral ones. The answer is that reason is actually below our desires in the hierarchy of decision-making, not above. Our rational understanding of a situation informs the desires, which in turn make the decision. Without reason, I would not be able to perceive what is occurring. Consider, for example, the case in which I push Bill out from the path of the speeding car. My eyes take in the scene, but without reasoning I do not understand what is going to happen. I know that a car is speeding towards Bill, I know that he does not see it. Based on a rough extrapolation of the paths of the car and Bill, it looks as if there will be a collision, which I know will cause the latter severe injury. Only at this last conclusion does my desire to help Bill enter the picture. Here is where Hume’s Is/Ought gap is bridged. There is no way to reason out that I ought to act to save Bill’s life. Rather, it is simply an empirical fact about what I desire to do. Reasoning gives a perception of the situation as input to my desires, and my desires translate that factual information into action.

With this new picture of moral decision-making in place, we can start to understand why we never seem able to really explain "why" a moral belief is true. We can in principle always explain why we hold a belief regarding the facts of a situation. Such a belief is the product of reasoning. We can answer "why?" by pointing to other information about the situation that was used to derive the belief in question: "Why do you believe the ice in the next room has melted?" "Because it has been out of the freezer for a day, and ice melts when it is left at room temperature." When we try to explain a moral belief, however, we usually try to do the same thing. "Why was is right to push Bill out of the way?" "Because a car was going to hit him." This would be a very sensible response, for everyday conversation. When a philosopher asks, however, to explain why the latter statement answers the former, we cannot provide an answer. There was no factual reasoning involved in this step. While reason was a part of the decision-making process, the jump from "is" to "ought" is a matter of the brain translating factual conceptions into tendencies of behavior.

Now we have sketched out much of the process by which we make moral decisions. With this improved understanding, let us now move on to the practical problem. How do we live a moral life? How do me make moral decisions in the tough cases that trouble us?

Again, we find that our intuition leads us astray. In tough moral areas, we often describe the feeling of a "moral dilemma." "Part of me wants one thing, and part of me wants the other." "I see both sides of the issue." How do we explain our moral sense pulling in two directions at once? What do we do when we cannot see what the proper course of action is? With the more intuitive Platonic view of morality, the solution was clear. There is a true moral fact out there, which will tell us what to do. We just need to find it. But now it seems that there are no moral facts, nowhere to turn for the answer of what to do. The truth seems to be that when we cannot make up our minds, there is no hope for progress, no answer waiting to be found if we only look hard enough.

However, I have found that in practice there are no situations in which our desires pull us exactly evenly. In reality, there are no moral dilemmas. Consider the following example. I ask you, is lying wrong, everything else being equal? The answer clearly is yes. Now, was it wrong for a German family to lie to the Nazis to protect Jews in their home during the Holocaust? Our feelings now say no. There is no principle to be found that can pinpoint the difference that makes it right in one case and wrong in the other. However, our feelings in the case of the German family seem so clear because the implications of the lie are very clear. We have no trouble permitting them to lie, because we know that to tell the truth is to kill the hiding Jews. We know how their decision to lie or tell the truth will change the future. In a "moral dilemma," the real dilemma is a lack of this sort of information. Our moral feeling will always point one way, but only if we know enough about the situation. I, for instance, find it difficult to evaluate the death penalty. There seem to be reasons both for it and against it. I suppose the threat of death might deter some criminals, but how many exactly? I do not know what the most effective way is to prevent crimes from occurring. I do not know how the legality of the death penalty will affect the power of the government in other areas. The death penalty is such a complicated issue precisely because there are so many unknowns. But these are all facts that I am missing. While I may not be able to find the true moral evaluation of the death penalty anywhere, I can become more knowledgeable about the subject. I will never have all my questions answered, but there is hope of progress. We should not give up on moral debate simply because there is no objective moral truth.

Another way to think of the situation is with the following image. Consider a balance, with several weights on each side. We wish to know which way the balance will tip. If we know all the weights, the problem is simple. It becomes difficult, however, when we do not know the exact weights of each object. After a point, we can no longer predict which way the balance will tip because we lack information. Similarly, our mental decision-making engine seems quite capable of evaluating any situation given the proper facts. We have trouble deciding only when we lack adequate understanding of the situation, or when the consequences of our choice are unclear. I suppose in principle there may be situations in which our desires really favor multiple options equally. However, in my experience there is always some information to be had which would make our choice clearer.

Thanks to this fact, we can still hope to benefit from moral discussions. People can help each other deepen their moral feelings by sharing relevant information. If a person convinces me not to buy a certain brand of clothing because it is manufactured in sweatshop conditions, I can truly say that my judgement is now better. Before learning this new information, I may have suspected that it was the case. I did not know it to be true, so I would purchase the clothing based on the information I had. Now that I am better informed, the strength of my desire to not buy the clothing is stronger than before. If you listen to people in a moral debate, you will find that they probably agree on most of the fundamental points. They try to convince the other by citing facts that appeal to the moral sense. Republicans and Democrats both want Americans to be happy and healthy, but they disagree on the best policies to achieve these goals.

Nonetheless, we cannot go too far. It is probably not the case that if we all learned enough we would agree on everything. People’s moral senses are different. Two people with the same information might still feel differently. A fact that might be important in your decision-making process may not impact me greatly. We always evaluate new information from our unique perspective. There is no other way to evaluate. We can only argue for what we actually feel.

To make progress in morality, then, we need to look not for an objective truth but within ourselves. When you face a decision, pay attention to the process in your mind as it unfolds. Different desires might point in different directions. As different information bubbles into your awareness, your moral evaluation of the options changes. We can learn what is right by listening to this voice, and observing how it pushes us in different circumstances.

Many normative ethical philosophers, then, have been on the wrong track. In an ethics class, one learns about different general rules that people have invented to decide what is right and wrong. One example is Kant’s categorical imperative. This principle says that a rule of action is right if you can sensibly wish that everyone followed the same rule. The problem with these ideas is that they are supposed to tell us how our moral sense should feel, rather than describe what it actually tells us. Kant says, for example, that under no circumstances is it right to lie. This principle seems too strict when we consider the case of the German family hiding the Jews. Kant would say that our moral feelings here are incorrect. However, moral truth is based on what we believe. What we believe can be "wrong" in the sense that it would change if we learned more factual information, but it cannot be wrong in that it does not match the official objective Truth. Normative ethicists cannot tell us what to think in this way.

Yet there is certainly a job remaining for such thinkers. Philosophers can think creatively about tough moral areas to give us more clarity in our choices. They can point out important facts that affect our moral evaluations. They can make us aware of generalities in how our moral senses work. However, they cannot claim to be discovering any objective truth.

Even pointing out generalities can be going too far. Suppose Kant changed the way he presented his rule. Instead of stating the objective truth, he now claims it is only a generalization of what our moral senses tell us. This new formulation is much more reasonable. However, there are clearly exceptions where we feel differently that what Kant’s rule predicts. Our moral senses are tough creatures to pin down. Probably, every person’s conscience is slightly different. I doubt that any philosopher will ever discover a rule that always predicts how our conscience will evaluate a situation. I may be wrong, but it would certainly be a difficult task.

Our story of morality, then, ends on an optimistic note. We can still lead moral lives, even though our moral senses are the product of evolutionary forces. There is hope for improvement. The way we have been talking about moral issues is still valid, only we now have a better understanding of what is happening when we have these discussions. Now that we understand what ethics really is, we can try our best to be good people.

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