User:Keith Siebel/sandbox

this is my (Keith Siebel) sand box for Moral Reasoning. Moral reasoning can be defined as being the process in which one tries to determine the difference between what is right and what is wrong in a particular situation that the person finds themselves by using logic. This is an important and yet often daily process that people use in an attempt to do the right thing. Everyday for instance, people are faced with the dilemma of whether or not to lie in a given situation. People make this decision by reasoning the morality of the action and weighing that against its consequences.

There are four characteristics of moral behavior. The first of these is Moral Sensitivity, which is "the ability to see an ethical dilemma, including how our actions will affect others". The second is Moral Judgement, which is "the ability to reason correctly about what 'ought' to be done ina specific situation". The third is Moral Motivation, which is "a personal commitment to moral action, accepting responsibility for the outcome". The fourth and final characteristic of moral behavior is Moral Character, which is a "courageuos persistence in spite of fatigue or temptations to take the easy way out".

Lawrence Kohlberg is a psychologist who has made significant contributions to this field by creating a theory of moral development. This theory has several stages that people go through as they grow from early childhood to adulthood. According to this theory there are three main levels of moral development. These are preconventional morality, conventional morality, and postconvetional morality. There are also six stages, two in each level, within the three overall levels. The first stage in the preconventional level is obedience and punishment. In this stage people, often children, aviod certain unethical behaviors only because of the fear of punishment, not because they see it as wrong.The second stage of Kohlberg's theory of moral development is called individualism and exchange and also is part of the level called preconventional morality. In this second stage one looks at moral dicisions expecting reciprocity and how the situation would best benefit an individual's needs.

The third stage is part of the conventional morality level and is called interpersonal relationships. In this stage one tries to fulfill social conformities of what is considered moral by the society that they live in, attempting to be seen by their peers as good people. The fourth stage is also in the conventional morality level and is called maintaining social order. This stage focuses on a view of society as a whole and following the laws and rules of that society is considered important for morality. The influential philosopher Immanuel Kant held a similar view to this claiming that "our transcendent capacity to act on our conception of a practical law enables us to set ends and to follow morality even when doing so sharply conflicts with our interests".

The fifth stage is a part of the postconventional level and is called social contract and individual rights. In this stage people begin to consider the differing ideas about morality in other people and one feels that everyone should try and make law and order agreeable to all the members of society. The sixth and final stage of moral development is also in the postconvetional level and is called universal principals. At this stage people begin to develop their ideas of universal moral principals and will obey them regardless of what the laws of a society are.

Another Psychologist who made contributions to the field of moral reasoning was a man named Jean Piaget. He developed two phases of moral development, one common among children and the other common among adults. The first is known as the Heteronomous Phase. This phase, more common among children, includes the idea that rules come from authority figures in ones life such as parents, teachers, and God. It also involves the idea that rules last forever and are permanent no matter what. In addition to these ideas it also includes the ideas that "naughty" behavior must always be punished and that the punishment will be proportional to the behavior that caused it .

The second phase in Jean Piaget's Theory of Moral Development is refered to as the Autonomous Phase. This phase is more common after one has matured and is no longer a child. In this phase people begin to veiw intentions of actions as being more important than the consequences that come after. For instance, if a person who is driving swerves in order to not hit a dog and then knocks over a road sign, people are likely to be less mad at the person than they would be if he or she had done it on purpose just for fun. Even though the outcome is the same people are more forgiving because of the good intentions of saving the dog. This phase also includes the idea that people have different morals and that morality is not necessarily universal. People in the Autonomous Phase also believe rules can be broken under certain circumstances. For instance, Rosa Parks broke the law by refusing to give up her seat on abus, which was against the law but something many people consider moral none the less. In this phase people also stop believing in the idea of immanent justice .

Philosopher David Hume and psychologist Jonathan Haidt both claim that morality is based more on perceptions rather than logical reasoning. This means that people's morality is based more on their emotions and feelings rather than being based on a logical analysis of any given situation. David Hume claims that morals are linked to passion, love, happiness, and other emotions and therefore not based on reason. Haidt agrees with this idea claiming that people's reasoning of a moral situation or idea comes after an initial intuition is felt by an individual. Haidt's fundamental stance on moral reasoning is "moral intuitions (including moral emotions) come first and directly cause moral judgments" and that "the sudden appearance in consciousness of a moral judgment, including an affective valence (good-bad, like-dislike), without any conscious awareness of having gone through steps of searching, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion”.

Another philosopher named Immanuel Kant had a radically different view of morality. He thought that there were universal laws of morality that no one should ever break regardless of emotions or feelings. He felt that there was a four step system to find out whether something was moral based on logic and reason. The first step of this method involves one formulating "a maxim capturing your reason for an action". The second step in this process one frames "it as a universal principle for all rational agents". The third step is assessing "whether a world based on this universal principle is conceivable". If it is then the fourth step is asking one's self "whether [one] would will the maxim to be a principle in this world". Basically what this means is that if everyone made this moral dicision would it be good for the world or bad for the world. For instance, when deciding whether on not to lie to someone for one's own advantage, imagine if everyone in the world always successfully lied. Would that be good or bad for the world? Based on this logic Kant would argue that no one should ever lie under any circumstances. Another example would be if trying to decide whether suicide is moral or immoral, imagine if everyone committed suicide. Since mass international suicide would not be a good thing, the act of suicide is immoral.

There was a time when psychologists believed that men and women have different moral values and reasoning. This was based on the idea that men and women often think differently and would react to moral dilemmas in different ways. Psychologists set out to discover whether this idea of men having different moral reasoning than women was true or not. The idea that some researchers held was that women would favor care reasoning, meaning that they would consider issues of need and sacrifice. Men by this logic would be more inclined to favor fairness and rights. This is known as justice reasoning. However some also knew that men and women simply face different moral dilemmas on a day to day basis and that might be why it seems like there is a difference between their moral reasoning even though there is not. With these to ideas in mind researchers decided to do their experiments based on moral dilemmas that both men and women face regularly. They therefore ran the tests on parenting situations since both genders can be involved in child rearing. This would reduce gender divisions and see how both genders use reason in their moral judgements. The results showed the opposite of what was expected. The research proved that women and men use the same form of moral reasoning as one another and the only difference is the moral dilemmas they find themselves in on a day to day basis. When it came to moral dicisions both men and women would be faced with they often chose the same solution as being the moral choice. This shows that gender division in terms of morality does not actually exist. Reasoning between genders is the same in moral decisions.