Moral judgement

In the world of moral psychology, moral judgment has been a key topic of research. Moral judgment is an individual’s ability to discern between good and bad actions. For example, when given two responses to a particular event – one being harmful and one helpful – a person with strong moral judgment will be able to identify which action is more morally correct for that event.

What is Morality?

Morality can be defined as a set of values that an individual or group of people have. These values are based on how the individuals define right and wrong. Thus, morality is very personal, as there is no standard definition for right and wrong. However, in most cases, morality is concerned with the common good of society. For example, using profanity in public places would be considered morally wrong as it may cause offense to other citizens or even disrupt public order.

Definition of Moral Judgment:

Moral judgment, unlike other types of judgment, is a very perceptive decision-making process. Moral judgments are based on an individual’s perception of what is right or wrong in different situations. This judgment is not only related to the social aspects of morality but also to the essence of morality. The term “moral judgment” has been used in psychological context but this concept can be applied outside of that as well. Oftentimes people use the term when discussing what certain things are morally justifiable or not justifiable.

Concept of Moral Dilemma:

The concept of moral dilemma was first introduced by Plato. In his famous dialogue, “The Republic,” he illustrated the concept of the morally right and wrong decisions. According to him, there is a perfect society in which the ideal man is neither praised nor punished for his actions but is recognized for what he has done.

With this society in mind, Plato felt that it would be unfair if the people were forced to do something without being given a chance to decide whether or not they wanted to do it. He therefore offers an example – one where two options are posed before two people:

Option A: Steal something from a warehouse and give it to a friend.

Option B: Do nothing and let the other person get robbed.

Options A and B directly contradict what was mentioned in the previous section – that in a perfect society, the ideal man is neither praise nor punished. The dilemma presented to the men is they are either a good man or a bad one.

The concept of moral dilemma was further developed in psychology by people like Edmund Burke, Lawrence Kohlberg and others. The most common objective for these theories is to discover whether or not moral judgments are based on logic or emotion and if so, what type of emotion this would be?

Concept of Trolley Dilemma with respect to Moral Dilemma:

Trolley Dilemma is a concept that was introduced by Philippa Foot in 1967 in an article for “The Journal of Philosophy”. The main goal of this article was to discuss how people should make moral decisions that involve harming others.

The following question is used to illustrate the dilemma:

A trolley is going down a track with five people on it, who will be killed if nothing is done. You are standing some distance away from the trolley and you can pull a switch that will turn the trolley onto a different set of tracks, where only one person will die. Do you do it? 

After this was published, numerous articles and studies have been conducted regarding this topic. One of the important concepts that has come from this dilemma is the distinction between personal and impersonal dilemmas.

Dilemma “Fine-Tuning”—Proposal of an Optimized Set:

Moral dilemmas are often called “fine-tuning”. This is because the status and situation of these dilemmas greatly affect one’s decision making. As a result, numerous studies have been done utilizing the concept of fine tuning where an appropriately optimized set of variables that affect moral decisions can be revealed.

Criteria for Moral Judgments:

There are various criteria that are used to determine the morality of an action. Among them, moral axioms have the most influence in moral judgments. Moral axioms are a set of general rules that guide moral judgments. These rules can be divided into five moral principles:

(1) Impartiality 

(2) Universalizability 

(3) Voluntariness 

(4) Joint enterprise 

(5) Suffering and respect for persons

According to “Ethics” by Ronald Dworkin, there are three types of morality: prescriptive, descriptive and reflective. Prescriptive morality has its rules and laws, which people follow and are obliged to do. This type of morality is similar to legal or contractual ethics. Descriptive morality focuses on individual judgments, while reflective morality focuses on understanding the reasons behind moral judgments. An important factor that influences moral judgments is one’s own social identity. This can be defined as a sense of membership in a grouping such as society and the norms associated with it. The stronger a person’s social identity, the stronger the inclination towards following certain moral values within this grouping.

Conclusion:

Moral dilemmas are extremely common in everyday life, as people need to make many decisions that require them to violate one of the moral principles. It would be impossible for a person to always adhere to these principles exactly and perfectly but it is still important to try their best. Moral dilemmas are a good example of game theory and should thus be studied carefully by anyone who wishes to delve into this field.