Right and Wrong & Right and Left

Even though I am not the most religious person, I do enjoy spirituality.  I love hearing different theories that try to explain why the world is the way it is, and why people act the way they do.  One of my favorite things to read are horoscopes and astrological traits.  Based on date of birth, each person is assigned an astrological sign.  People that have the same astrological sign share common traits.  For example, I am a Libra.  According to astrology, Libras hate conflict, and do anything they can to have a cooperative balance between themselves and the people around them.  Libras are so concerned with peace and harmony that it's sign is a balance.  Libras have a pretty good sense of what is right and wrong, and are at their best when collaborating with the people around them.  Libra's love to learn and gain new perspectives through interaction with others.

Oscar Wilde once said, "Morality, like art, means drawing a line somewhere." A moral person is able to distinguish between good and bad behavior, and learn this difference through interactions at home, school, work, and other social environments.  Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that morality is constantly being shaped and molded throughout a person's lifetime, and created six stages of moral development.  The preconventional stages revolve around the self.  The first stage is obedience to authority.  A person is less likely to perform an immoral action if they have a chance of being caught.  The second stage is instrumental.  This means that a person is more likely to perform an action if they will experience personal gain.  Next, the conventional stages are based on external factors.  The third stage is interpersonal norms.  A person is more likely to perform if they feel that they are expected to. The fourth stage is societal norms.  People act in specific ways based on social cues and expectations. The postconventional stages have a more altruistic view of what is right and wrong.  The fifth stage is the social contract.  People are willing to overlook and break social rules if they are deemed invalid.  The final stage is universal ethical principles.  People in this stage regard themselves on the basis of equality and have no problem going against norms for the sake of justice.  Based on these stages, there are a few questions that can be raised.  First, does moral reasoning actually lead to moral behavior?  It is one thing to know what the right thing is, but it is another to perform moral actions.  Second, Kohlberg stresses the ideas of justice in his theories, but does not fully account for the fact that emotions can sometimes inhibit our ability to reason morally.  Third, Kohlberg's theory is based on personal rights rather than society and community as a whole.  While this theory supports individualist cultures, collectivist groups may have different methods of moral reasoning that Kohlberg is missing.  

Another perspective of moral reasoning comes from Jonathan Haidt, who raises some pretty controversial dilemmas in order to get his point across.  One of his most known dilemmas is the story of Julie and Mark, siblings who engage in protected but incestual relations to try something new, and asks readers to determine if this is a moral action.  Many people say that it is not, but Haidt always has a rebuttal for every argument made. "That is disgusting!" - obviously not for them.  "Genetic mutations are bound to happen!" - most likely not since two forms of contraceptives were used.  The list goes on.  What Haidt is trying to show here is that people have an initial reaction to a stimulus before reasoning with it.  We as humans like to believe that we have complete control over our emotions because of our free will.  However, research has shown that we have no control over our initial reaction to a stimulus, but after that reaction we are then able to process the information.  

One of Haidt's theories is called the Social Institutionalist Model, which states that moral judgment is mostly based on automatic processes rather than on conscious reasoning. People engage in reasoning largely to find evidence to support their initial responses.  This theory was then extended to become the Moral Foundations Theory.  This theory suggests there are at least six innate moral foundations, upon which cultures develop their various moralities.  The six are care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. The theory was developed to explain cross-cultural differences in morality, but has also been found to explain differences in political views.  For example, democrats, liberals, and those who are more toward the left on the political spectrum tend to focus more on the aspects of care, fairness, and liberty, while republicans, conservatives, and right-winged thinkers tend to utilize all six foundations equally.

When I think of a moral character, I always think of the film "To Kill A Mockingbird."  The film (originally a novel written by Harper Lee) is based in Georgia in the 1930's, where racism and oppression were extremely prevalent.  Atticus Finch is a lawyer who takes on the job of representing Tom Robinson, an African American man who is charged with rape and assault of a young white female.  Although the entire city was totally against Tom due to the color of his skin (even though he was innocent), Atticus still fought for this mans rights.  Atticus saw Tom as a human being with rights, while the rest of the town saw Tom as an unequal.  At one point in the film, Atticus states (in regards to Tom), "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it," and that basically sums up his moral character.  Based on Kohlberg's stages, Atticus Finch can definitely be placed in the postconventional level because he looks at representing Tom as a universal ethical principle, and is able to realize that justice and equality should be part of our moral compass, regardless of existing laws and social rules.