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Ethics - Lecture 11

Ethics notes for students

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11 views

Ethics - Lecture 11

Ethics notes for students

Uploaded by

wajdanahmadahmad811
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Ethics

Lecturer 11
Muhammad Behroz Khan
Lecturer
Government College Peshawar
Heredity or Biological Factors
Altruistic Behavior
• Confucian philosopher Mencius believed that human nature is basically
good. People, he pointed out, will rush to save a child, not because they
think about it first or because they expect a reward, but out of an innate
feeling of benevolence that is essential to humans.

• Professor of public policy James Q. Wilson refers to this predisposition as


the “moral sense.”

• Sociobiologists, such as E. O. Wilson, speak of an “altruism gene” that


genetically predisposes us to care for and help others. Aristotle refers to
this aspect of our conscience as “natural virtue.”

• According to psychologist Robert Katz, the capacity for altruistic behavior


or sympathy seems to be inborn. Sympathy is visible as early as ten
months after birth, when a baby gets upset in response to another baby’s
distress.
• Studies also show that the level of an individual’s sympathy and generosity
tends to remain relatively stable over the years, suggesting that this
capacity is to a large extent part of our innate disposition.

• In some children, the capacity for sympathy is strong, but in others it is


weak or non-existent.

• Florence Nightingale “was so ready with her sympathy for all who suffered
or were in trouble,” even as a teenager, that people referred to her as an
“angel in the homes of the poor.”

• At just six years old, Frederick Douglass was profoundly affected by the
injustices of slavery. Despite this, he showed remarkable compassion and
affection for those who benefited from the system.

• Sociopaths, in contrast, seem incapable of empathy no matter how loving


their home environments.
• The concept of justice as fairness emerges early in life, though initially it
focuses on the child's own fair treatment and the adult's responsibility to
treat the child justly.

• Even very young children will protest their unfair treatment despite their
parents’ or society’s attempts to impose “unjust” cultural norms upon
them. This suggests that a basic sense of justice is also, to some extent,
inborn rather than learned.

The Frontal Lobe


• The frontal lobe cortex in the brain plays a key role in moral decision
making. Most of the work in this area has been with sociopaths—people
who lack a conscience or moral sense.

• A study of prisoners found that, when sociopaths were compared to non-


sociopathic criminals, the former had specific deficits associated with
frontal lobe functioning.
• Sociopaths are generally intelligent, rational, and outwardly normal.
However, they have a deficit in the affective, or emotional, side of their
brain.

• They can mimic emotions such as sympathy, guilt, and moral outrage, but
apparently they do not actually feel them. They can lie, cheat, maim, and
even kill without feeling the slightest remorse.

• Research of the brain has found that damage to the prefrontal cortex
makes people less susceptible to guilt and impairs empathy and concern
for others. This deficit is reflected in dysfunctional social behavior and
poor social decision making.

Learning or Environmental Factors


• Our conscience is also shaped through the interactions of our natural
moral disposition with our early experiences and our environment (family,
religion, nation).
• While culture is not the source of our basic moral sense, it helps establish
the boundaries and guidelines within which our moral sentiments and
principles express themselves.

• Sometimes, however, cultural norms run contrary to the basic demands of


morality. In these cases, our conscience helps us discern which cultural
norms are consistent with the demands of morality.

• The view of so-called conscience as purely a product of our environment


was reinforced in the early 1900s by behaviorists, who regarded moral
behavior as nothing more than conformity to cultural norms or social
conditioning.

• Sigmund Freud also regarded “conscience,” or superego, as a product of


our environment. Although Freud maintained that the conscience, or
superego, is necessary for life within society, he also argued that it could
become oppressive and that people with the strongest superegos are also
the most repressed.
• The Freudian concept of conscience as an internalized tyrant imposed on
us by our parents and by society has dominated much of the
contemporary literature on the subject.

• The belief that morality is wholly a product of learning and our


environment is no longer accepted by most ethicists and psychologists.

Conscious Moral Direction


Autonomous Moral Reasoning
• Although innate and external forces can influence our conscience, the
exercise of the conscience demands active participation on our part
through the use of conscious and responsible deliberation.

• Autonomous moral reasoners are also more likely to act on the courage of
their convictions. During a 2016 Black Lives Matter Protest in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, an unnamed protester planted herself in front of the police and
refused to move.
• Such acts of peaceful protest exemplify autonomous moral reasoning.
Most Americans who oppose racism and social injustice do not engage in
praxis—that is, their moral beliefs did not lead to informed social action.

• Most people like to think of themselves as autonomous moral reasoners.


Collective morality, however, exerts a greater influence over us than most
of us realize, as demonstrated by the Holocaust and by slavery here in the
United States.

• Many people back down when cultural norms and other non-moral
values, such as job security or popularity, conflict with their conscience.

• We readily internalize cultural norms such as “Muslims are bad”. Because


of our readiness to uncritically accept cultural norms, it is important for us
to develop autonomy through conscious moral direction.

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