JOURNAL 6

Nellie Gotebeski

October 6, 2009

Moral Development

Do I see people making moral judgments based on emotion or reason? How about people who act immorally? How about myself when I have acted immorally?

In his studies, Haidt found that, “Affective reactions to the stories were better predictors of their moral judgments than were their claims about harmful consequences.” This argument tends to side towards the belief that people make moral judgments based on emotions; however, there is other psychological evidence that supports that our moral judgments are based on reason.

Thus, the debate continues: What drives our moral judgments? Emotion or reason? Haidt proposes emotion as the powerful force driving actual behavior. He states that there is a strong link between moral emotions and moral action. This link is illustrated in the behavior of psychopaths. Psychopaths can perform atrocities, but they simply do not care about the consequences. They do not have an emotional reaction to the circumstances or care about the consequences of their behavior. 

I proposed the debate question to my roommates and found a mixed array of responses. The majority of my roommates sided with Haidt and believed that their moral judgments were based on emotions. However, after they described their moral judgment process, it appeared that reason was also used to decide. Perhaps, they just decided to side with their emotions at the end of the reasoning process. For example, I observed one of my roommates fighting with her boyfriend on the phone. She hung up and then called him back a few minutes later and yelled at him again. In between the two calls, she was debating whether she should yell  at him more or wait and talk to him in person. She briefly worked through a list of pro’s and con’s and against the advice from her other roommates, she decided to act on her emotions. Therefore, we may go through a process of reasoning, and ultimately decide to favor our emotions, even if we know that it will not lead to moral behavior. 

At the end of my intuitions journal, I stated that people who made moral decisions tended to defend their moral judgment used to make the decisions, while those who acted immorally regarded their actions as impulsive. In the same way, when we act morally, we are more likely to accredit our well-thought-out reasoning process, that apparently overpowered our emotions. When I recall my own immoral decisions, I too believe that my emotions “got the best of me” and led to this decision. Thus, when my roommates say they act on their emotions, they may only be including their immoral behavior. However, it is important to note that while emotions can cause immoral behavior, this is not always the case.

Haidt purposes  another factor that may contribute to moral judgment. He describes the weak link that exists between moral reasoning and moral action. Haidt determines that there must be some other factor involved in this equation. He alludes to Mischel’s study, which presented a “hot” and “cold” system and described this other factor, which he described as intelligence. The “hot” system is responsible for quick emotional processing and uses the amygdala-based memory part of the brain. He claims that the “cool” system is specialized for complex spatiotemporal and episodic representation and thought. In time, we can train the “cool” system to block the impulsiveness of the “hot” system. For instance, the author sites an example, in which children initially desires the immediate small reward (one marshmallow), but eventually, they are able to resist the temptation in favor of a later, bigger reward (two marshmallows). Therefore, “The integration of the cool system into this process composes the essential feature of emotional intelligence.” Using this research, he claims that the relationship between moral reasoning ability and moral behavior is weak and inconsistent once intelligence is not an element. 

I believe that intelligence is a very important aspect of our moral judgment. I wanted to examine the possibility of mixing reason, emotion, and intelligence to develop a moral judgment process. I recalled that at the end of our last Moral Development class, we began talking about the distinction between naïve intuitions and well-educated intuitions (expertise). Well-educated intuitions includes at some level reasoning and instinct. I tried to apply this definition to the current debate and finally arrived at the term “well-educated emotional-reasoning.” I believe tis concept can apply to several of my own moral decisions. I believe I incorporated all three factors into the moral judgment process. Therefore, the answer to the debate may not be one or the other, but a systematic unification of all three factors.