Moral Psychology - Moralization of Smoking

Moralization of Smoking

Moral Psychology can be broken into two divisions: moralization that occurs individually and moralization that becomes institutionalized. Due to popular epidemiology, people have the freedom to govern themselves with regards to individual autonomy. Today, smoking has stimulated controversy within the field of moral psychology pertaining to whether it is considered an act of morality or immorality. Morality is typically defined as the collective beliefs that comprise and attribute to a good life. Based on religious morality, a good life means a long and healthy life.

Within the past ten years, there has been a shift from religious morality to a “here-and-now” secular value system. The health and fitness movement has had a major influence on our society’s social structure and attitudes concerning moralization. The present negative connotation of cigarette smoking in the United States is used to illustrate moralization. Being a morally sound person entails “a high-quality life that is extendable in years well beyond the lifespan of the previous generation – a relative immortality, won by a redoubled commitment to the health and fitness lifestyle” Smoking has been proven to diminish your lifespan and therefore, under the standards of this new secular value system, would be considered immoral. Many people argue that smoking is in fact not immoral because the health and fitness movement requires a great deal of conformity, which infringes basic individual rights. The tobacco companies over exaggerate this infringement in an attempt to turn the public away from the morality and health issues that have been created due to new advancement in scientific findings. Twenty years ago, the negative effects of smoking tobacco were not well known to the general public and therefore smoking was not moralized. Tobacco companies attempted to keep sales up by creating a false sense of superiority and switching the blame to make the consumer feel immoral instead of the company. By claiming that there are healthier options to smoking, for example filtered and low-tar products, the costumer feels as though they are making an immoral purchase by buying a regular pack of cigarettes as oppose to the healthier alternatives. Tobacco companies have also strategized to target teenagers as potential smokers because they are known to ignore risks due to the belief in their invulnerability and high moral status.

Because smoking is highly moralized in the United States, multiple moral and social psychologists have researched the relationship between risk perception and moralization across cultures. A study by Helweg-Larsen and Nielsen (2009) found cross-cultural differences in risk perception and moralization among Danish and American smokers. The results showed that moralization was correlated with greater personal risk perception among American smokers but not among Danish smokers. This can be attributed to many cultural differences. Moralization permeates culture and attitudes relating to risk. Moralization may influence peoples risk perceptions more heavily in the United States then in Denmark. This could be attributed to the severity of the smoking attitudes in the United States compared to the more relaxed attitudes in Denmark

To further illustrate the harsh antismoking attitudes in the United States, the media has scrutinized President Barack Obama for his smoking habit. President Obama’s promise to quit smoking increased the already high moralization attitudes. The media attempted to “encourage privately held attitudes and beliefs to become sufficiently public as to provide consensus for moral action” Antismoking campaigns and lobbying groups focus their attention on questioning the voluntary nature of smoking in an effort to enhance the moralization of smoking. Due to a snowball effect, second hand smoke also became a heated topic for debate among government officials and corporations. Anti second hand smoking campaigns have illustrated through images in the media that cigarette smoking harms other people and thus is an immoral act. Politicians endorse these anti smoking movements by discouraging or prohibiting smoking.