Moral Reasoning - Moral Reasoning in Philosophy

Moral Reasoning in Philosophy

Philosopher David Hume and psychologist Jonathan Haidt both claim that morality is based more on perceptions than on logical reasoning. This means that people's morality is based more on their emotions and feelings than on a logical analysis of any given situation. Hume regards morals as linked to passion, love, happiness, and other emotions and therefore not based on reason. Haidt agrees, arguing that reasoning concerning a moral situation or idea follows an initial intuition. Haidt's fundamental stance on moral reasoning is that "moral intuitions (including moral emotions) come first and directly cause moral judgments"; he characterizes a moral intuition as "the sudden appearance in consciousness of a moral judgment, including an affective valence (good-bad, like-dislike), without any conscious awareness of having gone through steps of searching, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion".

Immanuel Kant had a radically different view of morality. In his view, there are universal laws of morality that no one should ever break regardless of emotions. He proposed a four-step system to find out whether something was moral based on logic and reason. The first step of this method involves formulating "a maxim capturing your reason for an action". In the second step, one "frame it as a universal principle for all rational agents". The third step is assessing "whether a world based on this universal principle is conceivable". If it is, then the fourth step is asking oneself "whether would will the maxim to be a principle in this world". Basically what this means is that if everyone made this moral decision would it be good for the world or bad for the world. For instance, when deciding whether or not to lie to someone for one's own advantage, imagine if everyone in the world always successfully lied. Would that be good or bad for the world? Based on this logic, Kant would argue that no one should ever lie under any circumstances. Another example would be if trying to decide whether suicide is moral or immoral; imagine if everyone committed suicide. Since mass international suicide would not be a good thing, the act of suicide is immoral.