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The life of a modern human is in many ways full of excess and diversity. Issues and needs that troubled the average person a few decades ago now do not seem relevant. The individual, then, endowed with a diversity of possibilities and choices, should probably be more morally fulfilled and self-sufficient than his ancestor: but this is not the case. The life of society is not reducible to an unambiguous definition of the fullness of material goods but requires the involvement of spiritual categories. Modern human, as well as the human of the last century, is still interested in finding answers to existential questions of existence. In this regard, it is particularly relevant to explore such philosophical criteria as morality and ethical values, which determine the path of life of individuals. Morality is expected to be a dynamic system of views and ideas. This essay aims to analyze the driving forces that direct the vector of peoples worldview to recognize elements as moral and socially significant.
There can hardly be any doubt that the best tool for assessing the morality of a phenomenon, behavior, or viewpoint is an individuals personal life experience. People, as a rule, do not think about the necessity of performing specific actions if there is a correspondence between them and the paradigm of social consciousness. For example, questions of helping a grandmother cross a freeway or buying food for a poor stray dog do not raise any moral qualms. This is how essential human ethics work: based on hereditary reflexes and social upbringing, consciousness automatically determines which behavior is morally correct at the moment. On the contrary, when an individual, because of physical circumstances or personal reluctance, cannot satisfy a moral act, it initiates processes of conscience pressure and guilt. Here it is imperative to emphasize the crucial role of prior upbringing since it is correct to expect that if it were customary in a particular society to beat grandmothers and dogs, such a pattern in an individuals behavior would also be valued as morally correct. Consequently, one of the fundamental pillars of the ethical perception of objective reality is social upbringing and the system of culturally accepted values.
Whereas morally unambiguous events do not require severe cognitive processes, ethical dilemmas are not so unambiguous. In this context, it is appropriate to recall the textbook example of the train and the rails, which raises questions of an individuals personal responsibility for the lives of others. More specifically, if an unstoppable train moves toward a track with five people on it, should the individual turn the lever of the rail arrow to direct the train toward only one worker. In other words, the question of the dilemma is to determine whether it is permissible to sacrifice one person to save the other five. As a rule, it is customary to deliberately complicate this scenario to develop further the facets of the respondents moral value system. For example, the question can be rephrased to determine whether an individual would sacrifice the lives of five strangers for the lives of a parent, brother, or friend. When the more intimate categories of trust, love, and intimacy come into play, the dilemma seems even more challenging to solve.
Regardless of the nature of the character alone on the railroad tracks, however, such ethical dilemmas no longer seem as unambiguous as the decision to help a grandmother cross the road. Based on this example, it is clear that the individual uses an emotional context in choosing morally correct, socially relevant decisions. At first glance, the decision to sacrifice one strangers life or one loved one seems equivalent since, in either case, the sacrifice of one saves the lives of five people. Nevertheless, from an emotional point of view, these decisions are entirely non-identical because the death of one loved one is much more emotionally taxing for the individual. Consequently, it is reasonable to expect that disabling emotional attachments makes it easier to resolve ethical dilemmas. This claim finds support in Carlson & Crocketts (2018) study, which showed the results of such problem-solving in patients with lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex. Because this part of the nervous system is responsible for conscious emotion, its lesion inhibited any difficulty caused by the respondents experiences.
Another consequence of solving this ambiguity dilemma is recognizing the need to construct a hierarchical structure of priorities and values. The decision to kill five or one people should probably be decided in favor of the survival of more individuals since this decision is more socially significant. Consequently, there is a need to find the driving force that defines a particular decision as meaningful and morally responsible. Such a framework is ethical norms, which control and guide the vector of social values. It is paramount to recognize that such systems of norms are never conservative but instead actively change with the passage of time and the development of civilization as a whole.
Until recently, the criteria of classical ethics formed the basis of most philosophical conceptions of modernity. The use of values to recognize particular events as moral or socially significant has involved adherence to the philosophy of the ancient Greek thinkers. For example, according to Plato, the moral code of decision-making for the individual had to be based on the primary virtues (Frede, 2017). This category included reasonableness, justice, courage, and certainty. It seems quite apparent that each of the elements cited does not in itself possesses unambiguity, which is generally consistent with the lack of a unified system of ethical values. In general, justice was taken to mean the balance between actions and responsibility for them. Reasonableness corresponded to the individuals ability to analyze a situation instead of blindly following intuition critically. This component of classical ethics was characterized by moderation, behind which was the individuals ability to consider different perspectives and weigh their significance. Finally, the need to make tough but fair decisions of social significance required the traits of masculinity.
In addition to the elements already mentioned that determine approaches to assigning the status of moral events, classical ethics operated with the term trivial virtues. The first of these was the love of order since the only discipline, and the absence of chaos could clear the mind for decision-making. Adherence to duty was also perceived as an essential quality, raising such aspects as patriotism and civic responsibility. Finally, the ethical stability of individuals value systems must be based on diligence and engagement, without which one would hardly be interested in resolving moral dilemmas.
Times have changed rapidly, however, and new models have replaced the classical system of ethics. One of these is the paradigm of the New Ethics, created more than seventy years ago. The new ethics, like the classical models ethical values, respond to the need to explore the mechanisms that define events, objects, and behavior as moral and socially significant. The new ethics is ascetic in nature and thus focuses on the individuals inner struggle with his passions. In the context of the question under discussion, this means that a socially meaningful decision must not involve sophistication or bias. In addition, the new ethics elevates the theological concepts of faith, hope, and love above the classical primary pillars discussed in the previous paragraphs. This means that priority in moral dilemmas must be given to those decisions that are based primarily on the emotional-sensitive side of the individual, empathy, and sympathy.
Consequently, the model of the new ethics does not cross out but complements the foundation of the system of moral values built back in ancient times. This is generally unsurprising since the central reference points of human existence would hardly have changed qualitatively in the intervening time. Nevertheless, certain modifications are noticeable. Whereas for generations past, sacrifice, killing babies, and forcing women to copulate seemed everyday occurrences, such actions would be monstrous and inhumane for the modern inhabitant. However, this does not mean that society has abandoned such measures: maniacs, murderers, and sectarians can still use such patterns, but the perception of these episodes has changed qualitatively. When attempting to justify a particular event as moral and socially significant, the individual seems to operate not so much on academic theories of ethics as on personal experiences and his own historical background.
To summarize, it must be recognized that ethical systems of perception of reality are not conservative and stable but rather change with the development of human thought. This essay has shown that moral decisions are based on a harmonious combination of the emotional context of the event with a personal reflection on the situation and the inherited background. Models of classical ethics and new age ethics are also relevant to decision-making because they guide societal values at a particular stage of civilizations development.
References
Carlson, R. W., & Crockett, M. J. (2018). The lateral prefrontal cortex and moral goal pursuit. Current Opinion in Psychology, 24, 77-82.
Frede, D. (2017). Platos ethics: An overview. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web.
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