Unconscious Moral Decisions

Types of Moral Decisions

There are two types of moral decisions:

1: Conscious Moral Decisions: Those decisions which we make as a result of conscious reasoning
process.

2: Unconscious Moral Decisions: Those moral decisions which we make automatically and
unconsciously without conscious reasoning process. For example: You engage in conversation and
don’t tell lies. We respect others. We pass by others property and don’t harm or steel from it.

When we make unconscious moral decisions, we don’t engage in deliberate reasoning process.

Why we study Unconscious Moral Decisions?

■ It is important to study unconscious moral decisions for two reasons:
■ First: Majority of our moral decisions are unconscious.
■ Second: Since majority of our moral decisions are unconscious (don’t involve conscious
reasoning process), could we say that or does it follow that most of our moral decisions are
irrational or based on irrational foundations? And if most of our moral decisions are based on
irrational foundations, then why we study moral reasoning and moral standards?

■ It is important to look at unconscious moral processes and answer these questions.

X-System- (Prototypes)

X-system is the unconscious process by which we automatically make many of our moral decisions.
The X-system is based on the use of “schemas” or “prototypes.”

Prototypes are general memories of the kinds of situations that we have experienced, along with
sounds, words, objects, or people those situations involved, emotions we felt, the way we behaved in
those situations. Our brain tries to match each of the new situations we experience with its stored
prototypes. The brain then uses the information stored in the prototype to identify what kind of

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behavior is usual for that kind of situation, what kind of rules apply in the situation, and what
emotions are usual in such a situation.

Although these processes are unconsciously experienced, the brain is made aware of the match and
we consciously recognize the situation, what kind of a situation it is and what behavior is appropriate
for the situation. This way we don’t use up our limited conscious reasoning abilities to determine
what is happening each time we experience something. Without having to expend conscious
reasoning efforts, we know what kind of situation we are in and how we should act because all of the
work of coming up with that conscious knowledge was done by the unconscious matching process of
the brain.

C-System

C-system is the conscious reasoning through which we make moral decisions. It is more complicated
than the simple matching of prototypes the X-system uses.

Conscious moral reasoning can deliberately gather information i.e. consciously gathers evidence,
appeals to moral principles like utilitarianism, rights, justice, and caring and reaches a considered
judgment.

We also rely on conscious reasoning when we find ourselves in a new or unusual situation that our
unconscious X-system cannot match up with any of its stored prototypes.

For example, we may come upon some kind of object we have never seen before. Then the C-system
takes over and begins trying to reason out what it is that we have encountered. We may consciously
try to gather more information about the strange object, we may call upon the rules and principles we
know to see if any of them tell us what to do with such objects.

The Legitimacy of Unconscious Moral Decision-Making

■ Although our use of prototypes is an unconscious process, this does not mean that it is a
disreputable or irrational kind of process.
■ To see that it is not an irrational process, we can compare it to some conscious forms of
reasoning that are very similar to the use of prototypes, but that are clearly legitimate and
rational. These include:

1. Casuistry.
2. Precedent
3. Case-based reasoning

Casuistry

■ Casuistry is a form of conscious thinking that was used in the 17 th

century and then emerged again
toward the end of the 20th century, especially in medicine.

■ Casuistry is a way of making moral decisions by relying on previous “paradigm” cases.

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■ The paradigm case is a past situation where it was clear what the ethical response should be and
the reasons why that was the ethical response.
■ Casuistry uses those previous clear cases to decide what is ethical in a new situation.
■ When we are faced with a new situation, casuist reasoning first tries to identify a previous
paradigm case that seems similar to the new situation.
■ If the new situation is similar enough to the paradigm, we make the same decision now that we
made in that previous paradigm case.
■ If the new situation differs from the previous paradigm in a morally relevant way, then we must
fall back on regular moral reasoning to figure out what to do.

Precedent
■ Judges in common law legal systems, rely on past “precedents” to decide what to do in a
current case.
■ A precedent is a legal case that was decided previously by a higher court or by the court that is
deciding the current case.
■ If the current case involves issues or facts that are the same as the issues or facts that were
involved in a precedent, then a judge will normally make the same decision in the current case
that was made in the precedent.

Case-based reasoning
■ Cased- based reasoning is a kind of reasoning which is widely used in artificial intelligence
computer systems.
■ The process involves relying on matching previous cases to decide what to do in a current case.

Conclusion
Our unconscious use of prototypes, then, which is how we make many of our moral decisions, is not
an irrational process nor is it illegitimate.

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