General Ethics 2021

On the Value of Moral Imagination in Making Moral Decision

Source: Teacher’s Notes on CHED Materials

I. When Moral Imagination is a Necessity

It is often times easy to make moral decision in life when there is only one alternative to
choose from; or when one’s choice wouldn’t put one’s life at risk; or when all facts/information
are presented that we could already foresee clearly the consequences of our decision; or when we
are able to ensure the support of those who will be affected by our decision that any decision we
make they will be there 100% to back us up. The moral problem, however, lies when there are
more alternatives to choose from; the choice would surely result to risking one’s life; there are no
facts available to help us and the pressure is too much because we are frightened not knowing
the consequences of our decisions; and worst we are not even sure if those who will be affected
by our decision will truly help, support, understand us that we are afraid we might find ourselves
carrying the burden of a wrong decision alone by ourselves. In such a moral dilemma we either
make that “leap of faith” to make a choice or not to do anything. It is precisely in such a situation
that moral imagination is needed.

II. What is Moral Imagination?

When confronted with moral dilemma, moral imagination becomes a necessary
ingredient in making responsible moral judgement. Only through imagination can one project
alternate ways to frame experience, to form mental images of real or unreal phenomena or events
and develop different scenarios or different perspectives on those phenomena or events as a result
broaden, evaluate, even change one’s moral point of view (90). Mark Johnson, in his book Moral
Imagination defines it as “ability to imaginatively discern various possibilities for acting within a
given situation and to envision the potential help and harm that are likely to result from a given
action.
Moral imagination is usually distinguished from reason for to be imaginative one need
not be restricted by reason. But this does not mean that moral imagination is intrinsically
irrational for one can create imaginative representation of possible worlds that, though unreal,
nevertheless it has logic and consistency.

III. Moral Imagination and Sympathy

In his Theory of Mental Sentiments, Smith argues that “how selfish soever man may be
supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of
others”. One of these principles is “sympathy”. For Smith, sympathy is neither empathy nor any
other sentiment or passion. When I sympathize, I placed myself in another’s situation, not because
of how the situation feels to me or might affect me but rather as if I were that person. I project

1 AACR | GE 8 Philosophy Department / College of Arts and Sciences – Silliman University

 General Ethics 2021

myself to into another’s experience in order to understand what another person is feeling, rather
than merely to relate that situation to my own. Sympathy, then, is the recognition and
comprehension of what another feels or might feel in a situation as I cognitively understand the
emotion of others without actually feeling them. Smith claims that humans are intrinsically social
beings and “can subsist only in society” but he also argued that it is possible to imaginatively step
back from one’s situation within society and view it from another’s perspective. He contends that
each of us has an active imagination which enables us mentally to recreate another’s feelings,
passions, and point of view. In this imaginative process of sympathy one does not literary feel
the passion of another, rather, one understands what another experiencing from that person’s
perspectives. Sympathy is also a general principle of “fellow understanding” that enables me to
understand another’s passion and interest even if I resent or even abhor those passions or that
person.
Thus, sympathy, along with imagination, allows us to disengage ourselves and evaluate
a situation or person more dispassionately, judiciously, or impartially (95). We must, however,
understand that moral imagination is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for moral
decision-making.

IV. Doing Moral Imagination

First, moral imagination begins not with the general but with particular, a particular
person of moral or immoral character, an event, a situation, a dilemma, or a conflict.
Second, to “imagine is to make oneself absent from the whole of things to become
disengaged... distanced from reality and ordinary experience” as Paul Ricoeur claims. Being
imaginative and at the same time acting as disengaged spectator allows one not only to get a
critical and evaluative perspective on a script or mental model, but also allows one to be self-
reflective: to step back from one’s situation and view the event or oneself from another vantage
point, but never a view from nowhere.
And, lastly, moral imagination deals with possibilities or ideals that even if not practical,
at least, theoretically viable and actualizable. The possibilities should have a normative or
prescriptive character; they concern what one ought to do, with right or wrong, with virtue, with
positive and negative consequences, or with what common morality calls “good” or “evil”.

2 AACR | GE 8 Philosophy Department / College of Arts and Sciences – Silliman University