Moral Reasoning & Behavior

Session 2
Heinz’s wife is near death from a special kind of cancer. There is one
drug that the doctors think might save her. It is a form of radium that a
druggist has recently discovered. The drug is expensive to make, but
the druggist is charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He
paid $200 for the radium and charges $2,000 for a small dose of the
drug. Heinz went to everyone he knew to borrow the money but could
only get together about $ 1,000 which is half of what it cost. Heinz tells
the druggist that his wife is dying and asks him to sell it cheaper or let
him pay later. But the druggist says: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm
going to make money from it.“
What should Heinz do?
0. Heinz should choose to spend more time with his wife in their remaining days, both acknowledging the cycle
of life-and-death which is a part of the human condition.

1. Heinz should not steal the drug because he might be caught and sent to jail.

2. Heinz should not steal the medicine, because the law prohibits stealing.

3. Heinz should steal the medicine, because he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he has to serve a prison
sentence.

4. Heinz should steal the drug. He probably will go to jail for a short time for stealing but his wife will think he is a good
husband.

5. Heinz should steal the drug to save his wife because preserving human life is a higher moral obligation than
preserving property.

6. If he steals, Heinz should be prepared to accept the penalty for breaking the law.

7. Heinz should steal the medicine, because everyone has a right to live, regardless of the law.

8. Heinz should not steal the medicine, because the scientist has a right to fair compensation.
 First Level: Pre-conventional Stages
• Stage One: punishment and obedience
orientation
• Stage Two: instrumental and relative
orientation
Kohlberg’s
Second Level: Conventional Stages
Three Levels • Stage One: interpersonal concordance
of Moral orientation
• Stage Two: law and order orientation
Development
Third Level: Post-conventional Stages
• Stage One: social contract orientation
• Stage Two: universal principles orientation
 • At this stage, the demands
of authority figures or the
pleasant or painful
consequences of an act
define right and wrong.
• The child’s reason for doing
the right thing is to avoid
punishment or defer to the
Heinz should not steal the medicine, because he will be power of authorities.
put in jail. (1)
• There’s little awareness that
others have needs and
desires like one’s own.

First Level: Pre-conventional Stages

 • At this stage, right actions
become those through
which the child satisfies
their own needs.
• The child is now aware
that others have needs
and desires like she does
and uses this knowledge
to get what she wants.
• The child behaves in the
Heinz should steal the medicine, because he will be right way toward others,
much happier if he saves his wife, even if he has to so others later will do the
serve a prison sentence. (3) same toward her.

First Level: Pre-conventional

Stages
 • Good behavior at this early
conventional stage is living
up to the expectations of
those for whom the person
feels loyalty, affection, and
trust, such as family and
friends.
• Right action is conforming to
what’s expected in one’s role
as a good son, good
daughter, good friend, and
so on.
Heinz should steal the drug. He probably will go to jail • At this stage, the young
for a short time for stealing but his wife will think he is a person wants to be liked and
good husband. (4) thought well of.

Second Level: Conventional

Stages
 • Right and wrong at this more
mature conventional stage are
based on loyalty to one’s
nation or society.
• The laws and norms of society
should be followed so society
will continue to function well.
• The person can see other
people as parts of a larger
social system that defines
individual roles and
Heinz should not steal the medicine, because the law obligations, and she can
prohibits stealing. (2) distinguish these obligations
from what her personal
If he steals the drug, Heinz should be prepared to accept relationships require.
the penalty for breaking the law. (6)

Second Level: Conventional

Stages
 • The person becomes
aware that people have
conflicting moral views
but believes there are fair
ways of reaching
consensus about them.
• The person believes that
all moral values and moral
norms are relative and
that all moral views should
• Heinz should steal the medicine, because everyone has a be tolerated.
right to live, regardless of the law. (7)
• Heinz should not steal the medicine, because the scientist
has a right to fair compensation. (8)

Third Level: Post-conventional

Stages
 The Golden
Rule • Right action comes to be
defined in terms of moral
principles chosen because of
their reasonableness,
universality, and consistency.
• These are general moral
principles that deal, for
example, with justice, social
welfare, human rights,
respect for human dignity, or
treating people as ends in
• Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving a human life themselves.
is a more fundamental value than the property rights of
another person. (5) • The person sees these
principles as the criteria for
• (transcendental morality) Heinz should choose to spend more evaluating all socially
time with his wife in their remaining days, both acknowledging accepted norms and values.
the cycle of life-and-death which is a part of the human
condition. (0)

Third Level: Post-conventional

Stages
 Per Kohlberg, later stages are better

Kohlberg’s
• Ability to see things from a wider and fuller
Levels of perspective.
Moral • Individual
• Group
Development • Principles (Global orientation)
• Better ways of justifying decisions
• Principles not emotions
 Higher stages are not always
morally preferable.

Kohlberg’s A person can be at multiple

Levels of stages at the same time in
different contexts.
Moral
Development
(Critique) Do men and women have
different approaches to morality?
 Distinct “male” and “female” approaches to morality.

Males tend to deal with moral issues in terms of impersonal, impartial,

and abstract moral principles.

For women, morality is primarily a matter of “caring” and “being

Gilligan: responsible” for those with whom we have personal relationships.

Women have Moral development for women is marked by progress toward better
ways of caring and being responsible for self and others.
distinct
approach to Preconventional Level: Caring for self

morality. Conventional Level: Internalize conventional norms about caring for

others and in doing so come to neglect themselves.

Post-Conventional: Become critical of the conventional norms they had

earlier accepted, and they come to achieve a balance between caring
for others and caring for oneself.
 Gilligan: Women have distinct
approach to morality.

Kohlberg’s
Levels of • Research is unclear on this.
• Some men and women base their morality on
Moral impartial considerations.
Development • Some men and women base their morality on
caring considerations.
(Critique) • Both Kohlberg and Gilligan agree on a similar
trajectory of moral development (from self, to
group, to our own standards).
Ethical Behavior and its
impediments
 Requires framing it as one that requires
ethical reasoning

Step 1:
Recognizing a
situation as
an ethical Situation is likely to be seen as ethical
when:
situation. •Involves serious harm
•Harm is likely or already occurred
•Victims are proximate
•Harm is imminent
•Violates our moral standards
 Euphemistic labeling
Justifying our actions
Advantageous comparisons

Obstacles to Displacement of responsibility

step 1 Diffusion of responsibility
Distorting the harm
Dehumanization
Redirecting blame
 Euphemistic
labeling

• Using euphemisms to
change or veil the way we se
a situation we have
encountered. By using them,
we change how we see the
situation and instead of
framing it as an ethical
situation, we frame it to
ourselves as something else.
 Rationalization

• Telling ourselves that the harm we intend is justified

because we are pursuing a worthy and moral cause, so we
don't need to look at our actions through an ethical frame.
Can also take place after we've inflicted an injury on others.
• White man’s burden
 • Seeing a situation in the context of other larger
evils, therefore diminishing the magnitude of our
own wrongdoing and making harms that we inflict
seem minor and inconsequential

• It is not bad as that …

Diminishing • I am not as bad as them …
comparisons
• We are not as bad as them …
• Who is your reference group …
 Displacing
Responsibility

• When we do our jobs in a way

that harms others, we can see the
harm as inflicted by whoever told us
to do it and thereby, we mentally
remove ourselves from the chain of
actors responsible for the harm
 Diffusion of
Responsibility

• Obscuring our involvement in

activities that harm someone by
seeing ourselves as playing only a
small role in a large group that is
responsible for the harm.
 Distorting the
Harm

• denying, disregarding, or
distorting the harm that our actions
produced. If we convince ourselves
that there's no real harm involved,
we don't have to frame our actions
as needing ethical scrutiny.
 Dehumanizing

• Thinking of the victims we injure

as not real or not full human beings
with human feelings and concerns so
that we can avoid seeing we are
harming real people
Redirecting
Blame
 Requires moral reasoning that
applies our moral standards to the
Step 2: information we have about a
situation.
Judging the
ethical course Requires realizing that information
of action about a situation may be distorted
by biased theories about the world,
about others, and about oneself.
A man and his son are driving in a car one day, when they get into a
fatal accident. The man is killed instantly. The boy is knocked
unconscious, but he is still alive. He is rushed to hospital and will need
immediate surgery. The doctor enters the emergency room, looks at
the boy, and says...
"I can't operate on this boy, he is my son."
 Biased
Theories
about Others
(Stereotypes)
 Biased Theories about
Others (Ethnocentrism)

• the belief that what our nation,

group, or culture (“we”) does,
seems normal, ordinary, and
good, while what others
(“they”) do, seems foreign,
strange, and less good.
• “Our” way is superior while
“their” way is inferior.
 Biased Theories
about Oneself

• We generally—and unrealistically—
believe we are more capable, insightful,
courteous, honest, ethical, and fair than
others, and are overconfident about our
ability to control random events.
• We also overestimate our ability to be
objective, especially when our interests
are involved
 • A misplaced and false sense of confidence about the
world
• We ignore the possibility that others will find out
what we did
Biased
Theories • We tend to ignore low-probability consequences
about the • We often err in assessing the risks attached to our
world actions
• We do not consider all stakeholders our actions will
impact
• We discount consequences in future.
 No guarantee that you do
the right thing.
Step Three:
Deciding to
do the ethical
course of The culture of an
organization—people’s
action decisions to do what is
ethical are greatly
influenced by their
surroundings.
 Ethical Climate &
Culture

• If everyone is fine with it, it

must be ok.
• Culture: What is considered
normal and desirable? What is
encouraged?
• Climate: Expectations about
how to behave
• In organizations with “egoistic”
climates, employees feel they
are expected to be self-seeking
and so they are.
 Moral Seduction

• A little more won’t hurt.

• One step at a time.
• Normalization of unethical
behavior.
 One’s strength or weakness
of will
Step Four:
Carrying out
the ethical
decision.
One’s belief about the locus
of control of one’s actions
Locus of
Control
 • our ability to regulate our actions so that we resolutely do what
we know is right even when powerful emotions, desires, or

Weakness social pressures urge us not to do so.

• The ability to be resistant to impulses and to follow one’s own

of will convictions.
Willingness
to Obey
Authority
Figures
 Ethical Thinking begins when you move from a simple
acceptance of the conventional moral standards towards
critically examining them.

Morality is not an important part of the self until middle

adolescence

Moral The more morality becomes part of the self, the stronger the
motivation to be moral
Development
Judgments of right and wrong depend in part on the kind of
person we think we are (Am I an honest person?)

Emotions are an important part of ethics