Right of Wrong: That is the Question.

           Greedy. Disgusting. Selfish. Weird. Gross. Humans can be quite judgmental of situations that do not even involve them. Moral reasoning is a thought process that every human does throughout life. Lawrence Kohlberg, American psychologist, wrote what we now know as Kohlberg's stages of moral development. These stages consist of Pre-Conventional, Conventional and Post-Conventional. Pre-conventional are those who tend to avoid punishment and are very self-oriented. Those who are in the Conventional category conform to the social norms, are interpersonal and authority oriented. The final stage, Post-Conventional, individuals believe in following the social contract. These categories can be found at Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development. Which category would you place yourself in? Of course, one is tempted to say Post-Conventional, but most individuals are not self-less enough to be placed in this categories. Two examples of individuals in the Post-Conventional category are Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi.

        What is the first word you think of at the thought of a brother and sister sleeping together? I am sure that it is along the lines of my first thought, "ew". In the scenario, created by Jon Haidt and discussed at What's the matter with a little brother/sister action? , there is a scene which two consenting siblings make love in France, where it is legal. Haidt asked individuals if they thought it was okay for the siblings to make love. Like I am sure you were just thinking, most individuals said "absolutely not". Yet, I would like for you to come up with a list of why not. Every reason you can come up with to justify why it is not okay has a reasonable answer to why it is okay. So I ask you this, why does this concern us in the first place? Why does it affect anyone beside themselves? This case reminds me of same-sex marriage. Those not saying the vows should not be eligible to pass judgement because it does not affect them at all.

        All morals have motives. We may not always be able to determine what the motive is or even agree with the motive but they are always there. This is one important detail in morality. Everyone must understand that people do not just perform acts for the heck of it. Almost always there is a moral fueling the action. Haidt discusses that even the terrorists involved in 9/11 had motives behind their moral decision to attack the United States. Haidt quotes "One of the most psychologically stupid things anyone ever said is that the 9/11 terrorists did this because they hate our freedom. That's just idiotic. Nobody says: "They're free over there. I hate that. I want to kill them." They did this because they hate us, they're angry at us for many reasons, and terrorism and violence are "moral" actions, by which I don't mean morally right, I mean morally motivated" (Haidt, 2001). I know it is difficult for Americans to open our minds to this thought. Yet, if the roles were reversed and we had terrorists attack their country, it would be easy for us to see the moral motive. 

       Haidt has also discovered that we quickly come up with conclusions and then later think of reasons to justify our conclusion. In Haidt's bizarre situations, like the scenario I discussed earlier about the brother and sister, the majority of people agree that it is wrong, they just can not come up with reasons why it is wrong. Many of our morals are derived from our societal beliefs or how we were raised. Going back to same-sex marriages, more commonly than not, those who are raised being told that it is wrong are going to be judgmental of same-sex marriages when they grow up. Another example would be the moral motive of those of oriental decent who commit suicide only because they have disgraced their family. We immediately conclude that this is over the top and odd. Yet, those who believe in this would consider strange that we do not follow suit.  

       The idea of right and wrong are different from person to person, yet in bizarre situations, majority of people agree with each other. Also, almost everybody judges others even if they are not even remotely involved. Humans are very quick to pass judgement. Subconsciously I can hear myself think, "wow, that's weird" or "Ew, what is she doing?" and who am I to judge? I can not even say I know what is going on in the situation I am observing. So, what gives me the right to judge the people involved in the situation? Who am I to say another person's actions are right or wrong? The answer is, I should not be able to make these judgments on others.