MODULE 4: REASON AND IMPARTIALITY

Moral judgments must be backed up by good reason and impartiality. Morality requires the impartial
consideration of each individual’s interest. Moral judgment or resolving a dilemma of moral judgments must
be backed up by good reason. Reason and impartiality refer to a mental activity following the basic principle
of consistency, the lack of contradiction between one idea and another. It is a process of deriving necessary
conclusion from premises.

REASON

It is the ability of the mid to think, understand, and form judgments y a process of logic. It is an innate
and exclusive human ability that utilizes new or existing information as bases to consciously make sense out
of thing while applying logic.

In the point of view of Kant and Hume, reason and experience are required for determining the
likely effects of a given motive or character trait, so does reason play an important role in moral judgements.
While for De Guzman et. al., reason spells the difference of moral judgements from the mere expression of
personal preference.

For example, if after eating, someone says: “I like a sweet cake”

In case of Expression of Personal Preference: He is not required to support it with good reasons for
that is a statement about his/her personal taste and nothing more.

In case of Moral Judgement: They require backing by reasons. In the absence of sensible rationale,
they are merely capricious and ignorable.

Predicting Consequences or Moral Deliberation

Moral reasoning involves predicting the consequences of an action before we act. There are always
consequences when we take the action we think is right, and when we try to be good persons, and usually
these include unintended as well as intended outcomes. In doing ethics, we look are rules and at stories to
construct presumptions and then test this presumption by predicting what we know about the likely
consequences of acting on it.

Truth in Ethics entails being justified by good reasons. The rightful decision involves selecting the
option that has the power of reason on its side. Being defined by good reasons, moral truths are objective in
the sense that they are true no matter what we might want or think. We cannot make an act moral or
immoral just by wishing it to be so, because we cannot merely will that the weight of reason be on its side
or against it.
IMPARTIALITY

It is manifesting objectivity. It is the quality of being unbiased and objective in creating moral
decision – underscoring that a (morally) impartial person makes moral decisions relative to the welfare of
the majority and not for specific people alone. It is a principle of holding that decisions should be based on
objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudices or preferring the benefit to one person over
another for improper reasons. Impartiality makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious
beliefs class or political opinions. It endeavors to relieve the suffering of individuals being guided solely by
their needs and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress.

WHY ARE REASON AND IMPARTIALITY THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR MORALITY?

If someone tells us that a certain action is immoral, we may ask why it is so, and if there is reasonable
answer, we may discard the proposition as absurd. Also, if somebody utters that a particular act is wrong and
explains that it is because it does not happen to fits his taste, then we also do not count his claim as legitimate
ethical judgment. Clearly, thus reason is a necessary requirement for morality. (De Guzman et al. 2017)

As stated in the article “Reason and Impartiality as Minimum Requirement for Morality,” Reason
and impartiality become the basic prerequisite for morality as one is expected to be able to deliver clear,
concise, rightful, and appropriate judgments made out of logic and understanding in an unbiased and
unprejudiced manner while considering the general welfare to accurately concoct moral decisions

There are at least three distinct elements that run through these problems, namely:

1. We grant the powerful and persistent force of self – interest in our lives and assume that morality
must be somehow give us reasons for constraining such motives;
2. We grant that rules and principles of conduct will be useless or counterproductive in purely local
or short – range terms, and assume that morality must give us reasons for acting in principle in
spite of it;
3. We grant that our favorites and friends have special claims on our attention, and assume that
morality must give us reasons for occasionally denying such claims.

In order to provide such reasons, moral theories standardly argue that our selfish, local, and purely
personal interests are morally indistinguishable from many others and that reason requires us to treat similar
cases similarly.

The Act: Moral Courage

Moral Courage means “doing the right thing even at the risk of inconvenience, ridicule, punishment,
loss of job or security or social status, etc. It is overcoming the fear of emotional harm or rejection from
others.
 In the Euthyphro, Socrates expresses astonishment that a young man would prosecute his own father
for murder. For Euthyphro, murder is a murder. The fact that it was committed by his father has no bearing
upon what he is required to do about it. He must prosecute his father just as he would prosecute a stranger.

FEELINGS AND REASONS

Biologists verify that emotion is never truly separated from decision making, even when it is
channeled aside by an effort of will. Physicists now confirm that seeing the world with complete objectivity
is not possible, as our observations affect what we perceive.

Sensitivity requires rationality to complete it and vice versa. We rely on our reason to guard against
feelings that may reflect a bias, or a sense of inadequacy, or desire simply to win an argument, and also to
refine and explain a felt conviction that passes the test of critical reflection and discussion. We rely on feelings
to move us to act morally, and to ensure that our reasoning is not only logical but also humane.

Both our feelings and reason reflect our participation in a moral community or communities that
start from our immediate families, friends to our regions and eventually to the bigger community as a whole
– the world.

Ethics vs Feelings

Many times, there’s a conflict between what we naturally feel and what is considered to be ethical. Let us take
a few common examples and see how to tackle those feelings; Groupism, Patriotism, Dunbar’s number,
Negative feelings to content on Social Networks.

Groupism

a. Natural feeling: I am a part of the group. I am supposed to help this group become better. I am also
supposed to compete with other groups
b. Reasoning. Being a part of a herd made it easier for us ancestors to survive in the wild. There were so
many survival benefits that belonging to a group brought. Naturally our ancestors started developing
good feelings about belonging to a group.
c. Ethical viewpoint. Help the group. Help other groups too. There is no compelling reason to compete
in today’s times of peace.

Patriotism

a. Natural feelings: I was born in a place. I am supposed to help people in the geographical vicinity
around me. There is human – decided borders that define my country. Those outside the border don’t
deserve that much attention as those inside the border do.
b. Reasoning: patriotism is groupism in a higher scale. Most borders were drawn for political benefits
by a small group of individuals running that country. There have been countless stories of propaganda
 by governments to motivate people to join their wars to fight people over borders. We humans tend
to justify these efforts as noble.
c. Ethical viewpoint. Wars are always bad. There is no reason to be proud of your country just because
you were born in it. It is okay to be in your country and help your country because you are used to it.
But it is also okay to move to other countries and help those countries.

Dunbar’s Number

a. Natural feeling: I cannot maintain more than 150 stable relationships.

b. Reasoning: our brains have limited capacity and it becomes mentally hard to maintain more
relationships.
c. Ethical viewpoint: acceding to Dunbar’s Number promotes groupism. Just as we push ourselves to
become better humans, we should also try to push the Dunbar’s number limit further. Accepting that
all life forms in this world are part of the same group counters the negative effect of groupism.

Negative feelings to contend on social networks

a. Natural feeling; I hate what’s being posted on Facebook. They are just stupid selfies, people gloating
their achievements or just distracting, unproductive content.
b. Reasoning: many of us have been taught to compete with others since our childhood. We tend to
compare ourselves with others.
c. Ethical viewpoint: we don’t have to compete with our friends we can applaud their life achievements
without comparing our lives with theirs.

SCOTT RAE’S 7 STEPS OF MORAL REASONING

1. First, gather the Facts, information. The simplest way of clarifying an ethical dilemma is to make
sure the facts are clear.
2. Second, determine the ethical issues, similar to “Statement of the problem”. The competing
interests are what create the dilemma. Moral values and virtues must support the competing
interests in order for an ethical dilemma to exist.
3. Third, determine what virtues/principle have a bearing on the case. In an ethical dilemma
certain values and principle are central to the competing positions. Determine if some should be
given more weight than other. Ask what the source for the principle is - constitution, culture,
natural law, religious tradition... these supplement biblical principles.
4. Fourth, list the alternatives or develop a list of options. Creatively determine possible courses
of action for your dilemma. Some will almost immediately be discarded but generally the more
you list the greater potential for coming up with a really good one. It will also help you come up
with a broader selection of ideas.
5. Fifth, compare the alternatives with the virtues/principles. This step eliminates alternatives as
they are weighed by the moral principles which have a bearing on the case. Potentially the issue
will be resolved here as all alternatives except one are eliminated.
6. Sixth, consider the consequences or test the options. If you disclose the information directly
possible consequences include; - family, feel alienated, cultural values have been violated.

Harm/Beneficence Test - Does this option do less harm than the alternatives?

Publicity Test - Would I want my choice to this option published in the newspaper?

Defensibility Test - Could I defend my choice of this option before a congressional committee
or committee of peers?

Reversibility Test - If I was affected, would I choose this option?

Virtue Test - What would I become if I chose this option often?

Professional Test - What would my profession’s ethics committee say?

Business Test - What would my coworkers say?

Organization Test - What would the org’s officer or legal counsel say?

7. Seventh, make a decision.