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Ethics Ideologies
In 1898 Sharp, an early psychologist interested in moral judgment, complained that the people who he asked to make judgments about what is, and what is not, moral, too frequently disagreed in many fundamental ways. Sharp noted that even people with similar characteristics who were making judgments about the same person often reached different conclusions about the other’s moral worth. Sharp entertained the notion that the lack of consensus indicates people are not skilled in making such decisions, but he preferred an individual differences explanation. A person faced with making a decision about another’ morality, bases this decision on his or her own individual system of ethics, and disagreements concerning morality must necessarily surface when personal ethical systems are different.Why do individuals differ in their moral appraisals of others? Although psychological models like those proposed by Bandura (1999), Colby and Damon (1995), Emler and Hogan (1991), Kohlberg (1983), Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, and Thoma (1999) offer fundamental insights into this question, Forsyth (1980, 1993) proposes that moral evaluations are the outward expression of the perceiver’s integrated conceptual system of personal ethics. This integrated system, or ethics position, provides guidelines for moral judgments, solutions to ethical dilemmas, and prescriptions for actions in morally toned situations. The basic assumptions of Ethics Position Theory are reviewed below, along with selected findings from experimental investigations that have tested the model’s capability to predict variations in moral thought, action, and emotion.
Four Individual Moral Philosophies Any given person’s individual approach to formulating moral judgments will likely contain an number of unique, idiosyncratic elements produced by a lifetime of experience in confronting and resolving moral issues. These unique, idiographic characteristics, however, are complemented by nomothetic regularities that appear consistently across most people’s ethics positions. First, most individuals take a position with regard to the usefulness of moral absolutes as guides to action and judgment. At one end of the continuum, highly relativistic individuals are skeptical about the possibility of formulating universal moral principles. These individuals avoid basing their judgments on moral rules or principles. In contrast, people who are low in relativism argue that right actions are those that are consistent with moral principles, norms, or laws. They argue that moral principles, such as "Thou shalt not lie" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," provide a clear yardstick for judging actions and individuals. Second, most ideologies explicitly consider the relative importance of minimizing harmful, injurious outcomes. Again to seek the extremes, idealistic IMPs stress the welfare of others, whereas more pragmatic individuals do not emphasize such ideals; the former assume that people should avoid harming others, while the and the latter assume harm will sometimes be necessary to produce good (Forsyth, 1980; Schlenker & Forsyth, 1977).
These two dimensions, relativism and idealism, parallel distinctions made by both moral philosophers and psychologists (Boyce & Jensen, 1978; Waterman, 1988). Philosophers have traditionally contrasted moral theories based on principles (deontological models) and models that stress the consequences of actions (teleological models). Piaget (1932) believed that younger children tend to stress the consequences of an action--to the point of overlooking good intentions--whereas older children are able to take into consideration ethical rules when making judgments. Hogan (1973) and Kurtines (1986), distinguish between an "ethics of personal conscience" which is inner_focused and an "ethics of responsibility" which concentrates on societal regulatory standards that define duties. Gilligan (1982, p. 65), in her analyses of sex differences in moral thought, notes that females' "hope that in morality lies a way of solving conflicts so that no one will be hurt" (concern for positive consequences), while males' moralities tend to stress the rational application of principles. Kohlberg (1963, 1983) concentrates on differences in principled thought, but he also notes that most moral dilemmas occur when "acts of obedience to legal social rules or to commands of authority conflict with the human needs of welfare of other individuals" (1963, p. 12). Indeed, Kohlberg and his colleagues, recognizing the importance of variations in relativism, revised the scoring system for the Moral Judgment Interview to not only classify individuals as to stage of development but also degree of relativism within a particular stage (Candee & Kohlberg, 1987).
But ethics position theory, rather than assuming individuals are either rule-oriented or consequence-oriented, argues individuals can range from high to low in their emphasis on principles and in their emphasis on consequences. The model thus identifies the four distinct ethics positions discussed below: situationism (relativistic and idealistic), subjectivism (relativistic but not idealistic), absolutism (not relativistic but idealistic), and exceptionism (neither relativistic nor idealistic).
Situationism. Situationists are idealistic, in that they feel that people should strive to produce positive consequences and avoid negative consequences, but they also believe that cross-situational, exceptionless rules concerning morality cannot be formulated. As described by Forsyth (1980), the situationist feels that "people should make certatin their actions never intentionally harm another even to a small degree," but that "no ethical principles are so important that they should be a part of any code of ethics" (p. 178). This approach to ethical decision making is labeled situationism because its adherents prescribe close inspection of the situation–particularly the consequences both intentionally and accidentally produced–in reaching a contextually appropriate moral evaluation. Situationism correponds to skeptical philosophies of ethics such as Fletcher’s (1966) situation ethics and James’ (1891/1973) value pluralism. Fletcher argued that an action, to be moral, must be appropriate given the particular context; not necessarily good or right, but the "fitting." James's value pluralism maintained that few actions can be judged a priori, for an action that generates the greatest good for the greatest number of people is far more praiseworthy than an action that matches accepted canons of morality but yields little in the way of positive consequences. James believed that
In point of fact there are no absolute evils, and there are no non-moral goods; and the highest ethical life–however few may be called to bear its burdens–consists at all times in the breaking of rules which have grown too narrow for the actual case (1891/1973, p. 157).
Subjectivism. Subjectivists, like situationists, reject moral rules (high relativism); they are not, however, particularly optimistic about the possibility of achieving positive outcomes for everyone concerned. Because such individuals describe their moral decisions as subjective, individualistic judgments that cannot be made on the basis of moral absolutes or the extent to which the action benefits others their viewpoint parallels an egoistic moral philosophy. This position maintains that no moral judgments can be considered valid except in reference to one's own behavior. The only moral conclusion possible is that all people should act to promote their own self-interest, rather than focus on producing positive outcomes for others in general. This teleological outlook admits that consequences must be considered when formulating moral judgments, but unlike the more idealistic situational ethics it does not insist that one strive to produce positive outcomes. Indeed, because each person must determine the weights and values of outcomes obtained, individuals will differ dramatically in their moral conclusions. Subjectivists agree with such statements as "questions of what is moral or immoral for everyone can never be resolved since what is moral or immoral is up to the individual," but they disagree with items like "if an action could harm an innocent other, then it should not be done" (Forsyth, 1980, p. 178). Absolutism. Absolutists believe that one should strive to produce positive consequences (high idealism) but at the same time maintain strict adherence to general moral principles (low relativism). These individuals condemn actions that harm people and they violate fundamental moral absolutes. Such an outlook corresponds closely to a system of ethics known as deontology. To deontologists, acts are to be judged through their comparison with some exceptionless, universal moral rule. Immanuel Kant, generally regarded as the foremost proponent of the deontological position, prescribed that one must make certain that all actions adhere to categorical imperatives: exceptionless universal moral principles that can be derived through reason rather than empirical evaluation. Kant, for example, proposed that "to be truthful in all declarations is ... a sacred unconditional command of reason and is not to be limited by any expediency" and that "all practical principles of justice must contain strict truths . . . since exceptions destroy the universality, on account of which alone they bear the name principles" (1873/1973, p. 258). In support of his position Kant maintained that a principle such as "Keep your promises only when it works to your advantage" negates the concept of a promise and therefore cannot qualify as a categorical imperative. The maxim "Always keep your promises," in contrast, does not generate any inconsistencies and therefore qualifies as a moral absolute.
Exceptionism. Exceptionists, as intuitive deontologists, prefer to rely on moral principles as guidelines for action. But they are not idealistic, for they do not believe that harm can always be avoided, that innocent people can always be protected, or that risking other's welfare is always wrong. In consequence, they are utilitarian in that they pragmatically admit that judgments should be made by balancing the positive consequences of an action against the negative consequences of an action. Their outlook thus corresponds most closely to a moral philosophy based on rule_utilitarianism: moral principles are useful because they provide a framework for making choices and acting in ways that will tend to produce the best consequences for all concerned. Following principles, however, will sometimes create more problems and increase conflict, and in such instances exceptions are allowable
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