From Intuitions to Principles
Wherein we take a gander at the moral dials that may reside in us all.
Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash
In a previous Miles to Go post I talked about intuitions defined as untested moral opinions. In my last post “Who’s to Say” I added this comment about how intuitions become policies:
In the absence of unmediated divine revelation, we are left with moral intuitions that when tested become agreed upon moral principles that coalesce into policies.
I thought I would say a bit more about how intuitions become principles in a way that students can understand. In Practical Bioethics (Hereafter PB) I discuss this in a section “From Intuitions to Principles” So how do moral opinions sift down into values or principles?
The first thing to notice is what principles do: They act as moral reasons for appeals in moral dilemmas, a kind of bootstrapped moral authority, if you will. A lot of people have an intuition, and its useful most of the time so we adopt it for moral discussion. There may be a bit more to it though. Some intuitions seem to be found across time and cultures.
PB cites the work of Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) and the work of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Here’s how the theory describes the evolution of intuitions into principles:
. . . Several innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of “intuitive ethics.” Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world
Someone might object that “universally available psychological systems” are a bit more than untested moral opinions. To which I say, you may be right. What’s of interest to me in Haidt’s account is five (or six) universal moral values which I cite in PB. I’ve bolded the key terms.
Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm.
Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating.
Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal.
Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion.
Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation.
A sixth foundation, Liberty, was theorized by another author as the opposite of Oppression.* (Practical bioethics, 66)
Haidt and his associates note that everyone values each of these to some extent however they act more as moral dials than absolutes. Certain cultures have the authority and sanctity dials very high while the fairness and care dials are dialed lower, for instance.
The MFT folks have even charted how one’s political party correlates with high settings on some of these and lower on others. (See Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
You can have your students take the moral foundations quiz and see where there “dials” are set. All they have to do is go to https://yourmorals.org/ and register so their responses are included in the MFT research study. I encourage my students to do it in the first week of class. It gives them fawareness of their own moral intuitions.
What I find so curious is how MFT’s six values map onto the principles clinical ethics culture has adopted, for good and ill, from the enormously influential Principles of Bioethics by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress.
Autonomy (we should respect the self-determination of the patient)
Non-maleficence (we should never cause unnecessary harm to the patient)
Beneficence (any intervention should be for the patient’s benefit)
Justice (we should treat everyone fairly)
My experience is that once students are introduced to MFT and the dials. They can see Haidt’s moral foundations in these principles. They can also see why there is disagreement among which of these is most important. Which value is more important autonomy or beneficence? It might depend on your view of fairness, sanctity, and authority.
I speculate that before the late 1970s, American healthcare culture’s moral dials were set differently with regard to autonomy and beneficence. That changed by the late 1990s because of some seminal cases about autonomy and patient rights. Beauchamp and Childress published Principles of Bioethics in 1979. (see chapter 8 of PB for more about the sea change in patient rights)
Practical Bioethics offers eight principles (adding one exception to autonomy and three additions to justice make eight.)
In an upcoming substack, I’ll dive into autonomy and what I consider important differences between non-maleficence and beneficence.
[As an aside: As the semester starts, I want to make myself available especially for those of you using Practical Bioethics this semester, so if you are using PB and have questions or want to discuss a case or passage, email me milesjo@quincy.edu and thanks for adopting the book!]