Transcript A Psychological Approach to Ethics

A Psychological
Approach to Ethics
Geoffrey G. Bell, PhD, CA
University of Minnesota Duluth
October, 2003
Sources for the lecture
The text.
 Web site TBA.
 Frank, R.H. (1988). Passions within
Reason: The strategic role of the
emotions, W.W. Norton & Company, New
York.
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Moral awareness & moral judgment
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You need to become aware of the ethical
elements of a decision before you can make
ethical decisions.
People consider the ethical nature of decisions
if:
 their
peers consider the decisions to have an ethical
component.
 moral language rather than neutral language is used
to describe the decision (“forge” instead of “sign”).
Cognitive moral development
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Kohlberg proposed that people move sequentially
through three broad levels of moral development, each
of which is sub-classified into 2 stages.
This is a normative perspective, arguing that people
“ought” to operate at as high a level as possible.
Read through & understand the model!
Note that most people operate at level 3 or 4, and that
level 6 is rarely experienced.
Prep for next slide!
What do you see?
Script processing
Cognitive barriers to good ethical
judgment
Script processing
 Behaviors become “scripted” (routinized), so they’re executed without
thinking.
 “A way of seeing is a way of not seeing.” (Gareth Morgan, Images of
Organization)
 This is part of what happened at Waco (the FBI scripted the siege as a
hostage-taking, and acted accordingly).
Simplifying consequences
 Reduce the number of considered outcomes, eliminating potentially
disastrous ones accidentally.
 May over-discount unlikely outcomes (anchoring problems).
Escalation of commitment
 We refuse to think of sunk costs as truly sunk, but want to recover our
investment. “Just another $10 M will make this work!”
 We don’t want to be seen as quitters or losers.
Passions within Reason:
the strategic role of the emotions
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The basic premise of Frank’s book is that there
are circumstances within which it is rational to
act emotionally.
People act in a manner that appears irrational,
and they know it.
 The
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GM example on page 128 is one.
Argument: “specific emotions act as commitment
devices that help resolve (economic and social
interaction) dilemmas.” (Frank, pages 4-5)
Frank’s logic (page 5)
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“Consider a person who threatens to retaliate against anyone who
harms him. For his threat to deter, others must believe that he will
carry it out. But if others know that the costs of retaliation are
prohibitive, they will realize the threat is empty. Unless, of course,
they believe they are dealing with someone who simply likes to
retaliate. Such a person may strike back even when it is not in his
material interests to do so. But if he is known in advantage to have
that preference, he is not likely to be tested by aggression in the first
place…
“Being known to experience certain emotions enables us to make
commitments that would otherwise not be credible. The clear irony
here is that this ability, which springs from a failure to pursue selfinterest, confers genuine advantage.”
A reinterpretation of the GM
example
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Trevino & Nelson adopt the perspective that the
emotions of GM’s executives ran amok, resulting in an
irrational decision made under the guise of “ethics.”
An alternative explanation is that the lawsuit etc form a
commitment by GM to not being exploited. With Fortune
claiming the action was a waste of effort, GM has shown
it’s willing to be “irrational” when it’s wronged. The
consequence: in future, it’s less likely to be wronged.
Conclusions
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The first step to ethical decisions is recognizing
the ethical dimensions of those decisions.
Individuals differ in their level of moral
development (Kohlberg), and we should strive to
attain higher levels of moral reasoning.
It’s easy to argue ethical reasons for emotional
decisions, but note that emotional decisions may
also be rational!