An Aesthetic Approach to Moral Development Towards an Alternative to Principle-Based Moral Theories

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An Aesthetic Approach to Moral
DevelopmentTowards an Alternative to
Principle-Based Moral Theories

• Jennifer Cole WrightUniversity of
  Wyomingnarvik_at_uwyo.edu
• AME 2004 Conference
• Dana Point, CA

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An Account of Moral Excellence

• Philosophically speaking, any adequate account of
  ethics must tell us in what moral excellence
  consists.
• Psychologically speaking, any adequate account of
  moral psychology/moral development must tell us
  how it is that we achieve moral excellence.
• Moral excellence is the ability to achieve
  mature moral judgments and actions.
  
• Mature moral judgments and actions are those
  judgments and actions that are morally
  appropriate to the situations they are judgments
  of and actions in response to.

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I. Principle-Based Moral Theories

• Principle-based moral theories (typically
  deontological and consequentialist) are those
  moral theories that locate the maturity of moral
  judgments and actions in their conformity to a
  certain specified moral principle(s).
• Such conformity can be achieved in one (or both)
  of two ways
• Moral guidance moral principles guide us to
  mature moral judgments and actions
• Normative authority moral principles justify
  moral judgments and actions as mature
• So, for principle-based moral theories, the
  development of moral maturity is a movement
  towards conformity (in the form of principled
  deliberation and/or justification) to moral
  principles.

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II. Problem with Moral Principles

• Moral Principles come in two basic forms
• Concrete principles context-free, simple,
  inflexible rules that contain specific,
  unambiguous action guidance (e.g. Always keep
  your promise or Never lie)
• Abstract principles abstract, orienting rules
  that do not contain specific, unambiguous action
  guidance (e.g. Always uphold justice or
  Maximize utility)
• Problem Both types of principles seem to fail to
  map onto the appropriateness of moral judgment
  and action in particular situations. That is,
  they seem to fail to either produce or identify
  (i.e. justify) mature moral judgments and
  actions. Why?

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• Concrete principles are too rigid.
• They do not give us the means necessary to adapt
  our judgments and actions to accommodate the
  details of particular situations (e.g. Never
  lie).
• Abstract principles are too ambiguous.
• They do not give us the means necessary to
  identify what judgments to have or actions to
  perform in particular situations (e.g. Maximize
  utility).
• Conclusion Moral maturity is not achieved
  through conformity to moral principles. So then,
  how is it achieved?

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III. Dreyfus Account of Expertise

• Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus model of expertise
  provides an alternative developmental account of
  moral maturity.
• Their model suggests that principles play only a
  circumscribed role in moral development. Contra
  Kohlberg (and principle-based moral theories),
  principles are not the deliberative end point of
  maturity.
• Moral development is a movement away from, rather
  than towards, moral judgments and actions
  guided/justified by principles.

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General account of expertise

• Five developmental stages that progress from
  novice to expert in various skill domains (e.g.
  chess, martial arts, driving, nursing, and so
  on).
• Principles are introduced early in development as
  basic rules that identify features recognizable
  without the benefit of experience
• (e.g. chess rule always exchange if the total
  value of pieces captured exceeds value of pieces
  lost).
• Reliance on such rules is gradually replaced with
  procedural knowledge (i.e. know-how) gained
  through experience. Such knowledge leads to
  intuitive responsiveness.
• Intuitive responsiveness is the hallmark of
  expertise generally. It enables rapid, automatic,
  effortless responses to particular environmental
  contingencies. Importantly, such responsiveness
  is also reliably appropriate this is what makes
  an expert an expert.

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• Intuitive responsiveness (or know-how)
• must be more than the internalization of the
  originally externally introduced rules.
• rather, it involves the ability to rapidly
  perceive, identify, understand, and respond to
  relevant patterns of environmental features
  encountered in a given domain.
• the development of intuitive responsiveness (or
  know-how) replaces rule-guided behavior.
• For experts, perceiving and responding
  appropriately are interconnected.
• That is, there are few deliberative pauses
  between what one perceives and what one does
  rather, it is as if they are two aspects of the
  same activity.
• Importantly, this interconnection of perception
  and action comes without degradation of
  performance novices can also act without
  deliberation, but this will likely lead to
  failure.

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• As one expert martial artist relates
• There is no choosing. It happens unconsciously,
  automatically, naturally. There can be no
  thought, because if there is thought, there is a
  time of thought and that means a flawIf you take
  the time to think I must use this or that
  technique you will be struck while you are
  thinking.

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• Some other examples might help. Consider
• the professional ski racer who knows precisely
  how to adjust her posture to bring herself
  quickly around a steep turn
• the concert pianist who moves his fingers move
  skillfully across the keys
• the master chess player who can play 5-10
  second/move games without significant degradation
  in her performance
• the Native American scout whose senses are
  attuned to his environment so that he can detect
  what manner of man or animal is (or was) present
• so, too, might the morally mature person come to
  simply see the moral relevance of particular
  situations and judge and act accordingly

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Two key elements

• If moral excellence is a skill one can become an
  expert in, then it must involve the development
  of two keys elements
• Moral know-how
• Moral sensitivity

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IV. Deweys Account of Moral Character (Know-how)

• Know-how in the moral domain develops through the
  cultivation of moral character.
• Dewey argues for the importance of habit for the
  development of moral character. Defining
  character as the interpenetration of habits.
  He writes
• we are given to thinking of a habit as simply a
  recurrent external mode of actionbut habit
  reaches even more significantly down into the
  very structure of the self it signifies a
  building up and solidifying of certain desires
  an increased sensitiveness and responsiveness to
  certain stimuli, a confirmed or an impaired
  capacity to attend to and think about certain
  things. (emphasis added)

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• The cultivation of habits has an essentially
  moral significance it is the process by which
  dispositions to reliably act in/respond to the
  world (i.e. character) are formed. Thus, habitual
  practice is the process by which the link between
  perception and action is forged.
• Habitual practice leads to the development of
  know-how the ability to quickly grasp the
  meaning of particular patterns of environmental
  features, to adapt spontaneously to often
  completely novel environmental contingencies, and
  to respond appropriately.

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IV. The Aesthetics of Moral Maturity (Sensitivity)

• Moral expertise relies on a developed sensitivity
  that is similar to an aesthetic sensitivity in
  the following ways
• Our understanding of the needs and appreciation
  for the well-being of others and ourselves is
  akin to an aesthetic appreciation a
  recognition of beauty and ugliness in conduct
  (Dewey) in which we feel ourselves attracted or
  repulsed to, sympathetic or condemning of, the
  life situations of others.
• Iris Murdoch the primary function of art (and
  morality) is unselfing
• a distancing from ones immediate
  needs/fears/desires
• direct engagement of task
• egoless perception
• Dewey aesthetics is not a subject matter, but
  rather a method. That is, it constitutes a
  particular way of living, a particular approach
  to our lived experience.

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VI. Developmental Implications

• Morality, like aesthetics, is not a subject
  matter to be taught, but rather it is a method (a
  way of thinking about, feeling, experiencing, and
  approaching the world) to be cultivated.
• While such cultivation may begin with moral
  principles, in the end such principles must be
  set aside.
• Dreyfus writes, Like the training wheels on a
  childs first bicyclerules allow the
  accumulation of experience, but soon they must be
  put aside to proceed.

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• Children must understand their daily social and
  personal activities as a constant engagement in
  moral practice that is, we need to conceive of
  morality as a skill that one is continuously
  practicing and perfecting.
• In this sense, moral engagement is a life
  practice that involves
• Quality of Consciousness Children must be given
  opportunities to cultivate mindfulness.
• There must be opportunity to develop
  social/emotional acuity, discernment, and
  conscientious awareness of oneself and ones
  manner in relationship to (and with) others.
• There must also be opportunities for the practice
  of un-selfing learning to see things as they
  are, not as we want them to be.

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• Direct Feedback There must be a direct feed-back
  loop that is initially externally imposed, but
  becomes internally driven.
• By this, I do not mean the internalization of
  rules, but rather the linking of judgment and
  action that occurs through the development of
  know-how (moral character).
• Modeling/Mentoring Children cannot do as we
  say, but not as we do.
• Moral development requires the presence of moral
  models and mentors and by this, I mean the
  presence of exemplars (and better yet,
  communities of exemplars).
• More than this, morality requires a cultural,
  social, and physical environment that is
  conducive to its development.
• Thus, we must ask ourselves the question Are our
  lifestyles currently conducive to the cultivation
  of moral maturity? Do our cultural/social/physical
  environments reflect back to us the kinds of
  people we want our children to be and the kinds
  of lives we want them to live?

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VII. Conclusion

• In the expertise model of moral development,
  moral principles take on a new role. The
  development of moral maturity is the development
  of a rich capacity for moral engagement that
  surpasses what any principle based system can
  articulate.
• At best, moral principles are descriptive of
  moral maturity they are no longer prescriptive.
• Moral principles are analogous to the tips one
  finds in books on chess when first taking up the
  game. Such tips are attempts to distill the
  knowledge possessed by chess masters into a set
  of basic rules. As helpful as these rules are to
  the beginner, it would be a mistake to think that
  the games played by masters are guided by them
  explicitly or otherwise.

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• As Philip Kapleau writes (in the context of Zen
  Buddhism)
• Remember, the principles are not moral
  commandmentsRather they reveal how a deeply
  enlightened, fully perfected personbehaves. Such
  an individual doesnt imitate the principles
  they imitate him. (emphasis added)