Moral Judgment
A Moral Judgment is a value judgement that ascribes a moral value to morally-judgeable events (intentions, decisions, acts) involving morally-judgeable agents.
- AKA: Ethical Assessment.
- Context:
- It can (typically) be represented by a Moral Statement/Ethical Statement.
- It can be the output of a Moral Assessment Task.
- It can be supported by a Moral Argument (created by moral reasoning).
- It can range from being a Reasoned Moral Judgement (supported by moral reasoning) to being a Subjective Moral Judgement.
- It can range from being a Positive Moral Judgement to being a Negative Moral Judgement.
- It can range from being an Actual Moral Judgement to being an Ideal Moral Judgement.
- It can be associated to a Moral System (and studied by normative ethics).
- It can be studied by an Ethics Discipline.
- It can depends on the Anticipated Consequences and Predictable Consequences of the action.
- ...
- Example(s):
Giving money to UNICEF is a good act.If you are a rich person then giving 10% of your annual income to UNICEF is a good act(Singer, 2015).Lowering a worker's wages is a bad act.Hiring a new worker for a new lower wage is not a bad act.- a Moral Dilemma Value Judgment (for a moral dilemma).
- …
- Counter-Example(s):
- a Legal Judgment, produced by a legal decisioning task.
- an Aesthetic Judgment.
- a Moral Standard.
- a Moral Rule of Conduct.
- an Economic Judgement, produced by an economic decisioning task.
- a Statistical Judgement.
- See: Social Convention, Moral Code, Moral Value, Moral Statement.
References
2011
- http://noam-chomsky.tumblr.com/post/17547861328/my-own-concern-is-primarily-the-terror-and
- QUOTE: My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one’s actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century. ...
2005
- (Mendez et al., 2005) ⇒ Mario F Mendez, Eric Anderson, and Jill S Shapira. (2005). “An Investigation of Moral Judgement in Frontotemporal Dementia.” In: Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Journal, 18(4).
- QUOTE: Objective: To investigate the basis of disturbed moral judgment in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). … All these groups showed the retention of knowledge for moral behavior and the ability to make impersonal moral judgments. In contrast, the FTD patients were impaired in their ability to make immediate, emotionally based moral judgments compared with the patients with AD and the normal control subjects.
2004
- Stuart A. Burns. (2004). “Moral Judgments."
- QUOTE: What are moral judgments? Moral judgments are evaluations or opinions formed as to whether some action or inaction, intention, motive, character trait, or a person as a whole is (more or less) Good or Bad as measured against some standard of Good. The moral judgments of actions (or inaction) are usually the primary focus of any discussion of Moral Judgments in particular, and Ethical analysis in general. This is because the judgments of intentions, character traits, and persons are generally based on the judgment of actions that the intention, motive, character trait, or person might potentially do or not do. So limiting the discussion to the moral judgments of actions (or inactions) will also, with suitable obvious modifications, address the moral judgment of intentions, motives, character traits and people.
… moral judgments are judgments about what one "ought" to do (or not do), or have done (or not done). … We can group moral judgments into two broad classes. There are "before-the-fact" moral judgments, and there are "after-the-fact" moral judgments. Before-the-fact judgments are those made before the action (or inaction) takes place. They are made based on the best information available at the time as to what the moral landscape holds and what its future shape will be. These are judgments about what you "ought to do (or not do)", and whether what you are planning to do (or not do) is Good or Bad. After-the-fact moral judgments are made after the action (or inaction) has taken place, and are based on 20/20 hindsight view of the actual consequences. These are judgments about what you "ought to have done (or not done)", and whether your actual actions were Good or Bad. … A second major distinction of moral judgments is that they can only be made of an agent with the freedom or will to choose. Moral judgments are judgments of certain choices, or potential choices, where the one who chooses is aware that there is a choice, and has the capability to choose. A person who cannot do other than what was done, is not subject to moral judgment. … The third important distinction is knowledge. In order to be able to make a choice, you have to be aware that there are alternatives. … Consider a moral judgment "P is Good", where "P" is some proposition statement. Can such a judgment be True or False? ...
- QUOTE: What are moral judgments? Moral judgments are evaluations or opinions formed as to whether some action or inaction, intention, motive, character trait, or a person as a whole is (more or less) Good or Bad as measured against some standard of Good. The moral judgments of actions (or inaction) are usually the primary focus of any discussion of Moral Judgments in particular, and Ethical analysis in general. This is because the judgments of intentions, character traits, and persons are generally based on the judgment of actions that the intention, motive, character trait, or person might potentially do or not do. So limiting the discussion to the moral judgments of actions (or inactions) will also, with suitable obvious modifications, address the moral judgment of intentions, motives, character traits and people.
1974
- (Taylor, 1974) ⇒ Paul W. Taylor. (1974). “Principles of Ethics: An Introduction." Dickenson Publishing Company. ISBN:0822101424
- QUOTE: Ethics may be defined as philosophical inquiry into the nature and grounds of morality. The term "morality" is here used as a general name for moral judgments, standards, and rules of conduct. These include not only the actual judgments, standards, and rules to be found in the moral codes of existing societies, but also what may be called ideal judgments, standards, and rules: those which can be justified on rational grounds. Indeed, one of the chief goals of ethics is to see if rational grounds can be given in support of any moral judgments, standards, and rules, and if so, to specify what those grounds are.