After completing the "What Would You Do?" activities found in Unit 5, reflect on the following questions:
- What was your moral parsimony score?
- What do you think this indicates about you?
- On the last page where it reminds you of the questions, your answers, and how your responses compare to others, take note of three dilemmas to share and discuss.
- Indicate the answers you gave and your arguments for why you took the stand that you did.
- What do these decisions say about your moral intuitions?
My moral parsimony score was 62%, meaning that the moral framework I tend to operate under is not comprised of the minimal number of moral principles, and that these moral principles are not always applied equally across all situations. Such a score is also very close to the average. This, I think, is consistent with my views that morality should not be limited to simplistic frameworks that can’t adapt to more complex, nuanced circumstances.
Of the dilemmas the quiz questioned me on, the nuclear-torture question stood out to me because of its relevance to modern controversies. While I generally hold that one should not cause harm to other human beings, when it came to this situation, I was presented with the choice of either torturing the fat man for information to disarm a nuclear weapon or allowing the detonation of said weapon to kill an untold number. As an individual, I do not rule out torture or the death penalty absolutely, so I responded to this question, considering the stakes to be so great, in the affirmative with regards to moral obligation to torture the fat man in a bid to save the lives of countless innocent civilians. Because torture remains an acceptable option, when faced with a situation where so many could suffer if I refuse to cause harm to a single individual, I find the exchange a morally acceptable one.
Another of the situations that I found really important to think about was the question of saving my own child or saving 10 other children. Here is where the moral principles that guided the previous decision did not entirely hold, indicating a lower degree of moral parsimony. Rather than saving the 10 children, I chose to save my own child out of the pure emotional instinct I know I would act under in that situation. Mathematically, it doesn’t make sense the way the previous behavior did, but I believe that we perhaps apply greater weighting in these types of moral calculations to our loved ones and family. Not everyone may agree with that reasoning, but it is clear that a majority of those who took the quiz made a similar decision.
This leads me to the third circumstance, wherein I find myself in the dilemma of having to choose between turning my brother in to the police or letting him go free, even though I know that he committed a crime that caused severe injury to at least one person. As much as I hate to say it, my gut reaction was that I wasn’t ‘strongly’ morally obligated to turn him in, only ‘weakly’ obligated. I recognize that the morally correct thing to do would be to have him atone for his crimes, willingly or no, but as a family member, I have to admit that some other part of me applies a different weighting in these moral dilemmas. Even so, in the end, I’d like to think that I would turn him in, much as the brother of the Unabomber eventually decided to do when faced with a similar (yet even more extreme) dilemma.
I think that these decisions reflect that my moral intuitions and principles are pretty well in line with the average of the populace. I’m one to freely admit that I know I may not always behave in a manner according to the highest of morals, and I recognize that my moral principles are not always applied equally, especially when it comes to weighting family, loved ones, and friends in moral dilemmas as compared to strangers. I wouldn’t say I’m utterly terrible when it comes to morality, but I’m not any sort of saint, either. My moral parsimony score is right in line with the average, and if all of the world were to be honest, I’m sure many would make decisions very much in line with mine.