Ethics: Morality, Legality, and Moral Development

The Moral

This free and open character of action makes human beings responsible for their individual actions. One reflects upon a given situation, makes a decision, and acts in accordance with it. One is the author of that action and therefore has to answer for it, and must be willing to receive recognition or admonition from oneself and others. This free character of human action is also the basis of moral character that has exclusivity and freedom.

Morality is the code of rules governing individual and collective action that is considered correct in a given society at a given time. Aranguren and Zubiri have made a distinction between moral content and moral structure. Moral content deals with the rules and principles governing correct behavior, and moral structure is a constitutive feature of human nature.

Actions, Habits, and Character

Habits are tendencies to act in a certain way in similar situations. The habits that define a person are their character traits, i.e., those that distinguish them from others and that can be seen in their actions. Although born with specific predispositions, our character is formed by the repetition of similar actions. Once formed, character exerts a strong influence on our concrete actions. One can say that character is the foundation of our moral nature because, once formed, it determines our actions and their correctness or incorrectness.

Moral Maturation Process: Lawrence Kohlberg

Kohlberg developed a cognitive theory of moral development and also investigated people’s capabilities to reason and act morally in certain situations. He discovered the existence of six stages, grouped into different levels of morality (three levels), which cannot be identified with the phases of human growth. Moving from one phase to another is like a learning process in which new knowledge is obtained. Children are in the first level, and 25% of adults reach the third level.

Level I: Premoral or Preconventional: The child is receptive to cultural norms.

  • Stage 1: Obey the rules for fear of punishment.
  • Stage 2: Hedonism; rules are accepted if they favor one’s own interests.

Level II: Conventional Morality: Respect for social expectations.

  • Stage 3: Seeking to be well-regarded by the majority. People close to us are considered role models.
  • Stage 4: Orientation towards the law. We must abide by social norms to provide general welfare.

Level III: Autonomous Moral: Acting by universal values.

  • Stage 5: Orientation toward social consensus.
  • Stage 6: Assimilation of universal ethical principles.

Formalism

Formal systems believe that morality should not provide specific rules of conduct but simply establish the standard feature of all moral acts. Kant was the first philosopher to claim the need for formal ethics. According to Kant, only this kind of ethics would be universal and guarantee moral autonomy for a free and rational being like a human. The moral norm cannot be imposed from the outside but must be self-imposed by human reason. If reason legislates about itself, the law is universal and will be valid for all rational beings, i.e., for every human. This law is expressible by categorical imperatives (act in such a way that you want the maxim of your actions to become a universal law), which differ from hypothetical imperatives that express a rule valid only as a means to an end.

Kant’s imperative formula: Act in such a way that your action may become a universal imperative. This rule does not require a purpose; it does not tell us what to do but serves as a criterion to know which rules are moral and which are not. Kant was a German philosopher considered one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe and the Enlightenment. Along with Plato and Aristotle, he is considered one of the main contributors to human knowledge.

Morality and Legality

There is a close proximity between morality and law, although they are distinct regulatory codes governing action within a community. There is a fundamental difference between morality and legality. While laws only require external compliance, moral standards require inner adherence and personal conviction. Morality is autonomous (my own conscience imposes the rules I must abide by), while the law is heteronomous (the laws I have to obey are imposed from the outside).

Although morality and law are distinct, there is a relationship between them. The laws of a community should reflect the morals of that community. Morality analyzes, criticizes, and seeks the right way to govern relations between members of society. However, this relationship may cause conflicts that philosophy and ethics should analyze.

Intellectualism Moral

According to this theory, knowing good is doing good: one only acts immorally when unfamiliar with what is good. This cognitivist theory not only says that it is possible to know good but also that this knowledge is the only prerequisite for fulfilling morality. Socrates conceived ethics as knowledge. For this philosopher, there are no bad people, only ignorant ones, and no good people, only wise ones. This heteronomous and cognitive ethical theory was developed by one of the most eminent Greek philosophers, considered a precursor of Plato and Aristotle, the three key representatives of Greek philosophy.

Eudaemonism

Eudaemonists consider happiness the goal of human life and the greatest good we can aspire to. Aristotle defended eudaemonism. All beings naturally tend towards an end, and this could not be less so in the case of human beings. The essential human capacity is rationality. Maximum human happiness resides in what is essential in human nature: the contemplative life. This teleological and cognitive theory is one of the greatest contributions of one of the most important Greek philosophers of antiquity, a prodigious and encyclopedic author who has greatly contributed to Western philosophy and human knowledge.