The New Moral Framework

If we accept the rationale posed in our previous article, we can agree that the concepts of good and evil are mere linguistic descriptions of actions that promote social cohesiveness and the ones that do not. We can thus infer that early humans probably started to expand on those concepts to include and categorize specific situations into a primitive moral framework. These early humans would have created categories for which actions should be considered good and which should be considered evil. Which in turn gave rise to the creation of moral frameworks that we use today.

Should we keep using our primitive moral frameworks?

• Individual Moral Frameworks: These are when the individual uses its intuition, feelings, and personal beliefs in order to make a moral decision. Personal moral frameworks depend on nature and nurture conditions and could vary among individuals.

• Religious Moral Frameworks: These are inherited from whichever religion the individual chooses to be a part of. Religious moral frameworks are normally documented in the form of commandments or rules and are transferred to other individuals through scriptures or teachings.

• Social Moral Frameworks: These are inherited from whichever society the individual is raised in or decides to live in. Social moral frameworks are normally documented in the form of laws and transferred to other individuals through social rules.

If the above are the moral frameworks we have today, why not keep using them? Well, one answer could be that in modern society moral frameworks are subjective. At this point in time our species does not have a single moral framework that we can all agree upon. In other words, morality is relative across individuals, religions, and societies. This morality relativism brings several complications, especially if we start thinking about the survival of the human species as the single most important goal of our existence.

For the below article we will use some borrowed theories and do so thought experiments to try to consolidate all of them into a single moral framework:

Human survival as the single most important goal of our existence

Some people will argue that the meaning of our existence goes beyond human survival. They will bring religious or metaphysical arguments trying to decouple the meaning of our existence to the survival of our species. And by survival of our species, we mean the informational survival of our species. However, this topic can be expanded into a future article that can cover the informational impact of humanity in the universe.

If we take the above argument as true, we can then continue for the justification of refusing our primitive moral frameworks to come up with a unified version.

The first principle: Human survival as the most important goal

We can start drafting this moral framework from the concept of human survival as the most important goal. Hence, to make any moral decision, you should ask yourself if that action which you are questioning diminishes or promotes human survival. By this reasoning, you have to measure the consequences of any action that you are taking and not the action itself.

To test this principle, we will make use of the famous trolley problem:

“There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options: (1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track. (2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the most ethical choice?”

If we apply the first principle, we can ask ourselves:

Does doing nothing diminish human survival? If you do nothing you would be preventing the death of one person and letting the trolley kill five people. In terms of human survival, it would be more harmful for human survival to lose five members than losing one. Does doing nothing promote human survival? One can argue that five people have “better chances” at procreating and therefore preserving human survival than just one person.

Does pulling the lever diminish human survival? The outcome of the second option is letting the trolley kill one person and preventing the death of five people. In terms of human survival, it would be less harmful for human survival to lose one member than losing five. Does pulling the lever promote human survival? One can argue that one person has less chances at procreating and therefore preserving human survival than five people.

Thus, if we use the first principle, one can come up with an answer to the trolley problem. The moral thing to do is to pull the lever in order to get the outcome that better promotes human survival.

The second principle: The veil of ignorance

The veil of ignorance is a thought experiment originally proposed by John Rawls. The veil of ignorance was initially used in the context of political decisions.

Imagine that you have set for yourself the task of developing a totally new social contract for today’s society. How could you do so fairly? Although you could never actually eliminate all of your personal biases and prejudices, you would need to take steps at least to minimize them. Rawls suggests that you imagine yourself in an original position behind a veil of ignorance. Behind this veil, you know nothing of yourself and your natural abilities, or your position in society. You know nothing of your sex, race, nationality, or individual tastes. Behind such a veil of ignorance all individuals are simply specified as rational, free, and morally equal beings. You do know that in the “real world”, however, there will be a wide variety in the natural distribution of natural assets and abilities, and that there will be differences of sex, race, and culture that will distinguish groups of people from each other. (Maxcy, Spencer J. 2002. Ethical School of Leadership. p. 93)

Another way to think about it is to think about any decision made as if you could be the one affected by such decision. In other words, if you decide that “X” is OK for a theoretical system; then, you have to be OK living in a system where you don’t know if you would be the victim of “X”. Furthermore, for any action taken, you should reflect to determine if you would like to live in a world where those actions are commonplace or probably high to happen.

If we apply the trolley problem we can expand on the concept:

If you are the person behind the lever, would you like a society where it is OK to get rid of one individual in order to preserve five individuals? What if you were the person on the side of the track, would you like the observing person to pull the lever in order to prevent five other people that you don’t know from being killed? If you were part of the five people crew, would you like to be victim of a person who would do nothing for moral reasons and let five people die including you? The veil of ignorance depends a lot on the probability of you being the target of a decision “X”. For the trolley problem this principle relies on the probability of you being the target of each of the below:

• 14.286% of being the person making the decision (pulling or not pulling the lever)
• 14.286% of being the person in the track that only has one individual.
• 71.43% of being one of the persons in the track that has five individuals.

Any person making a moral decision would have higher probability of being in the track of five people. Therefore, through the veil of ignorance it would make more sense to define that pulling the lever makes more moral sense than not pulling the lever.

The third principle: Utilitarianism

When facing moral dilemmas that involve choosing between an action that you should take which could potentially negatively affect you, versus the well-being of other human beings; you should use the principle of the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. For example, let suppose that you had some rare contagious disease that could not be cured or contained even with quarantine and that you are the only person that knows about it. The moral question here would be, should you sacrifice yourself so that the rest of humanity can prevail? Or should you linger the earth with your disease without telling anyone or very few people, putting everyone else at risk? In that case, if we use the third principle, the answer would be that you should sacrifice yourself to allow the rest of humanity to prevail because it would bring the greatest good for the greatest amount of people.

This new moral framework should be used by going through any decision you would like to analyze from bottom to top. So first by looking at it from the human survival principle, then veil of ignorance principle, and finally through the utilitarian principle. This not only serves the purpose of detangling morality from personal, religious, or social beliefs, but allows us to have a consistent way of determining when actions should be promoted or punished.

We can then take this moral framework and use it for artificial intelligence systems which could be a topic for future articles. Another topic that arises as a consequence to the development of a new moral framework is the concept of moral responsibility in our social and justice settings. When do we punish someone for doing something? Should anyone making an action that contradicts the three moral principles be punished in relation to the damaged caused by the consequences of that persons’ actions? It is up to each society to measure and determine the severity of the punishment or should it be agreed upon all societies? Is it right for some societies to impose their moral framework into others?

What other principles could be added to this moral framework? Please feel free to comment and contribute.