Behavioral ethics

Behavioral ethics refers to the study of why moral actors knowingly make decisions that conflict with their moral code. The vast majority of adults qualify as moral actors. To be a moral actor, a person must establish the ability to reason, the ability to freely make choices, and accountability for their choices. Children and animals do not always qualify as moral actors.

Behavioral ethics is distinct from traditional ethics, or normative ethics. Normative ethics is primarily concerned with determining the morally correct course of action in a given situation. Behavioral ethics is only concerned with whether the individual making the choice is aware of the morally correct action, and whether they select that action.

Many professional fields are concerned with behavioral ethics. Large businesses, in particular, are often looking for means of reducing the amount of unethical decisions made by their employees. Unethical decisions by employees can cost large businesses profit. Additionally, behavioral ethics is of particular concern in fields where employees are commonly placed in a position of authority that might be abused.

Background

Traditional ethics, also called normative ethics, has a history as long as humanity’s itself. Normative ethics deals specifically with questions concerning what is morally correct and what is morally incorrect. Numerous theories about what constitutes right and wrong have been proposed throughout history. Many cultures, researchers, and philosophers have disagreed about the specifics of what constitutes a moral act.

Different moral philosophies use different tactics to study normative ethics. For example, utilitarianism is concerned primarily with the action that promotes the most overall good. If an action provides a significant amount of good to society as a whole, while causing negative consequences to a small portion of society, that action might be morally correct. However, some critics argue that utilitarianism is a calloused philosophy, and is often impractical to apply to real-world decision making.

Care ethic is a normative ethical theory that heavily contradicts utilitarianism. According to care ethic, an individual’s primary responsibility is to people with whom they have an interpersonal relationship. Within those relationships, care ethic argues that individuals should focus on benevolent action.

Teleological theory was a school of ethics first proposed by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. According to teleological theory, everything in the universe has a specified end goal from the moment it is created. For example, the ultimate goal of an acorn might be to grow into a healthy tree and to produce numerous other acorns. According to teleological theory, making a moral decision involves accounting for both the ultimate goals of the factors in play, and for the ultimate goal of morality itself.

Deontological ethical theories focus on following rules. The Ten Commandments utilized by the Abrahamic faiths are an example of deontological ethics. Some deontological theorists argue that the moral positions expressed by these rules are intrinsically correct, and thus breaking those rules is intrinsically wrong. However, others believe that the rules must also be followed with the correct intentions to be correct. In contrast to that view, consequential ethical theories focus on the consequences of one’s actions, not the intention.

Overview

Though normative ethics has a long and storied history, behavioral ethics is substantially more recent. It was first explored in the 1960s through articles in magazines and academic journals. Behavioral ethics differs substantially from normative ethics. Unlike normative ethics, behavioral ethics is not at all concerned with establishing the morally correct course of action. Instead, behavioral ethics is concerned with studying why people deviate from their moral compass, even once they have firmly established the morally correct course of action.

To analyze why an individual broke from their personal moral code, behavioral ethicists must first decide whether the person is capable of truly making a moral decision. The vast majority of humans are moral agents, meaning that they have the genuine capacity to choose between right and wrong. A small subset of the population may not be moral agents, and most animals fail to qualify.

To qualify as a moral agent, individuals must exhibit rationality. They must be intelligent enough to grasp moral individuals. Most animals, and some humans, are not intelligent enough to truly comprehend the guiding norms they are expected to follow. Additionally, moral agents must be able to exhibit choice and accountability. For a decision to have moral meaning, the agent must be able to effectively choose their course of action. Children do not always have the impulse control or rationality to choose their own course of action, and thus may not be considered moral agents. Accountability refers to the ability of society or oneself to hold actors responsible for their choices.

In the 1980s, some behavioral ethicists developed models to simulate the ethical decision-making process. James Rest believed that the process could be broken down into four steps: ethical interpretation, ethical judgment, selection of actions, and the execution of actions. Other ethicists later refined those theories, adding additional steps to account for environmental factors, personal moral beliefs, and personal benefits.

Behavioral ethicists argue that understanding why people deviate from known moral standards is important for various fields. Behavioral ethics is commonly studied as a form of business ethics, for example. Understanding why employees might make unethical decisions, such as embezzling or flouting environmental regulations, is important for businesses. Armed with a greater understanding of why employees might make these decisions, businesses may be able to reduce the rate at which unethical decisions occur. Understanding why people knowingly make unethical decisions is important to numerous other industries, including policing, education, and psychology, as well as local and national politics.

Bibliography

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