Morality and Self Interest: What Makes the Difference in Moral Behavior?
An old adage suggests that peoples' true characters are revealed when they are forced to make a moral decision when no one is watching them, and when the results of their actions will never be discovered. For example, if someone finds a wallet in a trash can with thousands of dollars in cash in it and the wallet still has the person's identification in it, should that person try to return the wallet or is it morally acceptable to keep the money? In these morally nebulous circumstances, people may do things that surprise themselves, either for the good or bad, but what they do under these circumstances is always dictated by their powerful inner morality compass that is comprised of two very specific components that are required for it to work properly. To better understand what processes take place during these moral encounters, this paper will provide an analysis of the literature to determine what motivation can be provided to persons to be moral when self-interest seems to incline them in the contrary direction, followed by a discussion of whether morality always provides a "pay off" in the end or whether it requires genuine personal sacrifice. A summary of the research and salient findings will be presented i
When someone behaves in a moral fashion, it might and usually does require some degree of personal sacrifice, such as when the already hard-working father takes a second job to ensure that his children have the same kind of blue jeans as their peers or the welfare mother with three hungry kids who receives a large check in error and returns it. These two individuals acted morally because they had the knowledge and the will to respond appropriately to their unique circumstances without any assurance of a personal "pay-off" beyond knowing they did the right thing. Convincing other people to act in a moral fashion, though, appears to be complicated by a number of factors. Another old adage suggests that someone should "Walk a mile in someone else's shoes before making judgments," but even a million miles would probably not be enough to make the same level of moral decision that another person would or should make because there are so many individual variables at play in the decision-making process. In this regard, Poole (1991) adds yet another component to the morality mix: "What [modern] society requires, therefore, is individuals who are able to do their duty because it is their duty; i.e., to recognize the property of others and to enter into contracts with the intention of keeping them. Such individuals must be free from complete determination by their self-interest and thus free to act as morality requires" (p. 18). Just as one person's trash is another's treasures, what appears to be moral to some people may not so appear to others because of any number of factors, including gender, age or culture (Cook, 1999). For example, this sense of relativism in morality is described by this author as, "Moral relativism, sometimes called 'cultural relativism,' is a philosophical doctrine about the nature of morality. Studies of various cultures have shown that morality is relative to each culture, which implies, among other things, that we cannot rightly pass moral judgment on members of other cultures except by their own cultural standards, which may differ from ours" (p. 3).
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Approximate Word count = 1414
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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