Generally I consider myself pretty open-minded. That being said, open-mindedness is not about lacking prejudice, but the willingness to re-evaluate and discard prejudices when faced with new information. Prejudices and bias are natural human tendencies, resulting from our subjective perceptions and limited ability to process and extrapolate information from our environment. Their naturalness, however, doesn’t justify acting on prejudice. Thus, wrong is not in the holding of prejudices, but in the unwillingness to let them go and/or acting on the prejudices we hold in a way that harms others. As we are subjected to new information, open-minded people re-evaluate and possibly change the prejudices they hold—but they’re still prejudices, because we never have all the pertinent information and never are able to filter that information we do have without bias. For Christians, this statement would fall under: “For all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God.” Thus is the imperfection of man while in this mortal coil.
Being open-minded does not prevent one from having strong, even near-immutable beliefs. For me, one of these beliefs is the importance of ethical and moral behavior. For clarification, I distinguish ethical beliefs as being wholly individual and moral beliefs as being those that are formed in conjunction with a socially recognized belief structure (often, but not exclusively, religious in nature). For example, Catholicism is a moral belief system. Ethical beliefs that are formed in conjunction with a belief in and adherence to the Catholic religion are moral beliefs. In kind, science is a moral belief system, which can (but is not always) practiced with the adherence others give to religions. Ethical beliefs that are formed in conjunction with a belief in and adherence to science are moral beliefs. I care less what your morals are based on, and more on how highly you raise your standards and how much you strive to follow them. Any belief system, when practiced with the requisite high standards and effort, makes you a beneficial force (though others may consider your standards and efforts misguided) unto the rest of humanity. And that, for me, is the crux. If your beliefs lead you toward benefiting others, then I would hold that your ethics are good; if your beliefs lead you toward self-gain at the expense of others, then I would hold that your ethics are bad. Having good ethics, of course, is insufficient if you don’t strive to live by them.
So, one of my immutable or near-immutable beliefs is that everyone can choose to have high ethical standards and everyone can strive to live those standards. For this reason, I have never held developmental disabilities or lack of sanity as a sufficient “excuse” to justify or explain away unethical behavior. For example, I’ve always believed that a mass murder is no less responsible and no less punishable, just because he happens to be insane. A man is no less responsible and no less punishable for raping another human being, just because he happens to be developmental delayed.
I have thought for quite a while that my ethical and moral standards were, well, immutable. I couldn’t imagine any piece of information that would shake these beliefs. Then, in reading from a textbook, I ran into two little words that carried a punch that knocked me off of my proverbial socks and high-horse all at once: morally challenged.
As I started this discussion, I said that I consider myself to be open-minded and this involves re-evaluating my prejudices when faced with new information. Thus, when I ran into this statement I had to stop and re-evaluate my position:
Another key contributor to a person’s ethics and morality is his or her level of moral development. Some workers are morally advanced, while others are morally challenged—a condition that often develops early in life.
The Fundamentals of Organizational Behavior, 4th ed., by Andrew J. DuBrin, 2007, pg. 75
Hm? Moral deficiencies described in the language of disability. You know, that makes a reasonable amount of logical sense—I can’t just dismiss it out of hand. But, the implications (at least for me) are rather huge. So, what to do? Research!
From what I can gather, the above passage refer to (without actually discussing) Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Reasoning, which I found in this link (it’s a PDF of a chapter from a textbook). The link had the following table:
It does not assert at which level someone would need to be at in order to be considered “morally challenged.” I also found the following PowerPoint presentation online. This explores how contemporary U.S. values (as they’re taught) are affecting society (psst, it’s not good!).
One thing the PowerPoint suggests, which I’m going to say flat out, is that it does not seem likely that contemporary U.S. society will come to see being “morally challenged” as a disability any time soon. It seems, rather, that we encourage this state. Yes, I know—you’re shocked (sarcastically speaking).
But if being morally challenged should rightfully be considered a form of developmental disability, which the above theory implies even if it were never explicitly stated, then should I not take that into consideration when I try to hold others to my standards of ethical development? (I reiterate: this doesn’t mean I believe everyone should share my ethical and moral beliefs, but that they should develop postconventional moral reasoning skills and have high standards of ethical and moral behavior of their own).
To clarify, I do not believe that someone’s value or inherent worth should be subject to their intellectual development or capabilities. Nor do I believe that someone’s value or inherent worth should be subject to their physical development or capabilities. If moral development can be similarly hindered, impaired, or “capped”, then should I not extend the same sense of value to those who are morally challenged as I would to someone who his intellectually or physically challenged? My instinctive reaction is NO!!!! People who are morally impaired, but are not impaired in any other way have done this world great damage; they continue to do so. I resist, on a strong emotional level, giving them any room for “excuses” like having a disability.
But, then my own ethics kick in. Ethically speaking, part of the reason for not de-valuing someone with a disability is because having the disability is not their fault (this is only part of the reasoning; I’m not suggesting this is the best or most important reason). If someone is morally challenged, and thus commits an immoral act, would it also be “not their fault?” Not to mention (this is one of those much more important reasons) that, despite the harm they do, they still have inherent value as a fellow human being.
I’m torn. I really am. Emotionally, I find this “excuse” unacceptable. Ethically and intellectually, I stand back and look at my reaction and see some of the same unreasonable prejudice flung at the friends and family I care so dearly for and write so much about.
Is being “morally challenged” a disability? And how does the social model influence that? Socially speaking, being morally challenged is an asset. It lets people rationalize doing all sorts of things for the sake of self-interest. Therefore, if the social model is exactly right, then being “morally challenged” isn’t a disability at all. (Otherwise, I’m misunderstanding the implications of the social model, which is entirely possible.) In fact, if the social model were to apply, then being morally developed would be the disability and all those unethical people should offer us accommodations to compensate for our lack of unethicalness. Which, of course, is absurd on two counts: 1) I don’t want to gain advantages through mine or anyone else’s unethical behavior, which would include accommodations of this sort; 2) unethical people would not voluntarily offer accommodations of this sort and, were this line of thinking valid, ethical people would lack the power to enforce the accommodations on those uncooperative “unethicals.”
However, if there is something inherent about the state of being disabled, something that is exacerbated by the social model, then whether it is recognized as such or not being “morally challenged” would be a disability. If so, then what does it mean? Are people who are morally challenged fully culpable for their actions as is someone who is not morally challenged? If not, then how would we measure that to determine what level of responsibility they hold? Or am I simply taking a theoretical explanation of ethical behavior too far without enough evidence to justify the theory?
It’s times like these when I almost wished I was a prejudiced, unethical schmuck who could cling to my beliefs even after they’ve been legitimately questioned. This re-evaluation process takes work, and it’s rarely simple. Am I resisting this re-evaluation on a purely emotional level or is there a real flaw with my analysis thus far? I don’t know, so I have to pick at it and put it out there. It would be simpler if I just accepted that my prejudice was right and good, and left it at that. But, then again, the sheer number of people who do that is one of the things that makes this world such a difficult place to live.
