3. Equitable Moral Relations
The third structure of moral-emotional
relations in brain sequence, though the third examined in terms of experienced
order, is the equitable. At a very early point in life human beings develop a
sense of perception of fairness, especially as it comes to the distribution of
goods or punishments. This sense easily becomes a metaphoric sense of
moral-emotional evaluation of a wide range of activities and social processes.
Figure 3: Equitable distribution of relational goods
Dynamic situations and those of high
levels of complexity call for a more complex moral system than those of the
familial or the hierarchical. While many different forms of visual metaphors
might serve to function in more complex environments, it is not immediately
obvious what the next visual-neurological step might be. Using algebraic
conceptualizations of brain performance Fiske (1991) suggests that interval
structures are the next step. Interval relations are those of reciprocity and
turn-taking. In general ethical terms this is the realm of fairness, of
distributive justice and the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them
do unto you. Processed as a visual metaphor, distributive justice suggests
radial relations based on the circumference of a circle and oriented in three
dimensions, both radially out and vertically up.
The radius is the distance from center to
the circumference of a circle and it is always the same. For those who form a
moral-relational circle, fairness is the over-whelming moral emotion. Starting
from one’s experience inside the familial circle where generosity is the norm,
the equivalent idea applied to many individuals or groups is fairness. Fairness
is the metaphoric equi-distance of the members from the universal point of
orientation. For those who form the circumference the question is how far one
is from the centre and consequently, whether the distance is fair—appropriate
in relation to the distribution of resources in the group. The resources
involved may be simple practical goods but can easily extend to abstract goods
like justice or good government. If the distribution (positive rewards or
negative punishments) is perceived as apt in relation to the group as a whole,
then one feels a strong sense of moral satisfaction—it’s fair! The more
fairness is experienced the higher one feels in moral terms, but any fairness
is morally right. This sense applies not only to oneself but to all others on
the circumference of the circle.
The same is true for the experience of
punishments. Negative distributions can be tolerated if they are experienced as
fair, that is equivalent to what others would go through in the same
circumstances. It is as if we have a moral distributor in our head that takes
turns sending out negative outcomes, and as long as they seem equal to all who
get their turn, then the negatives are morally acceptable. However, if there is
an imbalance in distribution then there is a profound sense of injustice and
moral wrongness.
It is possible this moral-emotion is
negatively skewed, thus oriented more to the elimination of unfairness than to
the development of new types of fairness. The human brain with its intrinsic
heuristics seems oriented more toward anxiety and the fear of loss rather than
the possibility of gain (Gigerenzer, 2007; Kahneman, 2011). This suggests
stronger moral-emotional intensity will arise around circumstances where
current balances are negatively affected such as when justice appears to be
violated rather than where justice is achieved. Certainly legal systems are
drawn into disrepute far more quickly by a few bad decisions than by hundreds
of thousands of good decisions. It’s probably true that all issues of fairness
are more distressing when violated than satisfying when sustained.
Another psychological possibility to
consider is that of dopamine release (pleasure) in the context of the perceived
experience of radial distribution. This
is due to how the sense of fairness develops in the brain over time. If the
primary developmental context for this is childhood distribution of rewards
and, less often, punishments, then it is possible that for some people the primitive
reward structures of the brain will be linked directly to this moral-emotional
mode. Later in life this set of circuits will be re-engaged when encountering
fairness (or unfairness) is more abstract contexts. Regardless, this is likely
to be a powerfully emotional experience for many.
A metaphor for justice
At this point it is not hard to understand
that this moral sense is easily abstract rather than concrete. We have no
problem standing in line if everyone gets an equal opportunity for service but
physically standing spaced equally with others is not experienced as a moral
act in itself under most circumstances. Where both the power and the
abstraction of this moral emotion appear is when the geometric perceptions in
the brain are applied to complex situations through metaphoric integration.
Waiting for equal service at a restaurant or bank easily becomes the more
important metaphoric waiting for equal access to democracy or justice or health
care (in countries with socialized medicine). The result is an infinitely
flexible moral measure, one that allows its holder to assess all social
experiences of both self and empathically perceived others along an important
moral scale—how are goods being distributed to all? Is what I’m getting the
same as others?
The flexibility of this form of relational
analysis is important. As individuals, groups and cultures assess social change
the perceived radial impact of large scale change is easily intuited. If those
around us are finding it harder to get justice, then we perceive it is harder
for all to achieve justice. Conversely, if suddenly the sense of the quality of
education for our children goes up we believe that the quality of education has
gone up for all. In particular, it is easy to interpret how change leads to the
addition of or displacement of participants from the sharing circle and thus
how change is having a moral impact. Immigrants provide a sense of moral
diminishment as a larger circle intuitively suggests the same social resources
being distributed equally among more. Recognizing women as fully human means
they emotionally belong inside the circle of distribution of rights.
As a radial metaphor the equitable has a
relationship with the familial because for both visual metaphors the boundary conditions
are important though it different ways. For the familial moral relationship
participants are equal because they are all inside the boundary. For the
equitable, participation is the boundary of the distribution, another
metaphoric circle. This new kind of boundary explains the difficulty of human
beings historically to identify new individuals for participation in the circle
of distribution. Adding new participants violates the integrity of the circle
in terms reflective of familial identity. Thus women and other minorities have
traditionally been difficult to include in the circle of fairness. In more
abstract terms, this is a critique Badiou (2001) applies to the ethics of human
rights, one of the most sophisticated applications of radial distribution.
Rights only apply to those who successfully pass the test for inclusion in
humanity and human beings always exclude some from the circle of rights
distribution. Thus fairness becomes a more limited concept in practice than in
theory. The sense of fairness is shared, but only once one has been admitted to
the distribution circle. Those outside must demonstrate the justice of their
inclusion in the circle, something that does not always easily pass the brain’s
inherent efforts to discriminate.
Ontology vs. Teleology
It is important to note that with Equitable
there is a profound shift of moral emphasis from the Familial, and
Hierarchical. The others are ontological relational structures in that they are
inherent in being a participant in the relational network. This is the realm of
identity, and thus of the intrinsic reality of Being. However, the Equitable,
as is also the case with the subsequent moral-emotional relationships, is a
teleological structure. It is a framework for action with implicit or explicit
goals. The ontological frameworks imply a static or universal framework within
which morality functions primarily through obedient participation in a given
structure. On the other hand, a teleological framework applies universal
dynamics to discreet moral goals in complex and dynamic circumstances. They
invite rational discourse and planning. These are the moral frameworks able to
orient personal and collective moral behaviour to create a mass sense of
fairness, especially under conditions of social, technological, or ecological
change.
Kantian Deontology, Rawls, Human Rights & Democratic Ethics
As a moral-emotional relational system
this approach to ethics encompasses Fiske’s (1991) Equality Matching and
provides the internal framework for Haidt’s (2012) Fairness/cheating moral
flavour. However, this form of moral thinking extends far beyond these simple
sets of inter-personal observation to complex and abstract ethical systems.
This approach forms the basis of Kantian deontology or Rawls (1973) ideas of
justice. Rawls’ “Original Position” is structurally identical to being unable
to identify where one is in relation to the radius of the circle. This is also
a political morality. For democratic cultures this is the measure of all social
relations and it seems likely to underlie most conceptions of human rights in
application (though the nature of specific rights must lie outside of the
morality of their distribution).
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804) sought a rigorous universal for ethics and thought he found it in
the categorical imperative, act as you would have others act toward you. Kant
believed that if all human beings acted in this way a universally better world
could be produced. Since if one could find a universal ethics one had a
rational duty to obey it this became known as Kantian deontology. The
most brilliant follower of Kant’s perspective was the American philosopher,
John Rawls (1921-2002), especially his A
Theory of Justice (1971). Rawls, following Kant, worked to develop a theory
of justice that could be agreed upon by everyone. He found such a position in
the moral framework underlying liberal democracy and the recognition of
universal and equal value for all persons and their equal status under the law.
Both Kant and Rawls could be said to be
the guiding ethical forces behind first the idea of liberal democracy and then
the social-democratic liberal state. Their ethics give many tools for
evaluating actions and inherently accept the complexity of the human decision
making environment. For organizations using deontological ethics, as many do,
the moral question is, what must always be a right action for our
organization? For example, it is always wrong for an organization to break the
law (it acts as an equal constraint on all organizations) so most organizations
have a moral orientation to being law abiding. Similarly, it is always wrong to
lie because that places the legitimacy of all information in doubt and would
damage the standing of any person.
The primary weakness of contemporary forms
of deontological ethics is that the concept
of reason which underlies Kant and Rawls is not by itself an adequate source
for human ethics. While reason is extremely powerful as a tool, it does not by
itself reveal objective reality, especially objective moral reality. Every
moral system is built upon moral assumptions and these assumptions are then the
framework upon which reason functions. Moral assumptions are not necessarily
reasonable or universal. This complex theoretical perspective shows up very
quickly in practices such as when there is a debate around which human duties
or rights are universal and which are cultural. It turns out all human rights
are in some respects cultural rather than fully or rigorously reasonable. Even
the focus on law, a particular strong-point of deontological ethics, turns out
to be problematic in a global world where cultures have profoundly different
legal systems and ways of understanding what laws should lead to. For example,
many Western countries have a basic reasonable premise of innocence until
proven guilty. Other Western countries think the opposite premise, guilty until
proven innocent, is just as basic and reasonable. Deontological ethics provides
no way of determining which of these important cultural perspectives is
correct.
One of the most valuable contributions of
this way of thinking has been the human rights tradition. While it is not
possible to argue ontologically for a rich human rights tradition, as a
pragmatic way to organize large scale cultures in order to provide a modicum of
satisfaction by all those involved has been to identify and embrace a set of
human rights. So while liberal democracies cannot anchor their rights in a
cosmic purpose, by enacting human rights they provide a practical environment
within which people generally (but not always) thrive. For most folks this is
good enough.
Regardless, these philosophical
perspectives, despite their weaknesses, show how powerful the simple brain
metaphor of radial distribution can be when applied to large-scale and complex
situations. It is an example of the power of the brain to work from simple
systems to highly complex processes merely by expanding the application of a
geometric relationship developed through evolution.
Organizational Applications
There are a wide range of organizational applications for equitable moral relations, though they are not usually directly related to the purposes or direct operations of a company. However, they typically show up in two places within organizations, human resources and customer relations. The result is that leaders often miss the impact of these moral forms of relationship while staff within feel the equitability impacts of decisions in a negative (or positive) ways.
Human Resource departments are typically
the least respected within organizations and while there are many reasons for
this disregard, one of them is their normal focus on aspects of equitability
within an organization. While equitability-oriented processes are typically
identified with worker rights, unions, slow processes, worker support, and
other barriers to productivity, they have much to contribute to a worker’s
sense of the fairness of the organization. Fair processes, where relatively
equivalent workers are treated equivalently without favouritism or based on
stereotypes or surface qualities, may be linked to issues of employee
engagement. Certainly, in the absence of other positive moral emotions, the
absence of a sense of equitability can be important.
In addition, in customer relations the
moral sense of equitability is very important. Customers want to be treated
fairly in terms of their exchange relations with the organization (appropriate
value for fees paid), but also one customer to another. Customers who do not
sense equitability will seek alternative sources of goods. At the same time,
customer service staff typically pick up the same moral sense, either through
their personal commitments or through working with customers and being infected
by customer moral sensibilities. Thus while organizations are not centrally
driven by the moral-emotional sense of relational equitability, as they
function in practice they must often pay careful attention to this framework.
Failure to act justly in relations between staff or with customers will be felt
as demonstrating the intrinsic immorality of the organization. The consequences
will be significant for all involved. Thinking equitably is important for all,
even if it sometimes seems like a foreign or aberrant ethics framework. It’s
natural to the brain and thus natural to all human contexts.
References & Additional Readings
Badiou, Alain.
(2001). Ethics: An essay on the
understanding of Evil, trans. P. Hallward. New York: Verso.
Fiske, A.P.
(1991). Structures of Social Life: The
four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Macmillan.
Fiske, A. P.
(2004). Relational Models Theory 2.0. Relational
Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 3-26. Mahwah
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gigerenzer,
Gerd. (2007). Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious. New York:
Penguin.
Haidt,
Jonathan. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why
good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
Kahneman, D.
(2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
MacIntyre,
Alasdair. (1966). A Short History of
Ethics: A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric age to the twentieth
century. New York NY: Macmillan.
Rawls, John.
(1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge
MA: Harvard University Press.
Study Terms:
Deontology, Kant, Rawls, A
Theory of Justice, Heuristics, Human Rights