Is Morality Natural? (Year 2)
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I think that morality might be natural, especially because of its universality. The fact that people in different cultures judge dilemmas similar suggest that it is not part of culture but part of biology. Another thing is that the moral judgements are driven by intuition, not intelectual decisions. Characterrs from “Eye in the Sky” were thinking differently but the reason why they didn’t all think the same way is really simple – their dilemma wasn’t hypothetical. They really had to make such a hard decision. Real life is much more than things like Moral Sense Test. That is also what was article about, our emotions might not impact on hypothetical judgements but for sure can impact on our actions.
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Hi, I have to say, I’ve come to a similar realisation. It stuck me how in the article it said that people usually choose similarly when it comes to moral dilemmas, but in the movie we can see very clearly how many differences in opinions there actually are. At first I didn’t know how to connect those two, but I guess you are right – there is a crucial difference between making a hipothetical decision and actually going through with it.
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Can I also answer to that? 🙂
Of course. Even in the movie there was a moment when someone said ”you made that decision from the comfort of your seat”. An that was it. So simple when we can decide on hypothetical dilemmas, or even real, but we do not have to pull the trigger.
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I see your point, but our discussion has to be hypothetical, unless someone has been confronted with a moral dilemma and had to make a decision. Have you ever had to choose the lesser of two evils?
Do you believe that moral basics are natural and they are hardwired into our brains?-
Right now I don’t remember anything like this.
And still, I don’t believe in it. Picking 9 lives over 1 is as cold as maths. 9 > 1, simple as that.
And once again I will emphasize: I don’t think that these researches are believeable. People choose 9 lives over 1 because it seems right, they believe they should, because society demands that, but the reality is different.-
I think that the reality is that we are not really that smart, as a species. It is very hard to imagine those 9 people saved, when you see an actual child in front of you that will suffer from your decision to preserve lifes of others. If you see someone and know them it is much harder to decide to sacrifice them for higher number of anonymous people.
I believe our morality is natural (to some extent) to increase our chance of survival. And for that reason also we favour to save those more similar to us and closer to us… -
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Yes, definitely. After watching the movie I started reading the comments on Filmweb and I noticed that people were generally very quick to judge the characters in the movie who were against the shoot-to-kill. I read that the policy of asking numerous people for their opinion is ineffective and that choosing a life of one girl over 80 people is crazy, but I think that if the people commenting were actually in that situation they would see that it isn’t so black and white. I think that in a hipothetical situation we can put our emotions aside, but in real life it isn’t as easy.
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I think that the movie was trying really hard to make us sympathetic towards the girl and show how precious she is to her parents, but the problem is that we are not used to that in movies. I watched “Eye in the sky” with my boyfriend. We both got invested in the movie but for totally different reasons :’). He was cringing and shaking when they kept delaying the decision and I spent a few minutes crying when the girl died.
I believe that they could make it even more impactful if they made the girl a heroine of her own story – if she had a goal of some kind or maybe waiting for a letter – something to show the unfinished and unsatisfying end… Exactly like it would be in reality. They chose to concentrate of her parents feelings.
I think that parental feelings are not as universal and that’s the reason that many does not emphatise with the dilemma
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Hi Renata, I appreciate your insight and I think you’re right — the film characters’ decisions weren’t completely hypothetical and they had to take different things into account, hence they had many different opinions. Do you think it would be easier for them to choose one thing and they would have made the choice faster if it wasn’t a real-life situation but perhaps a simulation or a thought experiment?
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Hi Wiktoria! I think they would behave different. They were all (maybe except for Steve Watts, the one who was droping the bomb) afraid of responsibility, in thought experiment there are no consequences. Of course no one wanted to hurt that poor girl, but actually I think a lot of characters were worrying not about her but abour themselves.
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By the way. If the film touched you I reccomend you a book “Psychology wins wars” by Leo Murray. That book had a chapter about drones, and about why they are so effective. Their power might come from the fact that soldiers who use them don’t actually see the enemies or the civils with their own eyes, they’re not close to them, actually they can be miles away. The distance make all operation a little unrealistic, and the soldiers might feel like they’re not shooting real people, just some pictures on their computer screen – like they’re playing computer games or something – and it make them more effective. I know it sounds strange, maybe even ridiculous – its still killing people, only by different weapon, but some researches (that I cannot quote now, because I don’t have my book with me) show that it actually change solders’ point of view. The film was much more complicated, book I am writing about was more about effectiveness of weapon than about moral dilemma but I still think it is really worth reading.
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That’s really interesting! I’ll definitely look the book up and read it some time. Thank you 🙂 I think it’s actually relevant to the topic because if you don’t think you’re killing people, your moral compass won’t be affected as much as it would be otherwise.
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I think that the most striking thing in the dilemma of making decision in movie “Eye in the sky” was analysis of its after effects. People who were obligated to make this decision were scared of liability, national interest and civil liabilty. Nobody knew what decision is right because nobody could project real resonance of the decision – they could only evaluate it.
The same problem concern every moral dilemma. We can only make predicitons but we never know what is really going to happen and are they any other options, like the solution with setting free the large lady with parafine.-
But do you feel like there was a “right” and “wrong” option? Because I kept going through them during the whole movie and each time I thought I supported a character, the situaction changed. What do you think?
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I had the same observation – even at the end of the movie, when the lady said that they made a wrong decision and general told her that he has seen the after effects of what could have happenend if they didn’t strike. I could then only imagine what a terrible view was that. But despite that, I could see why the women thought strinking was not a good option.
So I believe there is no “right” and “wrong” – people has its experiences and may judge considering them.-
I feel the same way. That’s why I don’t agree with the notion that asking so many people for their opinions and permissions is wrong. Every person has their own experiences that affect their judgements and put the situation in a different perspective.
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There is a good film about instinctive, intuitive decisions, called “Force Majeure”. Unlike “Eye in the Sky”, it’s a relationship drama. If you’d like to watch it, here is the link.
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Thank you, I’ll denifitely try to check it out when I have more time!
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Hi Eliza!
I think you made a really good point here. This was really a specific situation in the movie so the decision making process was even harder. But yes, i think we can all apply this to the rest of the moral dilemmas too. After all, if we are not in this situation, how do we know what would we do? And what would feel “right” or “wrong” to us in that exact moment? We can only presume.. -
Hi!
I agree with Eliza, I think this film shows us also how politicians and other institutions react on dilemmas like that and what is really important for them. -
Hi Eliza! Your post reminded me of a scene where General Benson says “Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war”. It made me think that moral dilemmas shown in this film were unimaginably difficult – there were so many possible consequences of just one decission and some people will have to live with all that responsibility for the rest of their lives.
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It really bothered me that every character had their own reasons to support one option or another and many were just… not really moral in nature. It was “propaganda war” they were cocerned about and that also made them kept trying to push that decision on ther people. The ones who kept thinking of this more like of the moral (not political) dilemma didn’t hesistate that much.
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Morality is in fact natural. Marc D. Hauser says that in his article loud and clear. Research shows that all people, no matter their backgrounds, tend to make the same exact moral judgements. Even sociopaths can tell right from wrong. We all see things similarly in terms or morality, even when we fail to justify our choices. But we have to remember that our moral judgements and our actions are two different things and the movie “Eye in the Sky” is a perfect example.
It presents a moral dilemma: are we willing to sacrifice a life in order to save many more? From the very first minutes of the movie, we learn that we will observe a counterterror mission which quickly escalates from a “capture” operation to a “kill” operation. The targets are planning on a suicide bombing, hence many lives are at stake – but only one really opens an intense discussion: the life of a little girl selling bread right next to the targeted house. Is it worth postponing the decision and risking dealing with a suicide bombing’s consequences in order to save the little girl, or should we rather take more things into account, kill the targets and avoid a massacre, simultaneously taking the girl’s life?
In the article we read that our emotions impact our decisions, hence we can act very differently than what we say we would do. The film captures that perfectly because the characters meet all the legal criteria for killing the terrorists and possibly taking the little girl’s life, and yet they still are uncertain in their decision, they have doubts and postpone the attack as much as they can – all that because they feel sympathetic towards the girl.
In conclusion, I believe that morality in itself is inbred, but what we do, what decisions we make and whether we act upon our values is another thing. There are many other factors besides our sense of right and wrong that impact our decisions, one of them being emotions.-
Hi Victoria. Why do you think that morality is natural? Behaviourist would say that we come to this world with nothing, waiting to be written on by our experiences. What about different cultures and customs. Besides, in one culture it’s morally wrong and illegal to kill a person (unless we are at war), but in another there are honour killings (usually not prosecuted by law) when a person is accussed of violiting the principles of religion and his/her society.
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I think morality is natural in a sense that we all are born with some hardwired values, as the experiments about morality in babies show. A behaviourist may say that, but a geneticist would say it’s impossible for morality not to be transferred from generation to generation. Culture may be an important factor here, but I believe we are born with some sense of morality, some intuition about what is right and what is wrong. Furthermore, you probably can’t get rid of morality — even sociopaths can tell right from wrong, as it was shown in research, they just act regardless of it.
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Point taken. Don’t you think it’s possible to “forget” one’s morality, for example if one has witnessed the atrocities of a war? Do you think one can become so emotionally numb or drained to live outside morality?
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It’s a really tough question — probably beyond my understanding, because I really can’t wrap my head around the topic of war and how much it can affect people. I’m not sure if you can get rid of morality completely, but maybe you have to have some predispositions to “loosen” it. There are countless stories from World War II, for example, which show that people even in the darkest of times were able to save lives, risking their own. I believe they didn’t end up as war criminals because they had pretty clear moral values to start with.
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In my opinion the baby experiment is not enough to prove we’re born with the sense of morality. It might that we’re born with the ability to sense danger(all the mean animals in experiment would be a theoretical thread) not as much what’s right or wrong.
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The baby experiment certainly isn’t enough to prove that we clearly can tell right from wrong or that morality and its form are universal. But I think we should consider it while debating whether we are born as “blank slates”. I believe we are not as blank.
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I don’t think that the answer is simple ,,yes” or ,,no”.
When I hear about hypothetical dilemmas I roll my eyes over. For me, most of people don’t really believe in their answers. It’s so hard to kill someone, especially someone we love. I am realistic and I know that I wouldn’t be capable of killing literally anyone to save others. Saving one, three, nine lives wouldn’t really matter, because it is not me who should decide who deserves to live and who can be sacrificed. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself after killing someone. And yet, I don’t think that there is something wrong with my morality.
So, I think, that we shouldn’t trust in these similar results. Most people would choose what seems to be “best”, without really believing in this.
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Monika, if you were a military intelligence officer preparing to launch an attact on Al-Shabaab leaders, what things would you take into consideration?
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To be honest it’s beyond my imagination.
I admire people who work in military, or even in politics. They have to be really strong, if they can handle decisions like this.
I know that if someone keep pushing me to make that decision, I would answer like everybody: that I would focus on how many lives I can save. But it wouldn’t be honest, because I don’t believe in this.-
Even if the calculation is simple? Hundreds of lives vs one life which could be eventually lost later on?
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Yes. I cannot calculate lives.
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I see your point. But what about morality? Do you think it’s hardwired into our brains or we acquire it through our experiences?
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I don’t think that these researches are enough. I should dig more in topic, because, as we all know as psychology students, there are not easy answers. For me it’s more society BUT this opinion is based only on my own thoughts and conclusions, not any evidence.
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That is a good point. Does a man have the right to speak about another person’s life? Life or lives. If we would like to decide, we would have to assess the value of individual lives.
Valuing life. Assessment which life is more important or less important – this is how stereotypes or stigmatization are born, and war – as a consequence.
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Hi Monika!
I totally agree with you. I hate hypothetical dilemmas as i think they are not really valid anymore. It’s really different when you are thinking what would you from actually making decision. I have no idea what would i do at all for example. -
Hi Monika, it’s a really interesting reflection. I think I wouldn’t be able to take someone’s life as well. But do you think it’s justified if you don’t do anything in such a situation in order to save people, even though you have the possibility and means to do it?
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But we are all doing it every day! Every day people die because I’m not helping them. Poverty kills them. And every time I’m not donating, I miss the possibility to save lives.
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I agree, but it’s a more complicated situation — we don’t always have the means to help people in poverty. For example, surely we have some money, but we’re probably not the richest, are we? Do you think it cannot be justified if we don’t donate then?
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But we still can save lives, can we? Even if we are not the richest ones. Oh even without money we can help, there are many ways!
And if we don’t have the meant to help people in poverty at all, what does it say about us?-
Another thing, how much is enough. If you donate to WOŚP every year, if you donate to charity organisations, if you give money to poor people on the street, is it enough?
But still, it’s not a moral dilemma. Moral dilemma is a situation in which you have to choose between two impossible decisions and whatever you do is wrong.-
Yes, I know, I was only responding to questions about me not reacting in a difficult situation, and is it justified or not.
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Hi! I totally agree with everything you have said Monika. The explanation given by Marc D. in article seem to be convenient but it isn’t enough. The morality isn’t something we may measure, the discussion about it is more philosophical and hypothetical. We can’t really define morality as there are so may opinion as there are people. But what I believe is sure is that standing in front of moral dilemma we will never be sure if we make the right decision.
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For me this topic actually creates more questions than answears. If we look at some of the articles for example the one we had to read for today’s class we might come into conclusion that morality actually might be natural. And as it was mentioned in the text, we come to similar decisions when we are put to the test but not in real life. I think it may be because we are not really thinking of the after effects. The situation is somehow not affecting us. At least we cannot feel it. We can really see it while watching “Eye in the sky” because the decision making process was really long. Also, it was just a really specific topic – we are talking about serious national intrest – so i think people who were supposed to make a decision were just scared of the consequences. As we know, decisions during these types of military operations require instant reactions. And because we saw that making that decision wasn’t really easy – we can suspect that morality might be in fact natural.
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Hi Julia, I agree — there are a lot of consequences, good and bad, for a decision that big as the one presented in the movie. Do you think the characters’ decision was morally right? Do you believe it was justified?
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Hi!
Well, i am still torn. Of course, watching a movie and thinking of that little girl – i wanted her to live. So the fact, that they decided to postpone the mission as much as they can was a relief for me. After all, how can we decide if one life is more valuable than the other? But then again… the mission was really importat and when i cut out my sympathy for the girl, i was even annoyed that they didn’t just continue the operation. I mean, they could save so many more lives and they had every legal right to do it. I have no idea how to feel about it, since it really depends on who’s side im gonna take..-
Hi 🙂
Fortunately, we don’t have to make such decisions and I hope we won’t have to in the future either!
But we also often are in diffucult situations where we need to make a decision. Is it easy or hard for you? Especially when you have to choose between you and other people?-
It depends. I usually make quick decisions but it depends on a situation wheter i will choose me or the other people. It is for sure very hard – every time – especially if we add moral dilemma into it. I think for me, i usually choose what’s gonna have the best results for me – but in light of what will i feel and think of myself and what consequences will i have to face after
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You are right — it’s really hard to put a value on a person’s life and it’s even harder to take make a decision which will probably result in taking someone’s life. But to be honest I had the same feelings when they didn’t proceed with the operation. I felt like they should have made the decision more quickly and take a look at the bigger picture.
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Morality is in fact natural, based on the article we are born with a specific set of intuitive moral judgements “mechanism”. But in my opinion, our moral decisions are affected by the way we have experienced life. In the “eye in the sky” movie we could see several different approaches to the main problem, some people were truly reluctant to sending the missle, where others were hundred percent sure to shot the missle sacrificing the child’s life. In summary, I thing that morality is natural, although our experience can affect the way we make these moral decisions. (I know that the article says the oppposite)
Filip Sikora
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I think Renata expressed a similar opinion – that while our emotions don’t affect hipothetical judgements, they sure can impact our real-life decision making. Would you agree with that?
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For sure! Our emotions may be a key to our decisions. If we are for example frightened in some situation, I think that our decision would differ from the state of calm,
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I just mean, that it affects our actions depending on what feelings we are expriencing.
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I find it quite fascinating, that (according to Marc D. Hauser) our moral values are basicly universal and one’s religious background and upbringing doesn’t pay a key role in the decision process. Especially the fact that the role of emotions is marginal.
But, as the author mentioned, and what I think is a key difference, are the circumstances, under which the decision is being made.
It is a lot easier to hypothesize about a made up scenario, compared to making an actual decision, that may have a real impact on somebody’s life.
The characters from the film were facing a real dillema: kill the terrists, but sacrifice little girls’s life in the process or save the girl and let the terrorists possibly commit great atrocities, that may end up in great human losses.
I watched the film before reading the text, so I really didn’t have the full context or prior knowledge, but the stituation in “Eye in the sky” reminded me of the famous Trolley Problem, which general form is as such:
“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:a.Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
b.Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one personCounterterrorists were facing a simmilar situation. However, as I mentioned, it is a lot easier to solve a hypothetical problem, rather than face a real one. This is where the emotions come into play. The time pressure also wasn’t very helpful to our protagonists.
Because what excuses you from sacrificing one’s life to save the other people? How can you possibly decide if that one person’s life is less valuable than those other people’s existance? What if, instead of the little girl, there was, let’s say an important political figure or a great scientist? Will you factor in their potential usefulness?
It’s difficult, because it is difficult (or even impossible) to detemnine the “more ethical option”, the right thing to do.
I really don’t know, what I would do in our protagonists’ place. Especially under such great pressure.-
What do you think about Colonel Katherine Powell, the character played by Helen Mirren? Was she ever in doubt about what to do?
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I think she was blinded by her obsession to accomplish her goal (kill the terrorists). She spent a lot of time searching for them and preparing for this operation, that she just couldn’t possibly imagine cancelling it.
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In my opinion, morality is natural. As the author of the article said “nature provides a universal moral grammar”. We all have the same way of thinking, doesn’t matter if we live in different countries or we grow up in different cultures. Also, when people have to make a moral decision they can’t explain why they chose exactly this option. It is because our judgements are intuitive. I think the film “Eye in the Sky” shows us the difference beetwen making a decision and actual performing. There was some people who didn’t want to make a decision which could have a terrible consequences but the worst role has Steve Watts – a pilot who was responible for unlocking the explosive device. His emotions were taking control over his actions. And that was also said in the article, emotions have a great impact on our actions.
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The pilot definitely had a difficult job to do. Do you think that if Benson or Powell were in his shoes they would have the same doubts or would they be as certain as in the movie?
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It is hard to say actually because Colonel Powell seemed to be so sure of what to do, she was desperately looking for an acceptance to shoot. But I think she would have much more doubts if she took the pilot’s job.
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Colonel Powell is such a well-written figure, by the way. I think that the film extremely realistically presents a certain archetype of a person who holds the position of a decision-maker in the army. Firm, ruthless, with a strong moral backbone. Unlike her superiors, she knew what she should do, and she did what she had to do.
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And yet the character is not really likeable. We know that as a matter of fact, we are all on the same side – we want to eliminate the Al-Shabaab leaders as they’re not only a treat to people in Nairobi but also to the western civilisation, but she is so icy and domineering that we judge her motives by the way she appears to be.
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I don’t think I agree with the statement that Colonel Powell wasn’t likeable. I think she had some very difficult decisions to make and this operation was a result of years and years of tracking the Al-Shabaab leaders, so I understand her determination. It’s hard for me to say whether I agree with her 100%, but I liked how she was portrayed as a strong, assertive female character.
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Yes, exactly. People on emplacement like this need to have strong character. They can’t be to sensitive, they probably know that their decisions are often connected with a high risk and that they just have to choose the lesser evil.
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Mrs Treger, would you describe Colonel Powell as domineering if she was a man? People tend to say that women are bossy just because they’re doing their job as they should do. People are unconsciously backing the concept of the gender essentialism (which is totally wrongful in my opinion) and the result of that is determining women as harsh while at the same time man behaving alike are described as professional and masculine. The reason for it is the belief that women are tender. Colonel Powell was focused on the task. She has the traits that a servicewomen should have.
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Yes, I would. “Icy” and “domineering” have no gender. I believe that one of the reasons Helen Mirren was cast for this role was her ability to masterfully capture Colonel Powell’s austere manner which played part in the film’s suspensful plot line. If she appeared more empathetic, the film wouldn’t be – in my opinion – as tense and thought provoking.
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Hi Aleksandra! I agree with you, we all know whether something is moral or not, but I think what differentiate us is the way we act in these scenarios and it is because of our emotions.
Do you think Steve Watts made a good decision? Would you act differently, if it was up to you?-
Hi Klaudia! First of all, I would never take a job like that. But he knew what job is that, that it will come the day when he would have to kill. It was different situation here because he had to harm an innocent girl. It wasn’t just up to him because he had to make an orders. Anyway, at least he was trying to save the girl which was a good decision. I really don’t want to judge him, he did what he had to.
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I can see why it’s not a job you’d like to have. I think he made a good decision too. He did everything he could to save the girl.
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In the article, we can find out that morality is probably natural. Even if we are from different countries, ethnic groups or faiths, we make similar moral judgments. But in the film, that statement is not so clear. When USA and UK army finally found the place where terrorists were hiding, there a few moral dilemmas appeared and making decisions didn’t come naturally. Firstly, politicians had different opinions about the course of action. Some of them wanted only capture criminals and bring them to justice, others preferred to kill them immediately. Secondly, if soldiers didn’t kill several suicide bombers, hundreds of people would die because of assassination. And the most moving and difficult moral dilemma was about the 9- years old girl: the estimation of bomb attack range was dangerous to her life. The decision to make was to kill terrorists and the girl or don’t kill anyone having information about the coming assassination. No one wanted to make these decisions and, what most noticeably, taking responsibility for them. In the end, terrorists and the girl died and thereby, the potential assassination attack on hundreds of people was blocked. It confirms the theory, that when we faced with a moral dilemma, we prefer to sacrifice several people to save many. But it wasn’t an intuitive and natural decision for every character in that film.
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Hi Weronika, I agree with you — not a lot of people are emotionally, psychologically strong enough to make such decisions and take responsibility for them. Do you think what the characters in the movie did was morally right? Would you justify their choice? Do you think it was a right decision to put the girl at risk in order to save many more lives?
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Hi, Wiktoria!:) I think that we shouldn’t judge their choices. It’s their job to make decisions like that and they have to live with these decisions forever. For me it would be easy to say that they did wrong, but I had never been a soldier or politician and it’s hard for me to justify or criticize their actions. We can imagine, what would happen if they let terrorists run away. Maybe, I would completely change my point of view if I saw the suicide bombing in the shopping mall.
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Hi, Weronika. One of the concerns of Lt. Gen. Benson was the general public’s reaction to the mission. What do you think would be the reaction if the footage of the shoot-to-kill was leaked? Because as the article says, we usually prefer saving many over one person, so would the public agree with the choice that was made?
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I think that societal opinions would be kind of critical, emotional or even brutal regardless of a government decision (especially on the internet). It’s easy judging those kinds of actions as an observer. But it doesn’t change the fact that politics sometimes is not moral and faced decisions like: public opinion (money, power) or human life.
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Weronika, if you investigated the collateral damage of the mission, what things would you take into account?
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The collateral damage of the mission would be the death of the girl and other traders in the market, unfavorable public opinion and unmasking spies or fly-like drones. For the army and government members, it would be probably emotional consequences.
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Hi Weronika 🙂 Do you notice difference between US and UK in politico-military situation in this movie?
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I think that the UK army has much more complicated process of making any war decisions. They had to ask almost every important politician in the country to do anything. The bureaucracy and public opinion are in the first place.
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I watched that video some time ago, in it there are friends discussing the moral dilemmas like the trolley problem, I really recommend watching it.
Filip Sikora
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Hi Filip! I’m familiar with this video because I like Domics 🙂 And it’s interesting to listen to people describing their point of view.
You reminded me of other video I watched some time ago. It is a trolley dilemma turned into reality. In my opinion,
it granted us some really good insight into people’s perception of moral values. One thing is thinking and talking about hypotethical situations and the other is seeing how people would really react when facing this kind of problem.
I really recommed watching it.
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According to Marc D. Hauser, motality is natural because we are provided with a universal “moral grammar”, used in moral dillemas. I think it’s important that scientists conduct experiments in this matter, however I think they are not fully reliable. It’s easy to say that you would act in a moral way during an experiment, but we actually never know how we would behave until that kind of situation happens to us in real life. In the movie, pilot Steve Watts plegded obedience to his superiors, including Colonel Katherine Powell (it wasn’t shown in the movie, but I assume he did, because he is in the Army), but when his actions would cause “collateral damage”- killing a child, he was hesitant to do so. In that case, he claimed that he’d follow orders, when in reality he showed resistance, when facing a moral dillema.
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I agree but I’m wondering what do you think about the scene in which Colonel Powell persuades one of the men to change his calculations of CD from 65% to 45%? Do you think they did the right thing, considering the results?
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Well, she tried to minimise the CD in order to convince Watts to launch the hellfire. I’m gonna play the devil’s advocate saying that she did it, because the targets were number 4 and 5 on the most wanted list, so she justified her decision by the greater good. She probably experienced a lot of similar dillemas in her career, so i assume she knew that it was the only option. It’s sad that the little girl died, but it’s the reality of warfare.
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I think, you’re right. This is actually how war looks like. But what do you think people on positions like colonel or even higher should be like? What qualities they should have?
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I think a person on this position should be empathetic, disciplined, have crtical thinking skills and problem-solving skills, should be able to work under pressure and be mentally fit to handle the tough conditions.
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Hi Klaudia! 🙂 I totally agree with you. Don’t you think that these moral dilemmas are similar to situations in which we are obliged to give someone advice? It’s easy to say: “If I were you, I would definitely do this or that…”, but when we are facing the same situation it appears that we are not so sure what we should do or how we should behave.
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Yes, i think it is similar. When it comes to us making the decision we think only about our well being. It’s easy to give advice, because in case of a failure we woudn’t be the ones to suffer the consequences.
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Morality is natural as other things like ugre to find meaning of life. We are endowed with it. But as it is with other intuitive abilities, it can be drowned out especially when we are focused on our target which realisation is remote from going by moral rules. I’m alluding now to the character of Powell. She had some kind of sensiblitiy for this little girl, but her target forced her to leave this girl for dead. Inside Powell was no moral dilemma. She only wanted to completed her mission no matter what.
I assume that all soliders didn’t come up with the same solving, because their judgements were not fast and intuitive. Hauser list these qualities as two of few that constitute a universal moral grammar. Time in the movie was passing really slowly, there were too much place for thinking, discussing. Their bureaucracy killed their endowed morality.-
Hi Susie! 🙂 Why in your opinion Powell didn’t face a moral dilemma? How do you understand that?
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Hi, Martina! 🙂
I think that moral dilemma arise inside us, but we can not think about it. When we puch something to the back of our heads even to the unconscious we don’t face this dilemma. It exists but we drown it out. Powell’s target helped her not face it.
I hope I explained it clearly enough 🙂-
Perhaps Colonel Powell had already taken her decision: she decided to save many at the cost of one life. I think it didn’t come easy to her, just look at her face when the second attact was launched. She was in charge, someone had to be, and she was responsible for the mission.
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I believe that it wasn’t easy decionion for Colonel Powell. She must have decided about that step way before the day we see in a movie. As it is mentioned she was working over that case for 6 years. All that time grounted her in that decision, this is why it may look like she pushed the dilemma back to the unconscious.
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Hi! Do you think that Powella’s behaviour was appropriate? Do you think that soldier should be tough when it comes to make a decision about moral dilemma situation?
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Yes, soldier should be tough. It is their only way to avoid all negative consequences that come from violence they use. Of course – we are psychology students, we know that even though not being fully responsible of our acts does not help us staying healthy.
But when it comes to the orders that accure from special target they should be.
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I’m glad you mentioned Colonel Powell since her behavior was the most curious to me. She seemed to act without much hesitation in such a complicated situation, in which most people were clearly conflicted. But I don’t believe she acted like that because of the nature of her judgment, I think it was connected to her experience in the army
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It is not so easy to think about morality, because it does not always work as we think. Sometimes it seems to us that in a given situation we are sure that we would do this way and not otherwise. And when something happens, our reaction is completely different. In our society we have a universal morality and this works out. We know that we can’t kill someone because we don’t like this person or not steal because we don’t have enoughmoney to buy for example tv. But sometimes we are in hard situations, which we call moral dilemma. When I looked at the sky in the sky, I wondered what I would do if I were in the soldier place. Probably I would do the same thing like them – I would try to waiting until this girl go to home. But I don’t know if I could risk lives many people for this one girl. I think my emotions could take control of my mind, which could cause a reaction that I wouldn’t expect. So this is a reason why I couldn’t be a soldier haha
Everyone is different and has a different point of view. Some of us can keep one’s cool in hard situation while others cannot. I think this can affect how decision we make in a moral dilemma situation.-
Hi Kamila, you wrote that some of us can stay cool when facing with moral dilemma. Are you one of them? I am not sure if really anyone can do that.
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No I am not. I’m basically far from keeping cool in nervous situation. I really easily get panicky and it’s hard for me to control it :/
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Me too, and still I have never been is such a difficult situation (fortunately!).
Do you think that Colonel was cold-hearted or maybe just rational and keeping her feet on the ground?-
I think she wasn’t cold-hearted. She was experienced and probably and she wasn’t in situation like this for the first time. Also she didn’t chance to react in other way. She was a leader and she couldn’t allowed herself for emotions.
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I agree with you! I think that soldiers (mosty in charge) experienced a lot of tough situation and their perception of that dilemma is quite different than ours.
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I agree with you. I think we are not able to predict how we would act while faced to a moral dilemma in real life. Also I think there are many circumstances that can impact our decisions in such moral dilemmas that need action to be taken.
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I think people might have some kind of natural moral code, it can be seen in all these similarities between different cultures – for example most of them condemn killing other people. At the same time I’m convinced that it is not universal for every single person on Earth – most of these rules are generalised. I believe that every person has their own moral system and it’s not always possible to answer questions such as “whould you kill one person to save five other people?” because if we’ve never been in such situation, we can only assume what would we decide, we can’t be sure about it because we simply don’t know how it feels to have such moral dilemma on our shoulders.
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Hi! I totally agree with you. It’s hard to think about situation that we have never been. It’s easier for us to say what would we do than do this in real situation.
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Agreed! In theory most of us have high morals and we seem to be very confident in them, but real life verifies everything. I wonder if it’s possible to use any strategy while trying to choose the lesser evil? If you don’t mind answering, have you ever experienced a moral dilemma? How did you get around to solving it?
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Fortunatelly I’ve never experienced such dilemma, but many times I went through hypothetical ones in my mind. There is a conclusion that comes from such thoughts of mine – that there are many factors that impact the decisions we make. There is no right answer, it’s not all binary. The best we can do in this kind of situation is to analyse every possible scenario and its consequences.
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The movie was really difficult emotionally for me. Honestly I always cry like a baby while watching this kind of movies. The part of it which shocked me the most was “trading” with percentage of chances girl to stay alive. Do numbers can really help us make a judgement about risking the innocent life? More than 50% – no, we cannot risk, less than 50% – okey, we can do this. The numbers work as justification in this case, but do they really change anything? It is still somebody’s life.
The topic of universal moral grammar is very interesting. What was the most suprising for me is that our emotions don’t really affect on our judgements, only on behaviour. I have never thought about that way before.-
I also was thinking about this %. This is still 45% and this is still someone’s life and this is not fair that we assess someone’s life doing mathematical calculations. Do you think, that this Soldier on purpose said that this is 45% because Colonel wanted this?
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Yes, I think his body language and hesitating shows that he did not really agree with Colonel, but he had to execute the command. He wasn’t sure that it is really 45%. Do you think that he could stand up against her?
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I think he could, but probably he would pay a lot if he opposed. In other hand maybe he had trust to Colonel and he decided to do what she wants, because he believed that she is knowing what she’s doing.
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Honestly for me this whole dillema was caused by not wanting to appear in a bad light in front of public. And numbers help with making decisions because they give you an excuse like “we tried ours best to mitigate the collateral damage”. In regards to the soldier I believe it was most likely to please the colonel. He did say that innitialy it was 45-65% chance of fatality and that he ran multiple calculations, so that “45%” was most likely for the sake of pleasing politicians.
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I’m pretty sure he couldn’t stand against the colonel because it would mean insubordination and likely a field court martial.
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Sorry I’m not used to how responding works.
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Yes, I agree with you that for Colonel it was about not wanting to appear in a bad light and stay in accordance with law, but I meant that considering internal remorse, guilt or shame percentage calculations don’t change anything – in my opinion.
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I totally agree with you. But I also think that this is quite hard situation, you have to follow the orders. I sometimes think about Nazi soliders and their sens of morality. I wonder if they had in their minds this moral dilemma – I don’t agree with orders given to me, I don’t think their right but I have to follow them even tough their don’t agree with my conviction. I wonder if there were soliders that refused to follow orders given to them. Or if they truly belive that what they do is right. Also their superiors if they also just follow the idea because they were afraid of not following it or if they truly belive in it.
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I think film included this thread to show that he has life besides the army it also showed that every hard decision and situation has impact on his private life, his emotions. We could see that in the end of the film he didn’t really care about the doll while in the begining it was important to him. Also it shows that after all they have to come back to their “normal” lifes.
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I also feel like they added that part for contrast – he agrees to end one little girl’s life and goes home to another one, maybe similar in age and gives her a present. Really puts things into perspective and shows how priviledged we are to grow up and live in democratic countries not consumed by war.
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You’re right. You can see the differnce – same world, totally different level of living.
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Hi Ola, do you think the numbers wouldn’t make a difference for you? Do you think you would be equally willing to risk the girl’s life in both scenarios, no matter how much of a chance she would have to survive?
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Hi Wiktoria, I wouldn’t say that that they don’t make any difference. But they do not make everything black and white. I couldn’t decide from which % we can risk life. It is impossible to decide where is the border – 40,50 or maybe 60%?
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I believe that some sense of morality is natural to humanity and later it’s further developed by society standards. Based on the article we had to read it would be a logical conclusion since according to the studies described in it, even sociopaths understand what is right and wrong. I’m not entirely sure what the movie contributes to the question at hand “is morality natural” as it just make us face a moral dillema that soldiers have to face, meaning we can’t say if they were moral as kids or not. I’d say a video we’ve seen in one of our lectures about how babies between (I believe) 1-3 years old showed signs of realising that certain behaviours are bad and should be frowned upon and others should be prised.
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Hi, I think I remember this video too. Using puppets they showed different situations to little kids and then they were checking if kids prefer the muppet who was behaving in the right way or in the wrong way, right?
I agree with what you say about morality being developed by society standards. I didn’t watch the movie but from what I’ve read it shows that no matter if we’re born already knowing what’s right and what’s wrong it’s the real events that test our morality which further confirms how important for our morality is society.
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As I said in the email I wasn’t able to watch the movie because of a problem with my internet at home.
I think morality is natural to some degree. The article showed that the basics are the same for most people – killing others is bad. But there are many less obvious situations where for example the way somebody was raised matters.
I think the arcticle is pretty intresting. Personaly I’m not a fan of hypothetical moral dilemmas like the one mentioned in it. We never really know what would we do until we’re in a situation like that but of course that’s the whole point of asking hypothetical questions.
I found the part about psychopats the most intresting. Just like in The Confessions of a Sociopath it showed that people with antisocial personality disorder can live in our society and not break any rules if they want to.-
Sorry for not responding to your email. I just read it too late. I can see that without watching the movie (watch it for yourself when your connection to the Internet is better), you can contribute to the discussion.
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Okay, thank you
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I personally don’t like such moral dilemmas, because it is just such a thing as if, and in fact we never know how we would behave in an extremely difficult situation that requires such drastic decisions. Rather, I agree with the opinion of Hausner, morality is natural, but there are many external factors which can make a significant change. In the film we see fanatical followers of Shariat’s Law, or do they think killing is bad? Probably initially yes, but in certain situations (according to them justified) they consider killing to be something good, done on a good matter. Morality in this case is modified by cultural and religious factors. On the other hand, we have moral dilemmas of people whose morality is relatively not so modified by external factors. And these are the dilemmas that I would never want to solve. The choice between rescuing multiple people from a terrorist atack and trying to save one child. In the movie, we can see how different opinions and feelings vary. Some people approach the problem very rationally and some people are very emotional about it. However, I saw that it was impossible to completely cut off from emotions in such decisions. I noticed that some people are trying to take responsibility on others. Colonel Powell, in my opinion, is trying to take responsibility out of her at a time when she asks the soldier to set a target to try to protect the girl as much as possible from a hit and reduce his calculations. I feel that there was a lot of trying to take off the burden of responsibility in this order. I am not surprised at what has been done, as I have already written, such moral dilemmas are very difficult and burdensome for the person who has to resolve them. However, to answer the question asked in the title of the article, in my opinion morality is natural, but it can be manipulated strongly by various factors.
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Hi! I agree with your opinion because it is a fact that we can tell right from wrong but what we believe and what we experience during our lives can have a huge impact on perception of good and bad and also on decisions we make. Solving such dilemmas and deciding who should live and who should die is extremely hard to do. Even while sitting in a comfy bed and just watching a movie I couldn’t say who is right and who is wrong in this whole situation. Even though I know they stopped terrorists from killing lots of people I found watching this little girl die and her parents crying over her body devastating.
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Yes and unfortunately I chose the worst option I could because it had disastrous impact on a person I love very much. It’s family stuff so I think I shouldn’t tell you details of that situation. The worst thing is that at first it seemed that I was doing the right thing but after a short period of time everything went wrong. It showed me that choosing seemingly the lesser evil in fact was the worst decision I could make.
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I think there are very few things that are purely natural or purely learned so I think morality, like most things, is a mix of the two. The article made a compelling point that we are equipped with some moral grammar in order to make fast and intuitive judgments and I believe it is true up to some degree, it makes sense from an evolutionary point of view. However, in the movie, we see a group of people faced with the same complex moral dilemma and the opinions on how to act were divided, so I believe there are other factors that influence our moral judgments. For example, the Colonel and Lieutenant General’s experiences must be very different from the politicians’ and that definitely had an effect on their perception of the situation and what is the right thing to do.
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Hi Agata! I agree with you that soldiers perspective is far different than politicians. So, do you think that some kind of deliberation (like this meeting shown in the movie) is necessary during military operations? Should politicians, ethics committee, maybe psychologists advise decision makers?
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Hi! I think the soldiers definitely know much more about the reality of those kinds of situations and it was really weird to see politicians judging the situation from the toilet or playing ping pong! Still, it is a matter of politics as well so I think their opinion is needed. I don’t know if a psychologist could asses a situation like this any better though 🙂
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It seems to me that morality is natural, but what happens with it later depends on our experiences, environment we grow up in and people we surround ourselves with.
When it comes to the movie ‘Eye in the sky’ it might look as if for example Powell and Watts have completely different morals and values. Some might even say that Powell doesn’t have them at all, but we have to think about their experience and motives. Powell has been involved in the mission for six years, finishing it was her priority. In the end, even though it might not seem like it, I think that these characters were feeling exactly the same thing.-
Hi Eva, I also wonder on Powell’s motivations to act so. It seems like she wasn’t even considering the dillema and searching for lesser evil solution. Instead she was doing everything to get the permission to comlete the mission.
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Hi Ewa! I agree with you and I have similar thoughts. While watching the movie I had a feeling that Powell was so emotionally engaged into finally finishing her mission that she couldn’t try to find other solution. I also think that she wasn’t ignoring the fact that this girl might die but she thought that killing these terrorists and saving a bigger
amountnumber of human lives was more important to her. I also think that experience she had had a huge impact on her decision.
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The morality is a really complex issue and we can discuss it as long as we want to, but at the end there is no final answer. The article by Marc D. Hauser provides arguments for the hypothesis that morality is natural and people are born with moral grammar, which is helpful to generate intuitive and universal judgments, so we can easily tell right from wrong. Our background and various experiences not necessarily mean that our judgments have to be different. I found the whole article intriguing and insightful. I was particularly interested in the experiment on the Moral Sense Test.
I think that the movie „Eye in the Sky” focuses more on other aspects of morality. The movie certainly is thought-provoking – authors give us more to consider. Is it justified to strike the targets who plan a suicide bombing? What about the possible victims of the air strike? And when a little girl enters the zone of attack, new questions arise. Should they endanger the life of the child to prevent suicide bombing in which many people would die? Or should they let them escape and protect the child? This was not the type of movies I am used to watch, but frankly I was quite interested in the moral, political and personal aspects of dispute.-
Hi, Weronika! How do you understand the words “never tell the soldier that he does not know the cost of war”? Do you think that soldiers can used to facing moral dilemmas?
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I think that judging people and their decisions sometimes is just too easy for us. I mean we really do not know what anybody has been through and what are their experiences, but for some reason we act like we know. Accusing a soldier of not knowing what are the costs of difficult decisions is just not appropriate as he might have seen so many deaths that it would not be possible to count.
I think that moral dilemmas are really difficult even for soldiers. As we have seen in the movie – the soldiers who were responsible for pressing the button to air strike did it with tears in their eyes. And also – it was really hard to make this decision. Politics and soldiers had to do it, but nobody wanted to decide and enforce it alone. They kind of divided the responsibility. -
Oh, has anyone noticed how the film, subtly compares the subject of girl’s and the general’s child’s childhood?
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Hello!
Starting from the movie “Eye in the Sky” – I must admit it wasn’t light for me to watch, and overall it didn’t speak to me. To be clear, I believe it is great movie to discuss problem of morality and for sure it makes you wonder “how would I decice?”, but there are low chances that I will watch it again.
Putting myself in place of any character in the movie I wouldnt be able to decide. Of course as we know from the article thinking and acting are two different things. And even if everybody agree that saving 80 people sacrificing one girl is mathematicaly better choice I couldn’t give consent to carry out such an operation. We can’t calculate when it comes to someone’s life.
I still wonder how Colonel was so consistent and ruthless in her decision.-
Hi Joanna, I understand your point of view, but do not you think that she, as a Colonel, did what she ought to do?
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I guess that Colonel as a person responsible for safety of her country she did all she could to provide peace by choosing lesser evil. So from that point of view she did what she was ought to do. But looking from other perspective, no one was standing above her and pushing her to that decision. She was the one who urgently tried fulfill the plan. It is hard to say. What do you think Sylwia?
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Reading this article by Marc D. Hauser and watching a film “Eye in the sky” made me think about different perceptions of moral values. The article put a questions whether is it right to sacrifice one’s person life to save twenty-two people and film showed quite similar dilemma: risk little girl life in order to probably save tens or even thousands of people. These are very difficult questions because it concerns the most important value – human life.
Although studies show that emotions are redundant for moral judgments, I think while considerating about moral dilemmas they are present. Watching “Eye in the sky” was like an internal conflict for me. Like I had to chose whether to be “cold and calculating” in deciding that one person life is worth sacrificing in order to save many, or to think about this one person’s suffering, distraught family, non-existing future… My conclusion is that to decide moral dilemmas we must try to turn off our emotions.-
Hi Kamila! I have similiar observations about movie and also article. I wonder – do you think that when it comes to moral dilemmas there is no right or wrong, there is just lesser evil? And how do you think people decide what possibilty is just far worse?
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Hi Weronika! Yes, I think that when it comes to moral dilemmas there is only lesser evil. Because how can anyone name killing an innocent girl a good option? Every choice that requires one’s person harm is a heartbreaking decison. I think that reformulation of this question allows to decide which option is worse. It’s not only “how many will you kill?” but instead “how many will you save”? Zero or twenty-two? One or eighty? I think that especially in the army those kind of decisions must be made very rationally.
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In my opinion morality might be natural because can intuitive tell right from wrong but moral dilemmas are very difficult and complex. Dr Hauser wrote that during experiments lots of people decided that killing one person to save more people is okay but in fact they couldn’t explain why they think so. I think I also could decide what is better and say that killing one person to save 22 others is right but in real life I wouldn’t do that because I just can’t kill the other human. Eye in the sky is very interesting film and shows what is more important for politicians – not life of some African people but how they’ll be seen by media. I also think that the pilot had very hard task to do. He was miserable after that and I fully understand him.
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I didn’t think morality is neutral and both article and a movie failed to convince me otherwise. I gotta admit it was a pretty awesome movie tho. Loved the tension and atmosphere it created in this high stakes situation. The rich plurality of possibilities had me thinking about what I would do in this spot and let me tell you- it wasn’t easy to try and put myself in their shoes.
On top of that my roomates started to listen to some classic Maryla Rodowicz songs very loudly from the other room so it definitely made the atmosphere even better.
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I started hearing “Małgośka” just when the black IT guy from the base gave the stretched 45% prediction, made it way more intense for sure
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Hi Daniel. You say it wasn’t easy for you to figure out what you would decide in that situation. But did you eventually decide something? Would you agree with the characters or would you do something different?
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If we assume killing those most wanted people was as important as portraited it was the correct decision.
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The most terryfing scene in this movie was a moment when Steve Watts launched a missile meanwhile the girl was starting to go back home. Everyone including me was waiting in suspence asking yourself what would happened if Watts waited few more seconds. It is a price for this girl life – a few seconds. I found it really touching.
I don’t blame anybody for that decision. I am not responsible for it, so who am I to judge? It is easy to say that one life versus few life is still a life and we should not sacryfied her. I think none of us had to solve similiar problem in the past.
However, if I were on their place I would do the same.
Back to main question – I agree to previous comments that morality is natural but it depends of how we experience life. -
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Article was good to read, but there wasn’t anything new for me. I do not agree with Hauser’s theory. I think morality is gained while growing up, just like personality does.
(I know it’s hard to verify if i read article and watched film after those words, but i want to avoid repeating same phrases and show something what wasn’t mentioned before)
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According to the article, we can easily say that morality itself is natural, but not neccesary moral actions. But according to the movie the question changes, I’d say, deepens. It’s no longer about natural or social – made, but it’s about specific actions the characters do – are they right or wrong? If so, then why? I personally l o v e these kind of moral dilemmas. But I’ve found out that those dilemmas don’t have any special affection toward me. I like them so much, because I always try to find a way to get the “happy ending”. I don’t give up untill I find it, which, if succeeded, can be very satisfying for me. The best part about it for me is that i almost always find that way of doing things creatively, that no one dies, or suffers a horrible concequence. I left an “almost” there, not because I’ve failed to find some, but because I’m not ultimately sure that I can find a way out EVERY time i try. So “almost” is for the (hope not) future. But I’ve mentioned that these moral dilemmas don’t tend to like me, which I’ll explain now. The reason behind that is that most of them are build to make an ultimate choice. Life of 8 people, or not having to suffocate a baby (example from article). Or having to shoot the hellfire and probably kill an innocent child, or let 5 terrorists live and kill people. But the choice is too simple in my opinion. There’s no space for thinking outside the box, intelligence, creativity and heroism. A or B. That’s why I think they don’t like me, because i always complicate them. Always try to make C, D – if needed – a whole alphabet, just to save everyone and try to make a good ending.
So, replying to the main subject: I think morality is natural, but not free. I think all humans have it (some may not have social brakes like guilt etc.). But in my opinion it’s not something once given and never changing. It can develop, or decline. I think that, as most things in human psychology, it’s not fixed. Kind of a connection between having it naturally and treating it in life. -
( I can’t edit my response) Couldn’t agree more. If the whole humankind had one specific natural moral code, there wouldn’t be so many various philosophical systems addressing the issue of morality. By going through hypothetical moral dilemmas, one can only assume what they could have done. Parallelly, when we think about our reaction to some dangerous situation, we can never be sure whether we would go for fight or flight.
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