ame — OP-ED — Association for Moral Education

Will Moral Software Reduce the Need of Moral Education? The Evaluation of Academic Texts in Spain – Levy Farías (English and Spanish versions)

Explaining his views on moral development, Lawrence Kohlberg used to contrast moral principles with moral commandments. Would he still be with us, I believe he would also be contrasting moral principles with the increasing use of what may be called “moral software:” decision processes with moral implications, in which cybernetic mechanisms replace or outweigh by far human judgments. Of course, we can only wonder how many new insights Professor Larry would be giving us, but any reader can compare what he wrote about the limitations of simplistic, rigid, moral commandments with the noticeable limitations of the diverse moral software tools that proliferate nowadays.

Al explicar su enfoque del desarrollo moral, Lawrence Kohlberg solía contrastar los principios morales con los mandamientos morales. Creo que si todavía estuviera entre nosotros, ahora también estaría contrastando a los principios morales con el creciente uso de lo que podríamos llamar “software moral”: procesos de toma de decisiones, con implicaciones morales, en los cuales los mecanismos cibernéticos reemplazan o superan por mucho a las valoraciones humanas. Por supuesto, tan solo podemos especular sobre las muchas ideas novedosas que el Profesor Larry nos seguiría brindando, pero cualquier lector puede comparar lo que él escribió sobre las limitaciones de los rígidos y simplistas mandamientos morales, con las notorias limitaciones de las diversas herramientas de software moral que proliferan hoy día.

Comment on Jonathan Haidt, "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion" (Pantheon, 2012) – Lawrence Blum

Jonathan Haidt wants people of different political ideologies to talk, respectfully and constructively, across that divide. His Righteous Mind aims, among other things, to help “liberals” and “conservatives” understand each other, and thus to facilitate productive conversation. Haidt identifies six “moral foundations” he sees as underpinning ideological/political positions. He views liberal morality as grounded in care, fairness, and liberty, all of which he regards as individualistic values. He sees conservative morality, by contrast, while sharing the liberal three, as also embracing the three remaining values/moral foundations—loyalty, authority, and sanctity—that Haidt regards as “binding,” that is, as values concerned with holding a society together and reinforcing ties amongst its members.