[Apologies for the long post. My next on this topic will be much shorter.]

Perhaps the most woefully neglected aspect of our thinking trouble is our moral thinking. Most often we begin thinking about the morality of an issue with our minds already made up.  Our gut may have decided on the issue instantly.  Your boss may have already told you that the project is good, and that if you do not see it that way, you can look for employment elsewhere.  As Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Of course, most believe ourselves moral—even some professional criminals claim to follow a code. Some instinctual thinkers follow their hearts, making moral choices based on sympathy or disgust. Some follow the crowd, believing that their church provides sufficient moral guidance, that the path they were taught years ago is righteous, and even that everyone should follow that path as they assume the beliefs of others are wrong. Rational thinkers learned that rational, self-interested choices benefit society optimally and that all problems have rational solutions. A few believe that their worldview justifies acts that others believe are abominations.

All of those folks are wrong, at least in part. It is not moral to pick and choose which rules to follow, according to your convenience. Instincts are often deeply biased and can result in ugly vigilantism. While many religious traditions are filled with valuable moral lessons, blindly following one faith while denying all others has resulted in centuries of bloody religious wars. Rational government scientists conducted an unethical experiment for 40 years until 1972, and rational pursuit of profit has caused pollution killing many humans and other species. Any act of terror is unfair to the innocent victims, and as a rule they do not achieve any positive goal.

Many lazy, soft-headed ‘thinkers’ have given up on moral thinking, using excuses that there are no universally agreed upon moral facts and that all morality is relative. Some self-serving cynics use these excuses as permission to do whatever they want, consequences be damned. Nonsense. I already presented an incontrovertible moral baseline for humanity, the side of life, and next I explained it’s logical corollary, that life requires diversity and that the purpose of knowledge is to pursue the same universal moral objective to further life. This simple moral framework, based on the Golden Rule, makes many moral choices obvious.

No other way of thinking is disqualified before it can defend itself.  I see no perfect rational utopia, yet people still try to think rationally.  Instinctual thought is riven with conflict, yet people still make gut decisions.  Dismissing the reality of moral thinking appears to be an instinct-driven defense, by people who do not want to feel guilty or who want their self-interested way of thinking to prevail.   

Real moral thinking requires making moral determinations for moral reasons. If a culture has a traditional practice that causes severe pain to children with long-term suffering as adults, solely in order to enhance the power and control of one gender over another, then it is morally wrong, on the basis that it destroys much of the enjoyment of life from one group without improving life significantly for others. It does not matter how many people support the practice, what the laws or government say, or what the cultural or religious tradition of the country has been for however many centuries. The practice fails the basic premise of allowing life to thrive fully and joyously without unnecessary cruelty.

Simply because a cultural practice exists, does not mean that it has a moral right to continue. Our country has a long history of racism, including genocidal war and slavery. Many books and laws were written in the past attempting to justify these official policies, and the policies were popular in (unfair) elections. The cultural heritage of slavery does not, in any way, justify its existence morally. When foreigners complained that our institution of slavery was barbarically inhuman, they were not culturally insensitive, they were correct. The purpose of moral thinking is to challenge all policies on moral grounds and to change immoral policies, no matter how popular or profitable.

Once we view moral thinking as independent from other ways of thinking, such as instinctual or rational, then we can separate those feelings or arguments when making moral decisions. We can recognize an argument as being based on a common human desire and judge the morality of that desire as we judge the morality of the issue. Perhaps a common human behavior is no longer useful in modern society, is obsolete and deserves to be forgotten. We can recognize a rational argument for profitability or efficiency and still dismiss it as not relevant to the moral choice. Once extraneous ways of thinking are identified and treated separately, then moral thinking becomes clearer.

The primary problem with moral thinking is that people begin with the wrong type of thinking. If you try to make moral decisions with rational thinking, your decisions will be cold, profit-seeking and cruel, even if you use euphemistic terms such as acceptable collateral damage, euthanasia or eugenics. If you try to make moral decisions with the instinctual goal of reinforcing your own power or that of your group, then your decisions will be self-serving, not moral. Such mixed-motive thinking is confusing and often wrong.

Moral thinking should take into consideration human needs and desires, without allowing them to drive the decision, and it must often overrule short-run wants for long-term good. Moral thinking should be driven by the broadest love of life and humanity, while firmly able to deny base instinctual desires or herd behavior. Moral thinking should be as critical of bias and skeptical of ulterior motive as any scientist, while having the courage to defend the powerless few against the powerful majority.

Moral thinking should understand relevant rational assessments such as numbers of people involved and economic costs, without allowing strictly rational analysis to drive the decision, and must often overrule short-run profits for long-term good. Moral thinking must be as adept at analysis as rational thinking, but use that analysis to achieve a moral result, not the most efficient solution.

Moral thinking must learn the lessons of the past to avoid repeating those mistakes in the future. Most mistakes are not original. We have a long history of human error to teach us. Many old texts have profound moral lessons that only require some effort to apply to current problems. Each generation needs to go back to historic and even religious texts to reinterpret the old lessons for their new problems.

Religious beliefs may vary or be relative, but they are not the same as moral thinking.  Some religious texts reflect centuries of accumulated moral thinking, worded by our inspired ancestors for future generations to make better choices.  Just as engineers don’t reinvent the wheel, moral thinkers use the best tools they have.  Sometimes a moral decision is as simple as recalling a dictum and applying it.  But usually moral thinking requires more than looking up the answer in a book.  If you begin with a commandment already chosen, then you are simply applying a religious rule, not necessarily thinking extensively about the morality of the situation.  Your religion may require unquestioning obedience, but moral thinking requires more.  

Morality requires both flexibility to respond to new situations and backbone to stand on principle. One way to achieve this is to use techniques which were designed to facilitate good moral decisions. You might put yourself in each position and imagine how you would feel. You might ask whether one side would be equally happy to switch sides with the opposing party or if that would seem unfair then. You should prefer to take the long view and be the voice of silent future generations.

To summarize the key take-away, clear moral thinking should begin with a quick check that none of the other ways of thinking are driving it.  The method will almost certainly require a review of the facts, an exploration of the possibilities, and an understanding of what people want.  You need an open mind, not an empty one.  But the moral intent needs to be pure.  If you start with the belief that economics must decide the outcome, then that may be rational but not moral.  If you start with the belief that what pleases the most people will be best, then that may be popular but not moral.  If you start with your own idea in mind, then no matter how much you like it, it may not be the best solution for others.  You must commit to find the best long-term outcome in the most important respects, without regard to greed, fantasy, pride or other vices.  Well begun is half done, but moral thinking requires discipline, honesty, and may require significant time and effort, before you are prepared to make the best choice possible.