The Flawed Decision-making Ability of Human Beings

“There is a way that people think is right, but it leads only to death.” Proverbs 14:2 (ERV)

          We have a higher opinion of our ability to make moral decisions than we should.  Actually, this relative “delusion” often extends to our ability to make logical decisions in general.  Elsewhere <here> I talked about the fact that even when we know the right thing to do, we don’t always do it.  But there is an even deeper issue that we all have, which is succinctly summarized in the Proverb above:  sometimes we think something is right - convinced of it even – but we are wrong. 

This is hard for us to accept.  We usually have a pretty good idea when other people are wrong.  We’d probably agree with the general concept that human beings are not perfect decision-makers on any topic, including moral decisions.  But when it comes to admitting that this principle applies to us – to me – well, then we get pretty defensive.  It’s easy for us to see the shortcomings in others – but when it comes to taking care of our own shortcomings, we become pretty blind.

          The point I want to make in this entry is to establish this principle:  we take a big risk when we decide to establish our own reason and feelings as the basis for determining right and wrong.  The risk is that we can be convinced that something is right, but “it leads only to death.”  In general we know the fundamentals of logic and reason.  We can think through situations and make good and correct decisions.  We have that ability.  But sometimes we just fail to make use of our innate abilities.  I’d like to make this point with three different illustrations of common human behavior.

         

          Example #1:  Our emotions and sensitivities can override our reason.  Want an obvious example of that?  Tailgating.  Driving 60 miles an hour and being 15 feet behind the car in front of you.  I’ve done quite a bit of driving in my day and I’ve driven from East coast to West coast.  And what I have observed is that at least 50% of you are chronic tailgaters.  Why is that?  There is not a shred of logic behind tailgating.  When it comes to weighing risk and benefit, it is all risk with zero benefit.  Do I really need to explain it?  But, for a variety of reasons, most people just can’t help themselves.  And it’s so easy to stop tailgating – just back off – but yet we still do it.  With tailgating, we are needlessly risking our own lives and the lives of those around us.  And I won’t even mention things like texting and driving or drunk driving.  If we can’t be trusted to use our reason properly in something so common and so simple, how can we really trust ourselves in bigger, more complex, decisions?

Example 2:  Our perspective bias – we see what we want to see.  Plenty of examples of this can be found in the world of sports.  In particular, I’m talking about fans of sports teams. People root for the sports teams of their choice and their views are totally influenced by their “fandom.”  A group of people see the same play but the fans on one side say that there was a foul and the fans on the other side say there was no foul.  Isn’t it clear that some people’s view of what did or didn’t happen is clouded by their biases as a fan?

          I’m a big Cleveland Indians fan.  As a result, I see things related to my team in a favorable light.  I still think that the Atlanta Braves pitching staff got too generous of a strike zone in the ’95 World Series.  If you’re a Braves fan, I’m sure you saw it differently (and by now you surely don’t care).  This type of disagreement occurs daily in sports.  Fans on one side say “that was obviously the worst call ever” and fans on the other side say “there is no question that was the right call.”  Well, they can’t all be right – but they are all convinced that they are right.  Totally convinced.  This just illustrates how we are so easily biased by our own situation, our own environment, our own family and friends.  This is one big reason why we can’t always trust ourselves as the final decision-maker about right and wrong.  We will often be too lenient on our friends and too harsh on our enemies (or, sometimes, vice versa!).  And, worst of all, we will almost always be too lenient on ourselves.

Example #3: We can say we believe something when we don’t really believe it.  It’s just another fact of human nature:  we can all be hypocrites sometimes.  I think it might be one of those unique qualities of human beings.  I think we all have things that, if someone asked us, we would say we believe with great confidence, yet our actions would prove otherwise.   Case in point:  “everything is relative.”  I don’t mean in “relative” as in physics, but relative in moral issues.  I know plenty of people that would deny that there are any moral absolutes.  They would argue the issue for hours – vehemently.  Yet, at the same time, they would also stand strongly on moral statements such as “it’s wrong to judge others” or “you can’t tell me what is wrong for me.”  These are absolute truths that they, in actual practice, live by.  They say “there are no absolutes”, but they live as if there are.

Of course, the moral relativists don’t have the corner on hypocrisy.  Those who stand staunchly on various moral absolutes can be the biggest hypocrites of all.  Just observe their actions!  Do they always do what they say?  It happens all the time that those who speak out against some great “sin” or other are then found to violate that very issue. 

Be honest people:  we’re all big hypocrites!

          We have to make decisions about what is right and wrong on a daily basis.  We are faced with choices – we can’t avoid that – and we have to respond, even if the way we respond is to do nothing.  All I want to conclude in this entry is that if we rely on our own great impeccable innate ability to determine what is right and wrong…well, we’re going to make some mistakes.  No – probably a lot of mistakes.  We’re just not as good at this as we think we are.

The Divide

          It seems that there is a greater divide in our society these days, particularly on moral issues.  I’m not totally sure that perception is reality – there was certainly a big divide during the 60’s – the 1960’s.  And, of course, the divide in the 1860’s has to be considered the worst.  That latter divide was only “resolved” by a civil war.  The current divide is not likely to be solved by a physical war, but I don’t see how the divide can stop progressing, becoming worse and worse.  I don’t know what the end result will be, but it does not seem good.

          I’d like to illustrate what I see as the fundamental problem and then offer a suggestion that could at least start the process for finding a solution.

          One big divide is on issues related to homosexuality.  People on both sides of the fence have views that are in direct opposition to one another.  Fundamentally, there are plenty of people on each side of that issue who cannot even imagine how someone could hold the opposite view to theirs.  That’s a big divide.  But focusing on that issue doesn’t get at the more foundational problem, and therefore arguing about such issues goes nowhere. 

          Instead, I think it is more instructive to look at issues that essentially everyone agrees on, and dig a bit deeper.  I’m going to pick one to serve as an example:  child molestation.  I think everyone would agree that child molestation is wrong.

          We have to then ask ourselves:  why do we consider child molestation to be wrong?  There are some, particularly Christians, who generally use the Bible as their basis for deciding truth.  They might choose a Bible verse to justify the view that such a thing is wrong.  If they do take this approach, their basis for considering child molestation to be wrong could also cause them to have the view that any sex outside of marriage is wrong.  They would have many “absolutes” like this that are based on Biblical teaching.  The same could be said for other religions that rely on a written set of absolutes.  Some people would not use a Bible verse to support their views but essentially hold the same view as those who do.  They may believe there are moral absolutes, but they couldn’t necessarily be able to articulate them succinctly.  For those individuals, a written moral code, such as the Bible, is an implied basis for making moral decisions, but they wouldn’t necessarily go back to the source. 

          However, the divide that we really have is that many people would generally reject the idea of a moral absolute.  They would say that everything is relative.  But, in general, they would still contend that child molestation is just plain wrong.  In that case, they need some other means of establishing that child molestation is wrong.  Here is where we can begin to explore the real foundations of our current divide.

          A first common means of establishing a moral “semi-absolute” would be that since “everyone” agrees that child molestation is wrong, then it is obviously wrong.  This implies a belief that moral issues can be decided by a kind of “majority rule.”  I think a lot of people probably implicitly have this view, although it is almost never stated explicitly.  That’s probably because it is a very slippery slope full of pitfalls.  For example, how big does the “everyone” in “everyone thinks it is wrong” have to be?  How big of a majority?  A 100% majority is impossible to achieve.  Is a mere 51% majority sufficient?  Who knows?  And who gets surveyed to make this decision?  There are plenty of practical issues like that, but a deeper problem with the “morals by majority” approach is that it often breaks down and becomes pretty immoral.  If a majority of people in the US South in the 1850’s thought that slavery was right, does that mean it was right?  Some might argue about the means of selecting and determining such a majority vote, but the basic problem is that there are moral issues that are clearly wrong (or right) regardless of what a majority of people might think at any given point in time or location.  I don’t think we can totally throw out the idea of a majority rule for moral issues, but it just doesn’t make a very good foundation.

          I know there are a variety of strategies through which views on moral issues are decided without relying on absolutes, but I just want to focus on what, I think, would be the second most common response, at least with respect to child molestation.  That would be:  “anything that hurts another person is wrong.”  This statement itself is actually a moral absolute, but let’s ignore that for the moment.  Christianity is not the only place where such a sentiment is found.  One could say that “everyone” agrees with this idea (although I’m not totally sure that it is true).  It doesn’t really matter at this point.  The point is, basing moral decisions on the principle that if it hurts someone else, then it is wrong, is a pretty good principle that works a lot of the time.

          We have to go further to find the real divide.  I’m going to add a scenario that, although it is currently science fiction, is not really that far out from reality.  Specifically, consider the situation where we can immerse the child molester into a virtual reality situation that is so real that, as far as the child molester can know, the virtual reality world is the real world.  Now, let us allow the child molester to carry out his immoral acts in this virtual world.  He believes it is real.  But no actual, real child is hurt.

          Would that make child molestation in that case ok?  Or, at least, would it make the virtual act be ok (not calling it “child molestation”, since that has a moral meaning, but maybe calling it just a “virtual role-play”)? 

          I believe there are some at least, maybe more than a few, who would say that in the case of the virtual situation, that is ok.  No one is hurt.  Maybe we have to incarcerate child molesters so they don’t go out in the real world, but this type of virtual act is not morally wrong.  Actually, at the present time (2017) I would say that this view is more likely to come out in a different way:  people would defend the right of the virtual reality game-makers to include child molestation in the games they develop.  They would say that the developers have a right to create whatever game they want and there should be no moral absolutes applied to it.  But creating the game is not that far from playing it.  Thus, even if very few people would defend the “virtual” child molester today, I expect that, within the time frame it will take to create such a game, people’s views will have progressed to the point of saying that playing such a game is ok as well.

          And then, of course, there are those who would be sickened by the whole concept.  To them, whether someone is hurt or not, child molestation is wrong.  It is a moral absolute.  The idea isn’t up for discussion – it is just plain wrong.

          That is a really big divide.

          And we have to live together in the same country somehow.

          In the next entry I’m going to propose a solution.  Neither side will like it!