Theologian Giles Fraser on Moral character

11/25/14 • 11 min

How do you make good moral decisions when you have no time to make them? This is a question that troubled Giles Fraser after he met soldiers who had served in Afghantistan. The moral codes Giles had studied required a lot of time for thinking and reflection but you simply don't get that when deciding whether to shoot on the battle field. This led Giles to think about the Greek philosopher Aristotle and his system of virtue ethics – a way of thinking about morals that emphases character rather than rules. Giles talks to former SAS soldier Andy McNabb and philosopher Nancy Sherman on how do you distinguish right from wrong in today's 'battle space' where the rules of engagement are no longer clear. And whether the answer is to be in a 2500 year old piece of Greek thinking. This programme is part of a week of programmes.

Previous Episode

How Can I Tell Right From Wrong?

A new history of ideas presented by Melvyn Bragg but told in many voices. Melvyn is joined by four guests with different backgrounds to discuss a really big question. This week the question is 'How do I tell wrong from right?' Helping him answer it are Neuro-psychologst Paul Broks, Philosopher Angie Hobbs, Theologian Giles Fraser and Lawyer Harry Potter. For the rest of the week Paul, Angie, Giles and Harry will take us further into the history of ideas about morality with programmes of their own. Between them they will examine the idea of conscience and moral intuitions, the relationship between morality and the law, whether moral systems can work on the battlefield and what the brain seems to do when we are making moral decisions.

Next Episode

Neuro-psychologist Paul Broks on Morality and the Brain

The eighteenth century writer Jeremy Bentham thought that telling right from wrong as simple: morally right things were the ones that increased the total of human happiness. Wrong things were the ones that increased the stock of suffering. His principle is known as utilitarianism.

It sounds rational, but does it do justice to the way we actually think about morality? Some things seem wrong even when, according to utilitarianism, they are right.

Recently, philosophers and psychologists have started to apply experimental methods to moral philosophy. In this programme, neuropsychologist Paul Broks looks at the recent research. Some experimenters, such as Guy Kahane in Oxford, have been putting people in scanners to see which bits of the brain are most active when they struggle with moral dilemmas. Fiery Cushman at Harvard has been getting people to carry out simulated immoral acts (such as asking volunteers to fire a fake gun at the experimenter) to see how they react to unpleasant but essentially harmless tasks. And Mike Koenigs at Wisconsin Madison University has been looking at how psychopathic criminals and people with brain damage deal with moral puzzles. One school of thought now suggests that utilitarianism, far from being the "rational" way to decide right from wrong, is actually most attractive to people who lack the normal empathic responses – people very like Jeremy Bentham, in fact. This programme is part of a week of programmes looking at the history of ideas around Freedom.