Introduction

Ethical or moral reasoning is a critical part of decision making. Each day, even on normal days, each person faces a variety of moral decisions. Some moral decisions are small, such as whether to use the last of the milk. Others are larger, such as whether to lie about an affair. Some are extremely large, such as whether one should torture prisoners for information or not. Regardless of the size of the moral decision, a person’s ability to make a moral decision in a rational manner depends on his/her ability to engage in moral reasoning. The following pages provide information about how to approach moral decisions (presented as issues) as well as tools for moral reasoning.

The tools for moral reasoning, which are methods of moral argumentation, are presented in a neutral manner-there is no attempt to endorse a specific moral position or moral theory. Instead, the focus is on providing people with effective tools in the hopes that they will reason well about moral matters.

Moral Issues

Moral reasoning begins with the consideration of a moral or ethical issue (“moral” and “ethical” are used interchangeably). In the context of reasoning, an issue is a matter of dispute with two or more distinct sides. Not surprisingly, an ethical issue is an issue that involves a moral component. An example of an ethical issue is whether capital punishment is morally acceptable or not.

While there are many ways to respond to an ethical issue, the following discussion focuses on approaching an ethical issue from the standpoint of reason and assumes that the goal is to attempt to resolve the issue in a rational manner.

An ethical issue will have three main components: non-moral facts, concepts and, of course, the moral or ethical aspects. In order to adequately and rationally resolve an ethical issue each of these components must be considered.

For more details, follow the Moral Issues link.

Methods of Moral Reasoning

While traditional methods of reasoning, such as standard inductive arguments and deductive arguments, can be applied to moral issues, methods specific to ethics have been developed. As such, these methods are quite useful when engaging in moral reasoning.