Values are intertwined with every aspect of our lives, and play a major role in our daily decision-making. Our values determine the way we live, and also shape our behavior. When we experience a psychological problem, such a problem takes on a philosophical nature only when it conflicts with our basic value system.
If a hard-working family man, for example, is promoted to a position that ultimately requires him to cut his company’s expenses by laying off hundreds of people, he may experience such a burdensome responsibility as one that counters his core values. He may realize that by “doing his job well”, he is causing others to suffer. Wuthnow (1996) would characterize the challenges faced by the newly-promoted man as challenges to his reflective morality, which “.comes into play most visibly when people are faced with choices about their basic values and how to realize these values in their daily lifes [sic]” (Wuthnow, 1996, p. 457). Thus, society’s customary morality – comprising the economic realm – would pose a problem, and such a man in this position would be forced to reflect on the conflict between customary and so-called reflective morality (Wuthnow, 1996, p. 457). Thus, when people face a psychological problem, it does not become a philosophical problem until they are forced to reflect on how the problem conflicts with customary morality, a set of codified, social values guiding questions of right and wrong that few dare to question.
In the case of the aforementioned man, he might decide to resign, should he conclude that his reflective morality is at considerable odds with customary morality. According to Wuthnow (1996), such moral choices require a great deal of thought about the consequences of one’s actions, and moral discourse must be encouraged, lest we fall victim to not asking questions, or engaging in a moral discourse, about the “unstated economic assumptions” of customary morality (Wuthnow, 1996, p. 458).
Finally, it is clear that there is a great deal of choice involved in reflective morality. Not only does such decision-making empower our values, but it creates a moral discourse that calls into question norms that may no longer be valuable, or necessary. Those who, like the abovementioned fictional man, question what society takes for granted are showing the agency to think and act as responsible individuals.
References
Wuthnow, R. (1996). Making Choices: From Short-Term Adjustments to Principled Lives. In
Bloom, L.Z., White, E.M., & Borrowman, S., Inquiry: Questioning, Reading, Writing:
Second Edition. (pp. 444-459).
