Ethics for 8-year-olds
This week in 3rd grade we studied the rise of Julius Caesar and the subsequent collapse of the Roman Republic. We've spent several weeks studying the balance of power with the Republic, and the various checks within the system to ensure the passage of just laws, so when those checks and balances were overthrown by Caesar, the students were sufficiently horrified. We spend a few days watching Caesar's accumulation of power, occasionally stepping into Brutus' shoes to speculate on what he might have been thinking during those years of civil war and social change. Then, we looked at Shakespeare's imaginative history and read the death of Caesar and the dueling speeches in the Forum.
After the speeches, we took a step back and talked about what just happened. After rereading the speeches, we were able to have a serious conversation about the justness of both Brutus' and Antony's actions. We finally concluded that we could summarize the situation as:
--> Brutus loved Caesar.
--> Brutus loved the just laws of Rome.
--> Caesar was destroying the just laws of Rome.
--> Brutus broke the law to preserve the law.
Their assignment was to answer the question: Did Brutus do the right thing? Why or why not?
Their answers were fascinating. Even though all 29 students sat through the same lectures and participated in the same discussions, these 3rd-graders' paragraphs represented 4 distinct (and remarkably sophisticated) categories of moral reasoning: 1) double effect reasoning, 2) consequentialism/utilitarianism, 3) Kantian deontology, and 4) Thomism.
Double Effect
Double effect reasoning was first clearly articulating in Thomas Aquinas' philosophy in the 13th century. It is distinct, however, from Thomistic moral theory as a whole, because of the way it can be isolated and used to defend contradictory moral judgments.
The principle of double effect applies to ethical situations where there will be multiple outcomes to a single action. For example, if you are driving down a neighborhood street and a person walks in front of you, the decision to swerve will have two outcomes: 1) preserving the person's safety and simultaneously 2) destroying the neighbor's fence. The principle of double effect allows you to value one of those outcomes above the other. The saving of the person's life is worth more than the destruction of a fence, so even though you made a conscious decision to destroy the fence, it was not wrong to do so. Thomism (Aquinas' philosophy) uses double effect to expound on Augustinian just war theory and to defend killing within specific situations.
However, double effect reasoning is a two-edged sword. It hinges on the hierarchy of those outcomes. How do you decide which one is more valuable? What values do you hold that determine your hierarchy of goods? Double effect, depending on its value hierarchy, can be used to defend actions like infanticide, euthanasia, selective sterilization, ethnic cleansing -- and assassination.
One 3rd-grader wrote: "I think [Brutus] did right, because he broke the the law to save his city. And now the Roman citizens can die as free people." (I've corrected the spelling on all quotes from 3rd-graders, but left grammar and usage intact.) This student recognizes two effects of Brutus' action: the death of Caesar, and the freedom of the Romans from Caesar's tyranny. Her immediate experience in class has brought her to love the freedom within the Republic more than Caesar, so she values (like Brutus) the freedom of Rome over the life of Caesar. However, she recognizes the wrongness of Brutus' action by identifying his exact process as "breaking the law," something she recognizes as wrong.
Consequentialism/Utilitarianism
Consequentialism and utilitarianism are modern ethical theories. There are subtle differences but the two have so much in common that they are often lumped. Consequentialism decides whether an action is right or wrong by examining and evaluating its consequences, utilitarianism its usefulness. These two ethical theories both evaluate the end (or the goal) of an action. They can be summarized in the catchphrase: "The end justifies the means." If the end, or the goal, of the action is morally sound, the means are morally sound.
One of my students wrote, "Brutus did the right thing in my opinion, because if he didn't kill Caesar, the laws of Rome might not be there at the end of the day." The goal of the action was the preservation of Rome. This justified the breaking of the law. This is subtly different from double effect because the two actions aren't considered hierarchically. The breaking of the law ceases to be a morally wrong action because it brings about a morally acceptable end: the preservation of Roman law. Another student put it this way: "I think it was the right thing to do. Because if he didn't do it the law would be destroyed."
On the flip side, one student looked ahead in the story and recognized that Brutus' actions eventually damaged Rome. He also used utilitarian moral reasoning to support his conclusion that, "[Brutus] did not do the right thing. His decision ended the Republic." Because his decision ended the Republic, this student implies, the action was wrong. If it had saved the Republic, it would have been the right thing to do.
Kantian Deontology
Kantian moral theory (or more pretentiously, deontological ethical philosophy) is basically legalism. Duty determines morality. If one fulfills one's duty to the law, one is right; if one violates that duty, one is wrong. Motives, consequences, and usefulness are less significant in deontology (irrelevant in some forms).
Deontology is not a popular 3rd grade moral theory, probably because it involves a somewhat sophisticated devotion to the idea of Law that most 8-year-olds do not have yet. 8-year-olds frequently appreciate the law as a functionary thing (utilitarianism), but they don't necessarily value the Law as a good in itself. Only two of my students are budding deontologists. One argued, "I do not think [Brutus] did the right thing because if he loves Rome's laws, why would he break the law by killing his best friend in cold blood? He did the wrong thing." The wrongness was Brutus' neglect of the law.
Demonstrating a particularly nuanced deontology, one of my brightest students wrote, "Brutus did not do the right thing because you should not kill a man in no war." He parsed the laws about killing, and pointed out that Brutus violated a clause about killing in cold blood as opposed to killing in a just war.
Thomism
Finally, classic Thomistic moral theory. Thomism considers moral actions in a hierarchy (some goods are "better" than others), the end or the goal of the actions, the relationship of the action to true and just law, but adds a piece. Thomism also considers the motives, the intention of the action, in determining whether an action was right or wrong. Intention begins in the reason (part of the soul) and progresses through the will (also part of the soul) to become action. As a result, the intention of an action leaves a mark on the soul as it passes through. So Thomism ultimately considers the effect an action has on the person's soul.
Can 8-year-olds evaluate actions through this complex a lens? It turns out yes, some of them do. One child wrote, "I think [Brutus] did the right thing because he loved Rome." The justification for Brutus' action isn't that justice was threatened, or that he was trying to save the Republic, but that he loved something: Rome.
And my personal all-time favorite response, which looks deontological until the last sentence when its Thomistic nature reveals itself:
"I was studying about this question and I said no, it was not right because [Brutus] killed a man, and saving the law by killing someone is not good, it's destroying life. By killing Caesar, he ended up killing himself twice, once with the knife after the civil war but before too, when he killed his best friend, who was a part of him."
Nature or Nurture?
There you have it: these kids get different moral philosophies. The question is, how did they form their particular theories? Is it primarily nature, or nurture, that determines a person's ethical reasoning? Another post for another day.
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