Moral Reasoning and Decision Making

This assignment delves into the concept of moral reasoning and its application in decision-making. It discusses theoretical frameworks like Neutral Omnipartial Rule-Making (NORM), outlining its principles and how it guides ethical considerations. The text also provides a personal example illustrating how NORM was applied to resolve a workplace dilemma involving employee workload and expectations.

Running head: JUDGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING
Judgment and decision making
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Abstract of book readings and its relations with specific work experience
1. Reading 3.3:
Abstract:
Fischhoff, Slovic, & Lichtenstein, (1988) gave insight into the different opinions of
student s regarding various events. In case of situations, where people find difficulty in
identifying their values, then elicitation process shapes their values. The author particularly
presents a confrontation between those have some values and those elicit values. The method of
expression of values depends on situations. People’s true value is also dependent on different
problem, the manner in which people respond to them and its impact on their judgment. The
reading also gave an indication regarding the situations when people do not know what they
want. For example, people may have clear preference when they have directly experienced a
situation. In such cases, people learn by trial and error methods and justifiable response to future
values is developed then. Hence, direct experience of working in certain situations developed
certain ideas and values among people. However, people need to make many diverse choices in
life where we do not held direct experience and so contradictory values exist. Secondly, values
of people also changes with time and decision making becomes difficult then.
The generation of values and judgments of people has been found to be influenced by
experimental procedures. In terms of psychological theory, it can be said that systematic effects
lead to the random or systematic variations in observed judgment. Secondly, the author also gave
insight regarding how ways to identify one’s desire, analyze options and consequences, measure
values and controlling different perspectives. On this basis, rationally sound values and interest
can be deepened. An elicitor looking to identify a person’s inherent values can get a lot of

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guidance from the process mentioned above and they can easily translate the basic disposition of
respondents into a codable judgments so that people are very clear about the implications of their
judgement. Another approach to strengthening perspective is to make respondents clear about
different point of views and their benefits to analyse the rational for selecting their own values.
Relation with work experience-
The above explanation of strengthening core values through appropriate judgment is
related to my work experience. For example, in my first job, certain challenges in work made me
change my perspective towards career goal. Although I had a very strong career ambition,
however challenges in my job and no direct experience about challenges altered my judgment. I
decided to quit the job and try some other things. However, one of my senior colleagues acted as
a good elicitor for me as he gave me the idea that challenges are part of the job and once that
phase is crossed, I would definitely start identifying my talent and contribution to the job. Hence,
he acted as the right elicitor for me to affect my values and judgment. He did this by
communication with me regarding the problems, the consequence of leaving the job so early and
the implications of staying and benefits of dealing with the challenges. Hence, he deepened my
perspective towards looking at my job and challenges.
2. Reading 4.3
Abstract:
Wildavsky and Dake (1990) discussed about different theories of risk perception and why
people fear certain thing. The main purpose of the study was to evaluate to what degrees are
people equally worried about risk and why is the perception of risk different for different people.
Based on this evaluation, the characteristics of people can be determined, whether they are risk

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takers or averse to risk. The perception of risk was discussed on the basis of knowledge theory,
personality theory, economic, political and cultural theories. For instance, the knowledge theory
explains that people regarding something as dangerous because they are aware about the risk.
The economic theory gave the indication that risk taking or risk aversion is dependent on the
economy because the rich people are more likely to take risk and test something new which they
do not have. On the other hand, the cultural theory gives the explanation that people regard
certain actions as risky as this have an impact on their social relations. The whole risk aversion
and risk taking attitude was explained on the premise of regarding technology as a risk factor for
people. Similarly, from the egalitarian point of view, the argument was that egalitarian people
give more rating to risk. All the rival theories were also tested by the risk perception data
archive. In this case, the risk associated with technology was evaluated with list of concerns
people have about society. The responses were explained on the factor of knowledge,
personality, cultural biases and political orientation. Cultural biases was found as the best factor
to predict risk perception findings and the prediction is more powerful than knowledge and
personality factor. Hence, the main conclusion from the discussion was that culture of
individualism favors risk taking and the egalitarian culture always stay away from risk taking.
However, the weak correlation between culture biases and personality also revealed the influence
of culture on risk perception. This study pointed towards the right approach for risk perception
by analyzing about different explanations about fears in people.
Relation with personal experience:
I agree with the Wildavsky and Dake (1990) view that people from individualism culture
favours risk taking and those from egalitarian culture are averse to risk. I can say this because I
belong to the individualism group and I have opted to take many risk in my career so that get

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eventual benefit from it. Hence, my risk taking attitude was triggered by my wish to gain
something in return. I took the risky step of leaving my well-established job and working on my
own project of developing an application where I could provide excellent job opportunities to
people in one place. I wanted to make job seeking a pleasant experience for job seekers and I
was motivated to take this risk because of the expectation that if I am able to crack this project, I
will be earning even more than before. In addition, all controls will be under my hand and I will
not be limited to a 9 to 5 job to display my talent.
3. Reading 5.1
Abstract:
Jungermann (1983) gave useful debate and arguments regarding the two groups of
people- the rational and irrational people. He defined rationality as a philosophical concept in
which an action is defined as rational if it is line with values and belief of a person. The
psychology of judgement and decision is further understood from the normative models and
actual judgment. This model regarded violation of rationality as the true deficiency of the
decision maker. In the debate, Jungermann (1983) categorized the pessimist into the first camp
and the optimist into the second camp. The pessimist regard decision making under certainty
may lead to certain problems, whereas the optimist think that their judgment will be functional
even in complex situations. Therefore, both camps have different approach towards rationality
and violations of rationality was seen due to limited judgment capacity and decision making
ability of people. The author explained these violations of rationality in both camps.
For the pessimist camp, violation of rationality was seen due to judgmental biases,
representational faults and coping defeats. For example judgmental bias is seen when people

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mainly rely on heuristics and this leads to inconsistent decisions. Secondly, representational
faults is seen when people evaluate any decision on basis of gains and losses instead of thinking
about the final state. Another factor leading to violation of rationality in pessimist camp includes
poor coping mechanism or motivations among people. In addition, for the optimist camp, meta
decisions differ on the basis of familiarity of the situation and knowledge about the subject. The
continuity argument for the second camp was that judgment is a continous process and biases in
decision making is seen when people regard it as discrete event and do not regard it as
functional. The final lesson from both sides of the debate was that rationality concepts is used
with different meanings in both group and people should be liberal in using the rational concepts.
Relation with work experience
The above explanation of pessimistic and optimistic group’s decision making and
concept about rationality is related to my work experience. I could relate with the information
given for optimist camp that they always regard their decision as useful and functional in specific
situations. For example, there were certain projects which were too complex and my decision
making determined the success of the project. Hence, I planned my decision for the project with
a positive mindset. Hence, I approach to deal with difficult circumstances with a productive
mindset. With such focus, my rationality was based on impact of decisions on productivity.
Therefore, I looked for all factors available that would determine the success of the project and I
finalized my decision on the basis of benefits of application of the strategy. This may violate the
rationality model as only available factors and not all factors for success were evaluated. Still it
is perfectly rational because checking infinite resource available is not possible in finite time.
4. Reading 6.3

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Abstract:
Green (1994) gives a discussion about neutral omnipartial rule-making (NORM) which is
a theoretical approach to moral choice giving an idea about underlying logic of moral reasoning
process in terms of choice. NORM has been discussed in ethical writing of Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804) and the main idea was that moral reasoning can be a great source of support when
interest related conflict occurs. Hence, moral reasoning is the basis on which people can tolerate
certain conducts or behavior. According to the moral reasoning process, a major consideration is
that a conduct must be publicly known and acceptable all people in society. Another way by
which moral reasoning was explained was that it is legislative processs that supports abiding by
the rules. Hence, an action is right if all members of the society perceived it as right. The two
questions that were raised based on this definition was that whether the approach is related to
relativism and how society can morally decide moral actions where people are against other
groups. The author gave the explanation that in the definition, the possibility of victimization in
different group in society has been excluded. Therefore, NORM is used to assess conduct or
policies, but not on the basis of vote by people in the society. To come to a valid conclusion
despite different claims in society, NORM uses the principle of impartiality to determine a fair
action. The word impartiality was also defined by the term detachment or omni-partiality. To
come to moral decisions, taking omnipartial views from many persons also help. Therefore,
NORM has been found to support common intuition because it emphasized on a conduct to be
publicly accepted according to most basic judgment about moral choice. It can be summarized
that NORM helps to interpret morality of difficult actions and engage in a reasoning process
when rules conflict. This eventually leads to a better conduct.

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Relationship with work experience:
The above mentioned reading explored the moral reasoning process and the morality of
an action by utilizing the NORM approach. I have used a similar NORM like action to evaluate
the moral basis of my decisions too. For instance, as a work manager, I had the responsibility to
achieve certain targets as given by my company. However, as few days remained and we were
still far away from the target, I had to take some harsh decision so that I could eventually
achieved the target. The decision in which moral reasoning was required was whether I should
force all employees to work extra time for few days or not? I evaluated the moral basis of my
action by being omni-partial and putting myself into my team member’s position. I analyzed
about all those who will be affected by this conduct. Contemplating great ethical issues from
staff, I gave the option of to team members of voluntary choosing extra work hours instead of
forcing them.

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Reference
Fischhoff, B., Slovic, P., & Lichtenstein, S. (1988). Knowing what you want: Measuring labile
values. Decision Making: Descriptive, Normative and Prescriptive Interactions, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 398-421.
Green, R.M., 1994. The ethical manager: A new method for business ethics. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Jungermann, H., 1983. The two camps on rationality. Advances in Psychology, 16, pp.63-86.
Wildavsky, A. and Dake, K., 1990. Theories of risk perception: Who fears what and
why?. Daedalus, pp.41-60.