Event Title
Investigating the Influence of Social Pressures on Decisions to Provide Charitable Aid
Location
Parker-Reed, SSWAC
Start Date
30-4-2015 9:00 AM
End Date
30-4-2015 10:55 AM
Project Type
Poster
Description
It is unclear how people make ethical decisions. Peter Singer suggests in Famine, Affluence, and Morality that these decisions, especially ones regarding donations to foreign charity organizations, should be made based on calculated utilitarian rationality. It is clear, however, based on the responses to his two thought experiments, that there is more at work in judging moral obligation to a particular charitable action than rationality. There are external factors that influence our sense of obligation. Singer concedes that awareness of how a community is acting has the power to sway these ethical decisions. This project picks up on this idea, and investigates the influence of social pressure and observation on the likelyhood of donating time and money to a charity organization. Results are based on two thought experiments designed to test how our behavior changes when we know that we are being observed, and when we have the opportunity to analyze the activity of the community around us. Results show that both being observed and being aware of social activity significantly influence individual senses of obligation to a particular charity. These results are not meant to accept or reject Singer's proposal, but rather to offer an solution to the problem of why our ethical activity departs from what should be considered irrational behavior.
Faculty Sponsor
John Waterman
Sponsoring Department
Colby College. Philosophy Dept.
CLAS Field of Study
Humanities
Event Website
http://www.colby.edu/clas
ID
1468
Investigating the Influence of Social Pressures on Decisions to Provide Charitable Aid
Parker-Reed, SSWAC
It is unclear how people make ethical decisions. Peter Singer suggests in Famine, Affluence, and Morality that these decisions, especially ones regarding donations to foreign charity organizations, should be made based on calculated utilitarian rationality. It is clear, however, based on the responses to his two thought experiments, that there is more at work in judging moral obligation to a particular charitable action than rationality. There are external factors that influence our sense of obligation. Singer concedes that awareness of how a community is acting has the power to sway these ethical decisions. This project picks up on this idea, and investigates the influence of social pressure and observation on the likelyhood of donating time and money to a charity organization. Results are based on two thought experiments designed to test how our behavior changes when we know that we are being observed, and when we have the opportunity to analyze the activity of the community around us. Results show that both being observed and being aware of social activity significantly influence individual senses of obligation to a particular charity. These results are not meant to accept or reject Singer's proposal, but rather to offer an solution to the problem of why our ethical activity departs from what should be considered irrational behavior.
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/174