Verbum et Ecclesia (Aug 2001)

Morality, Imagination and Human decision making

  • L.H. Human,
  • J. Liebenberg,
  • J.C. M�ller

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v22i2.648
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 22, no. 2
pp. 300 – 313

Abstract

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The authors of this article explore the possibility of using imagination instead of so-called objective truths in human decision making. They argue that imagination plays a role even if one operates with the objectivist view of morality. What now is needed is to elaborate on the role that imagination plays when humans have to make moral decisions, especially when they experience that they are lost, that they are in a state of aporia. In the approach suggested, one is forced to come to grips with the full complexity of one's situation. No easy, ultimately correct decision is presupposed. Instead, one is forced to take full responsibility both for the construction of alternative stories (and therefore alternative moralities) and also for choosing the preferred story and its desired and undesired moral consequences.