CONVETIONAL/COSTUMARY AND REFLECTIVE ETHICS

Conventional morality is inheritance by nature. We inherit from from our family, society
and so on. In the previous answer, Prashant provided a good example of respecting
elders and not to raise your voice against them.

Reflective morality can be explained by the word 'reflection'. Thoughts are reflected
when  we think, so it is a morality that is derived out of thinking. That means applying
reason on morality, more so for the inherited morality. For example, a father who is a
drunkard, irresponsible and lazy, distorts the peace of a family. Do you still apply
conventional morality which says pay respect and keep your voice low when speaking to
your elders? This is where reflection is required, reason has to be deployed and life has to
be examined.

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates.

Kohlberg's theory of moral development (Stage 6), talks about an individual maturing
into conscience decision making based on logical comprehensiveness, universality and
consistency. I think this is moral decision making based on internalized processing,
including thinking.

In summary, conventional morality was created and existed for a good purpose, that is to
uphold the units family and society. Therefore, it still should be protected for the original
cause that was intended. Whenever, deviation creeps in, reflective adjustment and
judgment should be bestowed by the thinking person - as we are.

To be frank I am reading these terms for the very first time. I am not even sure
concepts like such exists but still I think I can draw a line separating these two
effectively.

Conventional morality as the name suggests are the morals arose out of conventions
through ages or even time immemorial. We might or might not know reason for them,
but still they occupy in our moral code of conduct. A very general example is standing
up of students when teacher enter a class. It is less out of respect and more out of
these conventional codes.
Often we try to speak less in front of our elders, or speak in low tone and soft too, these
are the conventions that nobody told us but we learned them through observations, by
watching our elders do the same.

Reflective morality is a concept that binds the morality to notion of generation and
changes in the society. Such codes of morality are simply our reflection of any individual
or society as a whole. With each generation and sometimes even in a single generation
there is a specific change in these codes. They might even be completely flipped to be
suited by the society.  Or even at same time among different societies. For example,
killing animals is immoral in some community but is perfectly normal in some other.
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“Conventional morality” is represented by the cultural norms and national laws that would
have already gathered momentum of usage and obsession in spite of their inherent
hurting flaws. In a way, it is “average” morality, not the “exact” morality. It may not fit a
particular individual, a particular situation.

Analysis and deliberated rectification of the “flaws” of conventional morality is “reflective

morality”.
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Terms and characteristics. Ethics comes from the Greek ethos meaning
character. Morality derives from the Latin moralis meaning customs or
manners. Commonly we speak of people being ethical or moral to mean good or
right and unethical and immoral to mean wrong or bad. Philosophical ethics is
the study of what makes something moral or ethical, good or right, and
unethical or immoral bad or wrong

Customary and Reflective Morality (1908)

Thus far I have discussed open-mindedness as a sort of active scientific method. So I find it reasonable
to consider the following: How does open-mindedness fare as an ethical concept? I believe that this
selection answers that question, in which Dewey separates customary and reflective morality.

“[Reflective Morality] make[s] a clear distinction between ‘manners’ and morals, while in customary
morality manners are morals[.]”

Customary morality is the morality that combines everything. The decisions of how to act or behave
hold equal weight to the decisions of how to dress or what to eat. Morality such as this is commonly
seen in religion, but more modernly in professions such as business. A businessman may do
something not because it is truly right and good, but because it is custom, and custom is good.

“[M]any business men do not bother themselves about the morality of certain ways of doing business.
Such and such is the custom of the trade, and if a man is going to do business at all he must follow its
customs – or get out.”

Reflective morality separates act and behavior from culture and custom, and adopts the viewpoint that
all things can and should be considered for reform, despite tradition and habit.

The problem of customary morality is that it is hard to change, even if change is necessary. To revolt
against the custom is to be deemed impious, and such persons will be exiled or punished for their
intelligence. Custom then continues ad infinidum, lest there be a divine intervention or conquering by
war.

Indeed even the observance of custom is not enough for Dewey. The reflective mindset goes beyond
this mere observance and takes ground in active consideration. A child of customary morality may be
taught that the fork is on the left and the knife on the right but the reflective person asks why this is
so, and rules out the ethical importance of such customs in exchange for principles more worthy of
serious thought. “[T]he individual has to grasp the meaning of these customs over and above the bare
fact of their existence, and has to guide himself by their meaning and not by the mere fact noted.”

Dewey is pointing at the fact that unless we adopt a collectively reflective mindset, we are doomed to
remain in a vicious circle of ignorance. Custom may give us comfort, for it implies order and society,
but what is custom when it is compared to vast conscious consideration and reflection? The reflective
mind may look toward the customary mind comically, for the reflective person leaps and walks
through the ethical while the mind of custom merely stands blindfolded, taking no interest in their
ability to do as the reflective person does.

The adoption of this reflective morality is an inward process, as Dewey describes it. When a person’s
experience causes them to question their customs and habits, they realize their ability to judge for
themselves the rightness of their actions, that the current standard is not justification of its own
conduct. The fact that it exists is no moral warrant (as Dewey describes it.) Thus, reflection is
adopted and fostered as a responsibility in a person’s mind. Active consideration becomes an
obligation of a person to his or her society.

“In the morally more advanced members of contemporary society, the need of fostering a habit of
examination and judgment, of keeping the mind open, sensitive, to the defects and the excellences of
the existing social order is recognized as obligation.”

As an ethical concept, open-mindedness is the gateway to transition between customary thought and
reflective thought. To adopt the viewpoint that despite what I have been taught and what I believe to
be right, there may be something out there that is more right, of which I do not know yet, and I
should actively search for what is more right is the means by which a person may actively refine their
ethical viewpoints independently, as opposed to the means of some will of God or decree by a King or
Dictator. To analogize, customary morality is to be a passenger on a bus and reflective morality to be
the operator of your own vehicle. Open-mindedness is the means by which you get off the bus and
begin driving your own car. Indeed it implies a sort of moral freedom. 

The means by which a person comes to want open-mindedness is a concept tenfold complex. People
like their habits. People cling to their customs. To convince a man/woman to cast their thoughts of the
ethical into doubt seems equally as hard as convincing them to doubt that the sun will rise tomorrow.
“This is how it is,” they would say. “To think differently is to err.” How may a student foster this idea
and become a reflective thinker, then? What cause can there be for open-mindedness to plague and
kill the vicious customary beliefs? When we travel to other societies, our instinct to survive kicks in
and we open our minds or perish in the walls of our customs. This is a proven method by which a
person may open their mind. They who place themselves in other cultures are akin to they who travel
to a place where the sun does not always rise in the morning. (above the arctic circle during the
winter solstice, perhaps?) 

So if we wish to ask ourselves “can we foster an active open-mindedness in students?” we truly ask
ourselves “can there be something that impresses the mind with such force as experience?” Such
questions are ideal starting points for further enquiries.