Dual-System Moral Realism

or When the Right Choice is Still Wrong

Dual-System Moral Realism (DSMR) is a normative framework that distinguishes sharply between morality and ethics, treating morality as a descriptive account of violations of bodily or property integrity and the agency responsible for them, and ethics as a socially constructed system of judgment, permissibility, and response. Under this view, all events involving persons or property are morally describable with respect to responsibility, but only ethical systems determine whether such events are justified, excused, or condemned.

The framework maintains that moral facts about integrity violation and responsibility exist independently of social approval, while ethical permission is determined by communal norms, institutions, and practical priorities. Justification does not erase moral violation; it only governs how societies respond to it.

Core Principles

Dual-System Moral Realism is structured around five central claims:

Morality is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Morality does not instruct agents on what they should do. Instead, it describes what has occurred in terms of integrity violation, agency, and responsibility.
Moral attribution depends on agency.
Events are morally attributable only when violations of bodily or property integrity occur through the (in)action of agents with the capacity to choose otherwise.
Ethics governs judgment and permissibility.
Whether an action is treated as acceptable, excusable, or punishable is determined by ethical systems adopted by societies.
Justification is social, not moral.
Actions are not rendered morally innocent by necessity, benefit, or good intentions; they are tolerated or excused because ethical systems prioritize certain outcomes or social goals over strict non-violation.
Prevention is ethically preferable to justification.
Avoiding integrity violations entirely is ethically superior to permitting violations and later excusing them, since prevention avoids moral violation altogether.

Morality: Integrity and Agency

Within this framework, morality concerns two components:

Integrity violation: Interference with, alteration of, or destruction of a person's body, autonomy, or property.
Agency: Whether the individuals involved had the capacity to choose and act otherwise.

Morality does not evaluate whether violations were beneficial, reasonable, or socially useful. It records only whether bodily or property integrity was violated and whether that violation is attributable to responsible agents.

Because morality is descriptive, it applies universally and continuously. Every instance of interference with bodily or property integrity is morally relevant in the sense that it can be examined for responsibility, even when socially accepted or legally mandated. The decisive moral distinction is whether such interference is attributable to an agent.

When integrity is violated through the (in)action of a responsible agent, the event is morally attributable. When violation occurs without such agency—through natural events, accidents, or physical incapacity—the outcome may be tragic, but it is unmoral, in the sense that no moral responsibility applies.

Examples include:

A person killing another person → integrity violation with agency (morally attributable).
A person refusing to help when capable → integrity violation with agency (morally attributable).
A tree falling in a storm and damaging a house → integrity violation without agency (unmoral).
A person in a coma failing to aid someone nearby → integrity violation without agency (unmoral).
Unauthorized alteration of another's property, even if beneficial → integrity violation with agency (morally attributable).

Ethics: Judgment and Permissibility

Ethics refers to systems of social evaluation that determine:

whether an action is permitted,
whether it is excusable,
whether it deserves punishment,
and what responses are appropriate after integrity violations occur.

Ethical systems vary by culture, legal structure, tradition, and historical context. Events involving the same moral facts may be judged differently by different societies.

For example, killing in self-defense may be ethically excused or even praised in many societies, while still constituting a morally attributable violation of bodily integrity. Ethical permission reflects social priorities such as survival, deterrence, and stability, rather than changes in the descriptive moral nature of the act itself.

Agency and Moral Responsibility

Moral responsibility depends on agency. Where meaningful choice is absent, moral blame does not apply even if integrity is violated.

Common examples include:

individuals in comas,
persons experiencing sudden medical incapacitation,
cases of physical coercion that eliminate alternatives.

In such cases, destructive or intrusive outcomes may still be real, but responsibility is absent. These situations are treated as misfortune rather than wrongdoing. This distinction prevents moral evaluation from collapsing into pure outcome-based judgment and preserves the role of choice in assigning responsibility.

Under Dual-System Moral Realism, institutions such as:

courts,
governments,
medical systems,
and community norms

function as ethical authorities, not moral arbiters. They regulate how societies respond to morally attributable integrity violations, including when such violations are:

punished,
tolerated,
or institutionally authorized.

Actions such as imprisonment, property seizure, medical procedures without consent, or lethal force may be ethically sanctioned while still constituting morally attributable violations of bodily or property integrity. Ethical legitimacy does not alter the descriptive moral status of the acts themselves; it only establishes social permission and procedural justification.

Tragic Moral Conflict

The framework recognizes that some situations create unavoidable moral loss, where every available option involves integrity violation attributable to agency. In such cases:

ethical reasoning selects the least socially unacceptable option,
but no option is morally cost-free.

This produces what is often termed moral remainder: a persistent recognition that violation has occurred even when ethically justified. Ethical permission manages conflict but does not retroactively convert violation into moral good.

Emphasis on Prevention

A central implication of Dual-System Moral Realism is the ethical priority of prevention. Because:

morally attributable integrity violations cannot be erased after they occur,
ethical justification only governs social response,

it follows that preventing violations is ethically superior to permitting them and later excusing them.

Examples of this principle include:

security measures preferred over self-defense,
de-escalation preferred over violent restraint,
risk reduction preferred over post-violation compensation.

Ethical systems, under this view, should be structured to minimize situations in which violations must be excused rather than avoided.

Comparison with Other Ethical Theories

Contrast with Deontology

Unlike deontological theories, DSMR does not treat moral rules as commands governing behavior. Morality does not prohibit actions; it describes responsibility for violations after the fact.

Contrast with Utilitarianism

Unlike utilitarian theories, violations do not become morally neutral when outweighed by benefits. Ethical justification may permit violation, but moral attribution remains.

Contrast with Moral Relativism

Unlike relativist theories, moral facts about integrity violation and agency are not dependent on cultural agreement. What varies is ethical response, not moral responsibility.

Summary

Dual-System Moral Realism holds that:

morality describes violations of bodily or property integrity and agency without prescribing conduct,
ethics determines permissibility and social response,
responsibility requires agency,
justification does not erase moral attribution,
and prevention is ethically preferable to post-hoc excuse.

The framework aims to preserve objective moral seriousness while acknowledging that societies must still govern tragic and unavoidable conflicts in practical ways.

Questions and Answers

These questions were submitted to me and I have written my answers below each.

Q #1: You are a surgeon with five patients who will die today without organ transplants. A healthy person is in your care whose organs could save all five, but they will die if you take them. You can sacrifice this person and no one will ever know what you did. Do you take the organs to save the five, or do you refuse and allow the five to die?

A #1: I would obviously not sacrifice the healthy person to save the five as it violates the bodily integrity and ownership rights of the healthy person (their body and life). Furthermore, I personally believe that organ transplanting is a form of corpse desecration much like cannibalism and I am against it.

Q #2: You are a firefighter in a burning building. There is a single child trapped in a room and two adults trapped in another room, you can save the occupants of either room, but not both. Whom do you save, and why?

A #2: This particular situation will result in a tragedy either way you decide to approach it. If the three individuals are unrelated, it may lessen the grief of the surviving party/-ies, but it is still a weighty decision. Do I rescue the presumed parents and guarantee their grief of losing their child or do I rescue the child as they have a greater potential for a long life than the two adults? I would probably opt to rescue the child as they have that potential as I stated earlier, they have less ability to escape on their own, and they are less responsible for their situation than the adults in the house are.

Q #3: You are in a lifeboat that can safely hold six people. Seven survivors are trying to climb in. If all stay, the boat will sink and everyone will die. What, if anything, should be done? How should survival be decided, if at all?

A #3: Again, this situation guarantees a tragic outcome for someone. If I felt that my life was the least valuable among the participants, I could envision self-sacrifice, but this would have to be extremely obvious to make that decision in short order. I believe the occupants would put it to a vote and forcefully expel the seventh person if need be. I don't believe this is fair or a good outcome, but it is bad by necessity due to the circumstances. The term moral remainder applies here.

Q #4: Someone is hiding in your home from a person who intends to kill them. The pursuer comes to your door and asks you directly whether the person is inside. Do you lie to protect the person, or tell the truth? Are you responsible for what follows either way?

A #4: Firstly, I am not ethically culpable for the attacker's actions. Furthermore, from the way the question is worded, I assume that the sanctity of my property was violated by the intruder in order to gain access and hide. I also don't owe the truth to a stranger, especially if he is on my property without permission. I would probably lie to the pursuer unless I had reason to believe doing so would place me in immediate danger.

Q #5: You are in control of a vehicle that is about to crash. You can stay on course and hit five pedestrians, or swerve and hit one pedestrian instead. Do you intervene to change the outcome, or do you refrain from acting? Does action differ morally from inaction here?

A #5: I don't have enough information about whether I had control before this moment to know if the "control" I have over this vehicle existed before this dangerous situation became unavoidable. Assuming it did and I am fully responsible for the upcoming death(s), then I would swerve to hit the single individual. The total misery created by one vehicular death is probably less than if I had hit five people, either way, it's my fault. Assuming I was not in control of the vehicle until the moment before the crash (say I seized control of a runaway vehicle), then the outcome is another moral remainder situation. Again, I would swerve to hit the single person, but at least I wouldn't be as culpable in this case.

Q #6: You discover that your employer is hiding a defect that will likely harm customers in the future. Reporting it will stop the harm but will also cost many coworkers their jobs and violate your contractual obligations. Do you report the problem or stay silent? Which obligations take priority, and why?

A #6: The correct action is to report the employer’s actions to the relevant authorities, because preventing foreseeable violations of bodily or property integrity takes priority over contractual and financial consequences. Even if I knew the repercussions would be dire for myself, I would still report the employer.

Q #7: You are responsible for setting a policy that will heavily tax a small, wealthy group to fund programs that will dramatically improve the lives of many poor citizens, though not necessarily save lives immediately. Is it morally acceptable to impose this burden on some to benefit many others?

A #7: No, taxation is theft. If the wealthy wanted to donate money to these people, then that is fine, but strong-arming them into doing it is wrong. Poor people are often able, but often not willing, to help themselves out of whatever poverty they are facing.

Q #8: You are on your way to an event that is extremely important to someone you love, and you promised you would be there. On the way, you encounter a stranger in urgent need of help, and no one else is around. Do you stop to help, breaking your promise, or continue on?

A #8: If my inaction foreseeably allows bodily harm I could prevent, then I would do my best to help the person. Missing a recital or dinner doesn't violate anyone's body, property, or autonomy. While the specific task that I am helping them with will have to be rather dire, I will assume that it is life-and-death for the sake of my answer. Someone changing a blown-out tire? Probably not. Someone yelling for help? Probably so. A reasonable person would absolutely understand that some matters can't be predicted and take precedence.

Q #9: You are in a position of authority over a community that practices a traditional ritual which causes serious harm to participants, but the community strongly values it and sees interference as cultural oppression. Do you allow the practice to continue, or do you intervene to stop it?

A #9: This question says the ritual "harms" the participants, but that the practice is highly valued by the society (and therefore, its participants). So where is the harm judgment coming from? I may believe the practice is harmful, but that judgment reflects my ethical values, not a moral authority to override consent. While I can work to change social acceptance of the ritual, I cannot ethically justify violating participants' bodily autonomy to prevent it.

Q #10: You can save someone's life by making a permanent personal sacrifice that will significantly reduce your own quality of life, but you did not cause their situation and are not obligated by law to help. Are you required to make the sacrifice, permitted to refuse, or are your actions praiseworthy only if you choose to help?

A #10: This is a question about personal preference. Since the sacrifice would be voluntary on my part, then it comes down to the specifics of the situation. If I could donate a kidney to save my innocent child's life, then I would consider it, even though I am personally against organ donation (for instance). The potential benefits seem to outweigh the potential losses in that particular scenario. If it's a stranger? Hell no, they're on their own. I'm not morally responsible for the situation, and ethics may praise sacrifice but cannot require it, absent prior responsibility.

Note: I want your questions! If you would like me to answer your morality / ethics conundrums, then please send them my way via email—blog (a) newsaint.org—or Telegram. I'll add them to this article if they're interesting

– HBM ᛉ