Showing papers on "Morality published in 2001"

The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.

Abstract: Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology.

An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment

Abstract: The long-standing rationalist tradition in moral psychology emphasizes the role of reason in moral judgment. A more recent trend places increased emphasis on emotion. Although both reason and emotion are likely to play important roles in moral judgment, relatively little is known about their neural correlates, the nature of their interaction, and the factors that modulate their respective behavioral influences in the context of moral judgment. In two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies using moral dilemmas as probes, we apply the methods of cognitive neuroscience to the study of moral judgment. We argue that moral dilemmas vary systematically in the extent to which they engage emotional processing and that these variations in emotional engagement influence moral judgment. These results may shed light on some puzzling patterns in moral judgment observed by contemporary philosophers.

Educating the Right Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality

Abstract: 1. Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality. Introduction. Joseph's Story. Conservative Agendas. Mapping the Right. Contested Freedom. Marketizing the World. Restoring. Cultural Order. Church and State. Economics and religion. Managerialism. Analyzing Conservative Modernization. 2. Whose Markets, Whose Knowledge? Introduction. Neoliberalism: Schooling, Choice, and Democracy. Neoconservatism: Teaching "Real Knowledge". Authoritarian Populism: Schooling as God Wanted It. The Professional and Managerial New Middle Class: More Testing, More Often 3. Producing Inequalities: Conservative Modernization in Policy and Practice. Gritty Materialities. Right Turn. New Markets, Old Traditions. Markets and Performance. National Standards, National Curriculum, and National Testing. Creating Educational Triage. Thinking Strategically. 4. Who "No Child Left Behind" Leaves Behind: Class and Race in Audit Cultures. Introduction: What No Child Left Behind Has Given Us. Accountability and Inequality. Changing Commonsense and the Growth of Audit Cultures. New Managerialism in Class Terms. The Dispossessed and Support for Audit Cultures and Markets. On Possibilities. Workable Alternatives. Being Honest About Educational Reform. 5. Endangered Christianity. Darwin, God, and Evil. Secular Dangers. From Insiders to Outsiders. Southern Cross. 6. God, Morality, and Markets. Bringing God to the World. Politics and the Clergy. The Electronic Clergy. A Christian Nation and Free Speech. Godless Schools. We Are Not Doing Anything Different. The Structures of Feeling of Authoritarian Populism. How Can Hate Seem So Nice. Turning Straw Into Gold. 7. Away with all Teachers: The Cultural Politics of Home Schooling. Situating Home Schooling. Satan's Threat and the Fortress Home. Attacking the State. Public and Private. Conclusion. 8. Inside Home Schooling: Gender, Technology, and Curriculum. Introduction. Resources and the Realities of Social Movements. Technology and the Growth of Home Schooling. Understanding Social Movements. Technology and Doing Home Schooling. Home Schooling as Gendered Labor. Solving Contradictions. Marketing God. Emotional Labor and the Daily Life of Curriculum and Teaching in the Home. Conclusion: Children and Living the "Right" Life. 9. Righting Wrongs and Interrupting the Right. Culture Counts Contradictory Reforms. "Racing" Toward Educational Reform. Making Challenges Public. Thinking Heretically. Can Alliances be Built Across the Religious and Secular Divide?. Making Critical Educational Practices Practical. Hope as a Resource

Is gratitude a moral affect

Abstract: Gratitude is conceptualized as a moral affect that is analogous to other moral emotions such as empathy and guilt. Gratitude has 3 functions that can be conceptualized as morally relevant: (a) a moral barometer function (i.e., it is a response to the perception that one has been the beneficiary of another person's moral actions); (b) a moral motive function (i.e., it motivates the grateful person to behave prosocially toward the benefactor and other people); and (c) a moral reinforcer function (i.e., when expressed, it encourages benefactors to behave morally in the future). The personality and social factors that are associated with gratitude are also consistent with a conceptualization of gratitude as an affect that is relevant to people's cognitions and behaviors in the moral domain.

Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Moral Importance

Abstract: Part 1 Utilitarian accounts: state of mind or state of the world - the desire account developed objective accounts perfectionism and the ends of life. Part 2 Measurement: are there incommensurable values? the case of one person the case of many persons. Part 3 Moral importance: from prudence to morality equal respect fairness rights desert distribution.

Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them

Abstract: Our brains were designed for tribal life, for getting along with a select group of others (Us), and for fighting off everyone else (Them). But modern life has thrust the world's tribes into a shared space, creating conflicts of interest and clashes of values, along with unprecedented opportunities. As the world shrinks, the moral lines that divide us become more salient and more puzzling. We fight over everything from tax codes to gay marriage to global warming, and we wonder where, if at all, we can find our common ground. A grand synthesis of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, Moral Tribes reveals the underlying causes of modern conflict and lights a way forward. Our emotions make us social animals, turning Me into Us. But they also make us tribal animals, turning Us against Them. Our tribal emotions make us fight, sometimes with bombs, sometimes with words, and often with life-and-death stakes. Drawing inspiration from moral philosophy and cutting-edge science, Moral Tribes shows when we should trust our instincts, when we should reason, and how the right kind of reasoning can move us forward. Joshua Greene is the director of Harvard University's Moral Cognition Lab, a pioneering scientist, a philosopher, and an acclaimed teacher. The great challenge of Moral Tribes is this: How can we get along with Them when what they want feels so wrong? Finally, Greene offers a surprisingly simple set of maxims for navigating the modern moral terrain, a practical road map for solving problems and living better lives.

Education in the Moral Domain

Abstract: This book brings together the results of 25 years of research on the domain theory of social cognitive development. On the basis of that research - which shows that morality is a domain distinct from other social values - the author provides concrete suggestions for creating a moral classroom climate, dealing with student discipline, and integrating moral values within the curriculum. Among questions addressed are: Is morality a set of rules we acquire like any other? Are there universal aspects to morality, or is it culture specific? Is there such a thing as moral character? How best can teachers make use of our knowledge about children's moral and social growth in their everyday classroom practices? Integrated answers to these questions result in a comprehensive approach that does not reduce moral education to a process of induction or inculcation, but rather harnesses children's intrinsic motivation to comprehend and master their social worlds.

The Myth of Morality

Abstract: Preface 1. Error theory and motivation 2. Error theory and reasons 3. Practical instrumentalism 4. The relativity of reasons 5. Internal and external reasons 6. Morality and evolution 7. Fictionalism 8. Moral fictionalism Epilogue: debunking myths Select bibliography Index.

Kant's Theory of Taste: A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment

Abstract: Acknowledgments Note on sources and key to abbreviations and translations Introduction Part I. Kant's Conception of Reflective Judgment: 1. Reflective judgment and the purposiveness of nature 2. Reflection and taste in the introductions Part II. Te Quid Facti and the Quid Juris in the Domain of Taste: 3. The analytic of the beautiful and the quid facti: an overview 4. The disinterestedness of the pure judgment of taste 5. Subjective universality, the universal voice, and the harmony of the faculties 6. Beauty, purposiveness, and form 7. The modality of taste and the sensus communis 8. The deduction of pure judgments of taste Part III. The Moral and Systematic Significance of Taste: 9. Reflective judgment and the transition from nature to freedom 10. Beauty, duty, and interest: the moral significance of natural beauty 11. The antinomy of taste and beauty as a symbol of morality Part IV. Parerga to the Theory of Taste: 12. Fine art and genius 13. The sublime Notes Bibliography Index.

Sexual morality: The cultures and emotions of conservatives and liberals.

Abstract: Political conservatives and liberals were interviewed about 3 kinds of sexual acts: homosexual sex, unusual forms of masturbation, and consensual incest between an adult brother and sister. Conservatives were more likely to moralize and to condemn these acts, but the differences were concentrated in the homosexual scenarios and were minimal in the incest scenarios. Content analyses reveal that liberals had a narrow moral domain, largely limited to the “ethics of autonomy” (Shweder. Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997) while conservatives had a broader and more multifaceted moral domain. Regression analyses show that, for both groups, moral judgments were best predicted by affective reactions, and were not predicted by perceptions of harmfulness. Suggestions for calming the culture wars over homosexuality are discussed.

Religion and the morality of mentality

Abstract: Christian doctrine considers mental states important in judging a person's moral status, whereas Jewish doctrine considers them less important. The authors provide evidence from 4 studies that American Jews and Protestants differ in the moral import they attribute to mental states (honoring one's parents, thinking about having a sexual affair, and thinking about harming an animal). Although Protestants and Jews rated the moral status of the actions equally. Protestants rated a target person with inappropriate mental states more negatively than did Jews. These differences in moral judgment were partially mediated by Protestants' beliefs that mental states are controllable and likely to lead to action and were strongly related to agreement with general statements claiming that thoughts are morally relevant. These religious differences were not related to differences in collectivistic (interdependent) and individualistic (independent) tendencies.

The Internal Morality of Clinical Medicine: A Paradigm for the Ethics of the Helping and Healing Professions

Abstract: The moral authority for professional ethics in medicine customarily rests in some source 'external' to medicine, i.e., a pre-existing philosophical system of ethics or some form of social construction, like consensus or dialogue. Rather, 'internal' morality is grounded in the phenomena of medicine, i.e., in the nature of the clinical encounter between physician and patient. From this, a philosophy of medicine is derived which gives moral force to the duties, virtues and obligations of physicians qua physicians. Similarly, an ethic specific to the other healing professions, law, teaching or ministry, can be derived from the specific ends to telos of each of these professions, which like medicine, are focused on a special type of human relationship.

Boundaries and allegiances : problems of justice and responsibility in liberal thought

Abstract: 1. Responsibility, Reactive Attitudes, and Liberalism in Philosophy and Politics 2. Individual Responsibility in a Global Age 3. Families, Nations, and Strangers 4. Liberalism, Nationalism, and Egalitarianism 5. The Conflict between Justice and Responsibility 6. Relationships and Responsibilities 7. Conceptions of Cosmopolitanism 8. The Appeal of Political Liberalism 9. Rawls and Utilitarianism 10. Justice and Desert in Liberal Theory 11. Morality Through Thick and Thin: A Critical Notice of 'Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'

The Poverty of Morality

Abstract: This article contends that the study of consumption is often subsumed within an ideological concern to castigate society for its materialism at the expense of an alternative morality that emerges from an empathetic concern with poverty and the desire for greater access to material resources. Examples are given of the benefits that accrue to populations from an increased quantity of goods in certain circumstances. An anti-materialist ideology is favoured by associating consumption with production rather than studying consumers themselves and their struggles to discriminate between the positive and negative consequences of commodities. The form of morality attacked here is also associated with a generalized critique of Americanization that tends to appropriate on behalf of the United States all blame and thereby agency for regressive global and local developments. The Americanization thesis also tends to ignore the contribution of much of the rest of the world to the production of consumer culture and conte...

Young and old adults' concerns about morality and competence

Abstract: Two experiments were conducted to examine people's sensitivity to person information from the morality domain (relation-oriented) and the competence domain (task & achievement-oriented). In a lexical decision paradigm, the findings from Experiment 1 showed that younger adults were faster to identify person cues (trait words) from the morality than from the competence domain, especially cues that were related to immorality. Experiment 2 compared the responses of younger and older adults. Despite the slower responses of the older adults, the findings indicated that all participants were faster at identifying cues from the morality domain than from the competence domain, with no age interactions. The results from Experiment 2 also suggested that disparate findings in the literature regarding reaction times to morality/competence cues and valence (positive or negative) were a function of word frequency effects. The findings are discussed in terms of people's chronic concern with the moral aspects of others as invariant across the lifespan, given that the morality domain is where interpersonal costs and threats are most likely to be signaled.

Dimensions of Moral Intensity and Ethical Decision Making: An Empirical Study

Abstract: Moral intensity is a construct that relates to issues in terms of their perceived moral significance. Individuals' perceptions of moral intensity should impact their recognition of issues as posing moral dilemmas and should also affect ethical judgments and behavioral intentions regarding issues. This study examined the relationship between 4 dimensions of moral intensity and the ethical decision-making process. Two work-related actions were presented to respondents, who then completed measures of the 4 dimensions of moral intensity, whether the actions posed an ethical issue, ethical judgments regarding the actions, and the likelihood that they would engage in the actions. Results indicate that moral intensity dimensions were associated with individuals' ethical decisions. Social consensus and seriousness of consequences were particularly important influences on the ethical decision-making process.

Gods, Rituals, and the Moral Order

Abstract: The functionalist “law” that religion sustains the moral order must be amended. As is demonstrated in this study, religion has this effect only as it is based on belief in powerful, active, conscious, morally-concerned gods. Contrary to Durkheim’s claims, participation in religious rituals per se has little independent impact on morality and none when done on behalf of gods conceived as unconscious essences, or as conscious gods of small scope and lacking moral concerns. Thus, the link between gods and morality is limited mainly to societies having more complex cultures, but even in some highly developed societies a religious basis for morality is missing. Quantitative results are based on 427 societies included in the Atlas of World Cultures, and on surveys of the United States and 33 other nations. Religion functions to sustain the moral order. This classic proposition, handed down from the founders, is regarded by many as the closest thing to a “law” that the social scientific study of religion possesses.

The Cultural Psychology of Self: Place, Morality and Art in Human Worlds

Abstract: Part I: The Centrality of Place for Selfhood 1. Selves and the Need to Navigate Human Worlds: A Cultural Psychological Approach 2. The Brain's Work in Locating Selves 3. Placing Oneself in Personal Time: The Narrative Structure of Self 4. Moral Identity and Cultural-Historical Locations for Selves 5. Self-Creation as Self-Location 6. Pronouns Placing Selves: 'I' and its AssociatesPart II: Location, Dislocation and Relocation: Responsibility, Caring, Art and Changing Prospects 7. Emotions as Self's Pathfinders 8. Childhood, Responsibility and Acquiring Powers to Place Oneself as a Moral Agent 9. Pitilessness and Compassion: Caring Where Others Are 10. Suffering , Radical Dislocation and the Limits of Moral Responsibility 11. Being Moved: Art, Self and Positive Absorption 12. Points of View and None: Visual Art and the Location of Self 13. Individual and National Identity: Analogy, Symbiosis and Artistic Process 14. Psychologies of Maturity: Development or Destination?Conclusion: Navigating Human Worlds Bibliography Index

Why Don't Moral People Act Morally? Motivational Considerations

Abstract: Failure of moral people to act morally is usually attributed to either learning deficits or situational pressures. We believe that it is also important to consider the nature of moral motivation. Is the goal actually to be moral (moral integrity) or only to appear moral while, if possible, avoiding the cost of being moral (moral hypocrisy)? Do people initially intend to be moral, only to surrender this goal when the costs of being moral become clear (overpowered integrity)? We have found evidence of both moral hypocrisy and overpowered integrity. Each can lead ostensibly moral people to act immorally. These findings raise important questions for future research on the role of moral principles as guides to behavior.

Culture, personality and morality: A typology of international consumers’ ethical beliefs

Abstract: With business becoming more international, marketers need to understand the ethical beliefs of foreign consumers because of their effect on the outcomes of market expansion strategies. The ethical judgments of US consumers have been examined, but few studies have investigated similar attitudes in foreign‐national settings. To understand the various types of consumer ethics, this exploratory study classifies ethical beliefs by linking Hofstede’s cultural taxonomy to personality and ethics. This classification is achieved by comparing ethical judgments of consumers from eight different countries the USA, Ireland, Austria, Egypt, Lebanon, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Australia. Labels for the emergent cultural personality types are also developed. Strategic implications for marketers are then discussed.

Compassion, morality, and the media

Abstract: Series editor's forewordIntroductionParameters for a debateCompassion fatigue and the ethics of the journalistic fieldThe compassion of the audienceLifting the lid on compassionTelethons, investments and giftsConclusionGlossaryBibliographyIndex.

The Virtues of Positive Psychology: the Rapprochement and Challenges of an Affirmative Postmodern Perspective

Abstract: Seligman (American Psychologist, 1999, 54, pp. 559-562) has called for the development of a positive psychology that explores and cultivates human strengths and virtues. Virtue represents an important and challenging construct with the potential to integrative numerous areas of positive psychology science and practice. The construct of virtue will be defined by engaging the moral philosophy of virtue ethics, and contemporary literatures on virtue in psychology will be briefly reviewed. Affirmative postmodern contributions and challenges to a positive psychology of virtue will be discussed.

Why religion matters : the fate of the human spirit in an age of disbelief

Abstract: Huston Smith offers his passionate, vital message about the suffocation of the human spirit in a world dominated by materialism, consumerism, educational elitism, and a governmental and legal system without morality. Despite the widespread opinion that these are halcyon days for religion, Smith shows how current popular spiritual trends merely mask a deeper disease. In the tradition of Stephen Carter's THE CULTURE OF DISBELIEF, this compelling social critique probes the three major historical periods - traditional modern and postmodern - that have brought us to our current spiritual crisis. Illustrated with stories from Huston Smith's personal experience and encounters with many of the leading scientific and religious thinkers of our time, WHY RELIGION MATTERS is a highly original and thought-provoking read that will generate debate for years to come.

Towards a post-dualistic business ethics: interweaving reason and emotion in working life

Abstract: We highlight and challenge the dominance of rationalist assumptions in business ethics that promote and legitimize a privileging of reason over emotion as a source of moral action. We ask whether it is possible for business ethics not only to challenge this hierarchy but to avoid its reversal. We start by exploring some origins of reason-based ethics and relate these to ideas about organization. Here we hint at some popular examples of this kind of ethics and discuss two of its more important sources of inspiration: Kant and Weber. Next, we consider the relationship between bureaucracy and morality before evaluating Bauman’s ideas about morality in bureaucratic organizations. We argue that Bauman fails to challenge the dualism between reason and emotion as he inverts the hierarchical relationship between them. Contending that this hierarchization should be abandoned, we explore how the preceding discussion illuminates business ethics and address some consequences of our anti-dualist position.

Cultural Variation and Similarity in Moral Rhetorics Voices from the Philippines and the United States

Abstract: Past research on morality has emphasized a single justice-based moral ethic. Expanding this conception of morality, Shweder has proposed a universal taxonomy of three moral rhetorics related to justice, interdependence, and purity. Five studies tested the hypothesis that American morality emphasizes the justice-based rhetoric, whereas Filipino morality is represented by all three rhetorics. In the first three studies, American examples were modally justice based, whereas Filipinos generated examples in approximately equal proportions from each rhetoric. In Study 4, Americans rated justice-based rules higher on criteria of morality than rules from other rhetorics; Filipinos rated rules from all three rhetorics as moral. In Study 5, the association between anger and moral violations was stronger for Americans than for Filipinos, consistent with American emphasis on the moral stature of justice. Discussion focused on the origins and consequences of the American emphasis on rights and the balanced representat...

Useful Knowledge: The Victorians, Morality, and the March of Intellect

Abstract: Nineteenth-century England witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of publications and institutions devoted to the creation and the dissemination of knowledge: encyclopedias, scientific periodicals, instruction manuals, scientific societies, children’s literature, mechanics’ institutes, museums of natural history, and lending libraries. In Useful Knowledge Alan Rauch presents a social, cultural, and literary history of this new knowledge industry and traces its relationships within nineteenth-century literature, ending with its eventual confrontation with Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species . Rauch discusses both the influence and the ideology of knowledge in terms of how it affected nineteenth-century anxieties about moral responsibility and religious beliefs. Drawing on a wide array of literary, scientific, and popular works of the period, the book focusses on the growing importance of scientific knowledge and its impact on Victorian culture. From discussions of Jane Webb Loudon’s The Mummy! and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor , Charles Kingsley’s Alton Locke, and George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss, Rauch paints a fascinating picture of nineteenth-century culture and addresses issues related to the proliferation of knowledge and the moral issues of this time period. Useful Knowledge touches on social and cultural anxieties that offer both historical and contemporary insights on our ongoing preoccupation with knowledge. Useful Knowledge will appeal to readers interested in nineteenth century history, literature, culture, the mediation of knowledge, and the history of science.