Morality

About: Morality is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 22623 publications have been published within this topic receiving 545733 citations. The topic is also known as: moral & morals.

Holier than me? Threatening Social Comparison in the Moral Domain

Abstract: This short review analyzes the specificity of upward social comparison in the moral domain, suggesting that it blends Festinger’s (1954) distinction between opinions and abilities. We discuss positive outcomes (elevation) and negative ones (resentment), and moderators of this reaction. Then we identify the ways in which moral comparison constitutes a uniquely stinging threat (moral inferiority, moral confusion, and imagined moral reproach). Finally, we explore some of the strategies that people might use to defuse this moral threat (suspicion, trivialization and rejection).

Consequences, norms, and generalized inaction in moral dilemmas: The CNI model of moral decision-making.

Abstract: Research on moral dilemma judgments has been fundamentally shaped by the distinction between utilitarianism and deontology. According to the principle of utilitarianism, the moral status of behavioral options depends on their consequences; the principle of deontology states that the moral status of behavioral options depends on their consistency with moral norms. To identify the processes underlying utilitarian and deontological judgments, researchers have investigated responses to moral dilemmas that pit one principle against the other (e.g., trolley problem). However, the conceptual meaning of responses in this paradigm is ambiguous, because the central aspects of utilitarianism and deontology—consequences and norms—are not manipulated. We illustrate how this shortcoming undermines theoretical interpretations of empirical findings and describe an alternative approach that resolves the ambiguities of the traditional paradigm. Expanding on this approach, we present a multinomial model that allows researchers to quantify sensitivity to consequences (C), sensitivity to moral norms (N), and general preference for inaction versus action irrespective of consequences and norms (I) in responses to moral dilemmas. We present 8 studies that used this model to investigate the effects of gender, cognitive load, question framing, and psychopathy on moral dilemma judgments. The findings obtained with the proposed CNI model offer more nuanced insights into the determinants of moral dilemma judgments, calling for a reassessment of dominant theoretical assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Discounting, Morality, and Gaming

Abstract: 24 December 1996EMF-RFF Conferenceon DiscountingDISCOUNTING, MORALITY, AND GAMING Kenneth J. Arrow1. IntroductionI take the problem of discounting for projects with payoffs inthe far future (climate change, nuclear waste disposal) to belargely ethical (Schelling 1995). There is an apparent conflict inour moral intuitions, already apparent in Ramsey's work (1928).On the one hand, moral considerations are based onuniversalizability, in which case we should treat future generationsas we would ourselves, so that the pure rate of pure timepreference should be zero. But with zero time preference and along horizon, the savings rates become inordinately high, possiblyapproaching one as the horizon goes to infinity (Koopmans 1960).A reconciliation must be based on the notion that individuals arenot morally required to subscribe fully to morality at any cost tothemselves. There are both empirical evidence and theoreticalarguments that individuals recognize moral arguments for the farfuture but treat themselves and the near future better (Cropper,Aydede, and Portney 1994; Chichilnisky 1996). This approachleads to a non-cooperative game, in which each generation issomewhat selfish (compared with perfect morality) and recognizesthat future generations will be similarly selfish. I thus come back

Outcasts From Evolution: Scientific Attitudes of Racial Inferiority, 1859-1900

Abstract: In the only book to date to explore the period between the 1859 publication of Darwin s "Origin of Species "and the discovery in 1900 of Gregor Mendel s experiments in genetics, John S. Haller, Jr., shows the relationship between scientific "conviction" and public policy. He focuses on the numerous liberally educated American scientists who were caught up in the triumph of evolutionary ideas and who sought to apply those ideas to comparative morality, health, and the physiognomy of nonwhite races.During this period, the natural and social scientists of the day not only accepted without question the genetic and cultural superiority of the Caucasian; they also asserted that the Caucasian race held a monopoly on evolutionary progress, arguing that "inferior races" were no more than evolutionary survivors doomed by their genetic legacy to remain outcasts from evolution.Hereditarians and evolutionists believed that "less fit" human races were perishing from the rigors of civilization s struggle and competition. Indeed, racial inferiority lay at the very foundation of the evolutionary framework and, remaining there, rose to the pinnacle of "truth" with the myth of scientific certainty."