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.

Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy.

Abstract: Morally judicious behavior forms the fabric of human sociality. Here, we sought to investigate neural activity associated with different facets of moral thought. Previous research suggests that the cognitive and emotional sources of moral decisions might be closely related to theory of mind, an abstract-cognitive skill, and empathy, a rapid-emotional skill. That is, moral decisions are thought to crucially refer to other persons’ representation of intentions and behavioral outcomes as well as (vicariously experienced) emotional states. We thus hypothesized that moral decisions might be implemented in brain areas engaged in ‘theory of mind’ and empathy. This assumption was tested by conducting a large-scale activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies, which assessed 2,607 peak coordinates from 247 experiments in 1,790 participants. The brain areas that were consistently involved in moral decisions showed more convergence with the ALE analysis targeting theory of mind versus empathy. More specifically, the neurotopographical overlap between morality and empathy disfavors a role of affective sharing during moral decisions. Ultimately, our results provide evidence that the neural network underlying moral decisions is probably domain-global and might be dissociable into cognitive and affective sub-systems.

Materializing morality. Design ethics and technological mediation.

Abstract: During the past decade, the "script" concept, indicating how technologies prescribe human actions, has acquired a central place in STS. Until now, the concept has mainly functioned in descriptive settings. This article will deploy it in a normative setting. When technologies coshape human actions, they give material answers to the ethical question of how to act. This implies that engineers are doing "ethics by other means": they materialize morality. The article will explore the implications of this insight for engineering ethics. It first augments the script concept by developing the notion of technological mediation. After this, it investigates how the concept of mediation could be made fruitful for design ethics. It discusses how the ambition to design behaviorinfluencing technologies raises moral questions itself and elaborates two methods for anticipating technological mediation in the design process: performing mediation analyses and using an augmented version of constructive technology assessment.

Moral Identity and Judgments of Charitable Behaviors

Abstract: In several studies, the authors examine the potential to leverage a consumer's moral identity to enhance brand and company identification and promote goodwill through community relations. Studies 1a and 1b show that even when opportunity costs are equivalent (subjectively or economically), consumers who also have a highly self-important moral identity perceive the act of giving time versus money as more moral and self-expressive. The authors extend these findings to self-reported preferences and establish boundary conditions in two additional studies. Consumers with higher organizational status prefer to give money versus time, but this preference is weaker for those with a highly self-important moral identity (Study 2), and the preference for giving time versus money is more likely to emerge when the moral self is primed and the time given has a moral purpose (Study 3).

Alienation, consequentialism, and the demands of morality

Abstract: INTRODUCTION Living up to the demands of morality may bring with it alienation – from one's personal commitments, from one's feelings or sentiments, from other people, or even from morality itself. In this article I will discuss several apparent instances of such alienation, and attempt a preliminary assessment of their bearing on questions about the acceptability of certain moral theories. Of special concern will be the question whether problems about alienation show consequentialist moral theories to be self-defeating. I will not attempt a full or general characterization of alienation. Indeed, at a perfectly general level alienation can be characterized only very roughly as a kind of estrangement, distancing, or separateness (not necessarily consciously attended to) resulting in some sort of loss (not necessarily consciously noticed). Rather than seek a general analysis I will rely upon examples to convey a sense of what is involved in the sorts of alienation with which I am concerned. There is nothing in a word, and the phenomena to be discussed in the following text could all be considered while avoiding the controversial term ‘alienation.’ My sense, however, is that there is some point in using this formidable term, if only to draw attention to commonalities among problems not always noticed. For example, in the final section of this article I will suggest that one important form of alienation in moral practice, the sense that morality confronts us as an alien set of demands, distant and disconnected from our actual concerns, can be mitigated by dealing with other sorts of alienation morality may induce.

Rethinking 'moral panic' for multi-mediated social worlds

Abstract: It is now over twenty years since the well-established sociology of deviance along with the emergent sociology of mass media produced the concept of 'moral panic'. The various studies of youth culture, drugtakers and the media reaction to these and other phenomena produced some of the most important work in post-war British sociology. This article argues that it is now time that every stage in the process of constructing a moral panic, as well as the social relations which support it, should be revised. lt suggests that more attention should be paid to the consequences of the great expansion of the media and to the many more participants involved in public debate (including, for example, commercial promotions departments and pressure groups). We argue that 'folk devils' are less marginalized than they once were; they not only find themselves vociferously and articulately supported in the same mass media that castigates them, but their interests are also defended by their own niche and micro-media. Finally, the article suggests that what were more stable points of social control have undergone some degree of shift, if not transformation. 'Moral panic' is now a term regularly used by journalists to describe a process which politicians, commercial promoters and media habitually attempt to incite. It has become a standard interview question to put to Conservative MPs: are they not whipping up a moral panic as a foil to deflect attention away from more pressing economic issues? It has become a routine means of making youth-orientated cultural products more alluring; acid house music was marketed as 'one of the most controversial sounds of 1988' set to outrage 'those who decry the glamorization of drug culture'.l Moreover, as moral panics seem to guarantee the kind of emotional involvement that keeps up the interest of, notjust tabloid, but broadsheet newspaper readers, as well as the ratings of news and true crime television, even the media