Topic
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.
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TL;DR: Unger as discussed by the authors argues that our intuitions about ethical cases are generated not by basic moral values, but by certain distracting psychological dispositions that all too often prevent us from reacting in accord with our commitments.
Abstract: By contributing a few hundred dollars to a charity like UNICEF, a prosperous person can ensure that fewer poor children die, and that more will live reasonably long, worthwhile lives. Even when knowing this, however, most people send nothing, and almost all of the rest send little. What is the moral status of this behavior? To such common cases of letting die, our untutored response is that, while it is not very good, neither is the conduct wrong. What is the source of this lenient assessment? In this contentious new book, one of our leading philosophers argues that our intuitions about ethical cases are generated not by basic moral values, but by certain distracting psychological dispositions that all too often prevent us from reacting in accord with our commitments. Through a detailed look at how these tendencies operate, Unger shows that, on the good morality that we already accept, the fatally unhelpful behavior is monstrously wrong. By uncovering the eminently sensible ethics that we've already embraced fully, and by confronting us with empirical facts and with easily followed instructions for lessening serious suffering appropriately and effectively, Unger's book points the way to a compassionate new moral philosophy.
332 citations
TL;DR: Across 3 small studies, 80 female undergraduates were confronted with the dilemma of deciding whom-themselves or another research participant-to assign to a positive consequences task, leaving the other to do a dull, boring task, suggesting motivation to appear moral yet still benefit oneself.
Abstract: Across 3 small studies, 80 female undergraduates were confronted with the dilemma of deciding whom-themselves or another research participant-to assign to a positive consequences task, leaving the other to do a dull, boring task. In Study 1, where morality was not mentioned, 16 of 20 assigned themselves to the positive consequences task, even though in retrospect only 1 said this was moral. In Studies 2 and 3, a moral strategy was suggested: either flipping a coin or accepting task assignment by the experimenter. In Study 2, 10 of 20 participants flipped a coin, but of these, 9 assigned themselves the positive consequences task. In Study 3, participants were significantly more likely to accept the experimenter's assignment when it gave them the positive consequences task. Overall, results suggested motivation to appear moral yet still benefit oneself. Such motivation is called moral hypocrisy.
332 citations
TL;DR: This article found that those individuals who are least prone to moral errors also possess a set of psychological characteristics that many would consider prototypically immoral, such as Machiavellianism and Machiavelliism.
332 citations
TL;DR: This article found that if individuals opposed to gay and lesbian rights are able to expand the scope of the conflict, the pattern of politics conforms to morality politics, while interest group theory suggests that these policies will correspond with interest group resources, elite values, and past policy actions.
Abstract: Morality politics theory predicts that gay rights policy will reflect the influence of religious groups, party competition, and partisanship while interest group theory suggests that these policies will correspond with interest group resources, elite values, and past policy actions. Using multiple regression on a 50-state data set and a county-level data set for gay rights initiatives in Oregon and Colorado, we found gay and lesbian politics are no different from those for other policy issues. When gay and lesbian rights are not salient, the pattern of politics resembles that of interest group politics. If individuals opposed to gay and lesbian rights are able to expand the scope of the conflict, the pattern of politics conforms to morality politics.
329 citations
TL;DR: Research is described that supports the view that social norms, intergroup contact, and perceived outgroup threat affect the relative weight children place on moral and group-based criteria during the development of prejudice.
Abstract: We argue that prejudice should be investigated in the context of social-cognitive development and the interplay between morality and group identity. Our new perspective examines how children consider group identity (and group norms) along with their developing moral beliefs about fairness and justice. This is achieved by developing an integrated framework drawing on developmental and social psychological theories of prejudice. This synthesis results in a perspective that provides a more contextualized analysis of prejudice development than that previously offered by developmental theories. We describe research that supports our view that social norms, intergroup contact, and perceived outgroup threat affect the relative weight children place on moral and group-based criteria during the development of prejudice.
327 citations