Showing papers on "Social cognitive theory of morality published in 1990"

Moral Exclusion and Injustice: An Introduction

Abstract: Moral exclusion occurs when individuals or groups are perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and considerations of fairness apply. Those who are morally excluded are perceived as nonentities, expendable, or undeserving. Consequently, harming or exploiting them appears to be appropriate, acceptable, or just. This broad definition encompasses both severe and mild forms of moral exclusion, from genocide to discrimination. The paper discusses the antecedents and symptoms of moral exclusion, and the interaction between the psychological and social factors that foster its development. Empirical research on moral exclusion is needed to pinpoint its causes, to predict its progression, and to effect change in social issues that involve the removal of victims from our moral communities. The last section of the paper introduces the articles that follow.

Managers' Moral Reasoning: Assessing Their Responses to Three Moral Dilemmas

Abstract: Based on Kolhberg's theory of moral development, an assessment of managers' responses to three moral dilemmas was explored. The findings indicate that managers typically reason at moral reasoning stages 3 or 4, similar to most adults in Western, urban societies or other business managers. However, differences were discovered when the organizational size of the managers' employer and type of moral issue were considered. Managers employed by large to medium-sized organizations tended to reason at lower moral reasoning stages than managers who work in small firms or were self-employed. Moral reasoning exhibited when the dilemmas were placed in a business context was significantly lower than for a dilemma in a non-business context. Implications from these findings are discussed.

Moral Reasoning in Groups: Leaders Make a Difference

Abstract: This article reviews a program of research on how groups reason about moral dilemmas, and presents data from two studies. In the first study, discussions of 21 four-member groups were tape recorded, coded, and analyzed to identify the factors that affected group performance. The data indicated that a group's moral reasoning level (as measured by Rest's Defining Issues Test) seemed to depend on whether more principled reasoning members took a task leadership role. The second study attempted to manipulate the leadership variable by assigning the task leadership role to individuals who reasoned at more vs. less principled levels. Results indicated that the reasoning level of the assigned leader impacted group performance while individual performance overall on a subsequent moral reasoning task benefitted from the group experience. The extent of the individual change was influenced by subjects' initial reasoning level. Implications for management are discussed.

Moral Exclusion, Personal Goal Theory, and Extreme Destructiveness

Abstract: The article describes how certain motives can combine with the exclusion of people from the moral universe, leading to torture, genocide, and mass killing. Personal goal theory is presented as a framework. Personal goals and moral values have ranges of applicability from which certain groups may be excluded. When there is conflict between goals and values, stringent moral values can be replaced by others that allow harm doing—a process termed moral equilibration. The psychological and motivational sources of exclusion include devaluation of groups, just-world thinking, self-distancing by euphemisms or by an objectifying perceptual stance that reduces empathy, and ideologies that identify enemies. Certain cultural characteristics create a predisposition for group violence. Together with intensely difficult life conditions, they give rise to powerful motives and lead to ways of fulfilling them that turn the group against a subgroup of society. As they harm their victims, the perpetrators and the whole society change, progressing along a continuum of destruction that can end in genocide. Bystanders often encourage perpetrators, and they themselves are changed as they passively face the suffering of victims. However, bystanders also have great potential power to inhibit the evolution of increasing destructiveness.

Deterring Moral Exclusion

Abstract: This paper focuses on the detection and deterrence of moral exclusion. From a variety of perspectives, different authors have demonstrated the progression of moral exclusion: from conflicts of interest, to group categorizations, moral justifications, unjust procedures, and finally, harmful outcomes. Dissent, divergent opinions, and a pluralistic perspective all help to combat moral exclusion by enlarging the scope of justice. However, dissent and diversity can narrow as well as widen the scope of justice, so it is important to identify conditions that support pluralism and the right to dissent. Research approaches are suggested that combine scientific investigation with expansion of the scope of social justice.

In Defense of Moral Realism: Reply to Gabennesch

Abstract: Moral realism is pervasive in everyday life, and the more of it the better. The moral realism of everyday life is not childlike egocentric realism, in Piaget's sense, nor is it, as Gabennesch argues, an avoidable or deplorable form of opacity, reification, or ethnocentrism. The social order is part of the moral order, yet natural moral law extends beyond issues of harm, rights, and justice. Turiel is a cognitivist who restricts his conception of natural moral law to harm, rights, and justice. Gabennesch is an emotivist or conventionalist who has no concept of natural moral law at all. I share with Turiel his cognitivism but not his restricted conception of natural law. I share with Gabennesch his reading of the evidence for a pervasive moral realism of everyday life, but not his conventionalist interpretation of it.

Teaching Ethics ‐A Direct Approach

Abstract: In this article it is argued that the moral dilemma discussion model usually relied upon in moral development research is not by itself an effective way to help students achieve principled moral reasoning. This goal is more effectively achieved by directly teaching in tandem the cognitive skills of logic, role‐taking, and justice operations which have been clearly identified by theory and research as the constitutive elements of moral reasoning. The argument presents statistical data on the results of pre‐ and post‐tests with the Defining Issues Test (DIT) of three variations of an ethics course design and two comparison groups over a five‐year period. The ethics course design in its most intense form integrated the study of logic, developmental theory, and classic philosophic texts directly to target, teach and exercise the constitutive elements of moral reasoning and their application to controversial social issues. Changes in pre‐ and post‐course DIT scores show effect sizes nearly double thos...

Children's Social Reasoning in Context: Reply to Gabennesch

Abstract: Children's social reasoning is multifaceted. Moral judgments of justice, welfare, and rights are an important aspect of domains of social reasoning that are not merely the arbitrary and relative products of social formations. In defining all social formations as conventions that are either reified or accurately perceived as arbitrary and relative human inventions, Gabennesch relegates the moral concepts of many philosophers, moral leaders, and laypersons to ethnocentrism and reification. In the process, he fails to distinguish between metaethics relating to the source of knowledge and the form of knowledge. He also fails to account for distinctions between conventionality and moral concepts that do not constitute realism or reification. His review of the evidence of moral realism in children is selective in that isolated findings are taken out of the context of a particular study and of the entire body of evidence. Moreover, he has incorrectly interpreted many of the findings he cites in support of childhood realism. We present a summary of 48 studies demonstrating that children distinguish morality and convention. Gabennesch's perceptual metaphors hinge on an exaggerated role for conventionality in social formations at the expense of other complex social phenomena.

Promoting moral growth through intra-group participation

Abstract: Currently, an emphasis is being placed on the integration of ethical issues into the business curriculum. This paper investigates the viability of using student group interaction to induce an upward movement in the stages of moral development as advanced by Kohlberg. The results of a classroom experiment using graduate business law students suggest that formulating groups that mix stages of moral development can provide a robust environment for upward movement. In addition, the results suggest strategies for formulating effective groups, based upon entry levels as measured by the Defining Issues Test.

Psychological Roots of Moral Exclusion

Abstract: This paper asks whether or not there is a need, which emerges inescapably during the course of human development, to identify some people as allies and others as enemies. In answering this question, it describes the potential for moral splitting within all of us, and the circumstances that activate this potential.

The moral virtues and theological ethics

Abstract: Over the past decade a quiet revolution has been gathering momentum in the fields of moral philosophy and Christian ethics. These disciplines are undergoing a decisive shift as duty, obligation, and decision yield their central role in the understanding of the moral life to the long neglected concepts of virtue, character, and action. Romanus Cessario presents here a general introduction to the study of Christian moral virtues that reflects the emergence of this new and compelling vision of the moral life. ""The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics"" provides an account of the nature of the moral virtues by explaining how the virtues work in our everyday lives. The book begins with a brief survey of the current work in theological ethics and the present state of virtue theory in contemporary theology. Cessario's account of the notion of ""habitus"", or disposition, introduces his discussion of virtue. This notion supplies the basis for his explanation of how the moral virtues enhance our psychological and spiritual capacities and how the virtue of prudence directs moral action. Finally, the author explicates the nature and grace of growth in the moral virtues, and of maturity in the life of the Holy Spirit. A feature of this book is that it presents a general theory of the virtues that a student can then apply to any particular moral virtue.

Care and justice moral orientation : a scale for its assessment

Abstract: A quantitative measure of adult moral orientation, based on the theoretical frameworks of Kohlberg and Gilligan, was developed to measure preference for "justice" or "care"-oriented moral thinking The Moral Orientation Scale Using Childhood Dilemmas (MOS), a short, objective measure, presents adults with a series of dilemmas frequently faced by children, each followed by two care-oriented and two justice-oriented responses to the dilemma The procedures for developing and scoring the measure are discussed, and validity and reliability data are presented Used with both male and female social work and law students, as expected, the MOS shows males to be more justice-oriented in their moral reasoning than females who are shown to be more care-oriented Moreover, in further agreement with Gilligan's theory that gender and experience, taken together, are related to moral reasoning style, male lawyers and female social workers are shown to have the strongest preferences

On the phylogeny of human morality (ten years later)

Abstract: Sociobiological explanation of altruism, through theories as such «kin selection», cannot reach the wealth of human morality; it is necessary to add some specific traits in order to explain the human way to ultrasociability. Some of them appear within the classical school of «moral sense», distinguishing between two different levels («motive to act» and «moral criterion») of moral phenomenon. Due to the complexity of criterion level, here we deal with a broad model of human moral phenomenon, proposing three different dominions («motive to act», «personal criterion», «collective values»), and trying to find possible phylogenetic roots of them through a cognitive approach.

Moral learning in nursing education: a discussion of the usefulness of cognitive‐developmental and social learning theories

Abstract: The preparation of students for ethically sound practice is an essential concern for nurse educators. The theories of cognitive development and social learning theory are discussed as explanations of moral learning. The implications of the application of each of these theories to nursing education are discussed and the usefulness of each theory to nurse educators is reviewed. It is argued that neither theory is entirely satisfactory for application to nursing education and it is concluded that a pragmatic eclecticism is desirable in the approach to moral education in nursing.

Moral Reasoning: A Philosophic Approach to Applied Ethics

Abstract: This new edition explores how the insights and techniques developed by philosophers can help illuminate and resolve moral issues. MORAL REASONING develops reasoning skills necessary for understanding and applying ethical theories. It approaches ethics from a philosophical point of view and develops a theory of applied ethics.

Measuring Nurses' Moral Judgments

Abstract: Studies of the moral reasoning of nurses yield inconsistent findings. Using Cronbach and Meehl's interpretive framework, the author demonstrates the lack of construct validity for Kohlberg's theory of moral development and related measures of moral reasoning. Gilligan's relational theory of moral orientations is proposed as an alternative theory worth testing in nurse samples.

Concern for Others: A New Psychology of Conscience and Morality

Abstract: 1. The Construction and Use of Moral Discourse 2. Toward a Psychology of the Moral Life 3. Sentient Being, Moral Agent 4. The Origins of Concern for Others 5. The Study of Moral Judgement 6. On Organizations: Their Imperatives and Constraints 7. Virtue, Character and Integrity 8. Social Justice and Social Fabric.

Extending the Moral Community: Logical and Psychological Dilemmas

Abstract: Although the virtues of an extended moral community make it a valid and necessary goal, such an inclusive view also creates problems of a logical and psychological nature. Moral issues are thorny, and an expanded view of the moral community does not “solve” the basic thorny issues of morality. Instead, it puts some of these issues into high relief. This paper examines some of the dilemmas that confront us when we seek to extend our moral community beyond ourselves and our blood relations.

Character, Choice and Moral Agency: The Relevance of Character to Our Moral Culpability Judgments

Abstract: Should a person who cannot appreciate the moral significance of legal norms qualify as a blameworthy actor simply because he has the capacity to comply with them for non-moral reasons? Such a person may lack any empathy for other human beings and view moral norms as arbitrary restraints on his self-interested behavior: does he nevertheless deserve moral blame when he makes an instrumentally “rational choice” to breach a norm governing his action? Should our answers to these questions depend on whether we believe that the actor is morally responsible for lacking these moral emotions and understandings? In short, must we concern ourselves with those aspects of the agent's character – his goals, desires, values, emotions, and perceptions of what courses of action are available to him – that motivate his rational choices? Or are questions about what motivates the actor to exercise his capacity for rational choice irrelevant to our judgments concerning his moral culpability for violating some governing norm?One way of thinking about such questions is to ask what attributes a person must possess to qualify as an appropriate addressee of moral norms and a suitable object of moral blame. Must a moral agent have the capacity to respond to moral norms as a reason for his choices? Must he also be able to control those aspects of his character that impair his capacity to make moral choices?Most legal theorists insist that moral agents do not need such capacities to be fairly blamed for violating the minimal moral restraints that the criminal law imposes on their self-interested acts.

A moral choice.

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Moral Behaviour in Organizations: The Contribution of Management Education and Development

Abstract: SUMMARY The concurrent growth of interest in management competencies and management development and in business ethics, exposes a need to bring these two fields together. The moral dimension to organizational behaviour should be considered when management education and development programmes are being designed. Those concerned with ethics in business and management should look beyond approaches based on codes of conduct and traditional educational methods. In this paper the idea of management competence is conceptualized broadly, with insight drawn from sources in education and social psychology. It is argued that ideas derived from Kohlberg's work on moral development can provide the basis for management development programmes in which theoretical understanding of ethical theory and moral issues is augmented by commitment to personal principles, a well integrated sense of personal identity, and relevant interpersonal skills, acquired through experiential learning.

Psychotherapy, Postmodernism, and Morality.

Abstract: A view of interpersonal morality is set out, derived in large part from psychotherapeutic practice. The key concept is that of giving free attention to the subjectivity of another, leading to the equation: free attention + free attention = moral space. Some of the historical and societal implications are explored and it is suggested that the problem of social fabric emerges as more important than that of social justice. The view presented here stands in contrast to much of Western moralism, with its tendency to create ‘grand narratives’ about the right and the good; the universalistic character of such accounts has been drastically called in question by some of the theorists of postmodernism.

Moral judgment, action, and development

Abstract: The major emphasis of Kohlberg's research was on moral judgments, but moral action was an essential component of his research and theory.