Showing papers on "Social cognitive theory of morality published in 1992"

Cognitive moral development in marketing

Abstract: Many academic disciplines are approaching the study of ethics from a cognitive orientation by exploring the moral reasoning processes individuals use to make ethical judgments. The authors empirica...

The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community

Abstract: Philip Selznick's study of moral and social theory establishes the intellectual foundations of an important new movement in American thought: communitarianism. Emerging in part as a response to the excesses of American individualism - particularly rampant during the 1980s - communitarianism seeks to restore the balance between individual rights and social responsibilities. "The Moral Commonwealth" attempts to explain and justify this communitarian turn and give it a liberal interpretation. Selznick begins by challenging the pervasive subjectivism and relativism of modern and postmodern thought. He vigorously defends the place of objectivity in moral discourse, particularly in establishing the common good - in how we make and justify our moral choices, whether in educating children, supporting the arts or protecting the community against private indifference and greed. He then examines three closely connected levels of moral experience - persons, institutions, and communities. The book ends with wide-ranging discussion of the foundations of community and, most importantly, of the promise of justice and democracy. Selznick grounds his theory of community in the experience of everyday life. Drawing heavily on developments in law and jurisprudence as well as on as on policy applications, he explores such major issues as free speech, abortion, church and state and responsive government. The book is a testament to his belief in the moral relevance of social inquiry, combining philosophy and social science.

Judging the Morality of Business Practices: The Influence of Personal Moral Philosophies

Abstract: Individuals' moral judgments of certain business practices and their decisions to engage in those practices are influenced by their personal moral philosophies: (a) situationists advocate striving for the best consequences possible irrespective of moral maxims; (b) subjectivists reject moral guidelines and base judgments on personal values and practical concerns; (c) absolutists assume that actions are moral, provided they yield positive consequences and conform to moral rules; (d) exceptionists prefer to follow moral dictates but allow for exceptions for practical reasons. These variations, which are based on two fundamental dimensions (concern for principles and concern for promoting human welfare) influence a variety of moral processes and have implications for ethical debates over business practices.

Moral Reasoning and Business Ethics: Implications for Research, Education, and Management

Abstract: This paper reviews Kohlberg’s (Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. In Handbook of socialization theory and research, ed. D.A. Goslin . Rand McNally: Chicago, 1969) theory of cognitive moral development, highlighting moral reasoning research relevant to the business ethics domain. Implications for future business ethics research, higher education and training, and the management of ethical/unethical behavior are discussed.

Moral development and behavior.

Abstract: The study of moral development as well as the relation of moral development and behavior has been of great interest to many over the past half a century. While some studies have shown no association between one's moral development and behavior, some evidence indicates level of moral reasoning influences behavior. Over 16 selected studies postconventional principles of justice are likely to be more prosocial and law-abiding than those appropriate at the lower stages of moral development.

Artificial Morality: Virtuous Robots for Virtual Games

Abstract: From the Publisher: Artificial Morality shows how to build moral agents that succeed in competition with amoral agents. Peter Danielson's agents deviate from the received theory of rational choice. They are bound by moral principles and communicate their principles to others. The central thesis of the book is that these moral agents are more successful in crucial tests, and therefore rational. Artificial Morality is inspired by artificial intelligence. The solution presented to the problem of rationality and morality is constructive: the building of better moral robots. Danielson uses robots paired in abstract games that model social problems, such as environmental pollution, which reward co-operators but even more those who benefit from others' constraint. It is shown that virtuous, not vicious, robots do better in these virtual games.

Children's Obligatory and Discretionary Moral Judgments.

Abstract: This study examined children's obligatory moral judgments (which reflect a moral requirement) and discretionary moral judgments (which reflect moral worthiness, but not a requirement). 72 children participated across grades 2, 5, and 8 (mean ages, 8-3, 11-0, and 13-11). Children were interviewed in response to stimulus stories that controlled for the degree of agent's cost (low and high) for performing positive moral acts (giving money for food to an impoverished, hungry person) and negative moral acts (not stealing money for food). Results showed that negative moral acts were more often conceived as obligatory than positive moral acts. In addition, the results support the proposition that children's concepts of obligation underlie judgments to codify law, that justice reasoning builds on concepts of welfare, and that with increasing age discretionary moral reasoning incorporates such character traits as benevolence, sacrifice, and supererogation. Discussion includes consideration of how the study's conceptualization and analysis can provide guidance to a moral-developmental research program.

Speaking from the Heart: A Feminist Perspective on Ethics

Abstract: In Speaking from the Heart, Rita Manning has added an important contribution to the growing literature on feminist moral theory and ethics. Manning presents an original and ambitious study of the moral practice and moral intuitions which are infused by a commitment to an ethic of care. In doing so, she challenges the received wisdom about moral philosophy-that to reason morally one must appeal to underlying principles rather than one's own experience.

Situational variation in moral judgment: In a stage or on a stage?

Abstract: Two issues were examined in this study—the consistency of moral judgment across different types of dilemma and different social contexts, and the relationship between the structure (stage) of moral judgment and the content of moral decisions. Forty subjects were given two hypothetical dilemmas about business decisions and two standard Kohlberg dilemmas. Half the subjects directed their responses to a business audience, half to a philosophical audience. Responses to the moral dilemmas were scored in accordance with the Colby and Kohlberg (1987) scoring manual. Stage of moral reasoning was found to be significantly higher on the Kohlberg dilemmas than on the business dilemmas. A significant interaction between type of dilemma and audience was attributed to the tendency of subjects directing their responses to a business audience to interpret one of the business dilemmas in terms of the moral order of business, but for subjects directing their responses to a philosophy audience to treat it as a philosophical dilemma. The other business dilemma evoked uniformly low-level moral judgments. The amount of selfishness intrinsic in subjects' moral choices on the business dilemmas was significantly negatively correlated with moral maturity on the business dilemmas, but not with their moral maturity on Kohlberg's test. These results are interpreted as more consistent with models of moral development such as those advanced by C. G. Levine ([1979] “Stage Acquisition and Stage Use: An Appraisal of Stage Displacement Explanations of Variation in Moral Reasoning, ” Human Development, Vol. 22, pp. 145–164), J. Rest ([1983] “Morality,” in: P. H. Mussen [ed.], J. H. Flavell and E. Markman [Vol. eds.], Handbook of Child Psychology [Vol. 3, 4th ed.], John Wiley & Sons, New York), and R. Harre ([1984]) Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts), which posit a relatively wide range of within-person stage use and emphasize the determining power of social situations, than with the more constructivistic model of moral development of Colby and Kohlberg (1987).

Morality and Moral Theory: A Reappraisal and Reaffirmation

Abstract: Contemporary philosophers have grown increasingly sceptical toward both morality and moral theory. Some argue that moral theory is a radically misguided enterprise which does not illuminate moral practice, while others simply deny the value of morality in human life. In this book, Robert Louden attempts to respond to the arguments of both 'anti-morality' and 'anti-theory' sceptics.

Justice and care: The implications of the Kohlberg-Gilligan debate for medical ethics

Abstract: Carol Gilligan has identified two orientations to moral understanding; the dominant ‘justice orientation’ and the under-valued ‘care orientation’. Based on her discernment of a ‘voice of care’, Gilligan challenges the adequacy of a deontological liberal framework for moral development and moral theory. This paper examines how the orientations of justice and care are played out in medical ethical theory. Specifically, I question whether the medical moral domain is adequately described by the norms of impartiality, universality, and equality that characterize the liberal ideal. My analysis of justice-oriented medical ethics, focuses on the libertarian theory of H.T. Engelhardt and the contractarian theory of R.M. Veatch. I suggest that in the work of E.D. Pellegrino and D.C. Thomasma we find not only a more authentic representation of medical morality but also a project that is compatible with the care orientation's emphasis on human need and responsiveness to particular others.

Society and the Highest Stages of Moral Development.

Abstract: Kohlberg has produced the most influential theory of moral development both within individuals and within society. As a cognitive-developmentalist, Kohlberg considered mathematical and logical intellectual operations to underlie both social and moral operations. The hierarchical arrangement of the stages was thus grounded in the hierarchical arrangement of those operations. Kohlberg's postconventional period (Moral Stages 5 and 6) begins sometime after adolescence; fully postconventional thinking and action appear after early adulthood. At Moral Stage 5, the Societal Universal stage, people justify actions on the basis on universal abstract principles. Kohlberg also posited a Moral Stage 6 but thisprinciples. Kohlberg also posited a Moral Stage 6 but this proved to be the most problematic stage in his model for conceptual and empirical reasons. Conceptually, Kohlberg had difficulty in setting Moral Stage 6 apart from Moral Stage 5, and empirically, he found it difficult to identify subjects reasoning at Moral Stage 6. A meaningful Moral Stage 6 cannot be defined within individual moral development; it has to be understood as a discourse, as the property of a social enterprise. Thus Kohlberg was looking for Moral Stage 6 in the wrong place, and as a consequence, came up empty handed. At earlier stages, society is seen as a necessary environment for individual moral reasoning. At Moral Stage 6, moral reasoning is constituted by the social enterprise. Moral Stage 6 reasoning requires actual discourse, rather than monologically simulated

The Role of values in psychology and human development

Abstract: Science, Values and Rationality: Philosophy of Science from a Critical Co-Constructivist Perspective (W. Kurtines, et al.). Towards a Postmodern Psychology of Moral Action and Moral Development (M. Packer). IMPLICATIONS FOR THEORY AND RESEARCH. Values in Postpositivist Developmental Research: Communication Among Researchers, Participants, and Consumers (J. Meacham). Co-Constructive, Intersubjective Realism: Metatheory in Developmental Psychology (R. Wozniak). Hermeneutics and Developmental Psychology: Toward an Ethic of Interpretation (M. Tappan & L. Brown). Ethics and Science: A Psychological Perspective (H. Kendler). The Use of Normative Metatheoretical Values in the Process of Personality Theory Development (A. Waterman). IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF MORAL PHENOMENA. Antiparticularism in Developmental and Moral Theory (J. Youniss). Individualizing Conscience: New Thoughts on Old Issues (N. Emler & R. Hogan). Moral-Cognitive Development and the Motivation of Moral Behavior (J. Gibbs). Values, Conceptions of Science, and the Social Psychological Study of Morality (D. Forsyth). Leading an Examined Life: The Moral Dimension of Daily Conduct (D. Baumrind). Indexes.

Tradition and Integrity in Moral Education.

Abstract: According to moral traditionalism, allegiance to tradition is central to good moral judgment. Therefore, a necessary aspect of moral education is the cultivation of that allegiance in an environment free of the subversive influence of alien moral ideas. This article offers a philosophical critique of traditionalism and considers how the educational agenda of its proponents should be assessed within the context of a liberal polity. It is argued that traditionalism is based on an arbitrarily restrictive understanding of moral integrity. Furthermore, the goals of education that befit a liberal political morality, and the respect for children's rights that that same morality requires, entail substantial limits on the extent to which traditionalist moral education can be tolerated.

Moral Differences: Truth, Justice, and Conscience in a World of Conflict

Abstract: In a wide-ranging inquiry Richard W. Miller provides resources for coping with the most troubling types of moral conflict - disagreements in moral conviction, conflicting interests, and the tension between conscience and desires. Drawing on most fields in philosophy and the social sciences, including his previous work in the philosophy of science, he presents an account of our access to moral truth, and, within this framework, develops a theory of justice and an assessment of the role of morality in rational choice. In Miller's view, we are often in a position to claim that our moral judgements are true descriptions of moral facts. But others, relying on contrary ways of moral learning, would reject truths that we are in a position to assert, in dissent that does not depend on irrationality or ignorance of relevant evidence or arguments. With this mixed verdict on "moral realism", Miller challenges many received views of rationality, scientific method, and the relation between moral belief and moral choice. In his discussion of justice, Miller defends the adequacy, for modern political choices, of a widely shared demand that institutions be freely and rationally acceptable to all. Drawing on social research and economic theories, he argues that this demand has dramatically egalitarian consequences, even though it is a premise of liberals and conservatives alike. In the final chapters, Miller investigates the role and limits of morality in the choice of conduct, arguing for new perspectives on reasons and impartiality.

Moral judgment development: The effects of education and occupation

Abstract: Data from the Rest longitudinal study of moral judgment development were used to (i) consolidate past research into a single process model of moral judgment development, and (ii) assess the relative contributions of education and work to moral judgment development. Subjects were 102 individuals who were first interviewed in 1972–1974 and were followed up in 1983. A general model was specified which included moral judgment development in adolescence, dedication, educational attainment, occupational attainment, fulfilling career, and adult moral judgment development. The model was tested on the total sample and in a subsamples analysis that examined the unique pathways to moral development of subsamples which had either completed 2 years or more of college (higher education) or had completed less than 2 years of college (lower education). The general model confirmed that both education and occupation play important roles in the explanation of adult moral judgment development; the subsamples analysis suggested that work-related variables were the most important determinants of development in the lower education group and that education was the most important determinant of the higher education group.

The movement for reforming American business ethics: A twenty-year perspective

Abstract: This paper presents a succinct review of the movement for moral genesis in business that arose in the 1970s. The moral genesis movement is characterized by: (a) the rejection of the premise that business and ethics are antagonistic; (b) the rise of the Issues Management approach, which stresses the social responsibility of the corporation: (c) disdain of government regulation as a means of business moralization, and (d) a search for control measures aimed at improving organization moral behavior. This movement now begins to give rise to a new organizational model, the “Self-Moralizing Corporation,” which transcends existing paradigms of corporate rectitude. The tenets of the “Self-Moralizing Corporation” are that: (a) the moral behavior of members is a requisite to the attainment of organization goals; (b) individual moral behavior is an asset which must be managed and developed by the corporation; (c) individual moral development is a collectively and individually shared responsibility; and, (d) the maintenance of moral values is more important than the preservation of organization structure.

Social discourse and moral judgment

Abstract: D.N. Robinson, Introduction. K.J. Gergen, Social Construction and Moral Action. J.T. Lamiell, Persons, Selves, and Agency. J.F. Rychlak, Morality in a Mediating Mechanism? A Logical Learning Theorist Looks at Social Construction. R. HarreOn Being Taken Up By Others. J. Sabini and M. Silver, The Moral Dimension in Social Psychology. D.N. Robinson, Social Science and Moral Science. J. Bruner, Psychology, Morality, and the Law. D.C. O'Connell, The Roots of More than Civility. R.P. George, Free Choice, Practical Reason, and Fitness for the Rule of Law. N.C. Much, The Sword of Manjusri: A Postmodern Morality of Intellect and Skillful Means for Relative Worlds. G.S. Howard, Can There Be a Just and Moral Social Constructionist Psychology? F. Moghaddam, There Can Be a Just and Moral Social Constructionist Psychology, But Only in a Social World that is Homogeneous and/or Static. J. Shotter, Social Constructionism: Relativism, Moral Sources, and Judgments of Adequacy. W.G. Parrott, Moral Philosophy and Social Science: A Critique of Constructionist Reason. Epilogue.

Communication and moral conflict

Abstract: Moral conflict, a common problem in modern society, occurs when groups argue from incommensurate positions in fractious debate. Such conflicts are characterized by persistence, predictable structure, and morally attenuated discourse. Responses to moral conflict may involve rhetorical eloquence, or the application of standards of good persuasion from within the moral tradition, but such communication has little effect outside of the moral order from which it emanates. The frustration arising from this pattern often leads to reciprocated diatribe and the use of violence. A potentially more constructive approach is transcendent eloquence, in which interveners or the conflicting parties themselves develop a new framework for understanding and comparing such conflicts. The ideas in this paper are based on a number of case studies, and the case of the New Christian Right and its critics is featured.

Discipline and Morality: Beyond Rules and Consequences

Abstract: (1992). Discipline and Morality: Beyond Rules and Consequences. The Educational Forum: Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 173-183.

An Exploratory Phenomenological Psychological Approach to the Experience of the Moral Sense

Abstract: The study of the moral sense was neglected for a long time in psychology until recently when Kohlberg, following the work of Piaget, constructed a scale for studying moral judgments. In this article the more scientific and empirical approach to the moral sense is questioned and an argument is made that a qualitative approach would yield more meaningful results. The work of Coles is cited as one example of a qualitative approach, and this article suggests a phenomenological approach. Five brief descriptions describing learning, resentment, decision-making, and the experience of autonomy were used for both analyses of the moral sense and psychological concomitants. The results indicate that the moral sense is a meaning that refers to an "ought" and that the awakening of the moral sense is frequently associated with negative emotions or feelings.

The moral judgment development of the cidnese people: a theoretical model

Abstract: A seven stage theory of moral judgment development for the Chinese people is constructed. The seven stages are: (1) obedience and Egoism. (2) Instrumental Purpose and Opportunistic Hedonism. (3) Primary Group Affection and Conformity. (4) Golden Mean Orientation and Social System. (5) Utilitarianism and Basic Rights. (6) Jen and Univer­ sal Ethical Principles. (7) (a) Sainted Altruism and (b) Taoistic Non­ Valuative Judgment. Major Chinese thoughts (e.g., Confucianism and Taoism) are used to elaborate some of the characteristics of the stages. The model places more emphasis on the affective aspect of moral development in comparison to Piaget and Kohlberg's theories. The present study attempts to establish a theoretical foundation for the psychological study of the development of moral judgment in Chinese people. The western theories of moral development by Piaget (1932) and Kohlberg (1981, 1984) as well as the Chinese perspectives on moral development (e.g., Confucianism and Taoism) are integrated into a single model. An earlier version of the present model appeared in the Inter­ national Journal of Psychology (see Ma, 1988). A seven-stage model of moral judgment is proposed. The following are the major features of the theoretical model: (1) The first six stages are parallel to Kohlberg's (1981) six-stage theory of moral judgment. It is argued that the ~egree of cultural universality of· the moral judgment stages tends to be large for the lower stages and small for the higher stages (for a review of the cross-cultural studies of Kohlberg's stages, see