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Social cognitive theory of morality

About: Social cognitive theory of morality is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5842 publications have been published within this topic receiving 250337 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe and explain the standard accounts of agency, natural agency, artificial agency, and moral agency, as well as articulate what are widely taken to be the criteria for moral agency.
Abstract: In this essay, I describe and explain the standard accounts of agency, natural agency, artificial agency, and moral agency, as well as articulate what are widely taken to be the criteria for moral agency, supporting the contention that this is the standard account with citations from such widely used and respected professional resources as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I then flesh out the implications of some of these well-settled theories with respect to the prerequisites that an ICT must satisfy in order to count as a moral agent accountable for its behavior. I argue that each of the various elements of the necessary conditions for moral agency presupposes consciousness, i.e., the capacity for inner subjective experience like that of pain or, as Nagel puts it, the possession of an internal something-of-which-it is-is-to-be-like. I ultimately conclude that the issue of whether artificial moral agency is possible depends on the issue of whether it is possible for ICTs to be conscious.

152 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Refinements in Darwin's theory of the origin of a moral sense create a framework equipped to organize and integrate contemporary theory and research on morality.
Abstract: Refinements in Darwin's theory of the origin of a moral sense create a framework equipped to organize and integrate contemporary theory and research on mo- rality.Moralityoriginatedindeferential,cooperative,and altruistic''social instincts,''ordecision-makingstrategies, that enabled early humans to maximize their gains from social living and resolve their conflicts of interest in adaptive ways. Moral judgments, moral norms, and con- science originated from strategic interactions among members of groups who experienced confluences and con- flicts of interest.Moral argumentation buttressed bymoral reasoning is equipped to generate universal and impartial moral standards. Moral beliefs and standards are prod- ucts of automatic and controlled information-processing and decision-making mechanisms. To understand how people make moral decisions, we must understand how early evolved mechanisms in the old brain and recently evolved mechanisms in the new brain are activated and howtheyinteract.Understandingwhatasense ofmorality is for helps us understand what it is.

152 citations

Book
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the principals of pragmatic reason, and the relationship between reason and reality.PART ONE: THE PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL REASON PART TWO: MORAL VIRTUE and MORAL PSYCHOLOGY PART THREE: Other reflections
Abstract: PART ONE: THE PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICAL REASON PART TWO: MORAL VIRTUE AND MORAL PSYCHOLOGY PART THREE: OTHER REFLECTIONS

152 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used a rigorous quasi-experimental pretest-post-test research design with a treatment (N = 30) and a control group (N= 30) to investigate whether a graduate-level course in business ethics could influence students' levels of moral efficacy, meaningfulness, and courage.
Abstract: The research described here contributes to the extant empirical research on business ethics education by examining outcomes drawn from the literature on positive organizational scholarship (POS). The general research question explored is whether a course on ethical decision-making in business could positively influence students’ confidence in their abilities to handle ethical problems at work (i.e., moral efficacy), boost the relative importance of ethics in their work lives (i.e., moral meaningfulness), and encourage them to be more courageous in raising ethical problems at work even if it is unpopular (i.e., moral courage). Specifically, the study used a rigorous quasi-experimental pretest–posttest research design with a treatment (N = 30) and control group (N = 30) to investigate whether a graduate-level course in business ethics could influence students’ levels of moral efficacy, meaningfulness, and courage. Findings revealed that participants in the business ethics treatment course experienced significant positive increases in each of the three outcome variables as compared to the control group. The largest increase was in moral efficacy, followed by moral courage, and finally, moral meaningfulness. These findings are discussed in the context of the current research on business ethics education and POS. Implications for future research are discussed.

152 citations

Book
11 May 1995
TL;DR: Copp's "standard-based theory" as discussed by the authors is a theory of the circumstances under which corresponding moral standards qualify as justified, the "society-centered theory," which argues that any society needs a social moral code in order to enable its members to live together successfully.
Abstract: Moral claims not only purport to be true, they also purport to guide our choices. This book presents a new theory of normative judgment, the "standard-based theory," which offers a schematic account of the truth conditions of normative propositions of all kinds, including moral propositions and propositions about reasons. The heart of Copp's approach to moral propositions is a theory of the circumstances under which corresponding moral standards qualify as justified, the "society-centered theory." He argues that because any society needs a social moral code in order to enable its members to live together successfully, and because it would be rational for a society to choose such a code, certain moral codes, and the standards they include, are justified. According to the standard-based theory then, if certain moral standards are indeed justified, corresponding moral propositions may be true. Copp's approach to morality and explaining normativity and the truth conditions of moral claims, raises a number of important issues in moral theory, as well as in metaphysics and the philosophy of language.

152 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202393
2022161
202121
202010
201948
201872