Morality and the Schools. Occasional Paper 32.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wicks, Robert S.

Moral contradictions and cross purposes in society make formal moral training in the schools difficult, if not impossible. Values clarification and school-wide programs of moral education are of questionable merit. Nevertheless, effective moral education is implicit in teaching the subjects that comprise good basic education. A mathematics…

Effects of Incidental Emotions on Moral Dilemma Judgments: An Analysis Using the CNI Model.

PubMed

Gawronski, Bertram; Conway, Paul; Armstrong, Joel; Friesdorf, Rebecca; Hütter, Mandy

2018-02-01

Effects of incidental emotions on moral dilemma judgments have garnered interest because they demonstrate the context-dependent nature of moral decision-making. Six experiments (N = 727) investigated the effects of incidental happiness, sadness, and anger on responses in moral dilemmas that pit the consequences of a given action for the greater good (i.e., utilitarianism) against the consistency of that action with moral norms (i.e., deontology). Using the CNI model of moral decision-making, we further tested whether the three kinds of emotions shape moral dilemma judgments by influencing (a) sensitivity to consequences, (b) sensitivity to moral norms, or (c) general preference for inaction versus action regardless of consequences and moral norms (or some combination of the three). Incidental happiness reduced sensitivity to moral norms without affecting sensitivity to consequences or general preference for inaction versus action. Incidental sadness and incidental anger did not show any significant effects on moral dilemma judgments. The findings suggest a central role of moral norms in the contribution of emotional responses to moral dilemma judgments, requiring refinements of dominant theoretical accounts and supporting the value of formal modeling approaches in providing more nuanced insights into the determinants of moral dilemma judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Just healthcare? The moral failure of single-tier basic healthcare.

PubMed

Meadowcroft, John

2015-04-01

This article sets out the moral failure of single-tier basic healthcare. Single-tier basic healthcare has been advocated on the grounds that the provision of healthcare should be divorced from ability to pay and unequal access to basic healthcare is morally intolerable. However, single-tier basic healthcare encounters a host of catastrophic moral failings. Given the fact of human pluralism it is impossible to objectively define "basic" healthcare. Attempts to provide single-tier healthcare therefore become political processes in which interest groups compete for control of scarce resources with the most privileged possessing an inherent advantage. The focus on outputs in arguments for single-tier provision neglects the question of justice between individuals when some people provide resources for others without reciprocal benefits. The principle that only healthcare that can be provided to everyone should be provided at all leads to a leveling-down problem in which advocates of single-tier provision must prefer a situation where some individuals are made worse-off without any individual being made better-off compared to plausible multi-tier alternatives. Contemporary single-tier systems require the exclusion of noncitizens, meaning that their universalism is a myth. In the light of these pathologies, it is judged that multi-tier healthcare is morally required. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach to Morality Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rest, James R.; Narvaez, Darcia; Thoma, Stephen J.; Bebeau, Muriel J.

2000-01-01

Proposes a model of moral judgment that builds on Lawrence Kohlberg's core assumptions. Addresses the concerns that have surfaced related to Kohlberg's work in moral judgment. Presents an overview of this model using Kohlberg's basic starting points, ideas from cognitive science, and developments in moral philosophy. (CMK)

Ethical problems and moral sensitivity in physiotherapy: a descriptive study.

PubMed

Kulju, Kati; Suhonen, Riitta; Leino-Kilpi, Helena

2013-08-01

This study identified and described ethical problems encountered by physiotherapists in their practice and physiotherapists' moral sensitivity in ethical situations. A questionnaire-based survey was constructed to identify ethical problems, and the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire Revised version was used to measure moral sensitivity. Physiotherapists (n = 116) working in public health services responded to the questionnaire. Based on the results, most of the physiotherapists encounter ethical problems weekly. They concern mainly financial considerations, equality and justice, professionalism, unethical conduct of physiotherapists or other professions and patients' self-determination. The dimension of moral strength was emphasised in physiotherapists' self-evaluations of their moral sensitivity. As a conclusion, ethical problems do occur not only at individual level but also at organisational and society level. Physiotherapists seem to have moral strength for speaking on behalf of the patient. Scarce resources make them feel insufficient but much could still be done to provide quality care in co-operation with other health-care professionals.

Moral instability: the upsides for nursing practice.

PubMed

McCarthy, Joan

2010-04-01

This article briefly outlines some of the key problems with the way in which the moral realm has traditionally been understood and analysed. I propose two alternative views of what is morally interesting and applicable to nursing practice and I indicate that instability has its upsides. I begin with a moral tale - a 'Good Samaritan' story - which raises fairly usual questions about the nature of morality but also the more philosophically fundamental question about the relationship between subjectivity and moral agency. I then consider this relationship from the perspectives of two twentieth century philosophers: Emmanuel Levinas and Michel Foucault. Levinas' basic point is that the experience of ethical subjectivity is made possible through others: the demand to respond to the existence of others is the basic social structure that precedes individual freedom. If Levinas posits intersubjectivity as a fundamental or primitive feature of the moral realm, Foucault poses an even more basic question: how have moral subjects and relations of obligation been constituted? The aim of ethical inquiry, for Foucault, is to describe the network of discourses, institutions, relations, and practices through which certain kinds of subjects are constituted and constitute themselves, e.g. as a kind of person who can act morally. Finally, I consider some recent research in philosophy of nursing which illustrates how Levinasian and/or Foucauldian perspectives can deepen understanding of nurses' moral practices, specifically, the work of Norwegian public health nurses, Canadian pediatric nurses, and Irish midwives. I suggest that in spite of the instability of morality in general and the particular ethical challenges that face nurses, there are grounds for hope and possible strategies for living in unstable times.

On Moral Education in the Finnish Comprehensive School Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hakkarainen, Pentti

1978-01-01

Basic values of moral education in Finnish schools come from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moral tenets are taught in religion and civics. The textbooks deal with moral questions mainly on the individual level and provide limited opportunities for practice necessary for the internalization of values. (Author/SJL)

Moral distress and its interconnection with moral sensitivity and moral resilience: viewed from the philosophy of Viktor E. Frankl.

PubMed

Lützén, Kim; Ewalds-Kvist, Béatrice

2013-10-01

The interconnection between moral distress, moral sensitivity, and moral resilience was explored by constructing two hypothetical scenarios based on a recent Swedish newspaper report. In the first scenario, a 77-year-old man, rational and awake, was coded as "do not resuscitate" (DNR) against his daughter's wishes. The patient died in the presence of nurses who were not permitted to resuscitate him. The second scenario concerned a 41-year-old man, who had been in a coma for three weeks. He was also coded as "do not resuscitate" and, when he stopped breathing, was resuscitated by his father. The nurses persuaded the physician on call to resume life support treatment and the patient recovered. These scenarios were analyzed using Viktor Frankl's existential philosophy, resulting in a conceivable theoretical connection between moral distress, moral sensitivity, and moral resilience. To substantiate our conclusion, we encourage further empirical research.

Why (and how) should we study the interplay between emotional arousal, Theory of Mind, and inhibitory control to understand moral cognition?

PubMed

Buon, Marine; Seara-Cardoso, Ana; Viding, Essi

2016-12-01

Findings in the field of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience have shed new light on our understanding of the psychological and biological bases of morality. Although a lot of attention has been devoted to understanding the processes that underlie complex moral dilemmas, attempts to represent the way in which individuals generate moral judgments when processing basic harmful actions are rare. Here, we will outline a model of morality which proposes that the evaluation of basic harmful actions relies on complex interactions between emotional arousal, Theory of Mind (ToM) capacities, and inhibitory control resources. This model makes clear predictions regarding the cognitive processes underlying the development of and ability to generate moral judgments. We draw on data from developmental and cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and psychopathology research to evaluate the model and propose several conceptual and methodological improvements that are needed to further advance our understanding of moral cognition and its development.

Moral Psychology Is Relationship Regulation: Moral Motives for Unity, Hierarchy, Equality, and Proportionality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rai, Tage Shakti; Fiske, Alan Page

2011-01-01

Genuine moral disagreement exists and is widespread. To understand such disagreement, we must examine the basic kinds of social relationships people construct across cultures and the distinct moral obligations and prohibitions these relationships entail. We extend relational models theory (Fiske, 1991) to identify 4 fundamental and distinct moral…

Analysing Theoretical Frameworks of Moral Education through Lakatos's Philosophy of Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Han, Hyemin

2014-01-01

The structure of studies of moral education is basically interdisciplinary; it includes moral philosophy, psychology, and educational research. This article systematically analyses the structure of studies of moral educational from the vantage points of philosophy of science. Among the various theoretical frameworks in the field of philosophy of…

The cultural moral right to a basic minimum of accessible health care.

PubMed

Menzel, Paul T

2011-03-01

(1) The conception of a cultural moral right is useful in capturing the social-moral realities that underlie debate about universal health care. In asserting such rights, individuals make claims above and beyond their legal rights, but those claims are based on the society's existing commitments and moral culture. In the United States such a right to accessible basic health care is generated by various empirical social facts, primarily the conjunction of the legal requirement of access to emergency care with widely held principles about unfair free riding and just sharing of costs between well and ill. The right can get expressed in social policy through either single-payer or mandated insurance. (2) The same elements that generate this right provide modest assistance in determining its content, the structure and scope of a basic minimum of care. They justify limits on patient cost sharing, require comparative effectiveness, and make cost considerations relevant. They shed light on the status of expensive, marginally life extending, last-chance therapies, as well as life support for PVS patients. They are of less assistance in settling contentious debates about screening for breast and prostate cancer and treatments for infertility and erectile dysfunction, but even there they establish a useful framework for discussion. Scarcity of resources need not be a leading conceptual consideration in discerning a basic minimum. More important are the societal elements that generate the cultural moral right to a basic minimum.

Ethics Readiness: An Analysis of Virginia Community College Students' Moral Sensitivity Scores

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wallace, Julie Marie

2013-01-01

In this retrospective causal-comparative study, the readiness of Virginia community college students to receive an accounting ethics curriculum was analyzed by measuring and comparing their moral sensitivity scores to the moral sensitivity scores of a group of four year university students. A sample of college students attending community college…

The Challenge of Watergate to American Schools: Fostering the Moral Development of Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lickona, Thomas

This paper discusses moral development and illustrates ways that it can be fostered in children both in the home and in the classroom. Moral education is discussed in terms of four basic questions: (1) Is there a need for it? (2) If so, is it the job of the schools to teach morality? (3) What is moral development? and (4) If fostering moral…

Implications of a Moral Science.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kantor, Robert E.

A research memorandum presents the results of an on-going study into the implications of a moral science. Adopting a moral stance in scientific investigation would entail the abandonment of analytic modes of inquiry for more holistic, open-ended ones. The basic premise of a moral science is that it is possible for men to reach agreement on what is…

New Directions in the Moral Education Curriculum in Chinese Primary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jie, Lu; Desheng, Gao

2004-01-01

An analysis is presented of the problems that have existed for over 20 years in the moral education curriculum in primary schools of China. These include the separation of moral education from children's lives, the moralizing and memorization used as the basic methods of teaching and learning, and the overlaps between courses on society and…

The rat-a-gorical imperative: Moral intuition and the limits of affective learning.

PubMed

Greene, Joshua D

2017-10-01

Decades of psychological research have demonstrated that intuitive judgments are often unreliable, thanks to their inflexible reliance on limited information (Kahneman, 2003, 2011). Research on the computational underpinnings of learning, however, indicates that intuitions may be acquired by sophisticated learning mechanisms that are highly sensitive and integrative. With this in mind, Railton (2014) urges a more optimistic view of moral intuition. Is such optimism warranted? Elsewhere (Greene, 2013) I've argued that moral intuitions offer reasonably good advice concerning the give-and-take of everyday social life, addressing the basic problem of cooperation within a "tribe" ("Me vs. Us"), but that moral intuitions offer unreliable advice concerning disagreements between tribes with competing interests and values ("Us vs. Them"). Here I argue that a computational perspective on moral learning underscores these conclusions. The acquisition of good moral intuitions requires both good (representative) data and good (value-aligned) training. In the case of inter-tribal disagreement (public moral controversy), the problem of bad training looms large, as training processes may simply reinforce tribal differences. With respect to moral philosophy and the paradoxical problems it addresses, the problem of bad data looms large, as theorists seek principles that minimize counter-intuitive implications, not only in typical real-world cases, but in unusual, often hypothetical, cases such as some trolley dilemmas. In such cases the prevailing real-world relationships between actions and consequences are severed or reversed, yielding intuitions that give the right answers to the wrong questions. Such intuitions-which we may experience as the voice of duty or virtue-may simply reflect the computational limitations inherent in affective learning. I conclude, in optimistic agreement with Railton, that progress in moral philosophy depends on our having a better understanding of the mechanisms behind our moral intuitions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Understanding moral habitability: a framework to enhance the quality of the clinical environment as a workplace.

PubMed

Vanderheide, Rebecca; Moss, Cheryle; Lee, Susan

2013-08-01

There is compelling evidence in the nursing literature that the workplace is experienced as morally uninhabitable for many nurses and yet the concept of moral habitability remains underdeveloped. An integrative review on moral habitability in nursing was undertaken. The findings reveal that the primary concepts by which nurses write and research aspects of moral habitability are moral climate, moral agency, moral sensitivity and moral distress. It is revealed that nurses in their clinical work experience adversity and moral distress through relational challenges and contextual difficulties that can challenge habitability and inhibit nurses' capacity to provide morally sensitive patient care. The primary concepts identified provide a framework for further development of the concept of moral habitability within nursing practice. The related data within the integrative review also highlights the need for further research into enhancing and sustaining morally habitable workplaces for nurses.

Effects of ethics education on moral sensitivity of nursing students.

PubMed

Yeom, Hye-A; Ahn, Sung-Hee; Kim, Su-Jeong

2017-09-01

While nursing ethics education is commonly provided for undergraduate nursing students in most nursing colleges, consensus on the content and teaching modules for these ethics courses have still not been established. This study aimed to examine the effects of nursing ethics education on the moral sensitivity and critical thinking disposition of nursing students in Korea. A one-group pre- and post-test design was used. Moral sensitivity was measured using the Korean version of the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire. Critical thinking disposition was measured using the Critical Thinking Disposition Questionnaire. Participants and research context: Participants were 70 undergraduate nursing students who were attending a university located in Seoul, Korea. The nursing ethics education was provided 7 times, from September to December 2010, and comprised 90-min sessions each week. Ethical considerations: This study was conducted in accordance with the Human Subject Research Ethics Committee guidelines. After the education, the levels for the patient-oriented care, a sub-domain of moral sensitivity, and inquisitiveness, a sub-domain of critical thinking disposition, significantly improved. There were no changes in overall scores for moral sensitivity and critical thinking disposition. There were significant positive correlations between moral sensitivity and critical thinking disposition both pre- and post-intervention. These results reflect the need for ongoing efforts to develop innovative content, structure, and instructional methods for undergraduate nursing ethics education programs.

Proscriptive versus prescriptive morality: two faces of moral regulation.

PubMed

Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie; Sheikh, Sana; Hepp, Sebastian

2009-03-01

A distinction is made between two forms of morality on the basis of approach-avoidance differences in self-regulation. Prescriptive morality is sensitive to positive outcomes, activation-based, and focused on what we should do. Proscriptive morality is sensitive to negative outcomes, inhibition-based, and focused on what we should not do. Seven studies profile these two faces of morality, support their distinct motivational underpinnings, and provide evidence of moral asymmetry. Both are well-represented in individuals' moral repertoire and equivalent in terms of moral weight, but proscriptive morality is condemnatory and strict, whereas prescriptive morality is commendatory and not strict. More specifically, in these studies proscriptive morality was perceived as concrete, mandatory, and duty-based, whereas prescriptive morality was perceived as more abstract, discretionary, and based in duty or desire; proscriptive immorality resulted in greater blame, whereas prescriptive morality resulted in greater moral credit. Implications for broader social regulation, including cross-cultural differences and political orientation, are discussed.

The moral affiliations of disgust: a functional MRI study.

PubMed

Moll, Jorge; de Oliveira-Souza, Ricardo; Moll, Fernanda Tovar; Ignácio, Fátima Azevedo; Bramati, Ivanei E; Caparelli-Dáquer, Egas M; Eslinger, Paul J

2005-03-01

Recent investigations in cognitive neuroscience have shown that ordinary human behavior is guided by emotions that are uniquely human in their experiential and interpersonal aspects. These "moral emotions" contribute importantly to human social behavior and derive from the neurobehavioral reorganization of the basic plan of emotions that pervade mammalian life. Disgust is one prototypic emotion with multiple domains that include viscerosomatic reaction patterns and subjective experiences linked to (a) the sensory properties of a class of natural stimuli, (b) a set of aversive experiences and (c) a unique mode of experiencing morality. In the current investigation, we tested the hypotheses that (a) the experience of disgust devoid of moral connotations ("pure disgust") can be subjectively and behaviorally differentiated from the experience of disgust disguised in the moral emotion of "indignation" and that (b) pure disgust and indignation may have partially overlapping neural substrates. Thirteen normal adult volunteers were investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging as they read a series of statements depicting scenarios of pure disgust, indignation, and neutral emotion. After the scanning procedure, they assigned one basic and one moral emotion to each stimulus from an array of six basic and seven moral emotions. Results indicated that (a) emotional stimuli may evoke pure disgust with or without indignation, (b) these different aspects of the experience of disgust could be elicited by a set of written statements, and (c) pure disgust and indignation recruited both overlapping and distinct brain regions, mainly in the frontal and temporal lobes. This work underscores the importance of the prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices in moral judgment and in the automatic attribution of morality to social events. Human disgust encompasses a variety of emotional experiences that are ingrained in frontal, temporal, and limbic networks.

Beyond the Virtues-Principles Debate.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keat, Marilyn S.

1992-01-01

Indicates basic ontological assumptions in the virtues-principles debate in moral philosophy, noting Aristotle's and Kant's fundamental ideas about morality and considering a hermeneutic synthesis of theories. The article discusses what acceptance of the synthesis might mean in the theory and practice of moral pedagogy, offering examples of…

Death, dignity, and moral nonsense.

PubMed

Pullman, Daryl

2004-01-01

Although the concept of human dignity is widely invoked in discussions regarding end-of-life decision making, the content of the notion is ambiguous. Such ambiguity has led some to conclude that human dignity is a redundant or even useless concept that we would be better off without. This paper argues, to the contrary, that the concept of human dignity is indispensable to moral discourse. Far from dispensing with human dignity, we must work to clarify the concept. The paper outlines two distinct but related conceptions of dignity that are often conflated in contemporary moral discourse. These conceptions are labelled "basic dignity" and "personal dignity", respectively. It is argued that basic dignity functions as a universal meaning constraint on moral discourse in general. Hence, to dispense with the notion could reduce us to speaking moral nonsense. Throughout the discussion, some implications for our understanding of end-of-life decision making are explored.

Mode of effective connectivity within a putative neural network differentiates moral cognitions related to care and justice ethics.

PubMed

Cáceda, Ricardo; James, G Andrew; Ely, Timothy D; Snarey, John; Kilts, Clinton D

2011-02-25

Moral sensitivity refers to the interpretive awareness of moral conflict and can be justice or care oriented. Justice ethics is associated primarily with human rights and the application of moral rules, whereas care ethics is related to human needs and a situational approach involving social emotions. Among the core brain regions involved in moral issue processing are: medial prefrontal cortex, anterior (ACC) and posterior (PCC) cingulate cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), insula and amygdala. This study sought to inform the long standing debate of whether care and justice moral ethics represent one or two different forms of cognition. Model-free and model-based connectivity analysis were used to identify functional neural networks underlying care and justice ethics for a moral sensitivity task. In addition to modest differences in patterns of associated neural activity, distinct modes of functional and effective connectivity were observed for moral sensitivity for care and justice issues that were modulated by individual variation in moral ability. These results support a neurobiological differentiation between care and justice ethics and suggest that human moral behavior reflects the outcome of integrating opposing rule-based, self-other perspectives, and emotional responses.

Law and the sources of morality.

PubMed Central

Hinde, Robert A

2004-01-01

This paper argues that morality is a product of basic human psychological characteristics shaped over prehistorical and historical time by diachronic dialectical transactions between what individuals do and what they are supposed to do in the culture in which they live. Some principles are pancultural: individuals are motivated to look after their own interests, to be cooperative and kind to other group members and to look after their children. The moral precepts of every society are based on these principles, but may differ according to the vicissitudes that the society has experienced. Thus the basic principles can be seen as absolute; the precepts based on them may be specific to particular societies. Moral precepts, and the laws derived from them, are mostly such as to maintain the cohesion of the society, but some have been formulated to further the interests of those in power. The evidence suggests that laws have been developed, by common consent or by rulers, from generally accepted moral intuitions. In general, legal systems have been formulated to deal with the more extreme infringements of moral codes. Morality prescribes how people should behave; the law is concerned with how they should not. New laws, if not imposed by force, must generally be in tune with public conceptions of morality. PMID:15590610

Law and the sources of morality.

PubMed

Hinde, Robert A

2004-11-29

This paper argues that morality is a product of basic human psychological characteristics shaped over prehistorical and historical time by diachronic dialectical transactions between what individuals do and what they are supposed to do in the culture in which they live. Some principles are pancultural: individuals are motivated to look after their own interests, to be cooperative and kind to other group members and to look after their children. The moral precepts of every society are based on these principles, but may differ according to the vicissitudes that the society has experienced. Thus the basic principles can be seen as absolute; the precepts based on them may be specific to particular societies. Moral precepts, and the laws derived from them, are mostly such as to maintain the cohesion of the society, but some have been formulated to further the interests of those in power. The evidence suggests that laws have been developed, by common consent or by rulers, from generally accepted moral intuitions. In general, legal systems have been formulated to deal with the more extreme infringements of moral codes. Morality prescribes how people should behave; the law is concerned with how they should not. New laws, if not imposed by force, must generally be in tune with public conceptions of morality.

Noradrenaline effects on social behaviour, intergroup relations, and moral decisions.

PubMed

Terbeck, S; Savulescu, J; Chesterman, L P; Cowen, P J

2016-07-01

Recent research has begun to elucidate the neural basis of higher order social concepts, such as the mechanisms involved in intergroup relations, and moral judgments. Most theories have concentrated on higher order emotions, such as guilt, shame, or empathy, as core mechanisms. Accordingly, psychopharmacological and neurobiological studies have investigated the effects of manipulating serotonin or oxytocin activity on moral and social decisions and attitudes. However, recently it has been determined that changes in more basic emotions, such as fear and anger, might also have a significant role in social and moral cognition. This article summarizes psychopharmacological and fMRI research on the role of noradrenaline in higher order social cognition suggesting that indeed noradrenergic mediated affective changes might play key - and probably causal - role in certain social attitudes and moral judgments. Social judgments may also be directly influenced by numerous neurotransmitter manipulations but these effects could be mediated by modulation of basic emotions which appear to play an essential role in the formation of social concepts and moral behaviour. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Mode of Effective Connectivity within a Putative Neural Network Differentiates Moral Cognitions Related to Care and Justice Ethics

PubMed Central

Cáceda, Ricardo; James, G. Andrew; Ely, Timothy D.; Snarey, John; Kilts, Clinton D.

2011-01-01

Background Moral sensitivity refers to the interpretive awareness of moral conflict and can be justice or care oriented. Justice ethics is associated primarily with human rights and the application of moral rules, whereas care ethics is related to human needs and a situational approach involving social emotions. Among the core brain regions involved in moral issue processing are: medial prefrontal cortex, anterior (ACC) and posterior (PCC) cingulate cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), insula and amygdala. This study sought to inform the long standing debate of whether care and justice moral ethics represent one or two different forms of cognition. Methodology/Principal Findings Model-free and model-based connectivity analysis were used to identify functional neural networks underlying care and justice ethics for a moral sensitivity task. In addition to modest differences in patterns of associated neural activity, distinct modes of functional and effective connectivity were observed for moral sensitivity for care and justice issues that were modulated by individual variation in moral ability. Conclusions/Significance These results support a neurobiological differentiation between care and justice ethics and suggest that human moral behavior reflects the outcome of integrating opposing rule-based, self-other perspectives, and emotional responses. PMID:21364916

Combining Excellence and Ethics: Implications for Moral Education for the Gifted

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tirri, Kirsi

2011-01-01

In this article the current empirical research on morality and giftedness is reviewed with an emphasis on moral sensitivity. The component of moral judgment has been the most studied aspect in morality. Although high-ability students have been shown to be superior in moral judgment when compared to average-ability students, morality includes other…

Judgment of moral and social transgression in schizophrenia.

PubMed

McGuire, Jonathan; Brüne, Martin; Langdon, Robyn

2017-07-01

Despite evidence of pervasive social-cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, little is known of moral cognition in this population. While recent research indicates that impairment of explicit moral reasoning is explained by these individuals' other cognitive deficits, their capacities for basic moral judgment are unknown. 45 people with schizophrenia and 27 healthy controls completed the Moral-Conventional Distinction Task: a classic task that assesses judgment of violations of moral or social convention on permissibility, severity, and authority-contingence. Justifications of judgments were also probed. Basic cognition was indexed by measures of IQ, verbal memory, and information processing speed. Self-report inventories were used to assess different facets of 'empathy' (e.g., perspective-taking, or theory of mind, and empathic concern), and aggressive tendencies. Groups did not differ significantly in judgments of permissibility or authority-contingency, or justifications of judgments. Patients did, however, rate violations of social (but not moral) convention more harshly. They also took longer to judge impermissibility of moral (but nor social) transgressions. Slower moral judgment in patients was associated with lower levels of self-reported empathic concern, while harsher condemnation of social transgression was associated with poorer (self-reported) perspective-taking. Findings provide no evidence that moral judgment is fundamentally compromised in schizophrenia. Evidence of slower moral judgment in schizophrenia does suggest, however, that patients were less influenced by automatic aversive responses to amoral conduct. The association found between poorer (self-reported) perspective-taking and greater condemnation of social transgressions also suggests that an insensitivity to others' extenuating motives may exacerbate social misunderstandings in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Defining Features of Moral Sensitivity and Moral Motivation: Pathways to Moral Reasoning in Medical Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morton, Kelly R.; Worthley, Joanna S.; Testerman, John K.; Mahoney, Marita L.

2006-01-01

Kohlberg's theory of moral development explores the roles of cognition and emotion but focuses primarily on cognition. Contemporary post-formal theories lead to the conclusion that skills resulting from cognitive-affective integration facilitate consistency between moral judgement and moral behaviour. Rest's four-component model of moral…

Moral awareness and ethical predispositions: investigating the role of individual differences in the recognition of moral issues.

PubMed

Reynolds, Scott J

2006-01-01

The impact of the role of individual ethical predispositions, preferences for utilitarian and formalistic ideals, on managerial moral awareness was examined in 2 studies. Results suggested that a manager's ethical predispositions influence his or her responses to the characteristics of the moral issue. Both utilitarianism and formalism shaped moral awareness, but formalism demonstrated a greater capacity to do so in that formalists recognized both harm and the violation of a behavioral norm as indicators of the moral issue, whereas utilitarians responded only to harm. These findings provide support for the basic arguments underlying theories of moral development and offer several implications for the study and practice of moral awareness in organizations. (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

Moral Development and Behavior: Theory, Research, and Social Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lickona, Thomas, Ed.

This book contains selections from psychologists, social scientists, and educators on the origins and nature of moral reasoning and behavior. Part one is an introduction and is intended to help the reader organize the wealth of theory and research in the field around eight basic questions confronting a science of morality. Part two sets forth…

Norm Acquisition, Rational Judgment and Moral Particularism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Westphal, Kenneth R.

2012-01-01

Moral particularism, defined as the view that moral judgment does not require moral principles, has become prominent both in moral philosophy and in philosophy of education. This article re-examines Nussbaum's case for particularism, based on Sophocles' "Antigone", because her stress on sensitive appreciation of circumstantial specifics is…

Insurance companies' point of view toward moral hazard incentives.

PubMed

Khorasani, Elahe; Keyvanara, Mahmoud; Etemadi, Manal; Asadi, Somayeh; Mohammadi, Mahan; Barati, Maryam

2016-01-01

Moral hazards are the result of an expansive range of factors mostly originating in the patients' roles. The objective of the present study was to investigate patient incentives for moral hazards using the experiences of experts of basic Iranian insurance organizations. This was a qualitative research. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The study population included all experts of basic healthcare insurance agencies in the City of Isfahan, Iran, who were familiar with the topic of moral hazards. A total of 18 individuals were selected through purposive sampling and interviewed and some criteria such as data reliability and stability were considered. The anonymity of the interviewees was preserved. The data were transcribed, categorized, and then, analyzed through thematic analysis method. Through thematic analysis, 2 main themes and 11 subthemes were extracted. The main themes included economic causes and moral-cultural causes affecting the phenomenon of moral hazards resulted from patients' roles. Each of these themes has some sub-themes. False expectations from insurance companies are rooted in the moral and cultural values of individuals. People with the insurance coverage make no sense if using another person insurance identification or requesting physicians for prescribing the medicines. These expectations will lead them to moral hazards. Individuals with any insurance coverage should consider the rights of insurance agencies as third party payers and supportive organizations which disburden them from economical loads in the time of sickness.

Inferences about moral character moderate the impact of consequences on blame and praise.

PubMed

Siegel, Jenifer Z; Crockett, Molly J; Dolan, Raymond J

2017-10-01

Moral psychology research has highlighted several factors critical for evaluating the morality of another's choice, including the detection of norm-violating outcomes, the extent to which an agent caused an outcome, and the extent to which the agent intended good or bad consequences, as inferred from observing their decisions. However, person-centered accounts of moral judgment suggest that a motivation to infer the moral character of others can itself impact on an evaluation of their choices. Building on this person-centered account, we examine whether inferences about agents' moral character shape the sensitivity of moral judgments to the consequences of agents' choices, and agents' role in the causation of those consequences. Participants observed and judged sequences of decisions made by agents who were either bad or good, where each decision entailed a trade-off between personal profit and pain for an anonymous victim. Across trials we manipulated the magnitude of profit and pain resulting from the agent's decision (consequences), and whether the outcome was caused via action or inaction (causation). Consistent with previous findings, we found that moral judgments were sensitive to consequences and causation. Furthermore, we show that the inferred character of an agent moderated the extent to which people were sensitive to consequences in their moral judgments. Specifically, participants were more sensitive to the magnitude of consequences in judgments of bad agents' choices relative to good agents' choices. We discuss and interpret these findings within a theoretical framework that views moral judgment as a dynamic process at the intersection of attention and social cognition. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Children's moral emotions and moral cognition: towards an integrative perspective.

PubMed

Malti, Tina; Latzko, Brigitte

2010-01-01

This chapter presents a brief introduction to the developmental and educational literature linking children's moral emotions to cognitive moral development. A central premise of the chapter is that an integrative developmental perspective on moral emotions and moral cognition provides an important conceptual framework for understanding children's emerging morality and designing developmentally sensitive moral intervention strategies. The subsequent chapters present promising conceptual approaches and empirical evidence linking children's moral emotions to moral cognition. Examples of integrated educational interventions intended to enhance children's moral development are presented and discussed. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Ethics and Economics: A Comment on Narvaez's "Revitalizing Human Virtue by Restoring Organic Morality"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minnameier, Gerhard

2016-01-01

This paper comments on Darcia Narvaez's Kohlberg Memorial Lecture (EJ1111256), published in this issue, with respect to her contrasting ethics and economics, or morality and market. My basic claim is that ethics and economics, properly understood, are just two sides of the same coin. One main point is that all morality solves cooperation problems…

Cross-cultural validation of the moral sensitivity questionnaire-revised Chinese version.

PubMed

Huang, Fei Fei; Yang, Qing; Zhang, Jie; Zhang, Qing Hua; Khoshnood, Kaveh; Zhang, Jing Ping

2016-11-01

Ethical issues pose challenges for nurses who are increasingly caring for patients in complicated situations. Ethical sensitivity is a prerequisite for nurses to make decisions in the best interest of their patients in daily practice. Currently, there is no tool for assessing ethical sensitivity in Chinese language, and no empirical studies of ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses. The study was conducted to translate the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire-Revised Version (MSQ-R) into Chinese and establish the psychometric properties of the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire-Revised Version into Chinese (MSQ-R-CV). This research was a methodological and descriptive study. MSQ-R was translated into Chinese using Brislin's model, and the Translation Validity Index was evaluated. MSQ-R-CV was then distributed along with a demographic questionnaire to 360 nurses working at tertiary and municipal hospitals in Changsha, China. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Yale University and Central South University. MSQ-R-CV achieved Cronbach's alpha 0.82, Spearman-Brown coefficient 0.75, significant item discrimination (p < 0.001), and item-total correlation values ranging from 0.524 to 0.717. A two-factor structure was illustrated by exploratory factor analysis, and further confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Chinese nurses had a mean total score of 40.22 ± 7.08 on the MSQ-R-CV, and sub-scores of 23.85 ± 4.4 for moral responsibility and strength and 16.37 ± 3.75 for sense of moral burden. The findings of this study were compared with studies from other countries to examine the structure and meaningful implications of ethical sensitivity in Chinese nurses. The two-factor MSQ-R-CV (moral responsibility and strength, and sense of moral burden) is a linguistically and culturally appropriate instrument for assessing ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses. © The Author(s) 2015.

The erosion of moral education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barrow, Robin

1995-01-01

This paper discusses two closely related themes: first, the lack of provision of moral education; second, the loss of moral direction in society. The author argues that a proper moral education is one that provides an adequate understanding of the "moral sphere", just as the study of mathematics involves acquiring a grasp of mathematical thinking. While moral norms appear to differ from one culture to another, the author contends that there is a basic commonality at the level of essential moral principles. The paper concludes by arguing against any system where rights — particularly those of "any loosely definable minority" — restrict the freedom of others. The author laments that "justice" has become limited to a political definition of what is just. Thus politics has replaced morality as the arbiter of our behaviour.

Neural Correlates of Moral Sensitivity and Moral Judgment Associated with Brain Circuitries of Selfhood: A Meta-Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Han, Hyemin

2017-01-01

The present study meta-analyzed 45 experiments with 959 subjects and 463 activation foci reported in 43 published articles that investigated the neural mechanism of moral functions by comparing neural activity between the moral task conditions and non-moral task conditions with the Activation Likelihood Estimation method. The present study…

Learning from moral inconsistency.

PubMed

Campbell, Richmond

2017-10-01

Moral inconsistency is an understudied phenomenon in cognitive moral psychology and deserves in depth empirical study. Moral inconsistency, as understood here, is not formal inconsistency but inconsistency in moral emotion and belief in response to particular cases. It occurs when persons treat cases as morally different that are really morally the same, even from their moral perspective. Learning to recognize and avoid such moral inconsistency in non-trivial but is a form of moral learning that complements and enhances other psychological and social mechanisms through which persons learn how to apply shared moral norms when their applications are uncertain and threaten to lapse into moral inconsistency. The same psychological process also can function to revise current moral norms when their straightforward applications are morally inconsistent with more basic moral commitments. Through this moral learning and related kinds, people can learn how to identify issues of moral priority when moral norms conflict and, when necessary, how to revise their moral norms. The recent revolution in dominant moral norms around gay sex and gay marriage in Europe and North America provides a possible illustration. When coupled with other modes of moral learning in the context of ambiguous but deeply rooted moral norms, such as those of sanctity and authority, reflection on moral inconsistency can help to justify this large-scale moral change, even among those who find gay sex, by its nature, morally repugnant. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Moral foundations, worldviews, moral absolutism and belief in conspiracy theories.

PubMed

Leone, Luigi; Giacomantonio, Mauro; Lauriola, Marco

2017-09-05

In the present research, we examined whether individual differences in basic moral concerns might be related to a greater endorsement of conspiracy theories. Building on the notion that conspiracy theories often deal with super-individual relevant events in which a group perspective is central, we proposed that individual differences in moral concerns pertaining to group- and community-concerns (i.e., binding moral foundations) rather than to individual well-being (i.e., individualising moral foundations) would be positively associated with conspiracy beliefs. We further hypothesised that such relations would be totally mediated by beliefs in a dangerous world and by embracing moral absolutism. We found support for these predictions in two community samples (Ns: 319; 514). Theoretical implications were discussed. © 2017 International Union of Psychological Science.

Empathy and motivation for justice: Cognitive empathy and concern, but not emotional empathy, predict sensitivity to injustice for others

PubMed Central

Decety, Jean; Yoder, Keith J.

2015-01-01

Why do people tend to care for upholding principles of justice? This study examined the association between individual differences in the affective, motivational and cognitive components of empathy, sensitivity to justice, and psychopathy in participants (N 265) who were also asked to rate the permissibility of everyday moral situations that pit personal benefit against moral standards of justice. Counter to commonsense, emotional empathy was not associated with sensitivity to injustice for others. Rather, individual differences in cognitive empathy and empathic concern predicted sensitivity to justice for others, as well as the endorsement of moral rules. Psychopathy coldheartedness scores were inversely associated with motivation for justice. Moreover, hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis revealed that self-focused and other-focused orientations toward justice had opposing influences on the permissibility of moral judgments. High scores on psychopathy were associated with less moral condemnation of immoral behavior. Together, these results contribute to a better understanding of the information processing mechanisms underlying justice motivation, and may guide interventions designed to foster justice and moral behavior. In order to promote justice motivation, it may be more effective to encourage perspective taking and reasoning to induce concern for others than emphasizing emotional sharing with the misfortune of others. PMID:25768232

Empathy and motivation for justice: Cognitive empathy and concern, but not emotional empathy, predict sensitivity to injustice for others.

PubMed

Decety, Jean; Yoder, Keith J

2016-01-01

Why do people tend to care for upholding principles of justice? This study examined the association between individual differences in the affective, motivational and cognitive components of empathy, sensitivity to justice, and psychopathy in participants (N 265) who were also asked to rate the permissibility of everyday moral situations that pit personal benefit against moral standards of justice. Counter to common sense, emotional empathy was not associated with sensitivity to injustice for others. Rather, individual differences in cognitive empathy and empathic concern predicted sensitivity to justice for others, as well as the endorsement of moral rules. Psychopathy coldheartedness scores were inversely associated with motivation for justice. Moreover, hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis revealed that self-focused and other-focused orientations toward justice had opposing influences on the permissibility of moral judgments. High scores on psychopathy were associated with less moral condemnation of immoral behavior. Together, these results contribute to a better understanding of the information processing mechanisms underlying justice motivation, and may guide interventions designed to foster justice and moral behavior. In order to promote justice motivation, it may be more effective to encourage perspective taking and reasoning than emphasizing emotional sharing with the misfortune of others.

Tweaking the Four-Component Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curzer, Howard J.

2014-01-01

By maintaining that moral functioning depends upon four components (sensitivity, judgment, motivation, and character), the Neo-Kohlbergian account of moral functioning allows for uneven moral development within individuals. However, I argue that the four-component model does not go far enough. I offer a more accurate account of moral functioning…

Evaluating the effect of three teaching strategies on student nurses' moral sensitivity.

PubMed

Lee, Hsiao Lu; Huang, Shu-He; Huang, Chiu-Mieh

2017-09-01

The Taiwan Nursing Accreditation Council has proposed eight core professional nursing qualities including ethical literacy. Consequently, nursing ethics education is a required course for student nurses. These courses are intended to improve the ethical literacy. Moral sensitivity is the cornerstone of ethical literacy, and learning moral sensitivity is the initial step towards developing ethical literacy. To explore the effect of nursing ethics educational interventions based on multiple teaching strategies on student nurses moral sensitivity. Based on the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic model, three strategies were developed for determining the programme components and corresponding learning styles. This was a quasi-experimental study. A total of 234 junior-college student nurses participated in this study. All participants were aged 18-19 years. Ethical considerations: The study protocol was approved by the institutional review boards of Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital. Only the participants who signed an informed consent form took part in the study. The participants were permitted to withdraw from the study at any point if they wished to do so without affecting their academic score. The scores of Modified Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire for Student Nurses were significantly improved after the intervention of integrating multiple teaching strategies ( p = .042). Significant relationships were observed between the satisfaction scores of two teaching strategies and moral sensitivity. The results indicated that using multiple teaching strategies is effective for promoting nursing ethics learning. This strategy was consistent with the student nurses' preferred learning style and was used to correct their erroneous ethical conceptions, assisting in developing their ethical knowledge.

A constructionist review of morality and emotions: no evidence for specific links between moral content and discrete emotions.

PubMed

Cameron, C Daryl; Lindquist, Kristen A; Gray, Kurt

2015-11-01

Morality and emotions are linked, but what is the nature of their correspondence? Many "whole number" accounts posit specific correspondences between moral content and discrete emotions, such that harm is linked to anger, and purity is linked to disgust. A review of the literature provides little support for these specific morality-emotion links. Moreover, any apparent specificity may arise from global features shared between morality and emotion, such as affect and conceptual content. These findings are consistent with a constructionist perspective of the mind, which argues against a whole number of discrete and domain-specific mental mechanisms underlying morality and emotion. Instead, constructionism emphasizes the flexible combination of basic and domain-general ingredients such as core affect and conceptualization in creating the experience of moral judgments and discrete emotions. The implications of constructionism in moral psychology are discussed, and we propose an experimental framework for rigorously testing morality-emotion links. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Taxing Times: An Educational Intervention to Enhance Moral Reasoning in Tax

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doyle, Elaine

2015-01-01

This paper outlines the development and implementation of an online educational intervention designed to enhance moral reasoning in higher level tax students. Before decisions are made about how to behave ethically, cognitive moral reasoning takes place. The importance of education in developing morally sensitive individuals who use principled…

Why moral philosophers are not and should not be moral experts.

PubMed

Archard, David

2011-03-01

Professional philosophers are members of bioethical committees and regulatory bodies in areas of interest to bioethicists. This suggests they possess moral expertise even if they do not exercise it directly and without constraint. Moral expertise is defined, and four arguments given in support of scepticism about their possession of such expertise are considered and rejected: the existence of extreme disagreement between moral philosophers about moral matters; the lack of a means clearly to identify moral experts; that expertise cannot be claimed in that which lacks objectivity; and that ordinary people do not follow the advice of moral experts. I offer a better reason for scepticism grounded in the relation between moral philosophy and common-sense morality: namely that modern moral philosophy views even a developed moral theory as ultimately anchored in common-sense morality, that set of basic moral precepts which ordinary individuals have command of and use to regulate their own lives. Even if moral philosophers do nevertheless have a limited moral expertise, in that they alone can fully develop a set of moral judgments, I sketch reasons - grounded in the values of autonomy and of democracy - why moral philosophers should not wish non-philosophers to defer to their putative expertise. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Health as a basic human need: would this be enough?

PubMed

de Campos, Thana Cristina

2012-01-01

Although the value of health is universally agreed upon, its definition is not. Both the WHO and the UN define health in terms of well-being. They advocate a globally shared responsibility that all of us - states, international organizations, pharmaceutical corporations, civil society, and individuals - bear for the health (that is, the well-being) of the world's population. In this paper I argue that this current well-being conception of health is troublesome. Its problem resides precisely in the fact that the well-being conception of health, as an all-encompassing label, does not properly distinguish between the different realities of health and the different demands of justice, which arise in each case. In addressing responsibilities related to the right to health, we need to work with a more differentiated vocabulary, which can account for these different realities. A crucial distinction to bear in mind, for the purposes of moral deliberation and the crafting of political and legal institutions, is the difference between basic and non-basic health needs. This distinction is crucial because we have presumably more stringent obligations and rights in relation to human needs that are basic, as they justify stronger moral claims, than those grounded on non-basic human needs. It is important to keep this moral distinction in mind because many of the world's problems regarding the right to health relate to basic health needs. By conflating these needs with less essential ones, we risk confusing different types of moral claims and weakening the overall case for establishing duties regarding the right to health. There is, therefore, a practical need to reevaluate the current normative conception of health so that it distinguishes, within the broad scope of well-being, between what is basic and what is not. My aim here is to shed light onto this distinction and to show the need for this differentiation. I do so, first, by providing, on the basis of David Miller's concept of basic needs, an account of basic health needs and, secondly, by mounting a defense of the basic needs approach to the right to health, arguing against James Griffin who opposes the basic needs approach. © 2012 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Inc.

A theory of international bioethics: multiculturalism, postmodernism, and the bankruptcy of fundamentalism.

PubMed

Baker, Robert

1998-09-01

The first of two articles analyzing the justifiability of international bioethical codes and of cross-cultural moral judgments reviews "moral fundamentalism," the theory that cross-cultural moral judgments and international bioethical codes are justified by certain "basic" or "fundamental" moral priniciples that are universally accepted in all cultures and eras. Initially propounded by the judges at the 1947 Nuremberg Tribunal, moral fundamentalism has become the received justification of international bioethics, and of cross-temporal and cross-cultural moral judgments. Yet today we are said to live in a multicultural and postmodern world. This article assesses the challenges that multiculturalism and postmodernism pose to fundamentalism and concludes that these challenges render the position philosophically untenable, thereby undermining the received conception of the foundations of international bioethics. The second article, which follows, offers an alternative model -- a model of negotiated moral order -- as a viable justification for international bioethics and for transcultural and transtemporal moral judgments.

The Development of Cooperation: Explorations in Cognitive and Moral Competence and Social Authority.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kutnick, P.J.; Brees, Patricia

1982-01-01

Three groups of children pursued sensitivity exercises, cooperative activities, and free play, respectively, over six weeks. Children in the sensitivity group (which promoted trust/dependence) showed less competitive and more cooperative behaviors on a cognitive task and more child-sensitivity on a moral task than the other two groups. (Author/MJL)

Real-Time Elicitation of Moral Emotions Using a Prejudice Paradigm

PubMed Central

Fourie, Melike M.; Kilchenmann, Nadine; Malcolm-Smith, Susan; Thomas, Kevin G. F. 

2012-01-01

Moral emotions are critically important in guiding appropriate social conduct. Empirical investigation of these emotions remains a challenge, however, because of the difficulty in eliciting them reliably in controlled settings. Here we describe a novel prejudice paradigm that aimed to elicit both negatively and positively valenced moral emotions in real-time. Low-prejudice females (N = 46) who met highly specific demographic and personality-based screening criteria completed a series of Implicit Association Tests (IATs). Feedback following these IATs was pre-programmed to either endorse participants’ non-prejudiced self-standards (positive condition), or to contradict their self-standards (negative condition), in response to sensitive social topics. Neutral condition IATs reflected participants’ attitudes toward non-sensitive social topics. Results demonstrated that the IATs were successful in eliciting moral-positive emotions (satisfaction and pride) and moral-negative emotions (primarily guilt). In addition, participants high in self-reported punishment sensitivity, as assessed by the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) scale, reported greater guilt. PMID:22888322

Real-time elicitation of moral emotions using a prejudice paradigm.

PubMed

Fourie, Melike M; Kilchenmann, Nadine; Malcolm-Smith, Susan; Thomas, Kevin G F

2012-01-01

Moral emotions are critically important in guiding appropriate social conduct. Empirical investigation of these emotions remains a challenge, however, because of the difficulty in eliciting them reliably in controlled settings. Here we describe a novel prejudice paradigm that aimed to elicit both negatively and positively valenced moral emotions in real-time. Low-prejudice females (N = 46) who met highly specific demographic and personality-based screening criteria completed a series of Implicit Association Tests (IATs). Feedback following these IATs was pre-programmed to either endorse participants' non-prejudiced self-standards (positive condition), or to contradict their self-standards (negative condition), in response to sensitive social topics. Neutral condition IATs reflected participants' attitudes toward non-sensitive social topics. Results demonstrated that the IATs were successful in eliciting moral-positive emotions (satisfaction and pride) and moral-negative emotions (primarily guilt). In addition, participants high in self-reported punishment sensitivity, as assessed by the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) scale, reported greater guilt.

Located in the Thin of It: Young Children's Use of Thin Moral Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Jennifer Cole; Sedlock, Trisha; West, Jenny; Saulpaugh, Kelly; Hopkins, Michelle

2016-01-01

One important socio-cultural medium through which young children's moral understanding is cultivated is parent/child discourse. Of particular interest to us was young children's use of basic ("thin") evaluative concepts ("good," "bad," "right" and "wrong"), which are ubiquitous in everyday…

Where Are We? Finding a Start Point on the Ethical Map

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-12-13

selected was Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong which baselined the discussion by explaining basic moral and ethical premises ( moral relativism ......implicit but inadequately developed in existing PMEE conceptions . iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my wife and children for allowing me the

Morality and politics: Comparing alternate theories.

PubMed

Miles, Andrew; Vaisey, Stephen

2015-09-01

Debates about the American "culture wars" have led scholars to develop several theories relating morality to political attitudes and behaviors. However, researchers have not adequately compared these theories, nor have they examined the overall contribution of morality to explaining political variation. This study uses nationally representative data to compare the utility of 19 moral constructs from four research traditions - associated with the work of Hunter, Lakoff, Haidt, and Schwartz - for predicting political orientation (liberalism/conservatism). Results indicate that morality explains a third of the variation in political orientation - more than basic demographic and religious predictors - but that no one theory provides a fully adequate explanation of this phenomenon. Instead, political orientation is best predicted by selected moral constructs that are unique to each of the four traditions, and by two moral constructs that crosscut them. Future work should investigate how these moral constructs can be synthesized to create a more comprehensive theory of morality and politics. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sex and racial differences in preference for a caring morality in a corporate environment that promotes diversity and equal opportunity.

PubMed

Jones, Nona J

2002-10-01

This study investigated the caring moral perspective of managers in a corporation recognized as being a champion of promoting diversity and equal opportunity. Caring is described as a morality of responsibility and relationship, a sensitivity to the needs of persons. The study was based on the prediction that the attachment and caring shown elsewhere to be characteristic of the morality of females would be characteristic of all managers, regardless of sex or race in this kind of corporate environment. 121 male and female, African-American and Euro-American managers responded to a survey using three subscales of a Caring Morality Inventory: caring orientation, use of intuition and feeling to make a judgment, and concern with others in decision-making. Analysis showed female managers, regardless of race, scored significantly higher on the Caring Morality scale than the male managers, supporting other findings of sex differences in caring moral perspective and suggesting that working for a company actively promoting diversity and equal opportunity does not cancel out these differences. In addition, for this study it was assumed that, although African Americans, in general, may have been sensitized to lean more toward a caring morality, any racial differences in caring morality would be cancelled out by the fact that all of the managers work for the same prodiversity and, by assumption, more sensitive company. The Euro-American managers, regardless of sex, actually scored higher on the Caring Morality scale than did the African-American managers, with the difference being attributable solely to the greater tendency of the Euro-American managers to use intuition and feeling to make a judgment.

Commercialization, patents and moral assessment of biotechnology products.

PubMed

Hoedemaekers, R

2001-06-01

The biotechnology patent debates have revealed deep moral concerns about basic genetics research, R&D and specific biotechnological products, concerns that are seldom taken into consideration in Technology Assessment. In this paper important moral concerns are examined which appear at the various stages of development of a specific genetic product: a predictive genetic test. The purpose is to illustrate the need for a more contextual approach in technology assessment, which integrates the various forms of interaction between bio-technology and society or societal segments. Such an approach will generate greater insight in the moral issues at all stages of a product's life-cycle and this will facilitate decision-making on the 'morality' of a specific biotechnological product.

Necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research.

PubMed

DeGrazia, David; Sebo, Jeff

2015-10-01

In this article, we present three necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research that we believe people on both sides of this debate can accept. Specifically, we argue that, even if human beings have higher moral status than nonhuman animals, animal research is morally permissible only if it satisfies (1) an expectation of sufficient net benefit, (2) a worthwhile-life condition, and (3) a no-unnecessary-harm/qualified-basic-needs condition. We then claim that, whether or not these necessary conditions are jointly sufficient for justified animal research, they are relatively demanding, with the consequence that many animal experiments may fail to satisfy them.

Learning and Teaching Virtuous Gratitude

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carr, David; Morgan, Blaire; Gulliford, Liz

2015-01-01

Gratitude has been widely regarded by philosophers, psychologists and educational theorists as a personal and/or pro-social response of some moral significance. Indeed, beyond its more obvious value as a basic form of social association and reciprocation, gratitude has also been conceived as a moral virtue--if not, more grandly, as a "parent…

Moral Development in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liddell, Debora L.; Cooper, Diane L.

2012-01-01

In this article, the authors lay out the basic foundational concepts and assumptions that will guide the reader through the chapters to come as the chapter authors explore "how" moral growth can be facilitated through various initiatives on the college campus. This article presents a brief review of the theoretical frameworks that provide the…

Character: A Multifaceted Developmental System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nucci, Larry

2017-01-01

Character is a developmental system embedded within the self-system. This Relational Developmental Systems (RDS) view is in juxtaposition with virtue theory and accounts of character in terms of moral identity. The character system includes 4 components 3 of which: basic moral cognition (as described within domain theory); other regarding; and…

Consequences, norms, and generalized inaction in moral dilemmas: The CNI model of moral decision-making.

PubMed

Gawronski, Bertram; Armstrong, Joel; Conway, Paul; Friesdorf, Rebecca; Hütter, Mandy

2017-09-01

Research on moral dilemma judgments has been fundamentally shaped by the distinction between utilitarianism and deontology. According to the principle of utilitarianism, the moral status of behavioral options depends on their consequences; the principle of deontology states that the moral status of behavioral options depends on their consistency with moral norms. To identify the processes underlying utilitarian and deontological judgments, researchers have investigated responses to moral dilemmas that pit one principle against the other (e.g., trolley problem). However, the conceptual meaning of responses in this paradigm is ambiguous, because the central aspects of utilitarianism and deontology-consequences and norms-are not manipulated. We illustrate how this shortcoming undermines theoretical interpretations of empirical findings and describe an alternative approach that resolves the ambiguities of the traditional paradigm. Expanding on this approach, we present a multinomial model that allows researchers to quantify sensitivity to consequences (C), sensitivity to moral norms (N), and general preference for inaction versus action irrespective of consequences and norms (I) in responses to moral dilemmas. We present 8 studies that used this model to investigate the effects of gender, cognitive load, question framing, and psychopathy on moral dilemma judgments. The findings obtained with the proposed CNI model offer more nuanced insights into the determinants of moral dilemma judgments, calling for a reassessment of dominant theoretical assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Spanning our differences: moral psychology, physician beliefs, and the practice of medicine

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Moral pluralism is the norm in contemporary society. Even the best philosophical arguments rarely persuade moral opponents who differ at a foundational level. This has been vividly illustrated in contemporary debates in bioethics surrounding contentious issues such as abortion and euthanasia. It is readily apparent that bioethics discourse lacks an empirical explanation for the broad differences about various topics in bioethics and health policy. In recent years, social and cognitive psychology has generated novel approaches for defining basic differences in moral intuitions generally. We propose that if empirical research using social intuitionist theory explains why people disagree with one another over moral issues, then the results of such research might help people debate their moral differences in a more constructive and civil manner. We illustrate the utility of social intuitionism with data from a national physician survey. PMID:25366256

At the heart of morality lies neuro-visceral integration: lower cardiac vagal tone predicts utilitarian moral judgment

PubMed Central

Kappes, Andreas; Rho, Yeojin; Van Bavel, Jay J.

2016-01-01

To not harm others is widely considered the most basic element of human morality. The aversion to harm others can be either rooted in the outcomes of an action (utilitarianism) or reactions to the action itself (deontology). We speculated that the human moral judgments rely on the integration of neural computations of harm and visceral reactions. The present research examined whether utilitarian or deontological aspects of moral judgment are associated with cardiac vagal tone, a physiological proxy for neuro-visceral integration. We investigated the relationship between cardiac vagal tone and moral judgment by using a mix of moral dilemmas, mathematical modeling and psychophysiological measures. An index of bipolar deontology-utilitarianism was correlated with resting heart rate variability (HRV)—an index of cardiac vagal tone—such that more utilitarian judgments were associated with lower HRV. Follow-up analyses using process dissociation, which independently quantifies utilitarian and deontological moral inclinations, provided further evidence that utilitarian (but not deontological) judgments were associated with lower HRV. Our results suggest that the functional integration of neural and visceral systems during moral judgments can restrict outcome-based, utilitarian moral preferences. Implications for theories of moral judgment are discussed. PMID:27317926

Virtue ethics – an old answer to a new dilemma? Part 2. The case for inclusive virtue ethics

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Summary While Principlism is a widely accepted consensus statement for ethics, the moral theory that underpins it faces serious challenges. This two-part paper proposes a version of virtue theory as a more grounded system of moral analysis. Part 2 examines the role of basic moral theory as the foundation to ethics and suggests how virtue theory can be used as a central framework for ethics while being inclusive of insights from deontology and consequentialism. PMID:25792615

Interrelations of Justice, Rejection, Provocation, and Moral Disgust Sensitivity and Their Links with the Hostile Attribution Bias, Trait Anger, and Aggression

PubMed Central

Bondü, Rebecca; Richter, Philipp

2016-01-01

Several personality dispositions with common features capturing sensitivities to negative social cues have recently been introduced into psychological research. To date, however, little is known about their interrelations, their conjoint effects on behavior, or their interplay with other risk factors. We asked N = 349 adults from Germany to rate their justice, rejection, moral disgust, and provocation sensitivity, hostile attribution bias, trait anger, and forms and functions of aggression. The sensitivity measures were mostly positively correlated; particularly those with an egoistic focus, such as victim justice, rejection, and provocation sensitivity, hostile attributions and trait anger as well as those with an altruistic focus, such as observer justice, perpetrator justice, and moral disgust sensitivity. The sensitivity measures had independent and differential effects on forms and functions of aggression when considered simultaneously and when controlling for hostile attributions and anger. They could not be integrated into a single factor of interpersonal sensitivity or reduced to other well-known risk factors for aggression. The sensitivity measures, therefore, require consideration in predicting and preventing aggression. PMID:27303351

Narrative Approach to Moral Education: A Case of Thailand

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singsuriya, Pagorn; Aungsumalin, Wipada; Worapong, Seree

2014-01-01

In Thailand, according to, for instance, the National Education Act 1999, the National Plan of Education, Religion, Arts and Culture (2002--2013), and the Core Curriculum of Basic Education 2008, moral education is given an important role not only in human development but also in citizenship building and solution of socio-political problems.…

The Spiritual and Moral Education of Russia's School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Daniliuk, A. Ia.; Kondakov, A. M.; Tishkov, V. A.

2010-01-01

This article discusses the new draft of the Federal State Standards of General Education which designates spiritual and moral upbringing as a key task of present-day education. In accordance with the Standards' requirements, the structure of the basic educational program shall, in addition to the fundamental nucleus of the content of the…

Defending the four principles approach as a good basis for good medical practice and therefore for good medical ethics.

PubMed

Gillon, Raanan

2015-01-01

This paper argues that the four prima facie principles-beneficence, non-maleficence, respect for autonomy and justice-afford a good and widely acceptable basis for 'doing good medical ethics'. It confronts objections that the approach is simplistic, incompatible with a virtue-based approach to medicine, that it requires respect for autonomy always to have priority when the principles clash at the expense of clinical obligations to benefit patients and global justice. It agrees that the approach does not provide universalisable methods either for resolving such moral dilemmas arising from conflict between the principles or their derivatives, or universalisable methods for resolving disagreements about the scope of these principles-long acknowledged lacunae but arguably to be found, in practice, with all other approaches to medical ethics. The value of the approach, when properly understood, is to provide a universalisable though prima facie set of moral commitments which all doctors can accept, a basic moral language and a basic moral analytic framework. These can underpin an intercultural 'moral mission statement' for the goals and practice of medicine. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Response to Marie Paz Morales' "Influence of Culture and Language Sensitive Physics on Science Attitude Achievement"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cole, Mikel Walker

2015-01-01

This response to Marie Paz Morales' "Influence of culture and language sensitive physics on science attitude achievement" explores the ideas of culturally responsive pedagogy and critical literacy to examine some implications for culturally responsive science instruction implicit in the original manuscript. [For "Influence of…

Understanding the Role of Dispositional and Situational Threat Sensitivity in Our Moral Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Jennifer Cole; Baril, Galen L.

2013-01-01

Previous research has identified different moral judgments in liberals and conservatives. While both care about harm/fairness ("individualizing" foundations), conservatives emphasize in-group/authority/purity ("binding" foundations) more than liberals. Thus, some argue that conservatives have a more complex morality. We suggest…

Geographic Literacy and Moral Formation among University Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bascom, Jonathan

2011-01-01

This study extends analysis of geographic literacy further by examining the relationship of geographic knowledge with the primary goal of geographic educators--cultivation of cultural understanding and moral sensitivity for global citizenry. The main aim is to examine contributors to moral formation during the university years based on a survey…

Human Rights and Cosmopolitan Democratic Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Snauwaert, Dale T.

2009-01-01

The foundation upon which this discussion is based is the basic nature of democracy as both a political and moral ideal. Democracy can be understood as a system of rights premised upon the logic of equality. At its core is a fundamental belief in moral equality, a belief that all human beings possess an equal inherent dignity or worth. The ideal…

Revisiting Dialogues and Monologues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kvernbekk, Tone

2012-01-01

In educational discourse dialogue tends to be viewed as being (morally) superior to monologue. When we look at them as basic forms of communication, we find that dialogue is a two-way, one-to-one form and monologue is a one-way, one-to-many form. In this paper I revisit the alleged (moral) superiority of dialogue. First, I problematize certain…

Paradox and Promise in Citizenship Education: A Reaction to Butts and Hartoonian.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leming, James S.

The basic paradox of citizenship education in the United States is that the first steps toward the rational, autonomous, critical-minded citizen required by a democracy are necessarily non-rational and based on an unquestioned deference to authority. The movement from the morality of authority to the morality of principle constitutes the challenge…

Cultivating the Moral Character of Learning and Teaching: A Neglected Dimension of Educational Leadership

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Starratt, Robert J.

2005-01-01

This essay intends to examine the moral character of learning and teaching and the concomitant implications for educational leaders. With the academic curriculum in mind, I ask the basic question: why should young people learn the standard academic curriculum that schools confront them with? Although the expected answer might be, in the present…

At the heart of morality lies neuro-visceral integration: lower cardiac vagal tone predicts utilitarian moral judgment.

PubMed

Park, Gewnhi; Kappes, Andreas; Rho, Yeojin; Van Bavel, Jay J

2016-10-01

To not harm others is widely considered the most basic element of human morality. The aversion to harm others can be either rooted in the outcomes of an action (utilitarianism) or reactions to the action itself (deontology). We speculated that the human moral judgments rely on the integration of neural computations of harm and visceral reactions. The present research examined whether utilitarian or deontological aspects of moral judgment are associated with cardiac vagal tone, a physiological proxy for neuro-visceral integration. We investigated the relationship between cardiac vagal tone and moral judgment by using a mix of moral dilemmas, mathematical modeling and psychophysiological measures. An index of bipolar deontology-utilitarianism was correlated with resting heart rate variability (HRV)-an index of cardiac vagal tone-such that more utilitarian judgments were associated with lower HRV. Follow-up analyses using process dissociation, which independently quantifies utilitarian and deontological moral inclinations, provided further evidence that utilitarian (but not deontological) judgments were associated with lower HRV. Our results suggest that the functional integration of neural and visceral systems during moral judgments can restrict outcome-based, utilitarian moral preferences. Implications for theories of moral judgment are discussed. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The effect of ethics training on students recognizing ethical violations and developing moral sensitivity.

PubMed

Baykara, Zehra Gocmen; Demir, Sevil Guler; Yaman, Sengul

2015-09-01

Moral sensitivity is a life-long cognitive ability. It is expected that nurses who work in a professional purpose at "curing human beings" should have a highly developed moral sensitivity. The general opinion is that ethics education plays a significant role in this sense to enhance the moral sensitivity in terms of nurses' professional behaviors and distinguish ethical violations. This study was conducted as intervention research for the purpose of determining the effect of the ethics training on fourth-year students of the nursing department recognizing ethical violations experienced in the hospital and developing ethical sensitivity. The study was conducted with 50 students, with 25 students each in the experiment and control groups. Students in the experiment group were provided ethics training and consultancy services. The data were collected through the data collection form, which consists of questions on the socio-demographic characteristics and ethical sensitivity of the students, Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire, and the observation form on ethical principle violations/protection in the clinic environment. The data were digitized on the computer with the SPSS for Windows 13.0 program. The data were evaluated utilizing number, percentile calculation, paired samples t-test, Wilcoxon test, and the McNemar test. The total Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire pre-test score averages of students in the experiment group were determined to be 93.88 ± 13.57, and their total post-test score averages were determined to be 89.24 ± 15.90. The total pre-test score averages of students in the control group were determined to be 91.48 ± 17.59, and their total post-test score averages were determined to be 97.72 ± 19.91. In the study, it was determined that the post-training ethical sensitivity of students in the experiment group increased; however, this was statistically not significant. Furthermore, it was determined that the number of ethical principle protection/violation observations and correct examples provided by students in the experiment group were higher than the control group and the difference was statistically significant. Written permission and ethical approval were obtained from the university where the study was conducted. Written consent was received from students accepting to participate in the study. As a result, ethics education given to students enables them to distinguish ethical violations in a hospital and make a proper observation in this issue. © The Author(s) 2014.

Virtue ethics--an old answer to a new dilemma? Part 2. The case for inclusive virtue ethics.

PubMed

Misselbrook, David

2015-03-01

While Principlism is a widely accepted consensus statement for ethics, the moral theory that underpins it faces serious challenges. This two-part paper proposes a version of virtue theory as a more grounded system of moral analysis. Part 2 examines the role of basic moral theory as the foundation to ethics and suggests how virtue theory can be used as a central framework for ethics while being inclusive of insights from deontology and consequentialism. © The Royal Society of Medicine.

Moral and Sexual Disgust Suppress Sexual Risk Behaviors among Men Who Have Sex with Men in China

PubMed Central

Zhang, Jing; Zheng, Lijun; Zheng, Yong

2017-01-01

Increasingly more men who have sex with men (MSM) are engaging in sexual risk taking in China in recent years. Given the high rates of HIV infection among MSM in China, it is urgent that we understand the factors that influence MSM's practice of sexual risk taking. Disgust sensitivity, which elicits a behavioral avoidance response, has the potential to influence risky sexual behavior. The present study examined the relationship between disgust sensitivity and sexual risk behavior among MSM in China. Men (n = 584) who reported having anal intercourse in the previous 6 months were recruited from the Internet. Two indicators of sexual risk behaviors were measured: condom use and the number of sex partners. The results indicated that moral disgust was positively associated with condom use, with MSM who had higher moral disgust being more likely to use condoms than others did. Sexual disgust was positively associated with the number of sex partners, with MSM who had higher sexual disgust having fewer male sex partners than others did. Sexual and moral disgust sensitivity significantly predicted HIV testing. Our study verified that sexual and moral disgust suppressed sexual risk behaviors and promoted HIV testing. Moral and sexual education should be incorporated in future strategies for HIV prevention and encouragement of safe sex behaviors among MSM in China. PMID:28119646

Moral Sensitivity and Its Contribution to the Resolution of Socio-Scientific Issues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sadler, Troy

2004-01-01

This study explores models of how people perceive moral aspects of socio-scientific issues. Thirty college students participated in interviews during which they discussed their reactions to and resolutions of two genetic engineering issues. The interview data were analyzed qualitatively to produce an emergent taxonomy of moral concerns recognized…

Moral education for nursing decisions.

PubMed

van Hooft, S

1990-02-01

This paper attacks the Kantian conception of mortality that predominates in our society and the rationalist educational strategies that flow from it. In its place it offers an Aristotelian conception of ethics in which sensitivity and feeling are important components of practical reason. It argues that a nurse's ethical concerns extend further than the several moral dilemmas discussed in the daily press and that those concerns should be responded to in moral education by a process called 'empowerment'. Empowerment seeks to develop confidence and sensitivity in the making of difficult decisions and does so by training habits, developing attitudes, and encouraging reflection on actions performed.

Mind Perception Is the Essence of Morality

PubMed Central

Gray, Kurt; Young, Liane; Waytz, Adam

2012-01-01

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds—a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering—that is, interpersonal harm—even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions. PMID:22754268

Mind Perception Is the Essence of Morality.

PubMed

Gray, Kurt; Young, Liane; Waytz, Adam

2012-04-01

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds-a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering-that is, interpersonal harm-even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions.

No Absolutism Here: Harm Predicts Moral Judgment 30× Better Than Disgust-Commentary on Scott, Inbar, & Rozin (2016).

PubMed

Gray, Kurt; Schein, Chelsea

2016-05-01

Moral absolutism is the idea that people's moral judgments are insensitive to considerations of harm. Scott, Inbar, and Rozin (2016, this issue) claim that most moral opponents to genetically modified organisms are absolutely opposed-motivated by disgust and not harm. Yet there is no evidence for moral absolutism in their data. Perceived risk/harm is the most significant predictor of moral judgments for "absolutists," accounting for 30 times more variance than disgust. Reanalyses suggest that disgust is not even a significant predictor of the moral judgments of absolutists once accounting for perceived harm and anger. Instead of revealing actual moral absolutism, Scott et al. find only empty absolutism: hypothetical, forecasted, self-reported moral absolutism. Strikingly, the moral judgments of so-called absolutists are somewhat more sensitive to consequentialist concerns than those of nonabsolutists. Mediation reanalyses reveal that moral judgments are most proximally predicted by harm and not disgust, consistent with dyadic morality. © The Author(s) 2016.

"The Fact that I'm a Woman May Have Been the Defining Factor": The Moral Dilemmas of an Icelandic Headteacher

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Larusdottir, Steinunn Helga

2007-01-01

This article reports on the values and moral dilemmas of one Icelandic headteacher. The article draws on doctoral research currently being conducted with educational leaders in Icelandic basic schools. The research explores the values underpinning the work of female and male educational leaders and how values impact upon their actions, in…

Alien or American? Immigration Laws and Amerasian People.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-08-01

of birth control . The basic fabric of . individual morality underlies these strongly held . .. . . . . . . * . . - . .*.~-,’..-i*--., 55...intent of this paper to explore the ethical and moral questions that permeate the controversy over birth control . The ethical problem that does...unplanned and unwanted births. Safe, effective birth control would theoretically have the potential to reduce the problem of unwanted ethnically-mixed

A Quasi-Experimental Study of Moral Reasoning of Undergraduate Business Students Using an Ethical Decision-Making Framework in a Basic Accounting Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilhelm, William J.; Czyzewski, Alan B.

2006-01-01

This study was designed to identify classroom interventions that can be used by core business course instructors (as opposed to trained business ethicists) to positively affect levels of moral reasoning in undergraduate business students. The quasi-experimental study conducted at a Midwestern university, focused on determining if the utilization…

Limitations on personhood arguments for abortion and 'after-birth abortion'.

PubMed

Wrigley, Anthony

2013-05-01

Two notable limitations exist on the use of personhood arguments in establishing moral status. Firstly, although the attribution of personhood may give us sufficient reason to grant something moral status, it is not a necessary condition. Secondly, even if a person is that which has the 'highest' moral status, this does not mean that any interests of a person are justifiable grounds to kill something that has a 'lower' moral status. Additional justification is needed to overcome a basic wrongness associated with killing something possessing moral status. There are clear arguments already available in this regard in the case of a foetus that are not available in the case of a newborn infant. Hence, there is scope to consistently hold that abortion may be permissible but that after-birth abortion may not be permissible.

Effects of an educational programme on shared decision-making among Korean nurses.

PubMed

Jo, Kae-Hwa; An, Gyeong-Ju

2015-12-01

This study was conducted to examine the effects of an educational programme on shared decision-making on end-of-life care performance, moral sensitivity and attitude towards shared decision-making among Korean nurses. A quasi-experimental study with a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used. Forty-one clinical nurses were recruited as participants from two different university hospitals located in Daegu, Korea. Twenty nurses in the control group received no intervention, and 21 nurses in the experimental group received the educational programme on shared decision-making. Data were collected with a questionnaire covering end-of-life care performance, moral sensitivity and attitude towards shared decision-making. Analysis of the data was done with the chi-square test, t-test and Fisher's exact test using SPSS/Win 17.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). The experimental group showed significantly higher scores in moral sensitivity and attitude towards shared decision-making after the intervention compared with the control group. This study suggests that the educational programme on shared decision-making was effective in increasing the moral sensitivity and attitude towards shared decision-making among Korean nurses. © 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Brain signatures of moral sensitivity in adolescents with early social deprivation.

PubMed

Escobar, María Josefina; Huepe, David; Decety, Jean; Sedeño, Lucas; Messow, Marie Kristin; Baez, Sandra; Rivera-Rei, Álvaro; Canales-Johnson, Andrés; Morales, Juan Pablo; Gómez, David Maximiliano; Schröeder, Johannes; Manes, Facundo; López, Vladimir; Ibánez, Agustín

2014-06-19

The present study examined neural responses associated with moral sensitivity in adolescents with a background of early social deprivation. Using high-density electroencephalography (hdEEG), brain activity was measured during an intentional inference task, which assesses rapid moral decision-making regarding intentional or unintentional harm to people and objects. We compared the responses to this task in a socially deprived group (DG) with that of a control group (CG). The event-related potentials (ERPs) results showed atypical early and late frontal cortical markers associated with attribution of intentionality during moral decision-making in DG (especially regarding intentional harm to people). The source space of the hdEEG showed reduced activity for DG compared with CG in the right prefrontal cortex, bilaterally in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and right insula. Moreover, the reduced response in vmPFC for DG was predicted by higher rates of externalizing problems. These findings demonstrate the importance of the social environment in early moral development, supporting a prefrontal maturation model of social deprivation.

Moral transgressions corrupt neural representations of value.

PubMed

Crockett, Molly J; Siegel, Jenifer Z; Kurth-Nelson, Zeb; Dayan, Peter; Dolan, Raymond J

2017-06-01

Moral systems universally prohibit harming others for personal gain. However, we know little about how such principles guide moral behavior. Using a task that assesses the financial cost participants ascribe to harming others versus themselves, we probed the relationship between moral behavior and neural representations of profit and pain. Most participants displayed moral preferences, placing a higher cost on harming others than themselves. Moral preferences correlated with neural responses to profit, where participants with stronger moral preferences had lower dorsal striatal responses to profit gained from harming others. Lateral prefrontal cortex encoded profit gained from harming others, but not self, and tracked the blameworthiness of harmful choices. Moral decisions also modulated functional connectivity between lateral prefrontal cortex and the profit-sensitive region of dorsal striatum. The findings suggest moral behavior in our task is linked to a neural devaluation of reward realized by a prefrontal modulation of striatal value representations.

Moral transgressions corrupt neural representations of value

PubMed Central

Crockett, Molly J.; Siegel, Jenifer Z.; Kurth-Nelson, Zeb; Dayan, Peter; Dolan, Raymond J.

2017-01-01

Moral systems universally prohibit harming others for personal gain. However, we know little about how such principles guide moral behavior. Using a task that assesses the financial cost participants ascribe to harming others versus themselves, we probed the relationship between moral behavior and neural representations of profit and pain. Most participants displayed moral preferences, placing a higher cost on harming others than themselves. Moral preferences correlated with neural responses to profit, where participants with stronger moral preferences had lower dorsal striatal (DS) responses to profit gained from harming others. Lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) encoded profits gained from harming others, but not self, and tracked the blameworthiness of harmful choices. Moral decisions also modulated functional connectivity between LPFC and the profit-sensitive region of DS. The findings suggest moral behavior in our task is linked to a neural devaluation of reward realized by a prefrontal modulation of striatal value representations. PMID:28459442

Antisocial and Prosocial Behavior in Sport: The Role of Motivational Climate, Basic Psychological Needs, and Moral Disengagement.

PubMed

Hodge, Ken; Gucciardi, Daniel F

2015-06-01

The purpose of this investigation was to examine whether the relationships between contextual factors and basic psychological needs were related to antisocial and prosocial behavior in sport. A two-study project employing Bayesian path analysis was conducted with competitive athletes (Study 1, n = 291; Study 2, n = 272). Coach and teammate autonomy-supportive climates had meaningful direct relations with need satisfaction and prosocial behavior. Coach and teammate controlling climates had meaningful direct relations with antisocial behavior. Need satisfaction was both directly and indirectly related with both prosocial and antisocial behavior, whereas moral disengagement was directly and indirectly related with antisocial behavior. Overall, these findings reflected substantial evidence from the literature on self-determination theory that autonomy-supportive motivational climates are important environmental influences for need satisfaction, and are important correlates of prosocial behavior in sport, whereas controlling coach and teammate climates, along with moral disengagement, were important correlates of antisocial behavior in sport.

The Role of the Small Private College in Creating a Moral, Spiritual Climate in American Society. CASC Newsletter Supplements, 1976-77.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hatfield, Mark

The capacity of American institutions to preserve and convey basic values to new generations has substantially diminished, suggests this former U.S. Senator from Oregon. His opinion is that the small private college can help create a moral and spiritual climate in society. The range of topics discussed includes: college preservation of values;…

Neural correlates of experienced moral emotion: an fMRI investigation of emotion in response to prejudice feedback.

PubMed

Fourie, Melike M; Thomas, Kevin G F; Amodio, David M; Warton, Christopher M R; Meintjes, Ernesta M

2014-01-01

Guilt, shame, and embarrassment are quintessential moral emotions with important regulatory functions for the individual and society. Moral emotions are, however, difficult to study with neuroimaging methods because their elicitation is more intricate than that of basic emotions. Here, using functional MRI (fMRI), we employed a novel social prejudice paradigm to examine specific brain regions associated with real-time moral emotion, focusing on guilt and related moral-negative emotions. The paradigm induced intense moral-negative emotion (primarily guilt) in 22 low-prejudice individuals through preprogrammed feedback indicating implicit prejudice against Black and disabled people. fMRI data indicated that this experience of moral-negative emotion was associated with increased activity in anterior paralimbic structures, including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and anterior insula, in addition to areas associated with mentalizing, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and precuneus. Of significance was prominent conflict-related activity in the supragenual ACC, which is consistent with theories proposing an association between acute guilt and behavioral inhibition. Finally, a significant negative association between self-reported guilt and neural activity in the pregenual ACC suggested a role of self-regulatory processes in response to moral-negative affect. These findings are consistent with the multifaceted self-regulatory functions of moral-negative emotions in social behavior.

Inability and Obligation in Moral Judgment

PubMed Central

Buckwalter, Wesley; Turri, John

2015-01-01

It is often thought that judgments about what we ought to do are limited by judgments about what we can do, or that “ought implies can.” We conducted eight experiments to test the link between a range of moral requirements and abilities in ordinary moral evaluations. Moral obligations were repeatedly attributed in tandem with inability, regardless of the type (Experiments 1–3), temporal duration (Experiment 5), or scope (Experiment 6) of inability. This pattern was consistently observed using a variety of moral vocabulary to probe moral judgments and was insensitive to different levels of seriousness for the consequences of inaction (Experiment 4). Judgments about moral obligation were no different for individuals who can or cannot perform physical actions, and these judgments differed from evaluations of a non-moral obligation (Experiment 7). Together these results demonstrate that commonsense morality rejects the “ought implies can” principle for moral requirements, and that judgments about moral obligation are made independently of considerations about ability. By contrast, judgments of blame were highly sensitive to considerations about ability (Experiment 8), which suggests that commonsense morality might accept a “blame implies can” principle. PMID:26296206

Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment

PubMed Central

Schnall, Simone; Haidt, Jonathan; Clore, Gerald L.; Jordan, Alexander H.

2008-01-01

How, and for whom, does disgust influence moral judgment? In 4 experiments participants made moral judgments while experiencing extraneous feelings of disgust. Disgust was induced in Experiment 1 by exposure to a bad smell, in Experiment 2 by working in a disgusting room, in Experiment 3 by recalling a physically disgusting experience, and in Experiment 4 through a video induction. In each case, the results showed that disgust can increase the severity of moral judgments relative to controls. Experiment 4 found that disgust had a different effect on moral judgment than did sadness. In addition, Experiments 2-4 showed that the role of disgust in severity of moral judgments depends on participants’ sensitivity to their own bodily sensations. Taken together, these data indicate the importance - and specificity - of gut feelings in moral judgments. PMID:18505801

Moral distress and providing care to dying babies in neonatal nursing.

PubMed

Kain, Victoria J

2007-05-01

Moral distress in nursing is a prevalent theme in the literature. Although this issue has been investigated in other nursing disciplines, it has not been investigated by empirical research in the emotionally and ethically sensitive area of providing care to dying babies. Moral distress occurs when nurses are prevented from translating moral choices into moral action. The response to moral distress is anger, resentment, guilt, frustration, sorrow and powerlessness. If not addressed, self-worth may be jeopardised, affecting personal and professional relationships. A review of the literature was conducted to explore moral distress in neonatal nursing when providing care to dying babies. This literature review provides a basis for the direction of further research and hypothesis testing. Further focused research is necessary in this under-theorised area of nursing practice to clarify the significance of moral distress for neonatal nurses caring for dying babies.

Beyond Ethical Frameworks: Using Moral Experimentation in the Engineering Ethics Classroom.

PubMed

Walling, Olivia

2015-12-01

Although undergraduate engineering ethics courses often include the development of moral sensitivity as a learning objective and the use of active learning techniques, teaching centers on the transmission of cognitive knowledge. This article describes a complementary assignment asking students to perform an ethics "experiment" on themselves that has a potential to enhance affective learning and moral imagination. The article argues that the focus on cognitive learning may not promote, and may even impair, our efforts to foster moral sensitivity. In contrast, the active learning assignments and exercises, like the ethics "experiment" discussed, offer great potential to expand the scope of instruction in engineering ethics to include ethical behavior as well as knowledge. Engineering ethics education needs to extend beyond the narrow range of human action associated with the technical work of the engineer and explore ways to draw on broader lifeworld experiences to enrich professional practice and identity.

Is inclusive education a human right?

PubMed

Gordon, John-Stewart

2013-01-01

In this article, I question the general idea that inclusive education--i.e., to teach all students in one class--is a moral human right. The following discussion shows that the widespread view in disability studies that there is a moral human right to inclusive education can be reasonably called into question by virtue of the proposed counter arguments, but without denying that inclusive education is of utmost importance. Practically speaking, the legal human right to inclusive education is of great practical value for impaired students, and for their basic right to be free from discrimination in education, since their concern thereby gains great legal and moral force. But, theoretically speaking, this particular human right lacks an attainable consensus concerning proper moral justification. © 2013 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Inc.

[Assessing bioethics education: Teaching to be virtuous doctors or just doctors with practical ethical skills].

PubMed

Esquerda, Montse; Pifarré, Josep; Roig, Helena; Busquets, Ester; Yuguero, Oriol; Viñas, Joan

2018-04-04

In the last decades, bioethics has been incorporated into the academic training of the Medical Schools. Some studies analyze the ethical-moral development of medical students and the effect of ethical education in other countries. This evaluation is done by measuring Kohlberg's moral reasoning (virtuous doctors), or ethical sensitivity to resolve clinical cases (physicians with ethical skills). The following study is proposed to assess the impact of bioethics training on these two variables, in Spanish medical students. Observational cross-sectional study. SITE: Faculty of Medicine, University of Lleida. 175 students from third year of medicine (78 before bioethics and 97 after bioethics, in different courses) were conducted. Bioethics course. A socio-demographic questionnaire, the Rest Defining Issue test scale, and Problem Identification Test with clinical vignettes were administered. A consistent and significant correlation has been found between moral reasoning and ethical sensitivity. Women presented greater post-conventional reasoning. There were no changes in Kohlberg's stage of global moral reasoning with ethical training. There were changes in ethical sensitivity with bioethical training, with a significantly and globally improvement. In our study, training in bioethics does not improve moral development but rather the ethical problem solving skills. It is asked if this improvement is enough to train doctors prepared for the new challenges. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Moral character in the workplace.

PubMed

Cohen, Taya R; Panter, A T; Turan, Nazli; Morse, Lily; Kim, Yeonjeong

2014-11-01

Using two 3-month diary studies and a large cross-sectional survey, we identified distinguishing features of adults with low versus high levels of moral character. Adults with high levels of moral character tend to: consider the needs and interests of others and how their actions affect other people (e.g., they have high levels of Honesty-Humility, empathic concern, guilt proneness); regulate their behavior effectively, specifically with reference to behaviors that have positive short-term consequences but negative long-term consequences (e.g., they have high levels of Conscientiousness, self-control, consideration of future consequences); and value being moral (e.g., they have high levels of moral identity-internalization). Cognitive moral development, Emotionality, and social value orientation were found to be relatively undiagnostic of moral character. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that employees with low moral character committed harmful work behaviors more frequently and helpful work behaviors less frequently than did employees with high moral character, according to their own admissions and coworkers' observations. Study 3 revealed that adults with low moral character committed more delinquent behavior and had more lenient attitudes toward unethical negotiation tactics than did adults with high moral character. By showing that individual differences have consistent, meaningful effects on employees' behaviors, after controlling for demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, income) and basic attributes of the work setting (e.g., enforcement of an ethics code), our results contest situationist perspectives that deemphasize the importance of personality. Moral people can be identified by self-reports in surveys, and these self-reports predict consequential behaviors months after the initial assessment.

Cloning: can it be good for us? An overview of cloning technology and its moral implications.

PubMed

FitzGerald, K

2001-01-01

Adequate answers to moral questions about cloning require a working knowledge of the science and technology involved, both present and anticipated. This essay presents an overview of the current state of somatic cell nuclear transfer technology (SCNT), the type of cloning that now permits whole organism reproduction from adult DNA. This essay explains the basic science and technology of SCNT and explores its potential uses. Next, this essay notes remaining scientific obstacles and unanswered moral questions that must be resolved before SCNT can be used for human reproduction. Attention is given to aspects related to cloning for therapeutic and research purposes.

Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Anderson, S W; Bechara, A; Damasio, H; Tranel, D; Damasio, A R

1999-11-01

The long-term consequences of early prefrontal cortex lesions occurring before 16 months were investigated in two adults. As is the case when such damage occurs in adulthood, the two early-onset patients had severely impaired social behavior despite normal basic cognitive abilities, and showed insensitivity to future consequences of decisions, defective autonomic responses to punishment contingencies and failure to respond to behavioral interventions. Unlike adult-onset patients, however, the two patients had defective social and moral reasoning, suggesting that the acquisition of complex social conventions and moral rules had been impaired. Thus early-onset prefrontal damage resulted in a syndrome resembling psychopathy.

The moral status of extraterrestrial life.

PubMed

Persson, Erik

2012-10-01

If we eventually discover extraterrestrial life, do we have any moral obligations for how to treat the life-forms we find; does it matter whether they are intelligent, sentient, or just microbial-and does it matter that they are extraterrestrial? In this paper, I examine these questions by looking at two of the basic questions in moral philosophy: What does it take to be a moral object? and What has value of what kind? I will start with the first of these questions by looking at the most important attempts to answer this question on our own planet and by asking whether and how they could be applied to extraterrestrial life. The results range from a very strong protection of all extraterrestrial life and all extraterrestrial environments, whether inhabited or not, to total exclusion of extraterrestrial life. Subsequently, I also examine whether extraterrestrial life that lacks moral status can have value to human or alien life with moral status, and if that could generate any obligations for how to treat extraterrestrial life. Based on this analysis, I conclude that extraterrestrial life-forms can have both instrumental value and end value to moral objects, which has strong implications for how to treat them.

The substance view: a critique.

PubMed

Lovering, Rob

2013-06-01

According to the theory of intrinsic value and moral standing called the 'substance view,' what makes it prima facie seriously wrong to kill adult human beings, human infants, and even human fetuses is the possession of the essential property of the basic capacity for rational moral agency - a capacity for rational moral agency in root form and thereby not remotely exercisable. In this critique, I cover three distinct reductio charges directed at the substance view's conclusion that human fetuses have the same intrinsic value and moral standing as adult human beings. After giving consideration to defenders of the substance view's replies to these charges, I then critique each of them, ultimately concluding that none is successful. Of course, in order to understand all of these things - the reductio charges, defenders of the substance view's replies to them, and my criticisms of their replies - one must have a better understanding of the substance view (in particular, its understanding of rational moral agency) as well as its defense. Accordingly, I address the substance view's understanding of rational moral agency as well as present its defense. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Moral psychology is relationship regulation: moral motives for unity, hierarchy, equality, and proportionality.

PubMed

Rai, Tage Shakti; Fiske, Alan Page

2011-01-01

Genuine moral disagreement exists and is widespread. To understand such disagreement, we must examine the basic kinds of social relationships people construct across cultures and the distinct moral obligations and prohibitions these relationships entail. We extend relational models theory (Fiske, 1991) to identify 4 fundamental and distinct moral motives. Unity is the motive to care for and support the integrity of in-groups by avoiding or eliminating threats of contamination and providing aid and protection based on need or empathic compassion. Hierarchy is the motive to respect rank in social groups where superiors are entitled to deference and respect but must also lead, guide, direct, and protect subordinates. Equality is the motive for balanced, in-kind reciprocity, equal treatment, equal say, and equal opportunity. Proportionality is the motive for rewards and punishments to be proportionate to merit, benefits to be calibrated to contributions, and judgments to be based on a utilitarian calculus of costs and benefits. The 4 moral motives are universal, but cultures, ideologies, and individuals differ in where they activate these motives and how they implement them. Unlike existing theories (Haidt, 2007; Hauser, 2006; Turiel, 1983), relationship regulation theory predicts that any action, including violence, unequal treatment, and "impure" acts, may be perceived as morally correct depending on the moral motive employed and how the relevant social relationship is construed. This approach facilitates clearer understanding of moral perspectives we disagree with and provides a template for how to influence moral motives and practices in the world.

Identifying veterinary students' capacity for moral behavior concerning animal ethics issues.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Phillips, Clive J C

2014-01-01

Veterinarians face unique animal ethics challenges as practitioners and policy advisors to government and industry. Changing societal attitudes, cultural diversity, and the often conflicting needs and interests of patients and clients contribute to moral distress. Yet little has been done to identify veterinarians' capacity to address these animal ethics issues. In this study, first-year and final-year veterinary students in an Australian university were surveyed to explore moral sensitivity, moral motivation, and moral character and their relationship with moral reasoning. The majority of students were concerned about animal ethics issues and had experienced moral distress in relation to the treatment of animals. Most believed that veterinarians should address the wider social issues of animal protection and that veterinary medicine should require a commitment to animals' interests over owners'/caregivers' interests. There was less agreement that the veterinary profession was sufficiently involved in addressing animal ethics issues. The principal motivators for studying veterinary medicine were, in declining importance, enjoyment in working with animals, helping sick and injured animals, and improving the way animals are treated. However, most students had taken little or no action to address animal ethics issues. These results suggest that both first- and fifth-year veterinary students are sensitive to animal ethics issues and are motivated to prioritize the interests of animals but have little experience in taking action to address these issues. Further research is needed to determine ways to identify and assess these moral behavior components in veterinary education to develop veterinarians' capacity to address animal ethics issues.

Perceiving Sympathetically: Moral Perception, Embodiment, and Medical Ethics.

PubMed

Wisnewski, J Jeremy

2015-12-01

In recent literature on moral perception, much attention has been paid to questions about the relationship between metaethical commitments and moral experience. Far less attention has been paid to the nature of moral perception, its context-sensitivity, and the role it might play in carrying out everyday tasks with decency and care. I would like to reflect on just these features of moral perception in the context of healthcare. I will argue that healthcare providers do in fact have at least an imperfect duty (in Kant's sense) to develop their capacities to perceive with sympathy. I will further suggest, for some familiar reasons, that this development is not best accomplished through the model of adherence to 'ethics codes.'

Moral parochialism and contextual contingency across seven societies

PubMed Central

Fessler, Daniel M. T.; Barrett, H. Clark; Kanovsky, Martin; Stich, Stephen; Holbrook, Colin; Henrich, Joseph; Bolyanatz, Alexander H.; Gervais, Matthew M.; Gurven, Michael; Kushnick, Geoff; Pisor, Anne C.; von Rueden, Christopher; Laurence, Stephen

2015-01-01

Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement. PMID:26246545

Moral parochialism and contextual contingency across seven societies.

PubMed

Fessler, Daniel M T; Barrett, H Clark; Kanovsky, Martin; Stich, Stephen; Holbrook, Colin; Henrich, Joseph; Bolyanatz, Alexander H; Gervais, Matthew M; Gurven, Michael; Kushnick, Geoff; Pisor, Anne C; von Rueden, Christopher; Laurence, Stephen

2015-08-22

Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement. © 2015 The Authors.

Ethics fundamentals.

PubMed

Chambers, David W

2011-01-01

Ethics is about studying the right and the good; morality is about acting as one should. Although there are differences among what is legal, charitable, professional, ethical, and moral, these desirable characteristics tend to cluster and are treasured in dentistry. The traditional approach to professionalism in dentistry is based on a theory of biomedical ethics advanced 30 years ago. Known as the principles approach, general ideals such as respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, and veracity, are offered as guides. Growth in professionalism consists in learning to interpret the application of these principles as one's peers do. Moral behavior is conceived as a continuous cycle of sensitivity to situations requiring moral response, moral reasoning, the moral courage to take action when necessary, and integration of habits of moral behavior into one's character. This essay is the first of two papers that provide the backbone for the IDEA Project of the College--an online, multiformat, interactive "textbook" of ethics for the profession.

Children's moral and ecological reasoning about the Prince William Sound oil spill.

PubMed

Kahn, P H

1997-11-01

Sixty 2nd, 5th, and 8th graders were interviewed on their moral and ecological reasoning about the 1990 Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Results showed that children understood that the oil spill negatively affected the local Alaskan shoreline, marine life, fishermen, recreationists, and the oil company. Children cared that harm occurred to the shoreline and marine life and conceived of both types of harm as violating a moral obligation. Fifth and 8th graders, compared with 2nd graders, used a greater proportion of anthropocentric reasoning (e.g., that nature ought to be protected to protect human welfare) and biocentric reasoning (e.g., that nature has intrinsic value, rights, or a teleology). Discussion focuses on how studying children's reasoning about nature not only extends the bounds of what counts as moral--to include a relationship with the natural world--but also provides a unique means by which to conduct basic research on children's moral development.

The relevance of moral norms in distinct relational contexts: Purity versus harm norms regulate self-directed actions

PubMed Central

Dungan, James A.; Chakroff, Alek; Young, Liane

2017-01-01

Recent efforts to partition the space of morality have focused on the descriptive content of distinct moral domains (e.g., harm versus purity), or alternatively, the relationship between the perpetrator and victim of moral violations. Across three studies, we demonstrate that harm and purity norms are relevant in distinct relational contexts. Moral judgments of purity violations, compared to harm violations, are relatively more sensitive to the negative impact perpetrators have on themselves versus other victims (Study 1). This pattern replicates across a wide array of harm and purity violations varying in severity (Studies 2 and 3). Moreover, while perceptions of harm predict moral judgment consistently across relational contexts, perceptions of purity predict moral judgment more for self-directed actions, where perpetrators violate themselves, compared to dyadic actions, where perpetrators violate other victims (Study 3). Together, these studies reveal how an action’s content and its relational context interact to influence moral judgment, providing novel insights into the adaptive functions of harm and purity norms. PMID:28278214

How "moral" are the principles of biomedical ethics?--a cross-domain evaluation of the common morality hypothesis.

PubMed

Christen, Markus; Ineichen, Christian; Tanner, Carmen

2014-06-17

The principles of biomedical ethics - autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice - are of paradigmatic importance for framing ethical problems in medicine and for teaching ethics to medical students and professionals. In order to underline this significance, Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress base the principles in the common morality, i.e. they claim that the principles represent basic moral values shared by all persons committed to morality and are thus grounded in human moral psychology. We empirically investigated the relationship of the principles to other moral and non-moral values that provide orientations in medicine. By way of comparison, we performed a similar analysis for the business & finance domain. We evaluated the perceived degree of "morality" of 14 values relevant to medicine (n1 = 317, students and professionals) and 14 values relevant to business & finance (n2 = 247, students and professionals). Ratings were made along four dimensions intended to characterize different aspects of morality. We found that compared to other values, the principles-related values received lower ratings across several dimensions that characterize morality. By interpreting our finding using a clustering and a network analysis approach, we suggest that the principles can be understood as "bridge values" that are connected both to moral and non-moral aspects of ethical dilemmas in medicine. We also found that the social domain (medicine vs. business & finance) influences the degree of perceived morality of values. Our results are in conflict with the common morality hypothesis of Beauchamp and Childress, which would imply domain-independent high morality ratings of the principles. Our findings support the suggestions by other scholars that the principles of biomedical ethics serve primarily as instruments in deliberated justifications, but lack grounding in a universal "common morality". We propose that the specific manner in which the principles are taught and discussed in medicine - namely by referring to conflicts requiring a balancing of principles - may partly explain why the degree of perceived "morality" of the principles is lower compared to other moral values.

Exaggerated Estimates of Reading and Writing as Means of Education (1867), by W.B. Hodgson.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graff, Harvey J.

1986-01-01

Relates Victorian attitudes toward education by a forgotten 19th century liberal educator concerned with proper moral education. Concludes that uses and development of basic literacy are severely bound by individual and social contexts and that basic literacy does not, in itself, wield a magical transforming power for learning and life. (TRS)

In search of an everyday morality: the development of a measure.

PubMed

Shelton, C M; McAdams, D P

1990-01-01

Current interest in moral theorizing has been dominated by Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental view. Haan (1982) has challenged psychology's reliance on this rationalistic focus and has argued for a rethinking of morality's meaning in accord with everyday human experience. In light of this challenge, the present study gives both theoretical and empirical support to the advancement of a morality for everyday life. Specifically, a new measure called the Visions of Morality Scale (VMS) is reported. The VMS is sensitive to three dimensions which are necessary for an everyday morality: (1) a human constitutive component which is universally experienced by all human beings (empathy); (2) the inclusion of a behavioral component which reflects actual behavior (pro-social inclinations); and (3) a view of morality that is multilevel (private, interpersonal, and social). A brief sketch of the VMS is provided. Results are presented from a study of 181 high school students which relate the VMS to empathy and political orientation. Highly significant relationships were found among morality, political orientation, and empathy. In addition, results revealed numerous sex differences. Finally, the implications of an everyday morality are discussed.

Two puzzles for Marquis's conservative view on abortion.

PubMed

Card, Robert F

2006-09-01

Don Marquis argues that abortion is morally wrong in most cases since it deprives the fetus of the value of its future. I criticize Marquis's argument for the modified conservative view by adopting an argumentative strategy in which I work within his basic account: if it is granted that his fundamental idea is sound, what follows about the morality of abortion? I conclude that Marquis is faced with a dilemma: either his position must shift towards the extreme conservative view on which abortion is never morally permissible, or he must abandon any recognizably conservative view. This dilemma suggests that Marquis's view is either deeply implausible or that he cannot use this argument to successfully support his preferred position.

Impairment in judgement of the moral emotion guilt following orbitofrontal cortex damage.

PubMed

Funayama, Michitaka; Koreki, Akihiro; Muramatsu, Taro; Mimura, Masaru; Kato, Motoichiro; Abe, Takayuki

2018-04-19

Although neuroimaging studies have provided evidence for an association between moral emotions and the orbitofrontal cortex, studies on patients with focal lesions using experimental probes of moral emotions are scarce. Here, we addressed this topic by presenting a moral emotion judgement task to patients with focal brain damage. Four judgement tasks in a simple pairwise choice paradigm were given to 72 patients with cerebrovascular disease. These tasks consisted of a perceptual line judgement task as a control task; the objects' preference task as a basic preference judgement task; and two types of moral emotion judgement task, an anger task and a guilt task. A multiple linear regression analysis was performed on each set of task performance scores to take into account potential confounders. Performance on the guilt emotion judgement task negatively correlated with the orbitofrontal cortex damage, but not with the other variables. Results for the other judgement tasks did not reach statistical significance. The close association between orbitofrontal cortex damage and a decrease in guilt emotion judgement consistency might suggest that the orbitofrontal cortex plays a key role in the sense of guilt, a hallmark of morality. © 2018 The British Psychological Society.

Moral judgment reloaded: a moral dilemma validation study

PubMed Central

Christensen, Julia F.; Flexas, Albert; Calabrese, Margareta; Gut, Nadine K.; Gomila, Antoni

2014-01-01

We propose a revised set of moral dilemmas for studies on moral judgment. We selected a total of 46 moral dilemmas available in the literature and fine-tuned them in terms of four conceptual factors (Personal Force, Benefit Recipient, Evitability, and Intention) and methodological aspects of the dilemma formulation (word count, expression style, question formats) that have been shown to influence moral judgment. Second, we obtained normative codings of arousal and valence for each dilemma showing that emotional arousal in response to moral dilemmas depends crucially on the factors Personal Force, Benefit Recipient, and Intentionality. Third, we validated the dilemma set confirming that people's moral judgment is sensitive to all four conceptual factors, and to their interactions. Results are discussed in the context of this field of research, outlining also the relevance of our RT effects for the Dual Process account of moral judgment. Finally, we suggest tentative theoretical avenues for future testing, particularly stressing the importance of the factor Intentionality in moral judgment. Additionally, due to the importance of cross-cultural studies in the quest for universals in human moral cognition, we provide the new set dilemmas in six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Catalan, and Danish). The norming values provided here refer to the Spanish dilemma set. PMID:25071621

The time course of indirect moral judgment in gossip processing modulated by different agents.

PubMed

Peng, Xiaozhe; Jiao, Can; Cui, Fang; Chen, Qingfei; Li, Peng; Li, Hong

2017-10-01

Previous studies have investigated personal moral violations with different references (i.e., the protagonists in moral scenarios are the participants themselves or unknown other individuals). However, the roles of various agents in moral judgments have remained unclear. In the present study, ERPs were used to investigate moral judgments when the participants viewed gossip that described (im)moral behaviors committed by different agents (self, friend, celebrity). The results demonstrate that the P2 and late positive component (LPC) correspond to two successive processes of indirect moral judgment when individuals process gossip. Specifically, the P2 amplitude in the celebrity condition was more sensitive in distinguishing immoral behaviors from moral behaviors than that in the other two conditions, whereas the moral valence effect on the LPC was predominately driven by the self-reference. These findings expand our current understanding of moral judgments in a gossip evaluation task and demonstrate that the early processing of gossip depends on both the entertainment value of the agent and the salience of moral behaviors. Processing in the later stage reflects reactions to intensified affective stimuli, or reflects cognitive effort that was required to resolve the conflict between negative gossip about self and the self-positivity bias. © 2017 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Evaluation of the Nurses' Job Satisfaction, and Its Association with Their Moral Sensitivities and Well-being.

PubMed

Jaafarpour, Molouk; Khani, Ali

2012-12-01

Several researchers have described the nurses' work as stressful and that the incidence of the occupational stress-related burnout in the profession was high. The aim of this study was to establish the relationship between the nurses' satisfaction, their psychosocial work environment, the levels of their reported moral sensitivities and their well - being in Iran. This descriptive-correlation study was performed at the ILAM general hospitals, IR, during the year 2011. The research instruments which were used were the Psychosocial Work Environment (PWE), the Moral Sensitivity (MS) and the well-being profile of the nurses. A sample of 120 Registered Nurses (RN) were enrolled in the study by using a simple random sampling method. The descriptive statistics and the Pearson's correlation test were performed by using SPSS. The relationship of the nurses' satisfaction and their psychosocial work environment was moderate (M=106.5, SD= 7.2) . The nurses' moral sensitivity was moderate (M=112.3, SD= 11.2).This study found that there were significant correlations between the PWE factors score and the MS subscale (P< 0.05, p<0.01). In addition, significant correlations were found between the nurses' well-being and the PWE factors (P< 0.05, p<0.01). These findings proved that the nurses perceived their PWE as stressful. The supporting nurses may have a positive effect on their perceptions of well-being. The attending nurses reported less physical symptoms, reduced anxiety and fewer feelings of not being in control.

Examining Moral Reasoning and Ethical Decision Making among Mississippi's Community College Administrators

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Vernesia Bracey

2010-01-01

As ethical dilemmas arise in community colleges, administrators make decisions that require sensitivity to the organizational, political, and environmental factors surrounding their particular institutional climates and locales. The moral reasoning and ethical decision-making of community college administrators were examined in this study. In…

Moral competency: meta-competence of nursing care

PubMed Central

Zafarnia, Niloofar; Abbaszadeh, Abbas; Borhani, Fariba; Ebadi, Abbas; Nakhaee, Nouzar

2017-01-01

Introduction To follow the progress of technology and increasing domain of nurses’ duties, ethical challenges can be observed more than ever. Therefore, the growing and dynamic system of nursing requires nurses with professional and ethical competence who can provide optimal care. The aim of the present study was to define and explain dimensions of moral competency among the clinical nurses of Iran. Methods This qualitative content analysis study was carried out in the years 2014 and 2015 in Iran. Data were collected through in-depth semistructured interviews and field notes. The resulting data were analyzed by Graneheim and Lundman’s method of conventional content analysis. The participants were 12 clinical nurses who were selected using purposive convenient sampling and continued interviews until data saturation. Results Themes obtained in the present study were posited in three main categories of “moral character,” with subcategories of altruism, search for meaning, be pioneering, perfectionism, self-control, honesty, and forgiveness; “moral care” with subcategories of dignified care, safe care, fair care, and holistic care; and “moral decision-making” with subcategories of moral sensitivity, moral thinking, moral reasoning, and moral courage. Conclusions Findings of the present study suggest that nurses’ moral competency is an adorable character with a wide range that includes moral virtues and character, moral decision-making, and ultimately providing moral care; therefore, moral competency is a meta-competence in the field of nursing. Because there are many competencies in different fields. PMID:28848630

Binding Moral Foundations and the Narrowing of Ideological Conflict to the Traditional Morality Domain.

PubMed

Malka, Ariel; Osborne, Danny; Soto, Christopher J; Greaves, Lara M; Sibley, Chris G; Lelkes, Yphtach

2016-09-01

Moral foundations theory (MFT) posits that binding moral foundations (purity, authority, and ingroup loyalty) are rooted in the need for groups to promote order and cohesion, and that they therefore underlie political conservatism. We present evidence that binding foundations (and the related construct of disgust sensitivity) are associated with lower levels of ideological polarization on political issues outside the domain of moral traditionalism. Consistent support for this hypothesis was obtained from three large American Internet-based samples and one large national sample of New Zealanders (combined N = 7,874). We suggest that when political issues do not have inherent relevance to moral traditionalism, binding foundations promote a small centrist shift away from ideologically prescribed positions, and that they do so out of desire for national uniformity and cohesion. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Human rights and bioethics.

PubMed

Barilan, Y M; Brusa, M

2008-05-01

In the first part of this article we survey the concept of human rights from a philosophical perspective and especially in relation to the "right to healthcare". It is argued that regardless of meta-ethical debates on the nature of rights, the ethos and language of moral deliberation associated with human rights is indispensable to any ethics that places the victim and the sufferer in its centre. In the second part we discuss the rise of the "right to privacy", particularly in the USA, as an attempt to make the element of personal free will dominate over the element of basic human interest within the structure of rights and when different rights seem to conflict. We conclude by discussing the relationship of human rights with moral values beyond the realm of rights, mainly human dignity, free will, human rationality and response to basic human needs.

Spatiotemporal neural dynamics of moral judgment: A high-density ERP study

PubMed Central

Yoder, Keith J.

2014-01-01

Morality is a pervasive aspect of human nature across all cultures, and neuroscience investigations are necessary for identifying what computational mechanisms underpin moral cognition. The current study used high-density ERPs to examine how moral evaluations are mediated by automatic and controlled processes as well as how quickly information and causal-intentional representations can be extracted when viewing morally laden behavior. The study also explored the extent to which individual dispositions in affective and cognitive empathy as well as justice sensitivity influence the encoding of moral valence when healthy participants make moral judgments about prosocial (interpersonal assistance) and antisocial (interpersonal harm) actions. Moral judgment differences were reflected in differential amplitudes for components associated with cognitive appraisal (LPP) as well as early components associated with emotional salience (N1 and N2). Moreover, source estimation was performed to indicate potential neural generators. A posterior-to-anterior shift was observed, with current density peaks first in right inferior parietal cortex (at the temporoparietal junction), then later in medial prefrontal cortex. Cognitive empathy scores predicted behavioral ratings of blame as well as differential amplitudes in LPP and component activity at posterior sites. Overall, this study offers important insights into the temporal unfolding of moral evaluations, including when in time individual differences in empathy influence neural encoding of moral valence. PMID:24905282

Religious moral beliefs as mental health protective factor of war veterans suffering from PTSD, depressiveness, anxiety, tobacco and alcohol abuse in comorbidity.

PubMed

Hasanović, Mevludin; Pajević, Izet

2010-06-01

Our aim was to investigate is there association between level of religious moral beliefs and severity of PTSD symptoms, depressiion symptoms, anxiety and severity of alcohol abuse we tested 152 war veterans on presence of PTSD, depression symptoms, anxiety, alcohol misuse and level of religious moral beliefs. We used Harvard trauma questionnaire (HTQ), Hopkins Check Scale SBCL 25, check list for alcohol misuse MAST. Subjects were assessed with regard to the level of belief in some basic ethical principles that arise from religious moral values. The score of religious moral belief index was used to correlate with severity of PTSD symptoms, depression symptoms, anxiety and severity of alcohol misuse. Mean age of tested subjects was 40.8 (SD=6.6) years. The score of the moral belief index was negatively correlated to PTSD symptom severity and depressiveness (Pearson's r=-0.325, p<0.001; r=-0.247, p=0.005, respectively). Besides that the score of moral belief index negatively correlated with presented anxiety (Pearson's r=-0.199,p=0.026). Related to severity of tobacco and alcohol misuse we found negative association of these with the moral belief index (Pearson's r=-0.227, p=0.011; r=-0.371, p<0.001, respectively). A higher index of religious moral beliefs in war veterans enables better control distress, providing better mental health stability. It enables post traumatic conflicts typical for combatants' survivors to be more easily overcome. It also causes healthier reactions to external stimuli. A higher index of religious moral beliefs of war veterans provides a healthier and more efficient mechanism of tobacco and alcohol misuse control. In this way, it helps overcoming postwar psychosocial problems and socialization of the personality, leading to the improvement in mental health.

How “moral” are the principles of biomedical ethics? – a cross-domain evaluation of the common morality hypothesis

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background The principles of biomedical ethics – autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice – are of paradigmatic importance for framing ethical problems in medicine and for teaching ethics to medical students and professionals. In order to underline this significance, Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress base the principles in the common morality, i.e. they claim that the principles represent basic moral values shared by all persons committed to morality and are thus grounded in human moral psychology. We empirically investigated the relationship of the principles to other moral and non-moral values that provide orientations in medicine. By way of comparison, we performed a similar analysis for the business & finance domain. Methods We evaluated the perceived degree of “morality” of 14 values relevant to medicine (n1 = 317, students and professionals) and 14 values relevant to business & finance (n2 = 247, students and professionals). Ratings were made along four dimensions intended to characterize different aspects of morality. Results We found that compared to other values, the principles-related values received lower ratings across several dimensions that characterize morality. By interpreting our finding using a clustering and a network analysis approach, we suggest that the principles can be understood as “bridge values” that are connected both to moral and non-moral aspects of ethical dilemmas in medicine. We also found that the social domain (medicine vs. business & finance) influences the degree of perceived morality of values. Conclusions Our results are in conflict with the common morality hypothesis of Beauchamp and Childress, which would imply domain-independent high morality ratings of the principles. Our findings support the suggestions by other scholars that the principles of biomedical ethics serve primarily as instruments in deliberated justifications, but lack grounding in a universal “common morality”. We propose that the specific manner in which the principles are taught and discussed in medicine – namely by referring to conflicts requiring a balancing of principles – may partly explain why the degree of perceived “morality” of the principles is lower compared to other moral values. PMID:24938295

Ethics and Oncofertility: A Call for Religious Sensitivity.

PubMed

Hanselin, Michele R; Roybal, Deborah L; Leininger, Thomas B

2017-07-01

For patients of reproductive age, treating cancer may come at the price of infertility. Literature regarding fertility preservation recommendations in this population has increased significantly, but this literature too often overlooks or insufficiently considers the relevance of religious preferences. Similarly, practice guidelines do not address the role of religion in the oncofertility discussion. The acceptance of oncofertility practices varies significantly among Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. A patient's faith-based spirituality or secular morality may enhance his or her interpretation of the meaning of illness and should be incorporated into the informed-consent process. In this article, we describe the role of religious sensitivity in oncofertility care and argue for its importance in such care. We briefly summarize the views and moral reasoning about oncofertility in a few religions commonly encountered in many patient populations today. We recommend that clinicians discuss fertility options early in the decision process and, when relevant, incorporate the patient's moral and religious preferences into the treatment plan. We encourage providers to be prepared to offer resources to patients who desire moral and spiritual guidance about fertility preservation options. Hospital chaplains should be able to provide such resources.

Moral courage in nursing: A concept analysis.

PubMed

Numminen, Olivia; Repo, Hanna; Leino-Kilpi, Helena

2017-12-01

Nursing as an ethical practice requires courage to be moral, taking tough stands for what is right, and living by one's moral values. Nurses need moral courage in all areas and at all levels of nursing. Along with new interest in virtue ethics in healthcare, interest in moral courage as a virtue and a valued element of human morality has increased. Nevertheless, what the concept of moral courage means in nursing contexts remains ambiguous. This article is an analysis of the concept of moral courage in nursing. Rodgers' evolutionary method of concept analysis provided the framework to conduct the analysis. The literature search was carried out in September 2015 in six databases: PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and The Philosopher's Index. The following key words were used: "moral" OR "ethical" AND "courage" OR "strength" AND "nurs*" with no time limit. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 31 studies were included in the final analysis. Ethical considerations: This study was conducted according to good scientific guidelines. Seven core attributes of moral courage were identified: true presence, moral integrity, responsibility, honesty, advocacy, commitment and perseverance, and personal risk. Antecedents were ethical sensitivity, conscience, and experience. Consequences included personal and professional development and empowerment. This preliminary clarification warrants further exploring through theoretical and philosophical literature, expert opinions, and empirical research to gain validity and reliability for its application in nursing practice.

The moral foundations of illusory correlation

PubMed Central

Barberia, Itxaso

2017-01-01

Previous research has studied the relationship between political ideology and cognitive biases, such as the tendency of conservatives to form stronger illusory correlations between negative infrequent behaviors and minority groups. We further explored these findings by studying the relation between illusory correlation and moral values. According to the moral foundations theory, liberals and conservatives differ in the relevance they concede to different moral dimensions: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity. Whereas liberals consistently endorse the Care and Fairness foundations more than the Loyalty, Authority and Purity foundations, conservatives tend to adhere to the five foundations alike. In the present study, a group of participants took part in a standard illusory correlation task in which they were presented with randomly ordered descriptions of either desirable or undesirable behaviors attributed to individuals belonging to numerically different majority and minority groups. Although the proportion of desirable and undesirable behaviors was the same in the two groups, participants attributed a higher frequency of undesirable behaviors to the minority group, thus showing the expected illusory correlation effect. Moreover, this effect was specifically associated to our participants’ scores in the Loyalty subscale of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. These results emphasize the role of the Loyalty moral foundation in the formation of attitudes towards minorities among conservatives. Our study points out the moral system as a useful fine-grained framework to explore the complex interaction between basic cognitive processes and ideology. PMID:28972990

Evaluation of the Nurses’ Job Satisfaction, and Its Association with Their Moral Sensitivities and Well-being

PubMed Central

Jaafarpour, Molouk; Khani, Ali

2012-01-01

Background and Aim Several researchers have described the nurses’ work as stressful and that the incidence of the occupational stress-related burnout in the profession was high. The aim of this study was to establish the relationship between the nurses’ satisfaction, their psychosocial work environment, the levels of their reported moral sensitivities and their well - being in Iran. Material and Methods This descriptive-correlation study was performed at the ILAM general hospitals, IR, during the year 2011. The research instruments which were used were the Psychosocial Work Environment (PWE), the Moral Sensitivity (MS) and the well-being profile of the nurses. A sample of 120 Registered Nurses (RN) were enrolled in the study by using a simple random sampling method. The descriptive statistics and the Pearson’s correlation test were performed by using SPSS. Result The relationship of the nurses’ satisfaction and their psychosocial work environment was moderate (M=106.5, SD= 7.2) . The nurses’ moral sensitivity was moderate (M=112.3, SD= 11.2).This study found that there were significant correlations between the PWE factors score and the MS subscale (P< 0.05, p<0.01). In addition, significant correlations were found between the nurses’ well-being and the PWE factors (P< 0.05, p<0.01). Discussion and Conclusion These findings proved that the nurses perceived their PWE as stressful. The supporting nurses may have a positive effect on their perceptions of well-being. The attending nurses reported less physical symptoms, reduced anxiety and fewer feelings of not being in control. PMID:23373046

Fairness expectations and altruistic sharing in 15-month-old human infants.

PubMed

Schmidt, Marco F H; Sommerville, Jessica A

2011-01-01

Human cooperation is a key driving force behind the evolutionary success of our hominin lineage. At the proximate level, biologists and social scientists have identified other-regarding preferences--such as fairness based on egalitarian motives, and altruism--as likely candidates for fostering large-scale cooperation. A critical question concerns the ontogenetic origins of these constituents of cooperative behavior, as well as whether they emerge independently or in an interrelated fashion. The answer to this question will shed light on the interdisciplinary debate regarding the significance of such preferences for explaining how humans become such cooperative beings. We investigated 15-month-old infants' sensitivity to fairness, and their altruistic behavior, assessed via infants' reactions to a third-party resource distribution task, and via a sharing task. Our results challenge current models of the development of fairness and altruism in two ways. First, in contrast to past work suggesting that fairness and altruism may not emerge until early to mid-childhood, 15-month-old infants are sensitive to fairness and can engage in altruistic sharing. Second, infants' degree of sensitivity to fairness as a third-party observer was related to whether they shared toys altruistically or selfishly, indicating that moral evaluations and prosocial behavior are heavily interconnected from early in development. Our results present the first evidence that the roots of a basic sense of fairness and altruism can be found in infancy, and that these other-regarding preferences develop in a parallel and interwoven fashion. These findings support arguments for an evolutionary basis--most likely in dialectical manner including both biological and cultural mechanisms--of human egalitarianism given the rapidly developing nature of other-regarding preferences and their role in the evolution of human-specific forms of cooperation. Future work of this kind will help determine to what extent uniquely human sociality and morality depend on other-regarding preferences emerging early in life.

Legislation on ethical issues: towards an interactive paradigm.

PubMed

van der Berg, W; Brom, F W A

2000-03-01

In this article, we sketch a new approach to law and ethics. The traditional paradigm, exemplified in the debate on liberal moralism, becomes increasingly inadequate. Its basic assumptions are that there are clear moral norms of positive or critical morality, and that making statutory norms is an effective methods to have citizens conform to those norms. However, for many ethical issues that are on the legislative agenda, e.g. with respect to bioethics and anti-discrimination law, the moral norms are controversial, vague or still evolving. Moreover, law proves not to be a very effective instrument. Therefore, we need a new paradigm, both for descriptive and for normative analysis. This interactive paradigm, as a normative position, can be summarised in two theses. The process of legislation on ethical issues should be structured as a process of interaction between the legislature and society, or relevant sectors of society, so that the development of new moral norms and the development of new legal norms may reinforce each other. And legislation on ethical issues should be designed in such a way that it is an effective form of communication which, moreover, facilitates an ongoing moral debate and an ongoing reflection of such issues, because this is the best method to ensure that the practice remains oriented to the ideals and values the law tries to realise.

Addiction Research Ethics and the Belmont Principles: Do Drug Users Have a Different Moral Voice?

PubMed Central

Fisher, Celia B.

2013-01-01

This study used semi-structured interviews and content analysis to examine moral principles that street drug users apply to three hypothetical addiction research ethical dilemmas. Participants (n = 90) were ethnically diverse, economically disadvantaged drug users recruited in New York City in 2009. Participants applied a wide range of contextually sensitive moral precepts, including respect, beneficence, justice, relationality, professional obligations, rules, and pragmatic self-interest. Limitations and implications for future research and the responsible conduct of addiction research are discussed. PMID:21073412

An Approach for the Accurate Measurement of Social Morality Levels

PubMed Central

Liu, Haiyan; Chen, Xia; Zhang, Bo

2013-01-01

In the social sciences, computer-based modeling has become an increasingly important tool receiving widespread attention. However, the derivation of the quantitative relationships linking individual moral behavior and social morality levels, so as to provide a useful basis for social policy-making, remains a challenge in the scholarly literature today. A quantitative measurement of morality from the perspective of complexity science constitutes an innovative attempt. Based on the NetLogo platform, this article examines the effect of various factors on social morality levels, using agents modeling moral behavior, immoral behavior, and a range of environmental social resources. Threshold values for the various parameters are obtained through sensitivity analysis; and practical solutions are proposed for reversing declines in social morality levels. The results show that: (1) Population size may accelerate or impede the speed with which immoral behavior comes to determine the overall level of social morality, but it has no effect on the level of social morality itself; (2) The impact of rewards and punishment on social morality levels follows the “5∶1 rewards-to-punishment rule,” which is to say that 5 units of rewards have the same effect as 1 unit of punishment; (3) The abundance of public resources is inversely related to the level of social morality; (4) When the cost of population mobility reaches 10% of the total energy level, immoral behavior begins to be suppressed (i.e. the 1/10 moral cost rule). The research approach and methods presented in this paper successfully address the difficulties involved in measuring social morality levels, and promise extensive application potentials. PMID:24312189

An approach for the accurate measurement of social morality levels.

PubMed

Liu, Haiyan; Chen, Xia; Zhang, Bo

2013-01-01

In the social sciences, computer-based modeling has become an increasingly important tool receiving widespread attention. However, the derivation of the quantitative relationships linking individual moral behavior and social morality levels, so as to provide a useful basis for social policy-making, remains a challenge in the scholarly literature today. A quantitative measurement of morality from the perspective of complexity science constitutes an innovative attempt. Based on the NetLogo platform, this article examines the effect of various factors on social morality levels, using agents modeling moral behavior, immoral behavior, and a range of environmental social resources. Threshold values for the various parameters are obtained through sensitivity analysis; and practical solutions are proposed for reversing declines in social morality levels. The results show that: (1) Population size may accelerate or impede the speed with which immoral behavior comes to determine the overall level of social morality, but it has no effect on the level of social morality itself; (2) The impact of rewards and punishment on social morality levels follows the "5∶1 rewards-to-punishment rule," which is to say that 5 units of rewards have the same effect as 1 unit of punishment; (3) The abundance of public resources is inversely related to the level of social morality; (4) When the cost of population mobility reaches 10% of the total energy level, immoral behavior begins to be suppressed (i.e. the 1/10 moral cost rule). The research approach and methods presented in this paper successfully address the difficulties involved in measuring social morality levels, and promise extensive application potentials.

Prevention of unethical actions in nursing homes.

PubMed

Solum, Eva Merethe; Slettebø, Ashild; Hauge, Solveig

2008-07-01

Ethical problems regularly arise during daily care in nursing homes. These include violation of patients' right to autonomy and to be treated with respect. The aim of this study was to investigate how caregivers emphasize daily dialogue and mutual reflection to reach moral alternatives in daily care. The data were collected by participant observation and interviews with seven caregivers in a Norwegian nursing home. A number of ethical problems linked to 10 patients were disclosed. Moral problems were revealed as the caregivers acted in ways that they knew were against patients' interest. We used a theoretical interpretation according to Habermas' discourse ethics on the importance of dialogue when deciding moral courses of action for patients. This theory has four basic requirements: communicative competence, equality, self-determination, and openness about motives.

Dying at Home: Can Families Cope?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hine, Virginia H.

1979-01-01

Examines five considerations involved in decision for home death: (1) sources of moral support necessary for family; (2) kinds of professional aid available; (3) special equipment necessary; (4) necessary nursing skills; and (5) basic information about death. (Author)

The Independence of James Rest's Components of Morality: Evidence from a Professional Ethics Curriculum Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

You, Di; Bebeau, Muriel J.

2013-01-01

Rest's hypothesis that the components of morality (i.e., sensitivity, reasoning, motivation, and implementation) are distinct from one another was tested using evidence from a dental ethics curriculum that uses well-validated measures of each component. Archival data from five cohorts ("n" = 385) included the following: (1) transcribed…

Doing Right in Business: Can Action Learning Develop Moral Sensitivity and Promote Ethical Behaviour?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brook, Cheryl; Christy, Gill

2013-01-01

The question addressed in this paper is whether action learning as a management development technique can be more effective in promoting ethical decision-making than more traditional approaches. Recent examples of moral failures which have emerged in both corporate and public sector organisations in the UK during recent years have prompted a…

Neonatal euthanasia: moral considerations and criminal liability

PubMed Central

Sklansky, M.

2001-01-01

Despite tremendous advances in medical care for critically ill newborn infants, caregivers in neonatal intensive care units still struggle with how to approach those patients whose prognoses appear to be the most grim, and whose treatments appear to be the most futile. Although the practice of passive neonatal euthanasia, from a moral perspective, has been widely (albeit quietly) condoned, those clinicians and families involved in such cases may still be found legally guilty of child abuse or even manslaughter. Passive neonatal euthanasia remains both a moral dilemma and a legal ambiguity. Even the definition of passive euthanasia remains unclear. This manuscript reviews the basic moral and legal considerations raised by the current practice of neonatal euthanasia, and examines the formal position statements of the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The paper concludes by emphasising the need, at least in the United States, to clarify the legal status of this relatively common medical practice. Key Words: Euthanasia • neonatal intensive care • defective newborns PMID:11233379

[Neuroethics: Ethical Endowments of Human Brain].

PubMed

López Moratalla, Natalia

2015-01-01

The neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of Neuroethics. Neurosciences demonstrate which cerebral areas are active and inactive whilst people decide how to act when facing a moral dilemma; in this way we know the correlation between determined cerebral areas and our human acts. We can explain how the ″ethical endowments″ of each person, common to all human beings, is ″embedded″ in the dynamic of cerebral flows. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. The outcome of man's natural inclinations is on one hand linked to instinctive systems of animal survival and to basic emotions, and on the other, to the life of each individual human uninhibited by automatism of the biological laws, because he is governed by the laws of freedom. The capacity to formulate an ethical judgement is an innate asset of the human mind.

Why liberals should accept financial incentives for organ procurement.

PubMed

Veatch, Robert M

2003-03-01

Free market libertarians have long supported incentives to increase organ procurement, but those oriented to justice traditionally have opposed them. This paper presents the reasons why those worried about justice should reconsider financial incentives and tolerate them as a lesser moral evil. After considering concerns about discrimination and coercion and setting them aside, it is suggested that the real moral concern should be manipulation of the neediest. The one offering the incentive (the government) has the resources to eliminate the basic needs that pressure the poor into a willingness to sell. It is unethically manipulative to withhold those resources and then offer payment for organs. Nevertheless, the poor have been left without basic necessities for 20 years since the passage of the prohibition on incentives. As long as the government continues to withhold a decent minimum of welfare, liberals should, with shame, cease opposing financial incentives for organ procurement.

Morality and soap in engineers and social scientists: the Macbeth effect interacts with professions.

PubMed

Schaefer, Michael

2017-11-07

Several studies demonstrate that physical cleansing is actually efficacious to cope with threatened morality, thus demonstrating that physical and moral purity are psychologically interwoven. This so-called Macbeth effect has been explained, for example, by the conceptual metaphor theory that suggests an embodiment of the moral purity metaphor. Recent research draws attention to individual differences when using conceptual metaphors. The present study shows that the moral purity link interacts with different professions. Engineering and social science students were asked to hand copy a text in which the protagonist behaved in an immoral way (or in a moral way, control condition). Subsequently, they had to rate cleansing and other products. Both groups of participants showed higher ratings for cleansing products when hand copying the unethical story, but this Macbeth effect was significantly stronger for the group of engineering students. The results demonstrate that the Macbeth effect interacts with individual differences of the chosen profession. The outcome is discussed in terms of recent theories on individual differences in disgust sensitivity.

Developing a Self-Scoring Comprehensive Instrument to Measure Rest's Four-Component Model of Moral Behavior: The Moral Skills Inventory.

PubMed

Chambers, David W

2011-01-01

One of the most extensively studied constructs in dental education is the four-component model of moral behavior proposed by James Rest and the set of instruments for measuring it developed by Rest, Muriel Bebeau, and others. Although significant associations have been identified between the four components Rest proposed (called here Moral Sensitivity, Moral Reasoning, Moral Integrity, and Moral Courage) and dental ethics courses and practitioners with disciplined licenses, there is no single instrument that measures all four components, and existing single component instruments require professional scoring. This article describes the development and validation of a short, self-scoring instrument, the Moral Skills Inventory, that measures all four components. Evidence of face validity, test/retest reliability, and concurrent convergent and divergent predictive validity are demonstrated in three populations: dental students, clinical dental faculty members, and regents and officers of the American College of Dentists. Significant issues remain in developing the Rest four-component model for use in dental education and practice. Specifically, further construct validation research is needed to understand the nature of the components. In particular, it remains undetermined whether moral constructs are characteristics of individuals that drive behavior in specific situations or whether particular patterns of moral behavior learned and used in response to individual circumstances are summarized by researchers and then imputed to practitioners.

Children's Use of Moral Behavior in Selective Trust: Discrimination versus Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doebel, Sabine; Koenig, Melissa A.

2013-01-01

Does valence play a role in children's sensitivity to and use of moral information in the service of selective learning? In the present experiment, we explored this question by presenting 3- to 5-year-old children with informants who behaved in ways consistent or inconsistent with sociomoral norms, such as helping a peer retrieve a toy or…

Education in Malaysia: Towards Vision 2020.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Molly N. N.

1999-01-01

Analyzes the relationship between educational development and Malaysia's sociopolitical and economic context. Under the Vision 2020 rubric, liberalized educational policies are leading to a more democratic, privatized, and decentralized educational system. Curricular revisions stressing basic skills, moral values, and individual development are…

Die moralischen Rechte von Kindern

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Giesinger, Johannes

2007-01-01

THE MORAL RIGHTS OF CHILDREN - Most people today believe that children should be accorded legal or moral rights. In the course of the past few decades, however, objections to this view have been repeatedly raised. According to one objection, it is inappropriate for children to be the bearers of rights. Another group of objectors say that children's interests are not being served if rights are allocated to them. This paper acknowledges that rights alone are not enough to protect children's basic needs and interests in full. It is therefore inappropriate to resort to exclusively rights-based language when referring to the relationship between parents and children. Nevertheless, as this paper argues, it is advisable to provide children with moral rights. In response to the initial objection, a concept of rights is put forward which enables children, like adults, to be considered as the bearers of rights.

Disgust discussed: introduction to the special section.

PubMed

Pole, Nnamdi

2013-03-01

The author introduces a special section of Psychological Bulletin devoted to the study of disgust. After discussing conflicts between its supposed role as a basic emotion and its more recently understood involvement in responding to moral transgressions, the author summarizes 3 articles contained in the special section. Widen and Russell (2013) present a developmental account of disgust highlighting the ages at which children experience, express, understand, verbalize, and recognize disgust. The article shows that disgust is present early but that recognition of disgust in others is considerably delayed. Chapman and Anderson (2013) review evidence pertaining to the question of whether genuine disgust is elicited by moral transgressions. Their review covers data from self-report, brain imaging, facial behavior, and implicit measures gathered from both experimental and correlational studies. They conclude that moral transgressions elicit genuine disgust. Russell and Giner-Sorolla (2013) ask what types of moral transgressions are most likely to elicit pure disgust. They find that moral transgressions involving body violations are more likely than others to elicit such disgust. Moreover, they suggest that disgust elicited by body violations is likely to be more resistant to modification by context, situation, and efforts at rationalization. Taken together, the reviews support the view that rudiments of disgust to physical objects are present early in life but later become adapted to social influence and new moral purposes. Social implications are discussed. © 2013 American Psychological Association

Moral Hard‐Wiring and Moral Enhancement

PubMed Central

Persson, Ingmar

2017-01-01

Abstract We have argued for an urgent need for moral bioenhancement; that human moral psychology is limited in its ability to address current existential threats due to the evolutionary function of morality to maximize cooperation in small groups. We address here Powell and Buchanan's novel objection that there is an ‘inclusivist anomaly’: humans have the capacity to care beyond in‐groups. They propose that ‘exclusivist’ (group‐based) morality is sensitive to environmental cues that historically indicated out‐group threat. When this is not present, we are inclusivist. They conclude that moral bioenhancement is unnecessary or less effective than socio‐cultural interventions. We argue that Powell and Buchanan underestimate the hard‐wiring features of moral psychology; their appeal to adaptively plastic, conditionally expressed responses accounts for only a fragment of our moral psychology. In addition to restrictions on our altruistic concern that their account addresses – such as racism and sexism – there are ones it is ill‐suited to address: that our concern is stronger for kin and friends and for concrete individuals rather than for statistical lives; also our bias towards the near future. Hard‐wired features of our moral psychology that are not clearly restrictions in altruistic concern also include reciprocity, tit‐for‐tat, and others. Biomedical means are not the only, and maybe not the most important, means of moral enhancement. Socio‐cultural means are of great importance and there are currently no biomedical interventions for many hard‐wired features. Nevertheless research is desirable because the influence of these features is greater than our critics think. PMID:28300281

Moral Hard-Wiring and Moral Enhancement.

PubMed

Persson, Ingmar; Savulescu, Julian

2017-05-01

We have argued for an urgent need for moral bioenhancement; that human moral psychology is limited in its ability to address current existential threats due to the evolutionary function of morality to maximize cooperation in small groups. We address here Powell and Buchanan's novel objection that there is an 'inclusivist anomaly': humans have the capacity to care beyond in-groups. They propose that 'exclusivist' (group-based) morality is sensitive to environmental cues that historically indicated out-group threat. When this is not present, we are inclusivist. They conclude that moral bioenhancement is unnecessary or less effective than socio-cultural interventions. We argue that Powell and Buchanan underestimate the hard-wiring features of moral psychology; their appeal to adaptively plastic, conditionally expressed responses accounts for only a fragment of our moral psychology. In addition to restrictions on our altruistic concern that their account addresses - such as racism and sexism - there are ones it is ill-suited to address: that our concern is stronger for kin and friends and for concrete individuals rather than for statistical lives; also our bias towards the near future. Hard-wired features of our moral psychology that are not clearly restrictions in altruistic concern also include reciprocity, tit-for-tat, and others. Biomedical means are not the only, and maybe not the most important, means of moral enhancement. Socio-cultural means are of great importance and there are currently no biomedical interventions for many hard-wired features. Nevertheless research is desirable because the influence of these features is greater than our critics think. © 2017 The Authors Bioethics Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Four pathways in the analysis of adult development and aging: comparing analyses of reasoning about personal-life dilemmas.

PubMed

Pratt, M W; Diessner, R; Hunsberger, B; Pancer, S M; Savoy, K

1991-12-01

Four systems for analyzing thinking about 2 personal-life dilemmas, as discussed by 29 men and 35 women (ages 35-85), were compared. Kohlberg's (1976) moral judgment stages, Kegan's (1982) ego-development stages, Gilligan's (1982) moral orientation system, and Suedfeld and Tetlock's (1977) integrative complexity scoring were used. Subjects completed Kohlberg's (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) standard moral judgment measure, a self-concept description, and several questionnaires. The Kohlberg, Kegan, and integrative complexity codings of the dilemmas were positively related to each other and to the standard Kohlberg moral stage scores. There were no age-group differences and few gender differences on the measures. However, education, role-taking skills, and greater sensitivity to age changes in the self positively predicted higher stage scores across maturity.

Some Basics about Ethics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dean, Peter J.

1994-01-01

Discussion of ethics focuses on the role of human performance technology professionals in helping corporate ethicists. Highlights include definitions of ethics, morals, values, and business ethics; ethics in academia and in business; and application of the knowledge of ethics to decision-making. (Contains 18 references.) (LRW)

The Dilemma of Science and Morals

PubMed Central

Stent, Gunther S.

1974-01-01

The conflicts between science and morals which still continue to arise despite the apparent hegemony of atheistic scientism over traditional Judeo-Christianity in the twentieth century reflect a basic contradiction in the metaphysical foundation of Western lives. As was set forth by Machiavelli, the contradiction inherent in Western ethics is that it is based on the simultaneous belief in both objectively valid moral truths and purely relative values of communal purpose. The achievements of twentieth century science have intensified these contradictions. Modern physics has put in question the validity of its own metaphysical basis, namely the belief in Natural Law, and modern biology has been unable to come to terms with the Cartesian dualism of body and soul. By contrast, Chinese lives are comparatively free of these contradictions, being founded on the philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism, to which the concepts of objectively valid truth or Natural Law are foreign. Recent developments in Western attitudes regarding science and morals can be interpreted as a movement away from the traditional belief in absolute truths towards a Chinese relativism. PMID:4531410

The "shoulds" and "should nots" of moral emotions: a self-regulatory perspective on shame and guilt.

PubMed

Sheikh, Sana; Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie

2010-02-01

A self-regulatory framework for distinguishing between shame and guilt was tested in three studies. Recently, two forms of moral regulation based on approach versus avoidance motivation have been proposed in the literature. Proscriptive regulation is sensitive to negative outcomes, inhibition based, and focused on what we should not do. Prescriptive regulation is sensitive to positive outcomes, activation based, and focused on what we should do. In the current research, consistent support was found for shame's proscriptive and guilt's prescriptive moral underpinnings. Study 1 found a positive association between avoidance orientation and shame proneness and between approach orientation and guilt proneness. In Study 2, priming a proscriptive orientation increased shame and priming a prescriptive orientation increased guilt. In Study 3, transgressions most apt to represent proscriptive and prescriptive violations predicted subsequent judgments of shame and guilt, respectively. This self-regulatory perspective provides a broad interpretive framework for understanding and extending past research findings.

A theory of international bioethics: the negotiable and the non-negotiable.

PubMed

Baker, Robert

1998-09-01

The preceding article in this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal presents the argument that "moral fundamentalism," the position that international bioethics rests on "basic" or "fundamental" moral prinicples that are universally accepted in all eras and cultures, collapses under a variety of multicultural and postmodern critiques. The present article looks to the contractarian tradition of Hobbes and Locke -- as reinterpreted by David Gauthier, Robert Nozick, and John Rawls -- for an alternative justification for international bioethics. Drawing on the central themes of this tradition, it is argued that international bioethics can be rationally reconstructed as a negotiated moral order that respects culturally and individually defined areas of nonnegotiability. Further, the theory of a negotiated moral order is consistent with traditional ideals about human rights, is flexible enough to absorb the genuine insights of multiculturalism and postmodernism, and yet is strong enough to justify transcultural and transtemporal moral judgments, including the condemnation of the Nazi doctors at Nuremberg. This theory also is consistent with the history of the ethics of human subjects experimentation and offers insights into current controversies such as the controversy over changing the consent rule for experiments in emergency medicine and the controversy over exempting certain clinical trials of inexpensive treatments for preventing the perinatal transmission of AIDS from the ethical standards of the sponsoring country.

Union's inspiration: Universal health care and the essential partiality of solidarity.

PubMed

Derpmann, Simon

2018-05-09

Solidarity is commonly invoked in the justification of public health care. This is understandable, as calls for and appeals to solidarity are effective in the mobilization of unison action and the willingness to incur sacrifices for others. However, the reference to solidarity as a moral notion requires caution, as there is no agreement on the meaning of solidarity. The article argues that the reference to solidarity as a normative notion is relevant to health-related moral claims, but that it does not provide a convincing foundation of claims to universal health care. References to universal solidarity obliterate an important distinction between those moral demands that are founded on principles like justice, recognition, or humanity, and those demands that stem from partisan relations in communities. While there is no 'separate essence' of solidarity that could be referred to in order to argue for the conceptual necessity of solidarity's partiality, some features may reasonably be stipulated as being essential to solidarity with a view to its systematic function within moral philosophy. The normative and motivational force of the ties invoked by solidarity is particularly relevant when basic moral demands are not met, and societies are in need of significant forms of communal relatedness. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Good coercion: patients' moral evaluation of coercion in mental health care.

PubMed

Lorem, Geir F; Hem, Marit H; Molewijk, Bert

2015-06-01

The use of coercion in mental health care is not self-evident and requires moral justification. A joint understanding is difficult to achieve, because patients and health professionals often evaluate coercion differently. The present study aims to discuss patients' 'moral' evaluation of coercion. We believe that such a focus can form the basis for a better and more differentiated understanding of how we evaluate coercion. This is a qualitative study based on participant observation and interviews with patients. In order to focus specifically on the moral evaluation of coercion, we looked within patients' narratives to examine whether we could differentiate between how they experienced coercion and how they morally evaluated its use, and how they envision/describe good coercion. We found that patients differentiated implicitly between experiences and moral evaluation. The findings have been ordered into three types of reactions: agreeing and accepting, fighting or resisting, and resignation. Further reflection upon patients' positive and negative moral evaluations of coercion resulted in the formulation of different concrete elements at three levels: threshold elements, process elements, and empathic elements. These elements helped us to understand what these patients considered 'good coercion'. The implications are that good clinical practice cannot be separated from the formal, moral evaluation of coercion. A differentiated moral understanding of coercion can form the basis for better and more sensitive communication about coercion among all those involved. A more respectful dialogue on the moral evaluation of coercion might also raise awareness during both the decision-making process and the actual practising of coercion. © 2014 Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc.

Education for Democracy: Reasons and Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edelstein, Wolfgang

2011-01-01

According to social scientists Herfried Munkler in Germany and Colin Crouch in England, major developments in Western industrial societies--individualism, increasing social complexity, globalisation--present serious threats to basic requirements of stable societies and expose democracy to the corrosion of its socio-moral resources such as social…

Rethinking Cosmopolitanism in Music Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bates, Vincent C.

2014-01-01

Cosmopolitanism is basically a moral stance requiring every human to be concerned with the wellbeing of every other human being on earth. As such, it tends to privilege cosmopolitan--urban and culturally elite--populations while suppressing more "place-bound" groups. Cosmopolitan education constitutes a form of abjection whereby…

The Moral Status of Animals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nussbaum, Martha C.

2006-01-01

Human beings share a world and its scarce resources with other intelligent creatures, yet humans act in ways that deny other animals a dignified existence. A discussion on why notions of basic justice, entitlement, and law can, and must be extended across the species barrier is presented.

Is Utilitarianism Risky? How the Same Antecedents and Mechanism Produce Both Utilitarian and Risky Choices.

PubMed

Lucas, Brian J; Galinsky, Adam D

2015-07-01

Philosophers and psychologists have long been interested in identifying factors that influence moral judgment. In the current analysis, we compare the literatures on moral psychology and decision making under uncertainty to propose that utilitarian choices are driven by the same forces that lead to risky choices. Spanning from neurocognitive to hormonal to interpersonal levels of analysis, we identify six antecedents that increase both utilitarian and risky choices (ventromedial prefrontal cortex brain lesions, psychopathology, testosterone, incidental positive affect, power, and social connection) and one antecedent that reduces these choices (serotonin activity). We identify the regulation of negative affect as a common mechanism through which the effects of each antecedent on utilitarian and risky choices are explained. By demonstrating that the same forces and the same underlying mechanism that produce risky choices also promote utilitarian choices, we offer a deeper understanding of how basic psychological systems underlie moral judgment. © The Author(s) 2015.

Callous-unemotional traits moderate the association between children's early moral understanding and aggression: A short-term longitudinal study.

PubMed

Jambon, Marc; Smetana, Judith G

2018-05-01

Drawing on the framework of social domain theory, this multi-method, multi-informant longitudinal study examined whether callous-unemotional (CU) tendencies moderated the association between U.S. 4 to 7 year olds' (n = 135; Mage = 5.65, 50% male; 75% White) ability to differentiate hypothetical, prototypical moral and conventional transgressions along theoretical criteria and teacher (n = 49) and parent (n = 128, 91% mothers) ratings of physical aggression. Deficits in domain distinction ability were associated with greater teacher-reported aggression both concurrently and 9 months later, but only for children high in CU traits. No main effects or interactions were found for parent reports. These findings build on a growing body of research demonstrating that children who use aggression in a deliberate and callous manner show deficits in their basic understanding of moral norms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Correction.

PubMed

2015-06-01

Gillon R. Defending the four principles approach as a good basis for good medical practice and therefore for good medical ethics. J Med Ethics 2015;41:111–6. The author misrepresented Beauchamp and Childress when he wrote: ‘My own view (unlike Beauchamp and Childress who explicitly state that they make no such claim ( p. 421)1, is that all moral agents whether or not they are doctors or otherwise involved in healthcare have these prima facie moral obligations; but in the context of answering the question ‘what is it to do good medical ethics ?’ my claim is limited to the ethical obligations of doctors’. The author intended and should have written the following: ‘My own view, unlike Beauchamp and Childress who explicitly state that they make no such claim (p.421)1 is that these four prima facie principles can provide a basic moral framework not only for medical ethics but for ethics in general’.

The Effect of Social Problem Solving Skills in the Relationship between Traumatic Stress and Moral Disengagement among Inner-City African American High School Students

PubMed Central

Coker, Kendell L.; Ikpe, Uduakobong N.; Brooks, Jeannie S.; Page, Brian; Sobell, Mark B.

2014-01-01

This study examined the relationship between traumatic stress, social problem solving, and moral disengagement among African American inner-city high school students. Participants consisted of 45 (25 males and 20 females) African American students enrolled in grades 10 through 12. Mediation was assessed by testing for the indirect effect using the confidence interval derived from 10,000 bootstrapped resamples. The results revealed that social problem-solving skills have an indirect effect on the relationship between traumatic stress and moral disengagement. The findings suggest that African American youth that are negatively impacted by trauma evidence deficits in their social problem solving skills and are likely to be at an increased risk to morally disengage. Implications for culturally sensitive and trauma-based intervention programs are also provided. PMID:25071874

A virtue ethics approach to moral dilemmas in medicine

PubMed Central

Gardiner, P

2003-01-01

Most moral dilemmas in medicine are analysed using the four principles with some consideration of consequentialism but these frameworks have limitations. It is not always clear how to judge which consequences are best. When principles conflict it is not always easy to decide which should dominate. They also do not take account of the importance of the emotional element of human experience. Virtue ethics is a framework that focuses on the character of the moral agent rather than the rightness of an action. In considering the relationships, emotional sensitivities, and motivations that are unique to human society it provides a fuller ethical analysis and encourages more flexible and creative solutions than principlism or consequentialism alone. Two different moral dilemmas are analysed using virtue ethics in order to illustrate how it can enhance our approach to ethics in medicine. PMID:14519840

A virtue ethics approach to moral dilemmas in medicine.

PubMed

Gardiner, P

2003-10-01

Most moral dilemmas in medicine are analysed using the four principles with some consideration of consequentialism but these frameworks have limitations. It is not always clear how to judge which consequences are best. When principles conflict it is not always easy to decide which should dominate. They also do not take account of the importance of the emotional element of human experience. Virtue ethics is a framework that focuses on the character of the moral agent rather than the rightness of an action. In considering the relationships, emotional sensitivities, and motivations that are unique to human society it provides a fuller ethical analysis and encourages more flexible and creative solutions than principlism or consequentialism alone. Two different moral dilemmas are analysed using virtue ethics in order to illustrate how it can enhance our approach to ethics in medicine.

The contribution of emotion and cognition to moral sensitivity: a neurodevelopmental study.

PubMed

Decety, Jean; Michalska, Kalina J; Kinzler, Katherine D

2012-01-01

Whether emotion is a source of moral judgments remains controversial. This study combined neurophysiological measures, including functional magnetic resonance imaging, eye-tracking, and pupillary response with behavioral measures assessing affective and moral judgments across age. One hundred and twenty-six participants aged between 4 and 37 years viewed scenarios depicting intentional versus accidental actions that caused harm/damage to people and objects. Morally, salient scenarios evoked stronger empathic sadness in young participants and were associated with enhanced activity in the amygdala, insula, and temporal poles. While intentional harm was evaluated as equally wrong across all participants, ratings of deserved punishments and malevolent intent gradually became more differentiated with age. Furthermore, age-related increase in activity was detected in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in response to intentional harm to people, as well as increased functional connectivity between this region and the amygdala. Our study provides evidence that moral reasoning involves a complex integration between affective and cognitive processes that gradually changes with age and can be viewed in dynamic transaction across the course of ontogenesis. The findings support the view that negative emotion alerts the individual to the moral salience of a situation by bringing discomfort and thus can serve as an antecedent to moral judgment.

True happiness: The role of morality in the folk concept of happiness.

PubMed

Phillips, Jonathan; De Freitas, Julian; Mott, Christian; Gruber, June; Knobe, Joshua

2017-02-01

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents' psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has suggested that the ordinary concept of happiness is also sensitive to the moral value of agents' lives. Five studies systematically investigate and explain the impact of morality on ordinary assessments of happiness. Study 1 demonstrates that moral judgments influence assessments of happiness not only for untrained participants, but also for academic researchers and even in those who study happiness specifically. Studies 2 and 3 then respectively ask whether this effect may be explained by general motivational biases or beliefs in a just world. In both cases, we find evidence against these explanations. Study 4 shows that the impact of moral judgments cannot be explained by changes in the perception of descriptive psychological states. Finally, Study 5 compares the impact of moral and nonmoral value, and provides evidence that unlike nonmoral value, moral value is part of the criteria that govern the ordinary concept of happiness. Taken together, these studies provide a specific explanation of how and why the ordinary concept of happiness deviates from the definition used by researchers studying happiness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Proximity morality in medical school – medical students forming physician morality "on the job": Grounded theory analysis of a student survey

PubMed Central

Thulesius, Hans O; Sallin, Karl; Lynoe, Niels; Löfmark, Rurik

2007-01-01

Background The value of ethics education have been questioned. Therefore we did a student survey on attitudes about the teaching of ethics in Swedish medical schools. Methods Questionnaire survey on attitudes to ethics education with 409 Swedish medical students participating. We analyzed > 8000 words of open-ended responses and multiple-choice questions using classic grounded theory procedures. Results In this paper we suggest that medical students take a proximity morality stance towards their ethics education meaning that they want to form physician morality "on the job". This involves comprehensive ethics courses in which quality lectures provide "ethics grammar" and together with attitude exercises and vignette reflections nurture tutored group discussions. Goals of forming physician morality are to develop a professional identity, handling diversity of religious and existential worldviews, training students described as ethically naive, processing difficult clinical experiences, and desisting negative role modeling from physicians in clinical or teaching situations, some engaging in "ethics suppression" by controlling sensitive topic discussions and serving students politically correct attitudes. Conclusion We found that medical students have a proximity morality attitude towards ethics education. Rather than being taught ethics they want to form their own physician morality through tutored group discussions in comprehensive ethics courses. PMID:17683618

UNESCO, "universal bioethics," and state regulation of health risks: a philosophical critique.

PubMed

Cherry, Mark J

2009-06-01

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights announces a significant array of welfare entitlements--to personal health and health care, medicine, nutrition, water, improved living conditions, environmental protection, and so forth--as well as corresponding governmental duties to provide for such public health measures, though the simple expedient of announcing that such entitlements are "basic human rights." The Universal Declaration provides no argument for the legitimacy of the sweeping governmental authority, taxation, and regulation to create and impose such "rights." As this paper explores that some action promotes a purported good, such as "health," does not thereby make the action morally permissible. Just as there are moral limits on legitimate personal actions, there are also moral limits on legitimate governmental actions to promote purported goods, including health. A core question of any governmental regulation, therefore, is whether it is a legitimate application of moral political authority or an unauthorized act of state coercion. Pace UNESCO's wide-ranging assertions, this paper argues that promoting health only falls within the legitimate authority of governments in very narrowly defined circumstances. As the paper critically explores, at stake are foundational moral and political questions concerning the limits of governmental authority to intervene in the consensual interaction of persons. Imposing such duties on others, including citizens of a state through regulatory activity and taxation, must be justified, nonarbitrary, and demonstrably within the limits of moral political authority. UNESCO's assertions do not meet this burden of proof.

A critical intersection: human rights, public health nursing, and nursing ethics.

PubMed

Easley, Cheryl E; Allen, Carol Easley

2007-01-01

Public health nurses must make moral decisions regarding practice in complex situations fraught with competing moral claims. While nurses often frame practice decisions within the context of ethical theory, consideration of human rights perspectives is more recent. Basic concepts of nursing and public health ethics and of human rights, in relationship to public health, will be discussed and related to the practice of public health nursing. Intersections of human rights, ethics, and public health nursing practice will be discussed in light of the assertion of health as a human right and described using the issues of HIV/AIDS and genetics/genomics.

Planning and conducting meetings effectively, part I: planning a meeting.

PubMed

Harolds, Jay

2011-12-01

Meetings are held by leaders for many purposes, including conveying information, raising morale, asking for opinions, brain storming, making people part of the problem-solving process, building trust, getting to a consensus, and making decisions. However, many meetings waste time, some undermine the leader's power, and some decrease morale. Part I of this series of articles gives some tips on basic planning for decision-making meetings. Part II of this series of articles analyzes selected components of decision-making meetings. Part III of this series will be on how the chairperson keeps decision-making meetings on track to make them efficient and productive.

JPRS Report, East Europe.

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-02-13

artists , and cultural workers in the CPCZ. We shall self-government and for a further strengthening of the speak out for a fair material and moral...to help develop, in close tors, and trainers in basic units, sections, and other cooperation with the DTSB [German Gymnastics and GST groups to help

Background Checks on School Personnel. ERIC Digest Series EA 55.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baas, Alan

Although it is relatively simple to check on applicants' basic professional competency, ensuring the moral competency of potential school employees is much more difficult. This digest examines major legal issues, district liabilities and responsibilities, suggested guidelines, and information sources involving employee background checks. Of more…

Existential/Phenomenology as a Philosophical Base for a Feminist Psychology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boukydis, Kathleen McGuire

Concepts of existential/phenomenology philosophy more closely reflect women's experience of the world and provide a better base for a feminist science of psychology. Womens' experience includes basic cooperation, nurturance, empathy, and egalitarian morality. Logical positivist psychology discriminates against women by excluding inner experiencing…

Adopting Basic Principles of the United Nations Academic Impact Initiative (UNAI): Can Cultural Differences Be Predicted from Value Orientations and Globalization?

PubMed Central

Nechtelberger, Andrea; Renner, Walter; Nechtelberger, Martin; Supeková, Soňa Chovanová; Hadjimarkou, Maria; Offurum, Chino; Ramalingam, Panchalan; Senft, Birgit; Redfern, Kylie

2017-01-01

The United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) Initiative has set forth 10 Basic Principles for higher education. In the present study, a 10 item self-report questionnaire measuring personal endorsement of these principles has been tested by self-report questionnaires with university and post-graduate students from Austria, China, Cyprus, India, Nigeria, and Slovakia (total N = 976, N = 627 female, mean age 24.7 years, s = 5.7). Starting from the assumptions of Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), we expected that personal attitudes toward the UNAI Basic Principles would be predicted by endorsement of various moral foundations as suggested by MFT and by the individual's degree of globalization. Whereas for the Austrian, Cypriot, and Nigerian sub- samples this assumption was largely confirmed, for the Chinese, Indian, and Slovak sub- samples only small amounts of the variance could be explained by regression models. All six sub-samples differed substantially with regard to their overall questionnaire responses: by five discriminant functions 83.6% of participants were classified correctly. We conclude that implementation of UNAI principles should adhere closely to the cultural requirements of the respective society and, where necessary should be accompanied by thorough informational campaigns about UN educational goals. PMID:29180977

Adopting Basic Principles of the United Nations Academic Impact Initiative (UNAI): Can Cultural Differences Be Predicted from Value Orientations and Globalization?

PubMed

Nechtelberger, Andrea; Renner, Walter; Nechtelberger, Martin; Supeková, Soňa Chovanová; Hadjimarkou, Maria; Offurum, Chino; Ramalingam, Panchalan; Senft, Birgit; Redfern, Kylie

2017-01-01

The United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) Initiative has set forth 10 Basic Principles for higher education. In the present study, a 10 item self-report questionnaire measuring personal endorsement of these principles has been tested by self-report questionnaires with university and post-graduate students from Austria, China, Cyprus, India, Nigeria, and Slovakia (total N = 976, N = 627 female, mean age 24.7 years, s = 5.7). Starting from the assumptions of Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), we expected that personal attitudes toward the UNAI Basic Principles would be predicted by endorsement of various moral foundations as suggested by MFT and by the individual's degree of globalization. Whereas for the Austrian, Cypriot, and Nigerian sub- samples this assumption was largely confirmed, for the Chinese, Indian, and Slovak sub- samples only small amounts of the variance could be explained by regression models. All six sub-samples differed substantially with regard to their overall questionnaire responses: by five discriminant functions 83.6% of participants were classified correctly. We conclude that implementation of UNAI principles should adhere closely to the cultural requirements of the respective society and, where necessary should be accompanied by thorough informational campaigns about UN educational goals.

Taking health needs seriously: against a luck egalitarian approach to justice in health.

PubMed

Nielsen, Lasse

2013-08-01

In recent works, Shlomi Segall suggests and defends a luck egalitarian approach to justice in health. Concurring with G. A. Cohen's mature position he defends the idea that people should be compensated for "brute luck", i.e. the outcome of actions that it would be unreasonable to expect them to avoid. In his defense of the luck egalitarian approach he seeks to rebut the criticism raised by Norman Daniels that luck egalitarianism is in some way too narrow and in another too wide to uphold justice in health and health care distribution. He points out that a pluralistic outline of luck egalitarianism taking into account the moral requirement of meeting everyone's basic needs can avoid this line of criticism. In this article I argue against the application of such pluralistic luck egalitarianism in matters of health distribution. First of all, Segall has not shown that luck egalitarianism handles well health distributions above a threshold of basic needs. Secondly, his way of avoiding Elizabeth Anderson's abandonment objection is theoretically problematic. Finally, I argue that luck egalitarianism in general fails to acknowledge the moral foundation of health and health care as a basic human entitlement. Thus I conclude that luck egalitarianism fails to take health needs seriously and that it cannot therefore uphold justice in health.

Managing Conflict with Effective Communication Skills.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clough, Dick B.

Conflict is a basic social process; there is no conceivable way of removing all conflict from an organization. Interpersonal conflict, often created by interdependency of people and tasks within an organization, lowers staff morale and employee productivity and drives people away. Difficult employees who foster conflicts fall into five distinct…

On the Ethics of Teaching and the Ideals of Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Audi, Robert

1994-01-01

The author argues that ethical college teaching requires that teachers focus on ideals: goals and aspirations reaching beyond merely correct behavior that satisfies basic moral requirements. This includes the obligation to be professionally competent, fair in grading, fair in making recommendations, and fair to their colleagues. (MSE)

Democracy, Education, and the Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Soder, Roger, Ed.

This book argues that the most basic purpose of America's schools is to teach children the moral and intellectual responsibilities of living and working in a democracy. It contains essays that explore the meaning of democracy and its implications for preparing teachers and teaching students. The book contains a discussion of critical questions…

Teacher-to-Teacher: An Annotated Bibliography on DNA and Genetic Engineering.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mertens, Thomas R., Comp.

1984-01-01

Presented is an annotated bibliography of 24 books on DNA and genetic engineering. Areas considered in these books include: basic biological concepts to help understand advances in genetic engineering; applications of genetic engineering; social, legal, and moral issues of genetic engineering; and historical aspects leading to advances in…

"Reel" Character Education: Using Film to Promote Global Citizenship

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Russell, William Benedict, III; Waters, Stewart

2013-01-01

This article explores using films to spark moral dilemma discussions and thereby promote critical thinking and character education for global citizenship in elementary classrooms. After clarifying some of the basic concepts associated with the fields of character education and global citizenship, and the interrelationship between the two, the…

Teaching with "Liangxin" (Virtuous Heart) Held in Hands or Not: Untangling Self- and State-Governmentalization of Contemporary Chinese Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhao, Weili

2014-01-01

Contemporary Chinese teachers are being transformed into morally divided subjects by institutional teacher-evaluation governance. They claim such institutional governance can "devour" their basic professional ethics of "teaching with 'liangxin'" (??), a reinvoked Confucian ethical notion. Then, how does "liangxin"…

Basic Genetics: A Human Approach.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, Colorado Springs, CO. Center for Education in Human and Medical Genetics.

This document (which has the form of a magazine) provides a variety of articles, stories, editorials, letters, interviews, and other types of magazine features (such as book reviews) which focus on human genetics. In addition to providing information about the principles of genetics, nearly all of the sections in the "magazine" address moral,…

Play and the Basic Needs of Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bagley, Martha

1975-01-01

This article discusses play as necessary for children if they are to develop satisfactorily from a social, moral, physical, or intellectual point of view. Children must be provided suitable opportunities for play, graded for age, adjusted to sex and other personal differences, and related to prevailing activities, popular interests, community…

Essential Schools and the Basics; Resisting Technocratic Rationality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bauer, Norman J.

In essential-schools philosophy, the purpose of education on the individual level is to instill intellectual and moral discipline. On a societal level, education's purpose is to transmit the essential portion of total heritage to students. Technocratic rationality is the belief that bureaucrats and administrators decide policy about the goals of…

Imitation Pedagogy and Ethical Indoctrination.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Erdmann, Edward

1993-01-01

Examines the claim of 16th-century English humanist educators that they prepared their students for civic life by providing not only technical training in language use but ethical and moral training for negotiating basic life situations. Attempts to determine what might have been the role of imitation exercises informing students' ethical…

Moral intuition, good deaths and ordinary medical practitioners.

PubMed Central

Parker, M

1990-01-01

Debate continues over the acts/omissions doctrine, and over the concepts of duty and charity. Such issues inform the debate over the moral permissibility of euthanasia. Recent papers have emphasised moral sensitivity, medical intuitions, and sub-standard palliative care as some of the factors which should persuade us to regard euthanasia as morally unacceptable. I argue that these lines of argument are conceptually misdirected and have no bearing on the bare permissibility of voluntary euthanasia. Further, some of the familiar slippery slope arguments against voluntary euthanasia compromise the principle of autonomy to which both supporters and opponents of euthanasia adhere. I discuss a model for doctor/patient relationships which can be applied to cases which would be seen by all disputants as strong prima facie cases for euthanasia. I argue that in certain cases it will be ordinary medical practitioners who are duty-bound to assist death. PMID:2319570

Moral intuition, good deaths and ordinary medical practitioners.

PubMed

Parker, M

1990-03-01

Debate continues over the acts/omissions doctrine, and over the concepts of duty and charity. Such issues inform the debate over the moral permissibility of euthanasia. Recent papers have emphasised moral sensitivity, medical intuitions, and sub-standard palliative care as some of the factors which should persuade us to regard euthanasia as morally unacceptable. I argue that these lines of argument are conceptually misdirected and have no bearing on the bare permissibility of voluntary euthanasia. Further, some of the familiar slippery slope arguments against voluntary euthanasia compromise the principle of autonomy to which both supporters and opponents of euthanasia adhere. I discuss a model for doctor/patient relationships which can be applied to cases which would be seen by all disputants as strong prima facie cases for euthanasia. I argue that in certain cases it will be ordinary medical practitioners who are duty-bound to assist death.

Ethical sensitivity in professional practice: concept analysis.

PubMed

Weaver, Kathryn; Morse, Janice; Mitcham, Carl

2008-06-01

This paper is a report of a concept analysis of ethical sensitivity. Ethical sensitivity enables nurses and other professionals to respond morally to the suffering and vulnerability of those receiving professional care and services. Because of its significance to nursing and other professional practices, ethical sensitivity deserves more focused analysis. A criteria-based method oriented toward pragmatic utility guided the analysis of 200 papers and books from the fields of nursing, medicine, psychology, dentistry, clinical ethics, theology, education, law, accounting or business, journalism, philosophy, political and social sciences and women's studies. This literature spanned 1970 to 2006 and was sorted by discipline and concept dimensions and examined for concept structure and use across various contexts. The analysis was completed in September 2007. Ethical sensitivity in professional practice develops in contexts of uncertainty, client suffering and vulnerability, and through relationships characterized by receptivity, responsiveness and courage on the part of professionals. Essential attributes of ethical sensitivity are identified as moral perception, affectivity and dividing loyalties. Outcomes include integrity preserving decision-making, comfort and well-being, learning and professional transcendence. Our findings promote ethical sensitivity as a type of practical wisdom that pursues client comfort and professional satisfaction with care delivery. The analysis and resulting model offers an inclusive view of ethical sensitivity that addresses some of the limitations with prior conceptualizations.

Living Slow and Being Moral : Life History Predicts the Dual Process of Other-Centered Reasoning and Judgments.

PubMed

Zhu, Nan; Hawk, Skyler T; Chang, Lei

2018-06-01

Drawing from the dual process model of morality and life history theory, the present research examined the role of cognitive and emotional processes as bridges between basic environmental challenges (i.e., unpredictability and competition) and other-centered moral orientation (i.e., prioritizing the welfare of others). In two survey studies, cognitive and emotional processes represented by future-oriented planning and emotional attachment, respectively (Study 1, N = 405), or by perspective taking and empathic concern, respectively (Study 2, N = 424), positively predicted other-centeredness in prosocial moral reasoning (Study 1) and moral judgment dilemmas based on rationality or intuition (Study 2). Cognitive processes were more closely related to rational aspects of other-centeredness, whereas the emotional processes were more closely related to the intuitive aspects of other-centeredness (Study 2). Finally, the cognitive and emotional processes also mediated negative effects of unpredictability (i.e., negative life events and childhood financial insecurity), as well as positive effects of individual-level, contest competition (i.e., educational and occupational competition) on other-centeredness. Overall, these findings support the view that cognitive and emotional processes do not necessarily contradict each other. Rather, they might work in concert to promote other-centeredness in various circumstances and might be attributed to humans' developmental flexibility in the face of environmental challenges.

Synthetic Biology between Self-Regulation and Public Discourse: Ethical Issues and the Many Roles of the Ethicist.

PubMed

Arnason, Gardar

2017-04-01

This article discusses the roles of ethicists in the governance of synthetic biology. I am particularly concerned with the idea of self-regulation of bioscience and its relationship to public discourse about ethical issues in bioscience. I will look at the role of philosophical ethicists at different levels and loci, from the "embedded ethicist" in the laboratory or research project, to ethicists' impact on policy and public discourse. In a democratic society, the development of governance frameworks for emerging technologies, such as synthetic biology, needs to be guided by a well-informed public discourse. In the case of synthetic biology, the public discourse has to go further than merely considering technical issues of biosafety and biosecurity, or risk management, to consider more philosophical issues concerning the meaning and value of "life" between the natural and the synthetic. I argue that ethicists have moral expertise to bring to the public arena, which consists not only in guiding the debate but also in evaluating arguments and moral positions and making normative judgments. When ethicists make normative claims or moral judgments, they must be transparent about their theoretical positions and basic moral standpoints.

Designing a good life: a matrix for the technological mediation of morality.

PubMed

Swierstra, Tsjalling; Waelbers, Katinka

2012-03-01

Technologies fulfill a social role in the sense that they influence the moral actions of people, often in unintended and unforeseen ways. Scientists and engineers are already accepting much responsibility for the technological, economical and environmental aspects of their work. This article asks them to take an extra step, and now also consider the social role of their products. The aim is to enable engineers to take a prospective responsibility for the future social roles of their technologies by providing them with a matrix that helps to explore in advance how emerging technologies might plausibly affect the reasons behind people's (moral) actions. On the horizontal axis of the matrix, we distinguished the three basic types of reasons that play a role in practical judgment: what is the case, what can be done and what should be done. On the vertical axis we distinguished the morally relevant classes of issues: stakeholders, consequences and the good life. To illustrate how this matrix may work in practice, the final section applies the matrix to the case of the Google PowerMeter. © The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Moral distress and its contribution to the development of burnout syndrome among critical care providers.

PubMed

Fumis, Renata Rego Lins; Junqueira Amarante, Gustavo Adolpho; de Fátima Nascimento, Andréia; Vieira Junior, José Mauro

2017-12-01

Burnout appears to be common among critical care providers. It is characterized by three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment. Moral distress is the inability of a moral agent to act according to his or her core values and perceived obligations due to internal and external constraints. We aimed to estimate the correlation between moral distress and burnout among all intensive care unit (ICU) and the step-down unit (SDU) providers (physicians, nurses, nurse technicians and respiratory therapists). A survey was conducted from August to September 2015. For data collection, a self-administered questionnaire for each critical care provider was used including basic demographic data, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Moral Distress Scale-Revised (MDS-R). Correlation analysis between MBI domains and moral distress score and regression analysis to assess independent variables associated with burnout were performed. A total of 283 out of 389 (72.7%) critical care providers agreed to participate. The same team of physicians attended both ICU and SDU, and severe burnout was identified in 18.2% of them. Considering all others critical care providers of both units, we identified that overall 23.1% (95% CI 18.0-28.8%) presented severe burnout, and it did not differ between professional categories. The mean MDS-R rate for all ICU and SDU respondents was 111.5 and 104.5, respectively, p = 0.446. Many questions from MDS-R questionnaire were significantly associated with burnout, and those respondents with high MDS-R score (>100 points) were more likely to suffer from burnout (28.9 vs 14.4%, p = 0.010). After regression analysis, moral distress was independently associated with burnout (OR 2.4, CI 1.19-4.82, p = 0.014). Moral distress, resulting from therapeutic obstinacy and the provision of futile care, is an important issue among critical care providers' team, and it was significantly associated with severe burnout.

Impact of Psychopathy on Moral Judgments about Causing Fear and Physical Harm

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Psychopathy is a personality variable associated with persistent immoral behaviors. Despite this, attempts to link moral reasoning deficits to psychopathic traits have yielded mixed results with many findings supporting intact moral reasoning in individuals with psychopathic traits. Abundant evidence shows that psychopathy impairs responses to others’ emotional distress. However, most studies of morality and psychopathy focus on judgments about causing others physical harm. Results of such studies may be inconsistent because physical harm is an imperfect proxy for emotional distress. No previous paradigm has explicitly separated judgments about physical harm and emotional distress and assessed how psychopathy affects each type of judgment. In three studies we found that psychopathy impairs judgments about causing others emotional distress (specifically fear) but minimally affects judgments about causing physical harm and that judgments about causing fear predict instrumental aggression in psychopathy. These findings are consistent with reports linking psychopathy to insensitivity to others’ fear, and suggest that sensitivity to others’ fear may play a fundamental role in the types of moral decision-making impaired by psychopathy. PMID:25992566

Dirty Money: The Role of Moral History in Economic Judgments.

PubMed

Tasimi, Arber; Gelman, Susan A

2017-04-01

Although traditional economic models posit that money is fungible, psychological research abounds with examples that deviate from this assumption. Across eight experiments, we provide evidence that people construe physical currency as carrying traces of its moral history. In Experiments 1 and 2, people report being less likely to want money with negative moral history (i.e., stolen money). Experiments 3-5 provide evidence against an alternative account that people's judgments merely reflect beliefs about the consequences of accepting stolen money rather than moral sensitivity. Experiment 6 examines whether an aversion to stolen money may reflect contamination concerns, and Experiment 7 indicates that people report they would donate stolen money, thereby counteracting its negative history with a positive act. Finally, Experiment 8 demonstrates that, even in their recall of actual events, people report a reduced tendency to accept tainted money. Altogether, these findings suggest a robust tendency to evaluate money based on its moral history, even though it is designed to participate in exchanges that effectively erase its origins. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Listening to the Third Voices of Pangasinan Students: Designing and Enacting Culturally Sensitive Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilder, Phillip

2015-01-01

This response builds upon Marie Paz Morales' "Influence of culture and language sensitive physics on science attitude achievement" by exploring how an expanded understanding of the ubiquitous nature of adolescent literacy practices and identities challenge traditional notions of "in school" and "out of school"…

Self-Knowledge, Capacity and Sensitivity: Prerequisites to Authentic Leadership by School Principals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Begley, Paul T.

2006-01-01

Purpose: The article proposes three prerequisites to authentic leadership by school principals: self-knowledge, a capacity for moral reasoning, and sensitivity to the orientations of others. Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual framework, based on research on the valuation processes of school principals and their strategic responses to…

Measuring value sensitivity in medicine.

PubMed

Ineichen, Christian; Christen, Markus; Tanner, Carmen

2017-01-28

Value sensitivity - the ability to recognize value-related issues when they arise in practice - is an indispensable competence for medical practitioners to enter decision-making processes related to ethical questions. However, the psychological competence of value sensitivity is seldom an explicit subject in the training of medical professionals. In this contribution, we outline the traditional concept of moral sensitivity in medicine and its revised form conceptualized as value sensitivity and we propose an instrument that measures value sensitivity. We developed an instrument for assessing the sensitivity for three value groups (moral-related values, values related to the principles of biomedical ethics, strategy-related values) in a four step procedure: 1) value identification (n = 317); 2) value representation (n = 317); 3) vignette construction and quality evaluation (n = 37); and 4) instrument validation by comparing nursing professionals with hospital managers (n = 48). We find that nursing professionals recognize and ascribe importance to principle-related issues more than professionals from hospital management. The latter are more likely to recognize and ascribe importance to strategy-related issues. These hypothesis-driven results demonstrate the discriminatory power of our newly developed instrument, which makes it useful not only for health care professionals in practice but for students and people working in the clinical context as well.

Competition among cooperators: Altruism and reciprocity

PubMed Central

Danielson, Peter

2002-01-01

Levine argues that neither self-interest nor altruism explains experimental results in bargaining and public goods games. Subjects' preferences appear also to be sensitive to their opponents' perceived altruism. Sethi and Somanathan provide a general account of reciprocal preferences that survive under evolutionary pressure. Although a wide variety of reciprocal strategies pass this evolutionary test, Sethi and Somanthan conjecture that fewer are likely to survive when reciprocal strategies compete with each other. This paper develops evolutionary agent-based models to test their conjecture in cases where reciprocal preferences can differ in a variety of games. We confirm that reciprocity is necessary but not sufficient for optimal cooperation. We explore the theme of competition among reciprocal cooperators and display three interesting emergent organizations: racing to the “moral high ground,” unstable cycles of preference change, and, when we implement reciprocal mechanisms, hierarchies resulting from exploiting fellow cooperators. If reciprocity is a basic mechanism facilitating cooperation, we can expect interaction that evolves around it to be complex, non-optimal, and resistant to change. PMID:12011403

Enhanced visual awareness for morality and pajamas? Perception vs. memory in 'top-down' effects.

PubMed

Firestone, Chaz; Scholl, Brian J

2015-03-01

A raft of prominent findings has revived the notion that higher-level cognitive factors such as desire, meaning, and moral relevance can directly affect what we see. For example, under conditions of brief presentation, morally relevant words reportedly "pop out" and are easier to identify than morally irrelevant words. Though such results purport to show that perception itself is sensitive to such factors, much of this research instead demonstrates effects on visual recognition--which necessarily involves not only visual processing per se, but also memory retrieval. Here we report three experiments which suggest that many alleged top-down effects of this sort are actually effects on 'back-end' memory rather than 'front-end' perception. In particular, the same methods used to demonstrate popout effects for supposedly privileged stimuli (such as morality-related words, e.g. "punishment" and "victim") also yield popout effects for unmotivated, superficial categories (such as fashion-related words, e.g. "pajamas" and "stiletto"). We conclude that such effects reduce to well-known memory processes (in this case, semantic priming) that do not involve morality, and have no implications for debates about whether higher-level factors influence perception. These case studies illustrate how it is critical to distinguish perception from memory in alleged 'top-down' effects. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Educational Messages in Tevfik Fikret's Poems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Erdal, Kelime

2011-01-01

Being in the education community for long years, Tevfik Fikret aims to educate children and teenagers with the works he has written while he is carrying out his profession. Knowing child's world very well, the poet gives messages which can be counted valid in today's education perception. Emphasizing the basic humanistic and moral values such as…

Intercultural Philosophy and the Nondual Wisdom of "Basic Goodness": Implications for Contemplative and Transformative Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eppert, Claudia; Vokey, Daniel; Nguyen, Tram Truong Anh; Bai, Heesoon

2015-01-01

Radical personal and systemic social transformation is urgently needed to address world-wide violence and inequality, pervasive moral confusion and corruption, and the rapid, unprecedented global destruction of our environment. Recent years have seen an embrace of intersubjectivity within discourse on educational transformation within academia and…

The Re-Emergence of Character Education in British Education Policy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arthur, James

2005-01-01

Character education is a specific approach to morals or values education, which is consistently linked with citizenship education. But how is it possible for a heterogeneous society that disagrees about basic values to reach a consensus on what constitutes character education? This article explores how character education has returned to the…

The Pedagogic Signature of the Teaching Profession

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kiel, Ewald; Lerche, Thomas; Kollmannsberger, Markus; Oubaid, Viktor; Weiss, Sabine

2016-01-01

Lee S. Shulman deplores that the field of education as a profession does not have a pedagogic signature, which he characterizes as a synthesis of cognitive, practical and moral apprenticeship. In this context, the following study has three goals: 1) In the first theoretical part, the basic problems of constructing a pedagogic signature are…

Process versus Product: What Ethic Does the FCS-BOK Uphold?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roubanis, Jody L.

2017-01-01

Fundamental moral implications for professional practice inherent to the Family and Consumer Sciences Body of Knowledge (FCS-BOK) are revealed by using paradigms conventional to normative ethics. A product-oriented teleological ethic is linked to the FCS-BOK core concepts: basic human needs, individual well-being, family strengths, and community…

Collective Bargaining: An Educational Technology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Brien, Gavin W.

Collective bargaining is a technology and not a philosophy or set of moral values. There seems to be an almost irresistible urge among authors of educational bargaining statutes to adopt the basic tenets of private-sector labor law. However, employment and collective bargaining are different in the public sector than in the private sector, and one…

The Vatican and Unesco Link Efforts for World Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ryan, Leo V., Brother

1970-01-01

The problem of functional literacy has been recognized as a moral issue and offers a special challenge to religious authorities. Founded at the Vatican level in March 1969, the Committee on Human Development was commissioned to promote and animate efforts in: (a) basic education; (b) leadership training; (c) vocational education; (d) opinion…

Even Wars Have Laws: Upholding an American Tradition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adhihetty, T. J.

2010-01-01

Since the founding of this nation, Americans have lived by the belief that wars have laws. Even in the most morally-challenging times, the principles of international humanitarian law (IHL)--which provide basic protections for the vulnerable, such as civilians, prisoners of war, and sick and injured combatants--have been championed by leaders like…

Shifting forest value orientations in the United States, 1980-2001: A computer content analysis

Treesearch

David N. Bengston; Trevor J. Webb; David P. Fan

2004-01-01

This paper examines three forest value orientations - clusters of interrelated values and basic beliefs about forests - that emerged from an analysis of the public discourse about forest planning, management, and policy in the United States. The value orientations include anthropocentric, biocentric, and moral/spiritual/aesthetic orientations toward forests. Computer...

Factors Affecting the Acquisition and Retention of College Faculty. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Balyeat, Ralph E.

Employment satisfactions and dissatisfactions, with the accompanying levels of faculty morale and motivation, may be classified into 2 groups: those derived from the basic salary, and those derived from factors, practices and conditions not related to the salary, or so-called fringe benefits. This study was designed to identify and to…

A Cultural Psychology of Agency: Morality, Motivation, and Reciprocity.

PubMed

Miller, Joan G; Goyal, Namrata; Wice, Matthew

2017-09-01

We highlight the need to culturally broaden psychological theories of social development in providing an overview of our programs of cross-cultural research on interpersonal morality, motivation, and reciprocity. Our research demonstrates that whereas Americans tend to treat interpersonal morality as a matter of personal choice, Indians tend to treat it as a role-related duty. Furthermore, Americans associate greater satisfaction with acting autonomously than with acting to fulfill social expectations, whereas Indians associate high levels of satisfaction with both types of cases. We also demonstrate that cultural variation exists in reliance on communal norms versus reciprocal exchange norms in everyday social support interactions among American, Indian, and Japanese populations, with these norms providing a background for contrasting experiences of agency. In conclusion, we highlight the contributions of cultural research to basic psychological theory. Although cultural research provides greater awareness of diversity in psychological functioning, its fundamental value is to contribute new insights into the theoretical formulations and methodological stances adopted in the discipline more generally.

The ethics of heroism in medieval and American Indian tales.

PubMed

Scott, A

1990-01-01

Oral-traditional stories detail their heroes' growth through a narrative pattern of exile and return that places the heroes in situations repeatedly challenging their strength and resolve. Through the motif of the quest, medieval and American Indian tales alike reaffirm general psychological truths that bear upon our understanding of human nature. Stories about heroes are stories about us: about our desires to grow up, to defeat death, to prove ourselves in difficult situations, and to achieve recognition or admiration among our peers (Becker, 1973, p. 4). In this way, medieval and American Indian tales are about self-actualization. They maintain that "one has within oneself proclivity toward growth and unity of personality ... and an automatic thrust toward expression" of these qualities (Yalom, 1980, p. 9). All forms of literature, however, reflect ideas peculiar to their cultures. The ways in which these basic human truths are represented in medieval and American Indian tales suggest the differing religious or social concerns that have informed these truths and have given them shape. To a large degree, the medieval knight's view of "self" and "other" encompasses the view that Western humanity has had (and continues to have) of itself. This is a view conditioned upon the superiority of the "self" as measured against the inferiority of the "other," reinforced through existing social (hierarchial) and religious (Judeo-Christian) codes of behavior. Such codes are not only inadequate to the task of interpreting American Indian perceptions of "self" and "other," they are inimical to the ethical foundation underlying them. Scott Momaday remarks that "you cannot understand how the Indian thinks of himself in relation to the world around him unless you understand his conception of what is appropriate; particularly what is morally appropriate within the context of that relationship" (Basso, 1984, p. 46). For the American Indian hero, self-actualization is self-transcendence. By "becoming a part of something greater" than himself, the American Indian hero sustains a moral vision that not only reveals his "latent nobility" but also protects, even strengthens, the relational fabric of his community. By reading these and other American Indian tales, Western healers may become more sensitive to the moral conflicts uniquely experienced by American Indians and to the needs of others who desire to revise or strengthen their own moral structures by including ideas of relatedness and relationship.

Bioethics of life programs: taking seriously moral pluralism in clinical settings.

PubMed

Niebroj, Leslaw

2010-11-04

In the more and more globalized world, the experience of moral pluralism (often related to, or based upon, religious pluralism) has become a common issue which ethical importance is undeniable. Potential conflicts between patients' and therapeutic teams' moral views and between moral beliefs of the particular member of this team are being resolved in the light of bioethical theories, among which principlism remains the mainstream approach to biomedical ethics. The question arises, however, whether this approach, in itself, as being strictly bound to the specific and distinct American philosophical tradition, is to be considered the tool for so called ?moral imperialism'. Also architectures of principlism, in particular by elaborating the concept of common morality, defend the applicability of their theory to the pluralistic settings, it should be emphasized that the idea that some norms and standards of moral character are shared by all morally serious people in every culture has attracted criticism both from empirical as well as theoretical backgrounds. This paper aims at reconsidering principlism so that it would be more suitable for resolving moral dilemma in ethically pluralistic clinical settings. Lakatos' sophisticated methodological falsification is used into two different ways: (1) to construct a concept of 'life programs' and (2) to confront a newly elaborated ethical theory with principlism. The reflection is limited to the norms related to the key issue in clinical ethics, i.e., respecting the patient's autonomy. The concepts of common morality and particular moralities are interpreted (in the light of Lakatos' philosophy of sciences) as "hard core" and "protective belt" of life programs, respectively. Accepting diversity of research programs, Lakatos maintains the idea of the objectivity of truth. Analogously, the plurality of life programs does not put into question the objectivity of moral values. The plurality of moral norms not only respects the objectivity of the good, but also can be seen as a condition sine qua non of such objectivity in the changing socio-historical context of doctor-patient relationship. The life program approach to bioethics and clinical ethics in particular, can be seen as a form of widening of principlism. This new approach, being non-relativistic, is at the same time sensitive to moral pluralism experienced in everyday medical practice.

Bioethics of life programs: Taking seriously moral pluralism in clinical settings

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background In the more and more globalized world, the experience of moral pluralism (often related to, or based upon, religious pluralism) has become a common issue which ethical importance is undeniable. Potential conflicts between patients' and therapeutic teams' moral views and between moral beliefs of the particular member of this team are being resolved in the light of bioethical theories, among which principlism remains the mainstream approach to biomedical ethics. The question arises, however, whether this approach, in itself, as being strictly bound to the specific and distinct American philosophical tradition, is to be considered the tool for so called 'moral imperialism'. Also architectures of principlism, in particular by elaborating the concept of common morality, defend the applicability of their theory to the pluralistic settings, it should be emphasized that the idea that some norms and standards of moral character are shared by all morally serious people in every culture has attracted criticism both from empirical as well as theoretical backgrounds. Objective This paper aims at reconsidering principlism so that it would be more suitable for resolving moral dilemma in ethically pluralistic clinical settings. Methods Lakatos' sophisticated methodological falsification is used into two different ways: (1) to construct a concept of 'life programs' and (2) to confront a newly elaborated ethical theory with principlism. The reflection is limited to the norms related to the key issue in clinical ethics, i.e., respecting the patient's autonomy. Results The concepts of common morality and particular moralities are interpreted (in the light of Lakatos' philosophy of sciences) as 'hard core' and 'protective belt' of life programs, respectively. Accepting diversity of research programs, Lakatos maintains the idea of the objectivity of truth. Analogously, the plurality of life programs does not put into question the objectivity of moral values. The plurality of moral norms not only respects the objectivity of the good, but also can be seen as a condition sine qua non of such objectivity in the changing socio-historical context of doctor-patient relationship. Conclusions The life program approach to bioethics and clinical ethics in particular, can be seen as a form of widening of principlism. This new approach, being non-relativistic, is at the same time sensitive to moral pluralism experienced in everyday medical practice. PMID:21147632

A framework for understanding moral distress among palliative care clinicians.

PubMed

Rushton, Cynda H; Kaszniak, Alfred W; Halifax, Joan S

2013-09-01

Palliative care clinicians confront suffering as they care for people living with life-limiting conditions. When the degree of suffering becomes unjustified, moral distress can ensue. Promising work from neuroscience and social psychology has yet to be applied to clinical practice. Our objective was to expand a social psychology model focusing on empathy and compassion in response to suffering to include an ethical dimension and to examine how the interrelationships of its proposed components can assist clinicians in understanding their responses to morally distressing situations. In the clinical context, responses to distressing events are thought to include four dimensions: empathy (emotional attunement), perspective taking (cognitive attunement), memory (personal experience), and moral sensitivity (ethical attunement). These dynamically intertwined dimensions create the preconditions for how clinicians respond to a triggering event instigated by an ethical conflict or dilemma. We postulate that if the four dimensions are highly aligned, the intensity and valence of emotional arousal will influence ethical appraisal and discernment by engaging a robust view of the ethical issues, conflicts, and possible solutions and cultivating compassionate action and resilience. In contrast, if they are not, ethical appraisal and discernment will be deficient, creating emotional disregulation and potentially leading to personal and moral distress, self-focused behaviors, unregulated moral outrage, burnout, and secondary stress. The adaptation and expansion of a conceptual framework offers a promising approach to designing interventions that help clinicians mitigate the detrimental consequences of unregulated moral distress and to build the resilience necessary to sustain themselves in clinical service.

* Ethical Issues in the Use of Animal Models for Tissue Engineering: Reflections on Legal Aspects, Moral Theory, Three Rs Strategies, and Harm-Benefit Analysis.

PubMed

Liguori, Gabriel R; Jeronimus, Bertus F; de Aquinas Liguori, Tácia T; Moreira, Luiz Felipe P; Harmsen, Martin C

2017-12-01

Animal experimentation requires a solid and rational moral foundation. Objective and emphatic decision-making and protocol evaluation by researchers and ethics committees remain a difficult and sensitive matter. This article presents three perspectives that facilitate a consideration of the minimally acceptable standard for animal experiments, in particular, in tissue engineering (TE) and regenerative medicine. First, we review the boundaries provided by law and public opinion in America and Europe. Second, we review contemporary moral theory to introduce the Neo-Rawlsian contractarian theory to objectively evaluate the ethics of animal experiments. Third, we introduce the importance of available reduction, replacement, and refinement strategies, which should be accounted for in moral decision-making and protocol evaluation of animal experiments. The three perspectives are integrated into an algorithmic and graphic harm-benefit analysis tool based on the most relevant aspects of animal models in TE. We conclude with a consideration of future avenues to improve animal experiments.

[What kind of ethical education for pharmacists is necessary? Can "the core curriculum model for pharmacology education" provide the needed guidance?].

PubMed

Matsuda, Jun

2009-07-01

Section A of "The core curriculum model for pharmacy education" (2002)- "Learning about Humanism"- outlines the educational contents for ethics in pharmaceutical departments. People who read this section are likely to conclude that the cultivation of human sensitivity is of prime importance in ethics education in pharmacy. However, if a pharmacist found herself or himself on the horns of a moral dilemma during clinical practice, she/he may discover that human sensitivity alone may not provide the answer. When searching for ethically appropriate conduct in concrete cases, both moral insight and good judgment are necessary. The main contents of ethics education in a pharmaceutical department should be instruction in the ethics of medicine and pharmacy and practical exercises in handling moral dilemmas that pharmacists might encounter in actual situations. "Humanism" implies not only humanitarianism but also anthropocentricism. Plants, animals, and ecological systems are considered to be objects of ethical concern in some contemporary ethics, such as L. Siep's "Concrete Ethics (Konkrete Ethik, 2004)". The pharmacist's job specifications require her or him to treat laboratory animals ethically and to have environmental consciousness. Humanism-based ethics are too narrow for pharmacy ethics. Pharmacy students should learn a more comprehensive ethics that covers social ethics, bioethics, and environmental ethics. Such ethics and moral training should be given, especially, both before and after long-term practical training in hospitals and pharmacies.

Paradoxical consequences of prohibitions.

PubMed

Sheikh, Sana; Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie

2013-08-01

Explanations based in attribution theory claim that strong external controls such as parental restrictiveness and punishment undermine moral internalization. In contrast, 3 studies provide evidence that parental punishment does socialize morality, but of a particular sort: a morality focused on prohibitions (i.e., proscriptive orientation) rather than positive obligations (i.e., prescriptive orientation). Study 1 found young adults' accounts of parental restrictiveness and punishment activated their sensitivity to prohibitions and predicted a proscriptive orientation. Consistent with the greater potency of temptations for proscriptively oriented children, as well as past research linking shame to proscriptive morality, Study 2 found that restrictive parenting was also associated with greater suppression of temptations. Finally, Studies 3A and 3B found that suppressing these immoral thoughts is paradoxically harder for those with strong proscriptive orientations; more specifically, priming a proscriptive (versus prescriptive) orientation and inducing mental suppression of "immoral" thoughts led to the most ego depletion for those with restrictive parents. Overall, individuals who had restrictive parents had the lowest self-regulatory ability to resist their "immoral" temptations after prohibitions were activated. In contrast to common attributional explanations, these studies suggest that harsh external control by parents does not undercut moral socialization but rather undermines individuals' ability to resist temptation.

Autonomic correlates of physical and moral disgust.

PubMed

Ottaviani, Cristina; Mancini, Francesco; Petrocchi, Nicola; Medea, Barbara; Couyoumdjian, Alessandro

2013-07-01

Given that the hypothesis of a common origin of physical and moral disgust has received sparse empirical support, this study aimed to shed light on the subjective and autonomic signatures of these two facets of the same emotional response. Participants (20 men, 20 women) were randomly assigned to physical or moral disgust induction by the use of audio scripts while their electrocardiogram was continuously recorded. Affect ratings were obtained before and after the induction. Time and frequency domain heart rate variability (HRV) measures were obtained. After controlling for disgust sensitivity (DS-R) and obsessive-compulsive (OCI-R) tendencies, both scripts elicited disgust but whereas the physical script elicited a feeling of dirtiness, the moral script evoked more indignation and contempt. The disgust-induced subjective responses were associated with opposite patterns of autonomic reactivity: enhanced activity of the parasympathetic nervous system without concurrent changes in heart rate (HR) for physical disgust and decreased vagal tone and increased HR and autonomic imbalance for moral disgust. Results suggest that immorality relies on the same biological root of physical disgust only in subjects with obsessive compulsive tendencies. Disgust appears to be a heterogeneous response that varies based on the individuals' contamination-based appraisal. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Assessing social cognition: age-related changes in moral reasoning in childhood and adolescence.

PubMed

Chiasson, V; Vera-Estay, E; Lalonde, G; Dooley, J J; Beauchamp, M H

2017-04-01

There is increasing recognition that socio-cognitive skills, such as moral reasoning (MR), are affected in a wide range of developmental and neuropsychological conditions. However, the lack of appropriate measures available to neuropsychologists poses a challenge for the direct assessment of these skills. This study sought to explore age-related changes in MR using an innovative visual tool and examine the developmental sensitivity of the task. To address some of the methodological limitations of traditional measures of MR, a novel, visual task, the Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level (So-Moral), was used to evaluate MR in 216 healthy participants aged 6-20 years. The findings show a linear increase in MR from childhood to late adolescence with significant group differences between childhood (6-8 years) and preadolescence (9-11 years), and between early adolescence (12-14 years) and middle adolescence (15-17 years). Interpreted in light of current brain development research, the results highlight age-related changes in MR that offer insight into typical MR development and opportunities for comparisons with clinical populations. The findings also provide evidence of the potential of the So-Moral as a developmentally appropriate measure of MR throughout childhood and adolescence.

Three on Three: A Tale for Business Ethics Classes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

VanSandt, Craig V.

2005-01-01

This article presents a novel approach to teaching business ethics to college students by relying on well-known aids to learning new, complex, and/or abstract material. The primary purpose of this article is threefold: (a) to explore some of the reasons why learning the basics of moral philosophies is relatively difficult for many students; (b) to…

3 CFR 8357 - Proclamation 8357 of April 3, 2009. Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A., 2009

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... America A Proclamation The education we provide our children must prepare them to succeed in a global... workplace require a renewed commitment to education. Our youngest children need a strong early foundation... community institutions must also help each child develop a moral compass. Education must blend basic...

The Role of Artistic Experiences in the Comprehensive Inductive Educational Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kroflic, Robi

2012-01-01

Postmodern pedagogy is constantly confronted with Lyotard's condemnation of grand narratives found in the philosophy of modernity, on the basis of which basic patterns of moral education were developed. In searching for new answers to the question of how education can prepare individuals for life in an age of late modernity, this paper presents…

Being bad in a video game can make us more morally sensitive.

PubMed

Grizzard, Matthew; Tamborini, Ron; Lewis, Robert J; Wang, Lu; Prabhu, Sujay

2014-08-01

Several researchers have demonstrated that the virtual behaviors committed in a video game can elicit feelings of guilt. Researchers have proposed that such guilt could have prosocial consequences. However, this proposition has not been supported with empirical evidence. The current study examined this issue in a 2×2 (video game play vs. real world recollection×guilt vs. control) experiment. Participants were first randomly assigned to either play a video game or complete a memory recall task. Next, participants were randomly assigned to either a guilt-inducing condition (game play as a terrorist/recall of acts that induce guilt) or a control condition (game play as a UN soldier/recall of acts that do not induce guilt). Results of the study indicate several important findings. First, the current results replicate previous research indicating that immoral virtual behaviors are capable of eliciting guilt. Second, and more importantly, the guilt elicited by game play led to intuition-specific increases in the salience of violated moral foundations. These findings indicate that committing "immoral" virtual behaviors in a video game can lead to increased moral sensitivity of the player. The potential prosocial benefits of these findings are discussed.

Research into the origins and characteristics of unicorns: mental illness as the unicorn.

PubMed

Simon, L

2000-01-01

Basic research, particularly into the psychological and neurological underpinnings of schizophrenia and other "mental illnesses," is flawed because of its adherence to the ideology that unwanted, hard-to-understand behavior constitutes true medical illness. It is argued here that psychiatric diagnostic terms represent moral judgments rather than medical entities. By reducing experimental subjects to a moral label, and assuming that neurological differences associated with unwanted behavior are brain diseases, researchers fail to take into account the conscious experience, organization of self and self-image, patterns of motivation, history and social contexts of their patients. The failure to consider the psychology of their subjects renders the results of these studies ambiguous and irrelevant for any uses except bolstering the biomedical model of psychiatry.

Translational research-the need of a new bioethics approach.

PubMed

Hostiuc, Sorin; Moldoveanu, Alin; Dascălu, Maria-Iuliana; Unnthorsson, Runar; Jóhannesson, Ómar I; Marcus, Ioan

2016-01-15

Translational research tries to apply findings from basic science to enhance human health and well-being. Many phases of the translational research may include non-medical tasks (information technology, engineering, nanotechnology, biochemistry, animal research, economy, sociology, psychology, politics, and so on). Using common bioethics principles to these areas might sometimes be not feasible, or even impossible. However, the whole process must respect some fundamental, moral principles. The purpose of this paper is to argument the need for a different approach to the morality in translational bioethics, and to suggest some directions that might be followed when constructing such a bioethics. We will show that a new approach is needed and present a few ethical issues that are specific to the translational research.

Chinese nurses' perceived barriers and facilitators of ethical sensitivity.

PubMed

Huang, Fei Fei; Yang, Qing; Zhang, Jie; Khoshnood, Kaveh; Zhang, Jing Ping

2016-08-01

An overview of ethical sensitivity among Chinese registered nurses is needed to develop and optimize the education programs and interventions to cultivate and improve ethical sensitivity. The study was conducted to explore the barriers to and facilitators of ethical sensitivity among Chinese registered nurses working in hospital settings. A convergent parallel mixed-methods research design was adopted. In the cross-sectional quantitative study, the Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire-revised version was used to assess the levels of ethical sensitivity among registered nurses, and the scores were correlated with key demographics, training experiences in ethics, and workplace cultural environments (n = 306). In the qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were used to elicit the nurses' perceptions of the barriers and facilitators in nurturing ethical sensitivity (n = 15). The data were collected from February to June 2014. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Yale University and Central South University. Despite moderately high overall Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire-revised version scores, the ethical sensitivity among Chinese nurses lags in practice. Barriers to ethical sensitivity include the lack of knowledge related to ethics, lack of working experience as a nurse, the hierarchical organizational climate, and the conformist working attitude. The positive workplace cultural environments and application of ethical knowledge in practice were considered potential facilitators of ethical sensitivity. The findings of this study were compared with studies from other countries to examine the barriers and facilitators of ethical sensitivity in Chinese nurses. This mixed-methods study showed that even though the Chinese nurses have moderately high sensitivity to the ethical issues encountered in hospitals, there is still room for improvement. The barriers to and facilitators of ethical sensitivity identified here offer new and important strategies to support and enhance the nurses' sensitivity to ethical issues. © The Author(s) 2015.

Influence of uncertainty on framed decision-making with moral dilemma

PubMed Central

Mermillod, Martial; Le Pennec, Jean-Luc; Dutheil, Frédéric; Mondillon, Laurie

2018-01-01

In cases of impending natural disasters, most events are uncertain and emotionally relevant, both critical factors for decision-making. Moreover, for exposed individuals, the sensitivity to the framing of the consequences (gain or loss) and the moral judgments they have to perform (e.g., evacuate or help an injured person) constitute two central effects that have never been examined in the same context of decision-making. In a framed decision-making task with moral dilemma, we investigated whether uncertainty (i.e., unpredictably of events) and a threatening context would influence the framing effect (actions framed in loss are avoided in comparison to the ones framed in gain) and the personal intention effect (unintentional actions are more morally acceptable in comparison to intentional actions) on the perceived moral acceptability of taking action. Considering the impact of uncertainty and fear on the processes underlying these effects, we assumed that these emotions would lead to the negation of the two effects. Our results indicate that the exposure to uncertain events leads to the negation of the framing effect, but does not influence the moral acceptability and the effect of personal intention. We discuss our results in the light of dual-process models (i.e. systematic vs. heuristic), appraisal theories, and neurocognitive aspects. These elements highlight the importance of providing solutions to cope with uncertainty, both for scientists and local populations exposed to natural hazards. PMID:29847589

Influence of uncertainty on framed decision-making with moral dilemma.

PubMed

Merlhiot, Gaëtan; Mermillod, Martial; Le Pennec, Jean-Luc; Dutheil, Frédéric; Mondillon, Laurie

2018-01-01

In cases of impending natural disasters, most events are uncertain and emotionally relevant, both critical factors for decision-making. Moreover, for exposed individuals, the sensitivity to the framing of the consequences (gain or loss) and the moral judgments they have to perform (e.g., evacuate or help an injured person) constitute two central effects that have never been examined in the same context of decision-making. In a framed decision-making task with moral dilemma, we investigated whether uncertainty (i.e., unpredictably of events) and a threatening context would influence the framing effect (actions framed in loss are avoided in comparison to the ones framed in gain) and the personal intention effect (unintentional actions are more morally acceptable in comparison to intentional actions) on the perceived moral acceptability of taking action. Considering the impact of uncertainty and fear on the processes underlying these effects, we assumed that these emotions would lead to the negation of the two effects. Our results indicate that the exposure to uncertain events leads to the negation of the framing effect, but does not influence the moral acceptability and the effect of personal intention. We discuss our results in the light of dual-process models (i.e. systematic vs. heuristic), appraisal theories, and neurocognitive aspects. These elements highlight the importance of providing solutions to cope with uncertainty, both for scientists and local populations exposed to natural hazards.

Establishing ethics in an organization by using principles.

PubMed

Hawks, Val D; Benzley, Steven E; Terry, Ronald E

2004-04-01

Laws, codes, and rules are essential for any community, public or private, to operate in an orderly and productive fashion. Without laws and codes, anarchy and chaos abound and the purpose and role of the organization is lost. However, danger is significant, and damage serious and far-reaching when individuals or organizations become so focused on rules, laws, and specifications that basic principles are ignored. This paper discusses the purpose of laws, rules, and codes, to help understand basic principles. With such an understanding an increase in the level of ethical and moral behavior can be obtained without imposing detailed rules.

Which moral hazard? Health care reform under the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

PubMed

Mendoza, Roger Lee

2016-06-20

Purpose - Moral hazard is a concept that is central to risk and insurance management. It refers to change in economic behavior when individuals are protected or insured against certain risks and losses whose costs are borne by another party. It asserts that the presence of an insurance contract increases the probability of a claim and the size of a claim. Through the US Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, this study seeks to examine the validity and relevance of moral hazard in health care reform and determine how welfare losses or inefficiencies could be mitigated. Design/methodology/approach - This study is divided into three sections. The first contrasts conventional moral hazard from an emerging or alternative theory. The second analyzes moral hazard in terms of the evolution, organization, management, and marketing of health insurance in the USA. The third explains why and how salient reform measures under the ACA might induce health care consumption and production in ways that could either promote or restrict personal health and safety as well as social welfare maximization. Findings - Insurance generally induces health care (over) consumption. However, not every additional consumption, with or without adverse selection, can be considered wasteful or risky, even if it might cost insurers more in the short run. Moral hazard can generate welfare and equity gains. These gains might vary depending on which ACA provisions, insured population, covered illnesses, treatments, and services, as well as health outcomes are taken into account, and because of the relative ambiguities surrounding definitions of "health." Actuarial risk models can nonetheless benefit from incorporating welfare and equity gains into their basic assumptions and estimations. Originality/value - This is the first study which examines the ACA in the context of the new or alternative theory of moral hazard. It suggests that containing inefficient moral hazard, and encouraging its desirable counterpart, are prime challenges in any health care reform initiative, especially as it adapts to the changing demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the insured population and regulatory landscape of health insurance in the USA.

The influence of religious moral beliefs on adolescents' mental stability.

PubMed

Pajević, Izet; Hasanović, Mevludin; Delić, Amra

2007-09-01

The aim of this paper is to determine the influence of religious moral beliefs on the stability of adolescents' mental health. The sample consists of 240 mentally and physically healthy male and female adolescents attending a high school, who are divided into groups equalized by gender (male and female), age (younger 15, older 18 years); school achievement (very good, average student); behaviour (excellent, average); family structure (complete family with satisfactory family relations), and level of exposure to psycho-social stress (they were not exposed to specific traumatizing events). Subjects were assessed with regard to the level of belief in some basic ethical principles that arise from religious moral values. The score of religious moral belief index was used to compare two groups of subjects. For sample selection the measuring instruments were used to assess the religious, moral and social profile of subject. For the assessment of personality structure a standardized test battery (Freiburg's Personality Questionnaire/ Das Freiburger Personlichkeitsinventar - FPI, Profile Index of Emotions - PIE, Life Style Questionnaire - OM) was used to assess personality profile, emotional profile and subject's defence orientation. The score of the moral belief index was negatively correlated to neuroticism and depressiveness (Pearson's r=-0.242, P<0.001; r=-0.311, P<0.001, respectively). Spontaneous and reactive aggressiveness and irritability were negatively correlated with the score of moral belief index (Pearson's r=-0.197, P=0.002; r=-0.147, P=0.023; r=-0.350, P<0.001, respectively). Emotional instability is negatively associated with the moral belief index of the investigated adolescents (Pearson's r=-0.324, P<0.001). The moral belief index was highly negatively correlated with repression (r=-0.206, P=0.001), regression (r=-0.325, P<0.001), compensation (r=-0.186, P=0.004), transfer (r=-0.290, P<0.001) and defensive orientation (r=-0.129, P=0.046). Verified intellectualisation and reactive formation are in positive correlation with the moral belief index among our investigated adolescents (Pearson's r=0.168, P=0.009; r=0.356; P<0.001, respectively). A higher index of religious moral beliefs in adolescents enables better control of impulses, providing better mental health stability. It enables neurotic conflicts typical for adolescence to be more easily overcome. It also causes healthier reactions to external stimuli. A higher index of religious moral beliefs of young people provides a healthier and more efficient mechanism of anger control and aggression control. It enables transformation of that psychical energy into neutral energy which supports the growth and development of personality, which is expressed through socially acceptable behaviour. In this way, it helps growth, development and socialization of the personality, leading to the improvement in mental health.

Equity, autonomy, and efficiency: what health care system should we have?

PubMed

Menzel, Paul T

1992-02-01

The U.S. has a wide range of options in choosing a health care system. Rational choice of a system depends on analysis and prioritization of the basic moral goals of equitable access to all citizens, the just sharing of financial costs between well and ill, respect for the values and choices of subscribers and patients, and efficiency in the delivery of costworthy care. These moral goals themselves, however, tell us little about what health care system the United States should have. Equitable access does not demand a level and scope of care for the poor equal to that rationally chosen by the middle class, and there are ways within mixed systems, though not easy ways, to achieve a fair distribution of costs between well and ill. Despite pluralistic systems' apparent advantage in allowing subscribers to choose their own forms of rationing, problems in translating serious long-term subscriber choices into actual medical practice may be greater in pluralistic than in unitary systems. Final choice of a system hinges primarily on peculiar historical facts about U.S. political culture, not on moral principle.

Abortion: Strong's counterexamples fail.

PubMed

Di Nucci, E

2009-05-01

This paper shows that the counterexamples proposed by Strong in 2008 in the Journal of Medical Ethics to Marquis's argument against abortion fail. Strong's basic idea is that there are cases--for example, terminally ill patients--where killing an adult human being is prima facie seriously morally wrong even though that human being is not being deprived of a "valuable future". So Marquis would be wrong in thinking that what is essential about the wrongness of killing an adult human being is that they are being deprived of a valuable future. This paper shows that whichever way the concept of "valuable future" is interpreted, the proposed counterexamples fail: if it is interpreted as "future like ours", the proposed counterexamples have no bearing on Marquis's argument. If the concept is interpreted as referring to the patient's preferences, it must be either conceded that the patients in Strong's scenarios have some valuable future or admitted that killing them is not seriously morally wrong. Finally, if "valuable future" is interpreted as referring to objective standards, one ends up with implausible and unpalatable moral claims.

Trust, power, and vulnerability: a discourse on helping in nursing.

PubMed

Carter, Michele A

2009-12-01

This article uses philosophical inquiry to present the relationship between the helping role in nursing and the concept of trust essential to it. It characterizes helping as the moral center of the nurse-patient relationship and discusses how patients' expectations of help and caring create obligations of trustworthiness on the part of the nurse. It uses literature from various disciplines to examine different theoretical accounts of trust, each presenting important features of trust relationships that apply to health care professionals, patients, and families. Exploring the concept of trust, and the key leverage points that elicit it, develops a thesis that nurses can improve their understanding of the principal attributes and the conditions that foster or impede trust. The article concludes that trust is the core moral ingredient of helping relationships. Trust as a moral value is even more basic than duties of beneficence, respect, veracity, and autonomy. Trust is the confident expectation that others can be relied upon to act with good will and to secure what is best for the person seeking help.

The Beliefs-Behavior Connection: Leading Teachers Toward Change. The Key to Changing Teachers' Behavior is to Change their Basic Beliefs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hunzicker, Jana

2004-01-01

The author examines some of the reasons why teachers resist change and cites three main factors: lack of motivation; low levels of knowledge, experience, and comfort; and poor moral and ego development. She offers research-based suggestions for changing teacher behaviors through staff development focused on changing their beliefs over time.

The Dark and Bloody Mystery: Building Basic Writers' Confidence.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sledd, Robert

While the roots of students' fear of writing go deep, students fear most the surface of writing. They fear that a person's language indicates the state not only of the mind but of the soul--thus their writing can make them look stupid and morally depraved. This fear of error and lack of confidence prevent students from developing a command of the…

Why Students in Catholic Secondary Schools Should Study Pope John XXIII's Encyclical, "Pacem in Terris" (1963)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sweeney, James

2015-01-01

Pope John XXIII's final encyclical on the subject of peace, "Pacem in Terris," written after the Cuban missile crisis which he helped to resolve, is an extended treatment of the basic principles of political morality and particularly significant for its adoption--the first time by the Catholic Church--of the discourse of human rights.…

Who Caused the Pain? An fMRI Investigation of Empathy and Intentionality in Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Decety, Jean; Michalska, Kalina J.; Akitsuki, Yuko

2008-01-01

When we attend to other people in pain, the neural circuits underpinning the processing of first-hand experience of pain are activated in the observer. This basic somatic sensorimotor resonance plays a critical role in the primitive building block of empathy and moral reasoning that relies on the sharing of others' distress. However, the…

Finding common ground: environmental ethics, social justice, and a sustainable path for nature-based health promotion

Treesearch

Viniece Jennings; Jessica Yun; Lincoln  Larson

2016-01-01

Decades of research have documented continuous tension between anthropocentric needs and the environment’s capacity to accommodate those needs and support basic human welfare. The way in which society perceives, manages, and ultimately utilizes natural resources can be influenced by underlying environmental ethics, or the moral relationship that humans share with the...

Participatory Appropriation of Health Science by Primary School Students in Rural Zambia.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mwape, Gertrude; Serpell, Robert

The Child-to-Child (CtC) project involved school-age African children in monitoring younger children's weight and health (since much of the daily infant care in Africa is performed by preadolescents). CtC emphasizes local autonomy and is based on respect for children as morally responsible community members with a basic right to health and…

Preventive Intervention in Families at Risk: The Limits of Liberalism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Snik, Ger; De Jong, Johan; Van Haaften, Wouter

2004-01-01

There is an increasing call for preventive state interventions in so-called families at risk - that is, interventions before any overt harm has been done by parents to their children or by the children to a third party, in families that are statistically known to be liable to harm children. One of the basic principles of liberal morality, however,…

Human cloning and embryo research: the 2003 John J. Conley Lecture on medical ethics.

PubMed

George, Robert P

2004-01-01

The author, a member of the U.S. President's Council on Bioethics, discusses ethical issues raised by human cloning, whether for purposes of bringing babies to birth or for research purposes. He first argues that every cloned human embryo is a new, distinct, and enduring organism, belonging to the species Homo sapiens, and directing its own development toward maturity. He then distinguishes between two types of capacities belonging to individual organisms belonging to this species, an immediately exerciseable capacity and a basic natural capacity that develops over time. He argues that it is the second type of capacity that is the ground for full moral respect, and that this capacity (and its concomitant degree of respect) belongs to cloned human embryos no less than to adult human beings. He then considers and rejects counter-arguments to his position, including the suggestion that the capacity of embryos is equivalent to the capacity of somatic cells, that full human rights are afforded only to human organisms with functioning brains, that the possibility of twinning diminishes the moral status of embryos, that the fact that people do not typically mourn the loss of early embryos implies that they have a diminished moral status, that the fact that early spontaneous abortions occur frequently diminishes the moral status of embryos, and that his arguments depend upon a concept of ensoulment. He concludes that if the moral status of cloned human embryos is equivalent to that of adults, then public policy should be based upon this assumption.

The case for a moral sex education in the schools.

PubMed

Gordon, S

1981-04-01

The potential benefits of sex education cannot be realistically discussed without initially rooting out the fears and myths which prevent the active promotion of good programs. The truth of the situation is that knowledgeable and informed adolescents are more likely to postpone sexual relations until they feel emotionally ready and are able to take the necessary precautions against pregnancy and venereal disease. It is essential that sexuality programs be taught with values. When teaching contraception, the instructor needs to convey some basic guidelines. Sex education should be taught from the perspective that it is wrong to take advantage of another individual. The function of a "moral" education is to encourage people to strive toward the universally accepted ideals of this democratic and pluralistic society and to offer facts which facilitate responsible decision making. The value of equality of the sexes, dignity and respect for all human being must be taught. A great difference exists between being moral and being moralistic. In moralistic presentations the attempt is made a impose a personal point of view in a dogmatic way. Sex education programs are best taught from a moral perspective which encourages the accepted aspirations of this society while preserving individual liberty. Given these guidelines, even the most controversial subjects may be discussed in school within a moral framework. A quality sex education program must include the following principles: enhancing the self-concept; preparation for marriage and parenthood; understanding love; preparation for making responsible decisions; helping people understand the need for equal opportunities for males and for females; and contributing to knowledge and understanding of the sexual dimension of life.

Moral Duties of Genomics Researchers: Why Personalized Medicine Requires a Collective Approach.

PubMed

Vos, Shoko; van Delden, Johannes J M; van Diest, Paul J; Bredenoord, Annelien L

2017-02-01

Advances in genome sequencing together with the introduction of personalized medicine offer promising new avenues for research and precision treatment, particularly in the field of oncology. At the same time, the convergence of genomics, bioinformatics, and the collection of human tissues and patient data creates novel moral duties for researchers. After all, unprecedented amounts of potentially sensitive information are being generated. Over time, traditional research ethics principles aimed at protecting individual participants have become supplemented with social obligations related to the interests of society and the research enterprise at large, illustrating that genomic medicine is also a social endeavor. In this review we provide a comprehensive assembly of moral duties that have been attributed to genomics researchers and offer suggestions for responsible advancement of personalized genomic cancer care. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Deliberation at the hub of medical education: beyond virtue ethics and codes of practice.

PubMed

Barilan, Y M; Brusa, M

2013-02-01

Although both codes of practice and virtue ethics are integral to the ethos and history of "medical professionalism", the two trends appear mutually incompatible. Hence, in the first part of the paper we explore and explicate this apparent conflict and seek a direction for medical education. The theoretical and empirical literature indicates that moral deliberation may transcend the incompatibilities between the formal and the virtuous, may enhance moral and other aspects of personal sensitivity, may help design and improve other parts of the curricula, and may foster self-awareness and clarification of the professional role. Not only are these goals essential for good and conscientious doctoring, but they may also reduce physicians' "burn-out". We argue that medical education should focus on the ubiquitous practice of deliberation in contemporary medicine, and especially the practice of moral deliberation.

Surrogate mothering: exploitation or empowerment?

PubMed

Purdy, Laura M

1989-01-01

The morality of surrogate mothering is analyzed from a "consequentialist" framework which attempts to separate those consequences that invariably accompany a given act from those that accompany it only in particular circumstances. Critics of surrogacy argue that it transfers the burden and risk of pregnancy onto another woman, separates sex and reproduction, and separates reproduction and childrearing; none of these acts is necessarily wrong, either morally or for women's or society's basic interests. While surrogate mothering can be rendered immoral if women are coerced into the practice or become victims of subordinating or penalizing contracts, it has the potential to empower women and increase their status in society by providing a job that is less risky and more enjoyable than other jobs women are forced to take and by achieving greater social recognition for reproductive labor.

Towards a strong virtue ethics for nursing practice.

PubMed

Armstrong, Alan E

2006-07-01

Illness creates a range of negative emotions in patients including anxiety, fear, powerlessness, and vulnerability. There is much debate on the 'therapeutic' or 'helping' nurse-patient relationship. However, despite the current agenda regarding patient-centred care, the literature concerning the development of good interpersonal responses and the view that a satisfactory nursing ethics should focus on persons and character traits rather than actions, nursing ethics is dominated by the traditional obligation, act-centred theories such as consequentialism and deontology. I critically examine these theories and the role of duty-based notions in both general ethics and nursing practice. Because of well-established flaws, I conclude that obligation-based moral theories are incomplete and inadequate for nursing practice. I examine the work of Hursthouse on virtue ethics' action guidance and the v-rules. I argue that the moral virtues and a strong (action-guiding) version of virtue ethics provide a plausible and viable alternative for nursing practice. I develop an account of a virtue-based helping relationship and a virtue-based approach to nursing. The latter is characterized by three features: (1) exercising the moral virtues such as compassion; (2) using judgement; and (3) using moral wisdom, understood to include at least moral perception, moral sensitivity, and moral imagination. Merits and problems of the virtue-based approach are examined. I relate the work of MacIntyre to nursing and I conceive nursing as a practice: nurses who exercise the virtues and seek the internal goods help to sustain the practice of nursing and thus prevent the marginalization of the virtues. The strong practice-based version of virtue ethics proposed is context-dependent, particularist, and relational. Several areas for future philosophical inquiry and empirical nursing research are suggested to develop this account yet further.

The Well-being Conception of Health and the Conflation Problem.

PubMed

de Campos, Thana C

2016-04-01

Human rights advocates often use inflated and thus underspecified terminologies when addressing the content of their claims. One example of such loose terminology is the term 'well-being', as currently employed in connection with a definition for the right to health. What I call the 'well-being conception of health' conflates the distinct ideas of basic and non-basic health needs, as well as those of individual autonomy and freedom. I call this the conflation problem. This paper argues for the need of an understanding of the right to health, nuanced enough to capture not only these distinct ideas, but also their moral relevance for the common good.

Discussion and theoretical summarization of the experimental data. [psychophysiology in human factors engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mileryan, Y. A.

1975-01-01

A summary of research on psychological factors that cause substantial changes in the reliability indicators of an operators work is followed by a conclusion that strong moral-volitional qualities are the basic factors that make the human behavior under conditions of stress effective; emotional subcortical subdominants affect a person's conscious organization and self control in a man machine environment.

Operational Ethics: Just War and Implications for Contemporary American Warfare

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-05-22

will mutually share those values.12 Today, those values are manifested in the secular society in the form of ethics and basic human morality, what is...Approved for Public Release; Distribution is Unlimited Operational Ethics : Just War and Implications for Contemporary American Warfare A Monograph...a denkschrift through which the author hopes to inspire discussions on operational ethics among professional officers and civilian proponents of

We Are Going to Name Names and Call You Out! Improving the Team in the Academic Operating Room Environment.

PubMed

Bodor, Richard; Nguyen, Brian J; Broder, Kevin

2017-05-01

Communication failures between multidisciplinary teams can impact efficiency, performance, and morale. Academic operating rooms (ORs) often have surgical, anesthesia, and nursing teams, each teaching multiple trainees. Incorrectly identifying name and "rank" (postgraduate year [PGY]) of resident trainees can disrupt performance evaluations and team morale and even potentially impair delivery of quality care when miscommunication errors proliferate. Our OR-based survey asked 50 participants (18 surgeons, 14 anesthesiologists, and 18 nursing members), to recall basic identification data including provider names and PGY levels from their recent collaborating OR teams. Participants also weighed in on the importance of using accurate "names and ranks" for all OR participants. Each service reliably knew their own team members' names and rank. However, surgery and anesthesia teams displayed decreased knowledge about their lower level trainees, whereas nursing teams performed best, identifying all level nurses present. Deficits occurred whenever participants tried recalling basic identifying data about contributors from any other collaborating team. Typically, misidentified participants were lower level PGY residents working on other teams' services. All survey respondents desired improving systems to better remember "names and ranks" identifications among OR participants, citing both safety and team morale benefits. Many fail to know the names and ranks of contributors among members of different OR teams. Even our most reliable nursing team was inconsistent at identification information from collaborating practitioners. Despite universally acknowledged benefits, participants rarely learned basic background identification data beyond their own team. Those surveyed all desired improving identifications with suggestions including sterile name and rank tags and proper notification of entry and exit from the OR. Because successful collaborations require appropriate level task delegations, participants believed knowing a resident's name and rank is important not only for team bonding but also for safety. Academia furthermore demands fair performance evaluations, and displaying them clearly improves recall. Refining our own identified gaps in OR communications may demonstrate improved teamwork and safer task delegations and perhaps even stimulate other performance benefits for academic ORs.

Empathy, justice, and moral behavior

PubMed Central

Decety, Jean; Cowell, Jason M.

2015-01-01

Empathy shapes the landscape of our social lives. It motivates prosocial and caregiving behaviors, plays a role in inhibiting aggression, and facilitates cooperation between members of a similar social group. Thus, empathy is often conceived as a driving motivation of moral behavior and justice, and as such, everyone would think that it should be cultivated. However, the relationships between empathy, morality, and justice are complex. We begin by explaining what the notion of empathy encompasses and then argue how sensitivity to others’ needs has evolved in the context of parental care and group living. Next, we examine the multiple physiological, hormonal, and neural systems supporting empathy and its functions. One troubling but important corollary of this neuro-evolutionary model is that empathy produces social preferences that can conflict with fairness and justice. An understanding of the factors that mold our emotional response and caring motivation for others helps provide organizational principles and ultimately guides decision-making in medical ethics. PMID:26877887

Intimacy and Family Consent: A Confucian Ideal.

PubMed

Lee, Shui Chuen

2015-08-01

In the West, mainstream bioethicists tend to appreciate intimate relationships as a hindrance to individual autonomy. Scholars have even argued against approaching a mother to donate a kidney to save the life of her child; the request, they claim, is too manipulative and, thereby, violates her autonomy. For Chinese bioethicists, such a moral analysis is absurd. The intimate relationship between mother and child establishes strong mutual obligations. It creates mutual moral responsibilities that often require sacrifices for each other. This paper argues that while aiding others is a moral duty, helping one's family is a much stronger duty and poses no threat to one's autonomy. For Confucianism, empathetic intimate feelings, the heart and mind of ren, rest at the root of morality. It requires that we, as moral beings, assume duties to relieve the suffering of others. The more intimate the relationship the stronger the obligation to assist. The family is a closely knitted moral community. Family members often share living resources, mutual experiences, and a sense of identity. Family members act as a social unit, and, ordinarily, mutual obligations among members have priority over duties to those outside of the family. For Confucian bioethics, family-based consent to medical treatment is regarded as natural and reasonable. Family-based decision making is a taken-for-granted norm of social life. While close family members have priority, Confucianism extends such obligations outward toward members of the extended family and the society at large. There is a general principle of gradation of love, which reflects different degrees of personal intimacy and, therefore, of moral obligation. In this fashion, Confucianism seeks to treat the whole of society as one extended family. Hence, in bioethics, mutual responsibility and family-based consent are regarded as basic principles. Through a series of case discussions, this paper illustrates that atomistic individual-based autonomy offers but a poor response to bioethical issues. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation - the development of an evaluation instrument for clinical ethics support (the Euro-MCD)

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Clinical ethics support, in particular Moral Case Deliberation, aims to support health care providers to manage ethically difficult situations. However, there is a lack of evaluation instruments regarding outcomes of clinical ethics support in general and regarding Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) in particular. There also is a lack of clarity and consensuses regarding which MCD outcomes are beneficial. In addition, MCD outcomes might be context-sensitive. Against this background, there is a need for a standardised but flexible outcome evaluation instrument. The aim of this study was to develop a multi-contextual evaluation instrument measuring health care providers’ experiences and perceived importance of outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation. Methods A multi-item instrument for assessing outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) was constructed through an iterative process, founded on a literature review and modified through a multistep review by ethicists and health care providers. The instrument measures perceived importance of outcomes before and after MCD, as well as experienced outcomes during MCD and in daily work. A purposeful sample of 86 European participants contributed to a Delphi panel and content validity testing. The Delphi panel (n = 13), consisting of ethicists and ethics researchers, participated in three Delphi-rounds. Health care providers (n = 73) participated in the content validity testing through ‘think-aloud’ interviews and a method using Content Validity Index. Results The development process resulted in the European Moral Case Deliberation Outcomes Instrument (Euro-MCD), which consists of two sections, one to be completed before a participant’s first MCD and the other after completing multiple MCDs. The instrument contains a few open-ended questions and 26 specific items with a corresponding rating/response scale representing various MCD outcomes. The items were categorised into the following six domains: Enhanced emotional support, Enhanced collaboration, Improved moral reflexivity, Improved moral attitude, Improvement on organizational level and Concrete results. Conclusions A tentative instrument has been developed that seems to cover main outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation. The next step will be to test the Euro-MCD in a field study. PMID:24712735

Outcomes of moral case deliberation--the development of an evaluation instrument for clinical ethics support (the Euro-MCD).

PubMed

Svantesson, Mia; Karlsson, Jan; Boitte, Pierre; Schildman, Jan; Dauwerse, Linda; Widdershoven, Guy; Pedersen, Reidar; Huisman, Martijn; Molewijk, Bert

2014-04-08

Clinical ethics support, in particular Moral Case Deliberation, aims to support health care providers to manage ethically difficult situations. However, there is a lack of evaluation instruments regarding outcomes of clinical ethics support in general and regarding Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) in particular. There also is a lack of clarity and consensuses regarding which MCD outcomes are beneficial. In addition, MCD outcomes might be context-sensitive. Against this background, there is a need for a standardised but flexible outcome evaluation instrument. The aim of this study was to develop a multi-contextual evaluation instrument measuring health care providers' experiences and perceived importance of outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation. A multi-item instrument for assessing outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) was constructed through an iterative process, founded on a literature review and modified through a multistep review by ethicists and health care providers. The instrument measures perceived importance of outcomes before and after MCD, as well as experienced outcomes during MCD and in daily work. A purposeful sample of 86 European participants contributed to a Delphi panel and content validity testing. The Delphi panel (n = 13), consisting of ethicists and ethics researchers, participated in three Delphi-rounds. Health care providers (n = 73) participated in the content validity testing through 'think-aloud' interviews and a method using Content Validity Index. The development process resulted in the European Moral Case Deliberation Outcomes Instrument (Euro-MCD), which consists of two sections, one to be completed before a participant's first MCD and the other after completing multiple MCDs. The instrument contains a few open-ended questions and 26 specific items with a corresponding rating/response scale representing various MCD outcomes. The items were categorised into the following six domains: Enhanced emotional support, Enhanced collaboration, Improved moral reflexivity, Improved moral attitude, Improvement on organizational level and Concrete results. A tentative instrument has been developed that seems to cover main outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation. The next step will be to test the Euro-MCD in a field study.

A libertarian critique of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.'s The Foundations of Bioethics.

PubMed

Fry-Revere, Sigrid

1992-01-01

Although Engelhardt's The Foundations of Bioethics is an impressive work, it is plagued by problems of justification, conceptual confusion, and inconsistencies....A libertarian theory can arrive at the same basic requirements of mutual respect, autonomy, nonuse of force, and tolerance for a wide range of diverse life styles without relying on a lowest-common-denominator principle and without depriving fetuses, infants, and the mentally retarded of their status as persons. This can be done by taking a deontological approach to libertarian theory that denies that all moral beliefs are worthy of respect. Some beliefs, such as Engelhardt's belief that fetuses, infants, and the mentally retarded are nonpersons, simply fall beneath the floor of acceptable moral alternatives, even in a libertarian society, because such beliefs are based on a misunderstanding of personhood and violate the principle of mutual respect.

Ethical sensitivity, burnout, and job satisfaction in emergency nurses.

PubMed

Palazoğlu, Cansu Atmaca; Koç, Zeliha

2017-01-01

Rising levels of burnout and decreasing job satisfaction can inhibit healthcare professionals from providing high-quality care due to a corresponding decrease in their ethical sensitivity. This study aimed to determine the relationship between the level of ethical sensitivity in emergency service nurses and their levels of burnout and job satisfaction. This research employed a descriptive and cross-sectional design. Participants and research context: This study was conducted with a sample of 236 nurses, all of whom worked in emergency service between 24 July 2015 and 28 April 2016. Data were collected using the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Review Board of Ondokuz Mayıs University. There was a weak and negative correlation (r = -0.158, p = 0.015) between Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and Maslach Burnout Inventory scores. There was also a weak and negative correlation (r = -0.335, p < 0.001) between the Maslach Burnout Inventory and Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale scores. Decreased job satisfaction and increased burnout levels among emergency service nurses might result in them indulging in improper practices, frequently facing ethical problems, and a decrease in the overall quality of service in hospitals. In order for emergency service nurses to recognize ethical problems and make the most accurate decisions, a high level of ethical sensitivity is critical. In this respect, it is suggested that continuing education after graduation and training programs should be organized.

Regarding zygotes as persons: implications for public policy.

PubMed

Wall, L Lewis; Brown, Douglas

2006-01-01

In this paper, we examine the notion put forward by certain groups (largely as a consequence of their opposition to elective abortion) that the immediate post-fertilization cellular entity - the zygote - is a person and should be given full moral status. Because the zygote has none of the inherent characteristics necessary to be regarded as a person in the traditional philosophical sense (e.g., John Locke or Immanuel Kant), some advocates of this position attempt to advance their case with arguments based on the genetic potential of the human zygote to develop into a person. We argue that this position represents a flawed use of human genetics and ignores the extraordinarily inefficient and wasteful nature of human reproduction. We then explore the public policy consequences that would follow from granting the zygote full moral status. We conclude that the logical consequences of granting the zygote full moral status would require a revolutionary restructuring of many basic social institutions, especially the health care system. The social, political, and economic changes that would be required if the zygote is enshrined as a person in law constitute a convincing reductio ad absurdum that demonstrates the danger in taking this position seriously.

Casuistry as common law morality.

PubMed

Paulo, Norbert

2015-12-01

This article elaborates on the relation between ethical casuistry and common law reasoning. Despite the frequent talk of casuistry as common law morality, remarks on this issue largely remain at the purely metaphorical level. The article outlines and scrutinizes Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin's version of casuistry and its basic elements. Drawing lessons for casuistry from common law reasoning, it is argued that one generally has to be faithful to ethical paradigms. There are, however, limitations for the binding force of paradigms. The most important limitations--the possibilities of overruling and distinguishing paradigm norms--are similar in common law and in casuistry, or so it is argued. These limitations explain why casuistry is not necessarily overly conservative and conventional, which is one line of criticism to which casuists can now better respond. Another line of criticism has it that the very reasoning from case to case is extremely unclear in casuistry. I suggest a certain model of analogical reasoning to address this critique. All my suggestions to understand and to enhance casuistry make use of common law reasoning whilst remaining faithful to Jonsen and Toulmin's main ideas and commitments. Further developed along these lines, casuistry can appropriately be called "common law morality."

"Mobilising for the Values of the Republic"- France's Education Policy Response to the "Fragmented Society": A Commented Press Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Busch, Matthias; Morys, Nancy

2016-01-01

Purpose: This article focuses on recent developments in the domain of civic education in the French education system, the new programme on "Enseignement moral et civique" (EMC), and the debate about the relevance of the basic values of the Republic which came up after the terror attacks in January 2015. Method: The study is based on a…

How Shorebilly Brewing Company Won the Trademark Battle, but Lost the War: A Cautionary Tale for Entrepreneurs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koval, Michael R.

2018-01-01

This article demonstrates how the case at hand, Teal Bay Alliances, LLC v. Southbound One, Inc., can be used as the core of a business case to teach students not only the basics of trademark law, but also as a real-world cautionary tale whose moral boils down to this: lawyers and businesspeople approach legal disputes from very different…

The bile acid-sensitive ion channel (BASIC) is activated by alterations of its membrane environment.

PubMed

Schmidt, Axel; Lenzig, Pia; Oslender-Bujotzek, Adrienne; Kusch, Jana; Lucas, Susana Dias; Gründer, Stefan; Wiemuth, Dominik

2014-01-01

The bile acid-sensitive ion channel (BASIC) is a member of the DEG/ENaC family of ion channels. Channels of this family are characterized by a common structure, their physiological functions and modes of activation, however, are diverse. Rat BASIC is expressed in brain, liver and intestinal tract and activated by bile acids. The physiological function of BASIC and its mechanism of bile acid activation remain a puzzle. Here we addressed the question whether amphiphilic bile acids activate BASIC by directly binding to the channel or indirectly by altering the properties of the surrounding membrane. We show that membrane-active substances other than bile acids also affect the activity of BASIC and that activation by bile acids and other membrane-active substances is non-additive, suggesting that BASIC is sensitive for changes in its membrane environment. Furthermore based on results from chimeras between BASIC and ASIC1a, we show that the extracellular and the transmembrane domains are important for membrane sensitivity.

The means/side-effect distinction in moral cognition: A meta-analysis.

PubMed

Feltz, Adam; May, Joshua

2017-09-01

Experimental research suggests that people draw a moral distinction between bad outcomes brought about as a means versus a side effect (or byproduct). Such findings have informed multiple psychological and philosophical debates about moral cognition, including its computational structure, its sensitivity to the famous Doctrine of Double Effect, its reliability, and its status as a universal and innate mental module akin to universal grammar. But some studies have failed to replicate the means/byproduct effect especially in the absence of other factors, such as personal contact. So we aimed to determine how robust the means/byproduct effect is by conducting a meta-analysis of both published and unpublished studies (k=101; 24,058 participants). We found that while there is an overall small difference between moral judgments of means and byproducts (standardized mean difference=0.87, 95% CI 0.67-1.06; standardized mean change=0.57, 95% CI 0.44-0.69; log odds ratio=1.59, 95% CI 1.15-2.02), the mean effect size is primarily moderated by whether the outcome is brought about by personal contact, which typically involves the use of personal force. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Moral responsibility, technology, and experiences of the tragic: from Kierkegaard to offshore engineering.

PubMed

Coeckelbergh, Mark

2012-03-01

The standard response to engineering disasters like the Deepwater Horizon case is to ascribe full moral responsibility to individuals and to collectives treated as individuals. However, this approach is inappropriate since concrete action and experience in engineering contexts seldom meets the criteria of our traditional moral theories. Technological action is often distributed rather than individual or collective, we lack full control of the technology and its consequences, and we lack knowledge and are uncertain about these consequences. In this paper, I analyse these problems by employing Kierkegaardian notions of tragedy and moral responsibility in order to account for experiences of the tragic in technological action. I argue that ascription of responsibility in engineering contexts should be sensitive to personal experiences of lack of control, uncertainty, role conflicts, social dependence, and tragic choice. I conclude that this does not justify evading individual and corporate responsibility, but inspires practices of responsibility ascription that are less 'harsh' on those directly involved in technological action, that listen to their personal experiences, and that encourage them to gain more knowledge about what they are doing. © The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

A systematic review of ethics knowledge in audiology (1980-2010).

PubMed

Naudé, Alida Maryna; Bornman, Juan

2014-06-01

The purpose of this research was to apply multiple perspectives as part of a systematic review to analyze literature regarding ethics in audiology. Audiologists are particularly vulnerable to the changing requirements of the discipline that compel them to straddle both professional obligations and business principles, creating a hybrid professional. The authors used a 2-phase mixed-method approach to analyze publications. Publications were sorted into categories, namely, ethics approach, author, decade, role of the audiologist, component of morality, and common themes. The sample consisted of peer-reviewed articles cited in MEDLINE, CINAHL, ERIC, MasterFILE Premier, E-Journals, Africa-Wide Information, and Academic Search Premier electronic databases and non-peer-reviewed articles in Seminars in Hearing. The publications were predominantly philosophical, focused on the rehabilitative role of the audiologist, and addressed the moral judgment component of moral behavior. Despite the fact that knowledge of ethics grew between 1980 and 2010, this retrospective analysis identified gaps in current knowledge. Research is needed to address the unique ethical problems commonly encountered in all 8 roles of the audiologist; patient perspectives on ethics; ethical approaches; factors affecting moral judgment, sensitivity, motivation, and courage; and cultural dimensions of ethical practice in audiology.

Perceiving the moral dimension of practice: insights from Murdoch, Vetlesen, and Aristotle.

PubMed

Scott, P Anne

2006-07-01

This paper situates the moral domain of practice within the context of a particular description of nursing practice - one that sees human interaction at the heart of that practice. Such a description fits not only with professional rhetoric but also with literature from patients and recent empirical work exploring the nature of nursing practice. Martha Levine in her 1977 description of ethics, within the context of nursing practice, indicated that what was important from an ethical perspective was how we interact with each other, with patients and colleagues, on a daily basis. What enables such interaction to display moral sensitivity, insight into patient need, and a focus on the good for the patient? Of relevance when answering this question is the empirical evidence indicating that professional socialization, as a nurse or a doctor, may dull the individual's moral sense. If this is the case, cognizance needs to be taken of such evidence when identifying theoretical approaches from mainstream ethics that may provide insight and value for nurse education. It is suggested that such insight and value can be gained from a consideration of the work of Aristotle, Murdoch, and Vetlesen.

Making good use of online case study materials.

PubMed

Keefer, Matthew Wilks

2005-07-01

Web-based access to engaging instructional materials for SEE instruction represents an increasingly viable and attractive opportunity for educators. This paper will review research findings that demonstrate important differences in more experienced and novice ethical responses to engaging online materials, including authentic cases, codes, and commentaries. Results demonstrate that experienced ethical thinkers are more likely than novices to appeal to middle level principles that identify professional role-specific obligations (RSO); to make greater use of professional knowledge in order to recognize moral issues and relevant facts; and to employ more 'contextually sensitive' reasoning strategies when crafting resolutions to moral problems--e.g., identify alternative moral issues, assess the moral implications of actions, and provide alternative practical resolutions to conflicts. These findings suggest that when effectively integrated into SEE courses, authentic instructional materials have the potential to effectively challenge students and enhance student learning. However, there is evidence that the uses and benefits of these materials are not well understood. In the second part of this paper, five research-based instructional principles will be identified and discussed that can help SEE instructors better understand how to effectively integrate these materials into their courses.

Meta-Theory and Curriculum Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hartoonian, H. Michael

Curriculum development in any area should be imbued with a meaning that focuses on the cultural values of motivation, logic, and human relationships. The term "meaning" implies seeing relationships (linguistic, economic, political, moral), understanding logic, and being sensitive to the enduring values of the culture. Curriculum developers and…

Teaching the Holocaust: Some Suggestions for Comparative Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldman, Martin S.

1977-01-01

In light of the movement to heighten moral sensitivity in the classroom, the Nazi holocaust is being discussed in many parts of the country. In this article comparisons are suggested of this aspect of Jewish history with black slavery and American Indian experiences. (Author/GC)

Respect for cultural diversity and the empirical turn in bioethics: a plea for caution.

PubMed

Mbugua, Karori

2012-01-01

In the last two decades, there have been numerous calls for a culturally sensitive bioethics. At the same time, bioethicists have become increasingly involved in empirical research, which is a sign of dissatisfaction with the analytic methods of traditional bioethics. In this article, I will argue that although these developments have broadened and enriched the field of bioethics, they can easily be construed to be an endorsement of ethical relativism, especially by those not well grounded in academic moral philosophy. I maintain that bioethicists must resist the temptation of moving too quickly from cultural relativism to ethical relativism and from empirical findings to normative conclusions. Indeed, anyone who reasons in this way is guilty of the naturalistic fallacy. I conclude by saying that properly conceptualized, empirical research and sensitivity to cultural diversity should give rise to objective rational discourse and criticism and not indiscriminate tolerance of every possible moral practice. Bioethics must remain a normative discipline that is characterized by rigorous argumentation.

Respect for cultural diversity and the empirical turn in bioethics: a plea for caution

PubMed Central

Mbugua, Karori

2012-01-01

In the last two decades, there have been numerous calls for a culturally sensitive bioethics. At the same time, bioethicists have become increasingly involved in empirical research, which is a sign of dissatisfaction with the analytic methods of traditional bioethics. In this article, I will argue that although these developments have broadened and enriched the field of bioethics, they can easily be construed to be an endorsement of ethical relativism, especially by those not well grounded in academic moral philosophy. I maintain that bioethicists must resist the temptation of moving too quickly from cultural relativism to ethical relativism and from empirical findings to normative conclusions. Indeed, anyone who reasons in this way is guilty of the naturalistic fallacy. I conclude by saying that properly conceptualized, empirical research and sensitivity to cultural diversity should give rise to objective rational discourse and criticism and not indiscriminate tolerance of every possible moral practice. Bioethics must remain a normative discipline that is characterized by rigorous argumentation. PMID:23908754

Sustaining hope as a moral competency in the context of aggressive care.

PubMed

Peter, Elizabeth; Mohammed, Shan; Simmonds, Anne

2015-11-01

Nurses who provide aggressive care often experience the ethical challenge of needing to preserve the hope of seriously ill patients and their families without providing false hope. The purpose of this inquiry was to explore nurses' moral competence related to fostering hope in patients and their families within the context of aggressive technological care. A secondary purpose was to understand how this competence is shaped by the social-moral space of nurses' work in order to capture how competencies may reflect an adaptation to a less than ideal work environment. A critical qualitative approach was used. Fifteen graduate nursing students from various practice areas participated. After receiving ethics approval from the university, signed informed consent was obtained from participants before they were interviewed. One overarching theme 'Mediating the tension between providing false hope and destroying hope within biomedicine' along with three subthemes, including 'Reimagining hopeful possibilities', 'Exercising caution within the social-moral space of nursing' and 'Maintaining nurses' own hope', was identified, which represents specific aspects of this moral competency. This competency represents a complex, nuanced and multi-layered set of skills in which nurses must be well attuned to the needs and emotions of their patients and families, have the foresight to imagine possible future hopes, be able to acknowledge death, have advanced interpersonal skills, maintain their own hope and ideally have the capacity to challenge those around them when the provision of aggressive care is a form of providing false hope. The articulation of moral competencies may support the development of nursing ethics curricula to prepare future nurses in a way that is sensitive to the characteristics of actual practice settings. © The Author(s) 2014.

The neuroimaging of sacred values.

PubMed

Vilarroya, Oscar; Hilferty, Joseph

2013-09-01

Sacred (or protected) values (SVs) constitute core beliefs that define primary reference groups. There is significant research on SVs at a behavioral level, but their neural underpinnings are just beginning to be discovered. In this paper, we highlight the current state of neuroimaging research concerning SVs. Given that SVs are considered to be strongly motivated by moral principles, we first provide an outline of the neural circuits that have been found to be involved in moral cognition. We then review various neuroimaging studies that have explored the notion of SVs. Specifically, we concentrate on neuroimaging studies dealing with intergroup bias and those that focus on social norms, since these are two basic dimensions of SVs that have been studied with neuroimaging techniques. Finally, we review two studies that have directly addressed SVs with neuroimaging techniques, and we offer suggestions for further avenues of study. © 2013 New York Academy of Sciences.

Compassionate liberals and polite conservatives: associations of agreeableness with political ideology and moral values.

PubMed

Hirsh, Jacob B; DeYoung, Colin G; Xiaowen Xu; Peterson, Jordan B

2010-05-01

Political conservatism has been characterized by resistance to change and acceptance of inequality, with liberalism characterized by the polar opposite of these values. Political attitudes are heritable and may be influenced by basic personality traits. In previous research, conservatism (vs. liberalism) has been associated positively with Conscientiousness and negatively with Openness-Intellect, consistent with the association of conservatism with resistance to change. Less clear, however, are the personality traits relating to egalitarianism. In two studies, using a personality model that divides each of the Big Five into two aspects, the present research found that one aspect of Agreeableness (Compassion) was associated with liberalism and egalitarianism, whereas the other (Politeness) was associated with conservatism and traditionalism. In addition, conservatism and moral traditionalism were positively associated with the Orderliness aspect of Conscientiousness and negatively with Openness-Intellect. These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of personality's relation to political attitudes and values.

The Future of Small Air Forces and Combat Aircraft

DTIC Science & Technology

2001-04-01

dogma and institutional entrenchment by the — blue suited“ élite against continued external opposition. The basic tenants of airpower and the means to...would prove adequate given an investment in an IADS and sophisticated long-range air-to-air missiles (AAMs). If facing a threat operating the latest...platforms, weapons stocks , level of technology, logistic support, morale, C4I, and training levels of personnel. Credibility is simply about the

PROFESSIONALISM IN THE ARMED FORCES

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-04-06

basic American values from liberalism to conservatism" to permit " American military leaders to combine the political power which society thrusts upon...and civil societies is psychological more than physical.66 Quoting Epictetus, she notes the Stoic’s assertion "In our power are moral character and...the professional status conferred by the society he secures.6 Thesis In this paper I will analyze the specific failing of Rudolph Höss to meet

Operational Design Cognitive Methodology: An Analysis of COMISAF 30 August 2009 Initial Assessment

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-04-01

the set of characteristics, capabilities, and sources of power from which a system derives its moral or physical strength, freedom of action, and...objective must be the population.” 53 The population focused objective extends beyond just the basics of physical security. The whole of government...In Warfare Studies AY10 Coursebook , edited by Sharon McBride, 196-212. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, October 2009. Kem, Jack D

Translations on Eastern Europe Political, Sociological and Military Affairs,, Number 1607.

DTIC Science & Technology

1978-11-13

values in the fields of: a. Book publishing, book circulation and sale of bookstore materials, polygraphic material, photography , production of...programmatic tasks on which, in this academic year, the activity of the union will concentrate: ideological-moral education, quality of didactics and...review of the state of didactics in the schools of higher education will be carried out and in October a campaign to report and elect in the basic cells

Emotional engineers: toward morally responsible design.

PubMed

Roeser, Sabine

2012-03-01

Engineers are normally seen as the archetype of people who make decisions in a rational and quantitative way. However, technological design is not value neutral. The way a technology is designed determines its possibilities, which can, for better or for worse, have consequences for human wellbeing. This leads various scholars to the claim that engineers should explicitly take into account ethical considerations. They are at the cradle of new technological developments and can thereby influence the possible risks and benefits more directly than anybody else. I have argued elsewhere that emotions are an indispensable source of ethical insight into ethical aspects of risk. In this paper I will argue that this means that engineers should also include emotional reflection into their work. This requires a new understanding of the competencies of engineers: they should not be unemotional calculators; quite the opposite, they should work to cultivate their moral emotions and sensitivity, in order to be engaged in morally responsible engineering. © The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Diagnostic value underlies asymmetric updating of impressions in the morality and ability domains.

PubMed

Mende-Siedlecki, Peter; Baron, Sean G; Todorov, Alexander

2013-12-11

While positive behavioral information is diagnostic when evaluating a person's abilities, negative information is diagnostic when evaluating morality. Although social psychology has considered these two domains as orthogonal and distinct from one another, we demonstrate that this asymmetry in diagnosticity can be explained by a single parsimonious principle--the perceived frequency of behaviors in these domains. Less frequent behaviors (e.g., high ability and low morality) are weighed more heavily in evaluations. We show that this statistical principle of frequency-derived diagnosticity is evident in human participants at both behavioral and neural levels of analysis. Specifically, activity in right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex increased preferentially when participants updated impressions based on diagnostic behaviors, and further, activity in this region covaried parametrically with the perceived frequency of behaviors. Activity in left ventrolateral PFC, left inferior frontal gyrus, and left superior temporal sulcus showed similar patterns of diagnosticity and sensitivity, though additional analyses confirmed that these regions responded primarily to updates based on immoral behaviors.

Human morality and temperament.

PubMed

Kagan, Jerome

2005-01-01

This chapter has tried to make two points. First, the concept of morality refers to a developmental cascade of phenomena whose essential features are (a) inhibition of punished acts; (b) a representation of prohibited actions; (c) the emotions of uncertainty, empathy, shame, and guilt; (d) the semantic concepts of good and bad; (e) accepting the moral obligations of social categories; and (f) the concepts of fairness and the ideal. The inhibition of prohibited actions and the cognitive representation of prohibited behaviors, as well as the affect states that follow violations, appear by the end of the second year of life. The concepts of good and bad appear early in the third year, the experience of guilt and awareness of social categories by 4-6 years, and the notions of fairness, the ideal, and relational social categories during the school years. Second, some of the variation in the intensity and frequency of the moral emotions is attributable to the child's temperament. Eleven-year-old children who had been high-reactive infants and admitted to feelings of guilt when they violated a family standard were cortically and autonomically more aroused than the low reactives who reported equally frequent experiences of guilt. Further, high reactives who were perceived by their mothers as highly sensitive to punishment were biologically more aroused than high reactives perceived as less sensitive. Both universal developmental phenomena tied to brain maturation and temperamental variation associated with neurochemistry contribute to the complex phenomena that constitute the moral domain. The role of affect in promoting the adherence to standards remains controversial. Kant believed that people acted morally because acceptance of the categorical imperative required proper behavior-reason was the guardian of social harmony. Peirce and Dewey, by contrast, argued that anticipation of the emotions of anxiety, shame, and guilt motivated loyalty to the community's ethical standards. The fact that adults pay to watch a film that they know will generate a deep feeling of sadness--an emotion most do not seek or welcome in their daily lives--and will remark that they enjoyed the movie warrants an explanation. One possibility is that the experienced emotion affirms their moral values. The Australian film The Rabbit Proof Fence describes three aboriginal sisters who have been taken from their mother to a camp a thousand miles away to be socialized in Australian values. The three girls run away, and most of the film illustrates the hardships that they endure and their close escapes from the authorities who are pursuing them as they walk the thousand miles to reach their home. The audience's empathic sadness for the children affirms their moral belief that children should love their parents and miss their home. I suspect that those in the audience who felt the most intense sadness would praise the film with greater enthusiasm than those who had muted feelings. Because sadness is an emotion that few enjoy or try to attain, there must be another reason for deciding that the film was gratifying. The affirmation of one's moral beliefs could be that source of gratification. The tension between the importance of a rational and the importance of an affective basis for morality is seen in modern industrialized societies where the balance between the feeling of virtue that follows enhancing another and the pleasure that follows the enhancing of self has shifted toward favoring the latter state. Increasing numbers of Americans do not regard their gender, ethnicity, vocation, place of residence, or friendships or the religion of their parents as distinctive sources of virtue. As a result, they are freed from the moral obligations that were attached to these categories in the past and rely primarily on the anticipation of sensory delight and self-enhancement as guides for action and sources of reassurance that they are managing their lives correctly. Although it is likely that future scientists will synthesize a drug that blocks feelings of guilt withou

Teaching reproductive options through the use of fiction: the Cider House Rules project.

PubMed

Engstrom, Janet L; Hunter, Ramona G

2007-01-01

Alternative teaching strategies such as storytelling and the critical reading of literature are thought to help students develop their critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and cultural sensitivity and thereby better understand the context in which their patients live and make decisions. Such teaching methods are ideally suited for examining morally complex issues such as reproductive options. This article describes an alternative approach to teaching the complex personal, social, and moral issues surrounding the topic of reproductive options. The critical reading of the book, The Cider House Rules, provides a unique opportunity for students to obtain insight and understanding of the complex circumstances under which women and their families make reproductive decisions.

Is it possible to assess the "ethics" of medical school applicants?

PubMed Central

Lowe, M.; Kerridge, I.; Bore, M.; Munro, D.; Powis, D.

2001-01-01

Questions surrounding the assessment of medical school applicants' morality are difficult but they are nevertheless important for medical schools to consider. It is probably inappropriate to attempt to assess medical school applicants' ethical knowledge, moral reasoning, or beliefs about ethical issues as these all may be developed during the process of education. Attitudes towards ethical issues and ethical sensitivity, however, might be tested in the context of testing for personality attributes. Before any "ethics" testing is introduced as part of screening for admission to medical school it would require validation. We suggest a number of ways in which this might be achieved. Key Words: Ethics • medical school selection • personality PMID:11731605

Ethical quandaries in spiritual healing and herbal medicine: A critical analysis of the morality of traditional medicine advertising in southern African urban societies

PubMed Central

Munyaradzi, Mawere

2011-01-01

This paper critically examines the morality of advertising by practitioners in spiritual healing and herbal medicine heretofore referred to as traditional medicine, in southern African urban societies. While the subject of traditional medicine has been heavily contested in medical studies in the last few decades, the monumental studies on the subject have emphasised the place of traditional medicine in basic health services. Insignificant attention has been devoted to examine the ethical problems associated with traditional medicine advertising. Critical look at the worthiness of some advertising strategies used by practitioners in traditional medicine in launching their products and services on market thus has been largely ignored. Yet, though advertising is key to helping traditional medicine practitioners’ products and services known by prospective customers, this research registers a number of morally negative effects that seem to outweigh the merits that the activity brings to prospective customers. The paper adopts southern African urban societies, and in particular Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe as particular references. The choice of the trio is not accidental, but based on the fact that these countries have in the last few decades been flooded with traditional medicine practitioners/traditional healers from within the continent and from abroad. Most of these practitioners use immoral advertising strategies in communicating to the public the products and services they offer. It is against this background that this paper examines the morality of advertising strategies deployed by practitioners in launching their products and services. To examine the moral worthiness of the advertising strategies used by traditional medical practitioners, I used qualitative analysis of street adverts as well as electronic and print media. From the results obtained through thematic content analysis, the paper concludes that most of the practitioners in traditional medicine lack both business and medical ethics. That said, the paper urges practitioners to seriously consider the morality of their adverts as in most cases they (adverts) do more harm than good. Further to that, the piece recommends the governments of the affected countries to put in place stringent measures to address this mounting problem. PMID:22187588

Ethical quandaries in spiritual healing and herbal medicine: a critical analysis of the morality of traditional medicine advertising in southern African urban societies.

PubMed

Munyaradzi, Mawere

2011-01-01

This paper critically examines the morality of advertising by practitioners in spiritual healing and herbal medicine heretofore referred to as traditional medicine, in southern African urban societies. While the subject of traditional medicine has been heavily contested in medical studies in the last few decades, the monumental studies on the subject have emphasised the place of traditional medicine in basic health services. Insignificant attention has been devoted to examine the ethical problems associated with traditional medicine advertising. Critical look at the worthiness of some advertising strategies used by practitioners in traditional medicine in launching their products and services on market thus has been largely ignored. Yet, though advertising is key to helping traditional medicine practitioners' products and services known by prospective customers, this research registers a number of morally negative effects that seem to outweigh the merits that the activity brings to prospective customers. The paper adopts southern African urban societies, and in particular Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe as particular references. The choice of the trio is not accidental, but based on the fact that these countries have in the last few decades been flooded with traditional medicine practitioners/traditional healers from within the continent and from abroad. Most of these practitioners use immoral advertising strategies in communicating to the public the products and services they offer. It is against this background that this paper examines the morality of advertising strategies deployed by practitioners in launching their products and services. To examine the moral worthiness of the advertising strategies used by traditional medical practitioners, I used qualitative analysis of street adverts as well as electronic and print media. From the results obtained through thematic content analysis, the paper concludes that most of the practitioners in traditional medicine lack both business and medical ethics. That said, the paper urges practitioners to seriously consider the morality of their adverts as in most cases they (adverts) do more harm than good. Further to that, the piece recommends the governments of the affected countries to put in place stringent measures to address this mounting problem.

Taxation as metaphor. The hospital and public responsibility.

PubMed

Friedman, E

1992-01-01

In the debate over the tax status of voluntary hospitals, most hospital executives and trustees do not seem to comprehend--or want to comprehend--the underlying issues. First, the terror of being associated with a tax hike has led many politicians to seek other "revenue enhancements" that are more ingenious than they are honest. On the other hand, many of these governments have legitimate financial problems and are seeking new sources of revenue. A second, related issue is uncertainty over what should be done about the uninsured and Medicaid populations. In the absence of an acceptable solution, we will continue to provide direct public support to public hospitals and indirect public support to private providers--including charitable tax exemptions. The third underlying issue is hospitals' curiously narrow view of their private-sector status. Most of the functions hospitals provide are not only publicly funded; they are, in fact, public functions. Finally, hospitals believe they are inherently moral organizations because they provide an inherently moral service. But hospitals grew to their present role in society almost by accident; their services are neither unique nor ethically superior. It is in how hospitals provide care that their morality can be measured, not in the fact that they provide some kind of care to somebody. An honest appraisal of these issues will help each hospital answer the basic question: As an ethical and moral matter, should this organization be paying taxes? But is this fight really about taxes? I believe society and government are using taxation as a metaphor for trust in hospitals.

Gender context of personalism in bioethics.

PubMed

Amzat, Jimoh; Grandi, Giovanni

2011-12-01

Personalism is one of the philosophical perspectives which hold that the reality in person and the human person has the highest intrinsic value. This paper makes reference to Louis Janssens' eight criteria in adequate consideration of the human person but further argues that there is need to consider people as situated agents especially within gender relational perspectives. The paper identifies gender as an important social construction that shapes the consideration of the human persons within socio-spatial spheres. The main crux of the paper is that there is a gender context of personalism and this has profound implications for bioethical agendas. Gender is part of the human condition, especially when we philosophically or sociologically engage the notion of equity and equality within the social system, because social realities in the relational perspective are not impartial, impersonal and equal. Gender does not determine morality but it plays a role in morality and expectations from moral agents. Women have been categorised as a sociological group because their integrity, freedom/autonomy and dignity (which are basic concerns of bioethics) are capable of being threatened. A gender perspective provides important incentives for moral theory which searches for possible conceptual imbalances or blind spots in ethical reflections. The paper refers to Sen's faces of gender inequality and expands on the notion that natality inequality is one of the fundamental levels of gender inequality, which in turn is the primary starting agenda in bioethics. The paper avers that the recognition of the fundamental importance of gender to the organization of social reality and the development of personal identities have important practical implications for bioethics. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

What Makes Health Care Special?: An Argument for Health Care Insurance.

PubMed

Horne, L Chad

2017-01-01

While citizens in a liberal democracy are generally expected to see to their basic needs out of their own income shares, health care is treated differently. Most rich liberal democracies provide their citizens with health care or health care insurance in kind. Is this "special" treatment justified? The predominant liberal account of justice in health care holds that the moral importance of health justifies treating health care as special in this way. I reject this approach and offer an alternative account. Health needs are not more important than other basic needs, but they are more unpredictable. I argue that citizens are owed access to insurance against health risks to provide stability in their future expectations and thus to protect their capacities for self-determination.

A Global Village Is a Small World

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Volk, Valerie

2008-01-01

Gifted students often show interest in complex social and environmental issues and a heightened sensitivity to global problems, and this capacity for moral responsibility and leadership of this interconnected world should be developed to its full potential. This development, however, should also find ways to alleviate the concerns and sense of…

A critique of the principle of 'respect for autonomy', grounded in African thought.

PubMed

Behrens, Kevin G

2018-06-01

I give an account how the principle of 'respect for autonomy' dominates the field of bioethics, and how it came to triumph over its competitors, 'respect for persons' and 'respect for free power of choice'. I argue that 'respect for autonomy' is unsatisfactory as a basic principle of bioethics because it is grounded in too individualistic a worldview, citing concerns of African theorists and other communitarians who claim that the principle fails to acknowledge the fundamental importance of understanding persons within the nexus of their communal relationships. I defend the claim that 'respect for persons' is a more appropriate principle, as it is able to acknowledge both individual decision making and the essential relationality of persons. I acknowledge that my preference for 'respect for persons' is problematic because of the important debate around the definition of 'personhood' in bioethics discourse. Relying on Thaddeus Metz's conception of moral status, I propose a relational definition of personhood that distinguishes between persons with agency and persons without agency, arguing that we have different moral obligations to these distinct categories of persons. I claim that this conception of personhood is better able to accommodate our moral intuitions than conventional approaches, and that it is able to do so without being speciesist or question-begging. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Ethics: A Selected Bibliography.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-03-01

Morality and Beyond. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. (BJ1251 T6) 291. TolstoY, Lev N. Tolstoy’s Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non- Violence . 0 New York...Translated by R.H.M. Elwes. New York: Philosophi- cal Library, 1957. (B3973 E5E4) 265. Stack, George J. Kierkegaard’s Existential Ethics. University: Univer...271. Storer, Morris B., ed. Humanist Ethics: Dialogue on Basics. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1980. (BJ1360 1185) /4. Stratford, Michael C. Political

Waiting to be born: the ethical implications of the generation of "NUBorn" and "NUAge" mice from pre-pubertal ovarian tissue.

PubMed

Zoloth, Laurie; Backhus, Leilah; Woodruff, Teresa

2008-06-01

Oncofertility is one of the 9 NIH Roadmap Initiatives, federal grants intended to explore previously intractable questions, and it describes a new field that exists in the liminal space between cancer treatment and its sequelae, IVF clinics and their yearning, and basic research in cell growth, biomaterials, and reproductive science and its tempting promises. Cancer diagnoses, which were once thought universally fatal, now often entail management of a chronic disease. Yet the therapies are rigorous, must start immediately, and in many cases result in premature failure of the body's reproductive ability. In women, this loss is especially poignant; unlike the routine storage of sperm, which is done in men and boys facing similar treatment decisions, freezing oocytes in anticipation of fertility loss is not possible in most cases, and creating an embryo within days of diagnosis raises significant moral, social and medical challenges. Oncofertility is the study of how to harvest ovarian tissue in women facing cancer to preserve their gametes for future use with IVF, thus allowing the decisions about childbearing to be deferred and reproductive choices to be preserved. The research endeavor uses the capacity of the ovarian follicle to produce eggs in vitro. Developing the human follicle to ovulate successfully outside the body is scientifically difficult and ethically challenging. Infertility is linked to long-standing religious and moral traditions, and is intertwined with deeply contentious social narratives about women, families, illness and birth. Is the research morally permissible? Perhaps imperative if understood as a repair from iatrogenic harms? How are considerations of justice central to the work? How will vulnerable subjects be protected? What are the moral implications of the work for women, children and families? What are the implications for society if women could store ovarian tissue as a way of stopping the biological clock? What are the moral possibilities and challenges if eggs can be produced in large quantities from a stored ovarian tissue?

Socioemotional processing of morally-laden behavior and their consequences on others in forensic psychopaths.

PubMed

Decety, Jean; Chen, Chenyi; Harenski, Carla L; Kiehl, Kent A

2015-06-01

A large body of evidence supports the view that psychopathy is associated with anomalous emotional processing, reduced guilt and empathy, which are important risk factors for criminal behaviors. However, the precise nature and specificity of this atypical emotional processing is not well understood, including its relation to moral judgment. To further our understanding of the pattern of neural response to perceiving and evaluating morally-laden behavior, this study included 155 criminal male offenders with various level of psychopathy, as assessed with the Psychopathy Check List-Revised. Participants were scanned while viewing short clips depicting interactions between two individuals resulting in either interpersonal harm or interpersonal assistance. After viewing each clip, they were asked to identify the emotions of the protagonists. Inmates with high levels of psychopathy were more accurate than controls in successfully identifying the emotion of the recipient of both helpful and harmful actions. Significant hemodynamic differences were detected in the posterior superior temporal sulcus, amygdala, insula, ventral striatum, and prefrontal cortex when individuals with high psychopathy viewed negative versus positive scenarios moral scenarios and when they evaluated the emotional responses of the protagonists. These findings suggest that socioemotional processing abnormalities in psychopathy may be somewhat more complicated than merely a general or specific emotional deficit. Rather, situation-specific evaluations of the mental states of others, in conjunction with sensitivity to the nature of the other (victim vs. perpetrator), modulate attention to emotion-related cues. Such atypical processing likely impacts moral decision-making and behavior in psychopaths. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Aristotle, nursing and health care ethics.

PubMed

Scott, P A

1995-12-01

Even a brief consideration of the nature of nursing will indicate that an ethical dimension underlies much, if not all, of nursing practice. It is therefore important that students and practitioners are facilitated in developing an ethical awareness and sensitivity from early in their professional development. This paper argues that Aristotelian virtue theory provides a practice-based focus for health care ethics for a number of reasons. Also, because of his emphasis on the character of the moral agent, and on the importance of perception and emotion in moral decision-making, Aristotelian virtue theory provides a useful supplement to the traditional duty-based approaches to health care ethics analysis, which are increasingly being identified in the literature as having limits to their application within the health care context.

Long-Term Follow-Up of an Alternative Medical Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Foster, Eugene A.

1994-01-01

A 20-year follow-up study of 37 students enrolled in a University of Virginia alternative medical education curriculum found the program was successful in improving students' morale during preclinical instruction, preparing them for clerkships, and increasing sensitivity to patients. It was not effective in inducing students to enter primary care…

Provide History of Religion and God

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ginex, Nicholas P.

2013-01-01

There is a need for high school, college, and university educators to introduce their students to a history of mankind's development of religions and beliefs in God. Regarded as too sensitive a subject, students are deprived of learning how mankind has evolved ways to establish moral and righteous behavior to maintain harmony among competing…

Educational Context: Preparing Accounting Students to Identify Ethical Dilemmas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Billiot, Mary Jo; Daniel, David; Glandon, Sid; Glandon, TerryAnn

2012-01-01

We examine the effect of different contexts in an educational process on measures of ethical sensitivity and levels of moral reasoning of accounting majors in the first Intermediate Accounting course. The educational process compared a context that centers on ethical issues with one that focuses on technical accounting issues. At the end of the…

Formation of Future Pre-School Teachers' Readiness to Work in the Conditions of Educational Inclusion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biktagirova, Gulnara F.; Khitryuk, Vera V.

2016-01-01

Inclusive education becomes a social reality and needs to ensure its quality. Preschool age is a sensitive period of the process of personality's socialization and the formation of moral qualities, providing interaction and communication between people pattern, among which are: respect for "otherness", cooperation, support and mutual…

When four principles are too many: a commentary.

PubMed

Gillon, Raanan

2012-04-01

This commentary briefly argues that the four prima facie principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, respect for autonomy and justice enable a clinician (and anybody else) to make ethical sense of the author's proposed reliance on professional guidance and rules, on law, on professional integrity and on best interests, and to subject them all to ethical analysis and criticism based on widely acceptable basic prima facie moral obligations; and also to confront new situations in the light of those acceptable principles.

The Engineering and Science Issues Test (ESIT): a discipline-specific approach to assessing moral judgment.

PubMed

Borenstein, Jason; Drake, Matthew J; Kirkman, Robert; Swann, Julie L

2010-06-01

To assess ethics pedagogy in science and engineering, we developed a new tool called the Engineering and Science Issues Test (ESIT). ESIT measures moral judgment in a manner similar to the Defining Issues Test, second edition, but is built around technical dilemmas in science and engineering. We used a quasi-experimental approach with pre- and post-tests, and we compared the results to those of a control group with no overt ethics instruction. Our findings are that several (but not all) stand-alone classes showed a significant improvement compared to the control group when the metric includes multiple stages of moral development. We also found that the written test had a higher response rate and sensitivity to pedagogy than the electronic version. We do not find significant differences on pre-test scores with respect to age, education level, gender or political leanings, but we do on whether subjects were native English speakers. We did not find significant differences on pre-test scores based on whether subjects had previous ethics instruction; this could suggest a lack of a long-term effect from the instruction.

Perspectives on access to personal health information in New Zealand/Aotearoa.

PubMed

Menkes, David B; Hill, Charlotte J; Horsfall, Melissa; Jaye, Chrystal

2008-12-01

This study used group interviews to explore Māori and European New Zealander (Pakeha) perspectives on access to personal health information. Two predominant themes emerged: the tension between the individual and society, and differences inherent in the use of formal and informal moral codes. Māori and Pakeha differed in their concept of autonomy and relied on distinct moral codes when considering questions of access; Western values and moral codes were notably less relevant to Māori who described distinct, collectivist means of ensuring social care of the sick and dying. Pakeha but not Māori participants often used hypothetical situations to reach an abstract determination of 'who should know'; the latter instead used personal experience to decide case-by-case. Generational differences were also evident, particularly in the Māori groups. In conclusion, culture should be considered in access to personal health information in New Zealand. Similar cultural variation is likely to be found in other countries; recognition of such differences will help ensure that access to sensitive information is appropriate, inclusive, and ethical.

Self-consistent Langmuir waves in resonantly driven thermal plasmas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindberg, R. R.; Charman, A. E.; Wurtele, J. S.

2007-12-01

The longitudinal dynamics of a resonantly driven Langmuir wave are analyzed in the limit that the growth of the electrostatic wave is slow compared to the bounce frequency. Using simple physical arguments, the nonlinear distribution function is shown to be nearly invariant in the canonical particle action, provided both a spatially uniform term and higher-order spatial harmonics are included along with the fundamental in the longitudinal electric field. Requirements of self-consistency with the electrostatic potential yield the basic properties of the nonlinear distribution function, including a frequency shift that agrees closely with driven, electrostatic particle simulations over a range of temperatures. This extends earlier work on nonlinear Langmuir waves by Morales and O'Neil [G. J. Morales and T. M. O'Neil, Phys. Rev. Lett. 28, 417 (1972)] and Dewar [R. L. Dewar, Phys. Plasmas 15, 712 (1972)], and could form the basis of a reduced kinetic treatment of plasma dynamics for accelerator applications or Raman backscatter.

Cross-cultural dataset for the evolution of religion and morality project.

PubMed

Purzycki, Benjamin Grant; Apicella, Coren; Atkinson, Quentin D; Cohen, Emma; McNamara, Rita Anne; Willard, Aiyana K; Xygalatas, Dimitris; Norenzayan, Ara; Henrich, Joseph

2016-11-08

A considerable body of research cross-culturally examines the evolution of religious traditions, beliefs and behaviors. The bulk of this research, however, draws from coded qualitative ethnographies rather than from standardized methods specifically designed to measure religious beliefs and behaviors. Psychological data sets that examine religious thought and behavior in controlled conditions tend to be disproportionately sampled from student populations. Some cross-national databases employ standardized methods at the individual level, but are primarily focused on fully market integrated, state-level societies. The Evolution of Religion and Morality Project sought to generate a data set that systematically probed individual level measures sampling across a wider range of human populations. The set includes data from behavioral economic experiments and detailed surveys of demographics, religious beliefs and practices, material security, and intergroup perceptions. This paper describes the methods and variables, briefly introduces the sites and sampling techniques, notes inconsistencies across sites, and provides some basic reporting for the data set.

The psychobiology of aggression and violence: bioethical implications.

PubMed

Díaz, José Luis

2010-01-01

Bioethics is concerned with the moral aspects of biology and medicine. The bioethical relevance of aggression and violence is clear, as very different moral and legal responsibilities may apply depending on whether aggression and violence are forms of behaviour that are innate or acquired, deliberate or automatic or not, or understandable and justifiable based on causes. Biological research and natural science theories are a basic ingredient for reflections, arguments and decisions on such matters. This study presents the problem of the causes of aggressive behaviour, the evolutionary understanding and definition of aggressive behaviour, the biological basis for this behaviour and the link between emotions and aggression. A growing body of evidence suggests that innate factors of behaviour (be they genetic or neurobiological) do not by themselves define behaviour and nor do acquired factors such as learning, cultural norms or worldviews. Both types of factor interact from the outset to shape a development process that mutually interacts to define beliefs or behaviour.

Cross-cultural dataset for the evolution of religion and morality project

PubMed Central

Purzycki, Benjamin Grant; Apicella, Coren; Atkinson, Quentin D.; Cohen, Emma; McNamara, Rita Anne; Willard, Aiyana K.; Xygalatas, Dimitris; Norenzayan, Ara; Henrich, Joseph

2016-01-01

A considerable body of research cross-culturally examines the evolution of religious traditions, beliefs and behaviors. The bulk of this research, however, draws from coded qualitative ethnographies rather than from standardized methods specifically designed to measure religious beliefs and behaviors. Psychological data sets that examine religious thought and behavior in controlled conditions tend to be disproportionately sampled from student populations. Some cross-national databases employ standardized methods at the individual level, but are primarily focused on fully market integrated, state-level societies. The Evolution of Religion and Morality Project sought to generate a data set that systematically probed individual level measures sampling across a wider range of human populations. The set includes data from behavioral economic experiments and detailed surveys of demographics, religious beliefs and practices, material security, and intergroup perceptions. This paper describes the methods and variables, briefly introduces the sites and sampling techniques, notes inconsistencies across sites, and provides some basic reporting for the data set. PMID:27824332

Should biodiversity and nature have to earn their keep? What it really means to bring environmental goods into the marketplace.

PubMed

Maier, Donald S

2018-05-01

Pursuit of economic gain has sponsored much of our planet's despoliation. Yet conservation increasingly operates as an economic sector that markets biodiversity, ecosystems, and nature as natural capital, service provider, or option value. This essay first elucidates what basic moral theory says about the principle that the goodness of biodiversity and nature is largely economic. It explains why economic valuations may be morally unimportant, inapt for environmental goods, and subversive of more important ideals. It also shows why neither econometric notions of option value nor Daniel Faith's qualitative one credibly applies. The essay then turns to what an economic conception of goodness implies for conservation practice. It refers to two prominent conservation organizations, whose conservation principles match the market-based ones of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development's. The environmental record of the latter organization's practices according to these principles predicts what their adoption for conservation entails.

[Manipulation of the human genome: ethics and law].

PubMed

Goulart, Maria Carolina Vaz; Iano, Flávia Godoy; Silva, Paulo Maurício; Sales-Peres, Silvia Helena de Carvalho; Sales-Peres, Arsênio

2010-06-01

The molecular biology has provided the basic tool for geneticists deepening in the molecular mechanisms that influence different diseases. It should be noted the scientific and moral responsibility of the researchers, because the scientists should imagine the moral consequences of the commercial application of genetic tests, since this fact involves not only the individual and their families, but the entire population. Besides being also necessary to make a reflection on how this information from the human genome will be used, for good or bad. The objective of this review was to bring the light of knowledge, data on characteristics of the ethical application of molecular biology, linking it with the rights of human beings. After studying literature, it might be observed that the Human Genome Project has generated several possibilities, such as the identification of genes associated with diseases with synergistic properties, but sometimes modifying behavior to genetically intervene in humans, bringing benefits or social harm. The big challenge is to decide what humanity wants on this giant leap.

Moving It Along: A study of healthcare professionals' experience with ethics consultations.

PubMed

Crigger, Nancy; Fox, Maria; Rosell, Tarris; Rojjanasrirat, Wilaiporn

2017-05-01

Ethics consultation is the traditional way of resolving challenging ethical questions raised about patient care in the United States. Little research has been published on the resolution process used during ethics consultations and on how this experience affects healthcare professionals who participate in them. The purpose of this qualitative research was to uncover the basic process that occurs in consultation services through study of the perceptions of healthcare professionals. The researchers in this study used a constructivist grounded theory approach that represents how one group of professionals experienced ethics consultations in their hospital in the United States. The results were sufficient to develop an initial theory that has been named after the core concept: Moving It Along. Three process stages emerged from data interpretation: moral questioning, seeing the big picture, and coming together. It is hoped that this initial work stimulates additional research in describing and understanding the complex social process that occurs for healthcare professionals as they address the difficult moral issues that arise in clinical practice.

Ethics in the practice of speech-language pathology in health care settings.

PubMed

Kummer, Ann W; Turner, Jan

2011-11-01

ETHICS refers to a moral philosophy or a set of moral principles that determine appropriate behavior in a society. Medical ethics includes a set of specific values that are considered in determining appropriate conduct in the practice of medicine or health care. Because the practice of medicine and medical speech-language pathology affects the health, well-being, and quality of life of individuals served, adherence to a code of ethical conduct is critically important in the health care environment. When ethical dilemmas arise, consultation with a bioethics committee can be helpful in determining the best course of action. This article will help to define medical ethics and to discuss the six basic values that are commonly considered in discussions of medical ethics. Common ethical mistakes in the practice of speech-language pathology will be described. Finally, the value of a bioethics consultation for help in resolving complex ethical issues will be discussed. © Thieme Medical Publishers.

Germ-line engineering, freedom, and future generations.

PubMed

Cooke, Elizabeth F

2003-02-01

New technologies in germ-line engineering have raised many questions about obligations to future generations. In this article, I focus on the importance of increasing freedom and the equality of freedom for present and future generations, because these two ideals are necessary for a just society and because they are most threatened by the wide-scale privatisation of GLE technologies. However, there are ambiguities in applying these ideals to the issue of genetic technologies. I argue that Amartya Sen's capability theory can be used as a framework to ensure freedom and equality in the use of GLE technology. Capability theory articulates the goal of equalising real freedom by bringing all people up to a threshold of basic human capabilities. Sen's capability theory can clarify the proper moral goal of GLE insofar as this technology could be used to bring people up to certain basic human capabilities, thereby increasing their real freedom. And by increasing the freedom of those who lack basic human capabilities, GLE can aid in decreasing the inequalities of freedom among classes of people.

Routines and rituals: a grounded theory of the pain management of drug users in acute care settings.

PubMed

McCreaddie, May; Lyons, Imogen; Watt, Debbie; Ewing, Elspeth; Croft, Jeanette; Smith, Marion; Tocher, Jennifer

2010-10-01

This study reviewed the perceptions and strategies of drug users and nurses with regard to pain management in acute care settings. Drug users present unique challenges in acute care settings with pain management noted to be at best suboptimal, at worst non-existent. Little is known about why and specifically how therapeutic effectiveness is compromised. Qualitative: constructivist grounded theory. A constructivist grounded theory approach incorporating a constant comparative method of data collection and analysis was applied. The data corpus comprised interviews with drug users (n = 11) and five focus groups (n = 22) of nurses and recovering drug users. Moral relativism as the core category both represents the phenomenon and explains the basic social process. Nurses and drug users struggle with moral relativism when addressing the issue of pain management in the acute care setting. Drug users lay claim to expectations of compassionate care and moralise via narration. Paradoxically, nurses report that the caring ideal and mutuality of caring are diminished. Drug users' individual sensitivities, anxieties and felt stigma in conjunction with opioid-induced hyperalgesia complicate the processes. Nurses' and hospitals' organisational routines challenge drug user rituals and vice versa leading both protagonists to become disaffected. Consequently, key clinical issues such as preventing withdrawal and managing pain are left unaddressed and therapeutic effectiveness is compromised. This study provides a robust account of nurses' and drug users' struggle with pain management in the acute care setting. Quick technological fixes such as urine screens, checklists or the transient effects of (cognitive-based) education (or training) are not the answer. This study highlights the need for nurses to engage meaningfully with this perceptibly 'difficult' group of patients. The key aspects likely to contribute to problematic interactions with this patient cohort are outlined so that they can be prevented and, or addressed. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Psychosomatic medicine and the philosophy of life.

PubMed

Schwartz, Michael A; Wiggins, Osborne P

2010-01-21

Basing ourselves on the writings of Hans Jonas, we offer to psychosomatic medicine a philosophy of life that surmounts the mind-body dualism which has plagued Western thought since the origins of modern science in seventeenth century Europe. Any present-day account of reality must draw upon everything we know about the living and the non-living. Since we are living beings ourselves, we know what it means to be alive from our own first-hand experience. Therefore, our philosophy of life, in addition to starting with what empirical science tells us about inorganic and organic reality, must also begin from our own direct experience of life in ourselves and in others; it can then show how the two meet in the living being. Since life is ultimately one reality, our theory must reintegrate psyche with soma such that no component of the whole is short-changed, neither the objective nor the subjective. In this essay, we lay out the foundational components of such a theory by clarifying the defining features of living beings as polarities. We describe three such polarities: 1) Being vs. non-being: Always threatened by non-being, the organism must constantly re-assert its being through its own activity. 2) World-relatedness vs. self-enclosure: Living beings are both enclosed with themselves, defined by the boundaries that separate them from their environment, while they are also ceaselessly reaching out to their environment and engaging in transactions with it. 3) Dependence vs. independence: Living beings are both dependent on the material components that constitute them at any given moment and independent of any particular groupings of these components over time.We then discuss important features of the polarities of life: Metabolism; organic structure; enclosure by a semi-permeable membrane; distinction between "self" and "other"; autonomy; neediness; teleology; sensitivity; values. Moral needs and values already arise at the most basic levels of life, even if only human beings can recognize such values as moral requirements and develop responses to them.

Psychosomatic medicine and the philosophy of life

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Basing ourselves on the writings of Hans Jonas, we offer to psychosomatic medicine a philosophy of life that surmounts the mind-body dualism which has plagued Western thought since the origins of modern science in seventeenth century Europe. Any present-day account of reality must draw upon everything we know about the living and the non-living. Since we are living beings ourselves, we know what it means to be alive from our own first-hand experience. Therefore, our philosophy of life, in addition to starting with what empirical science tells us about inorganic and organic reality, must also begin from our own direct experience of life in ourselves and in others; it can then show how the two meet in the living being. Since life is ultimately one reality, our theory must reintegrate psyche with soma such that no component of the whole is short-changed, neither the objective nor the subjective. In this essay, we lay out the foundational components of such a theory by clarifying the defining features of living beings as polarities. We describe three such polarities: 1) Being vs. non-being: Always threatened by non-being, the organism must constantly re-assert its being through its own activity. 2) World-relatedness vs. self-enclosure: Living beings are both enclosed with themselves, defined by the boundaries that separate them from their environment, while they are also ceaselessly reaching out to their environment and engaging in transactions with it. 3) Dependence vs. independence: Living beings are both dependent on the material components that constitute them at any given moment and independent of any particular groupings of these components over time. We then discuss important features of the polarities of life: Metabolism; organic structure; enclosure by a semi-permeable membrane; distinction between "self" and "other"; autonomy; neediness; teleology; sensitivity; values. Moral needs and values already arise at the most basic levels of life, even if only human beings can recognize such values as moral requirements and develop responses to them. PMID:20089202

Arms control: moral, political and historical lesson

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Thompson, K.W.

1990-01-01

Many of the world's most influential policy-makers and analysts view arms control as a scientific and technological problem. They measure a nation's nuclear power exclusively by megatonnage and throw-weights leaving the intangible elements of military and political power to philosophers and historians. They tend to ignore the human and qualitative aspects of power. This is a book that shift the emphasis to aspects of the nuclear problem which are sometimes overlooked. Basically, these elements are bound up in the moral, political, and historical lessons of the nuclear age. Nonquantitative factors have been central to studies of national defense and militarymore » power since the rise of the modern nation state system. However, most students of present-day nuclear weapons tend to stress their revolutionary character. Because they are considered wholly unique, analysts tend to write about them in a historical and apolitical terms. One purpose of the collection of papers in this little volume is to redirect attention to the moral, political, and historical lessons that the nuclear age presents. What most distinguishes the writings of contributors to this volume is their use of certain well-established principles and concepts long acknowledged in military and foreign policy analysis. Thus Father Hehir asks many of the same questions that students of ethics and foreign policy have asked for four hundred years.« less

How rational should bioethics be? The value of empirical approaches.

PubMed

Alvarez, A A

2001-10-01

Rational justification of claims with empirical content calls for empirical and not only normative philosophical investigation. Empirical approaches to bioethics are epistemically valuable, i.e., such methods may be necessary in providing and verifying basic knowledge about cultural values and norms. Our assumptions in moral reasoning can be verified or corrected using these methods. Moral arguments can be initiated or adjudicated by data drawn from empirical investigation. One may argue that individualistic informed consent, for example, is not compatible with the Asian communitarian orientation. But this normative claim uses an empirical assumption that may be contrary to the fact that some Asians do value and argue for informed consent. Is it necessary and factual to neatly characterize some cultures as individualistic and some as communitarian? Empirical investigation can provide a reasonable way to inform such generalizations. In a multi-cultural context, such as in the Philippines, there is a need to investigate the nature of the local ethos before making any appeal to authenticity. Otherwise we may succumb to the same ethical imperialism we are trying hard to resist. Normative claims that involve empirical premises cannot be reasonable verified or evaluated without utilizing empirical methods along with philosophical reflection. The integration of empirical methods to the standard normative approach to moral reasoning should be reasonably guided by the epistemic demands of claims arising from cross-cultural discourse in bioethics.

Patient autonomy in home care: Nurses' relational practices of responsibility.

PubMed

Jacobs, Gaby

2018-01-01

Over the last decade, new healthcare policies are transforming healthcare practices towards independent living and self-care of older people and people with a chronic disease or disability within the community. For professional caregivers in home care, such as nurses, this requires a shift from a caring attitude towards the promotion of patient autonomy. To explore how nurses in home care deal with the transformation towards fostering patient autonomy and self-care. Research design and context: A case study was conducted in a professional development course ('learning circle') for home care nurses, including participant observations and focus groups. The theoretical notion of 'relational agency' and the moral concept of 'practices of responsibility' were used to conduct a narrative analysis on the nurses' stories about autonomy. Eight nurses, two coaches and two university lecturers who participated in the learning circle. Ethical considerations: Informed consent was sought at the start of the course and again, at specific moments during the course of the learning circle. Three main themes were found that expressed the moral demands experienced and negotiated by the nurses: adapting to the person, activating patients' strengths and collaboration with patients and informal caregivers. On a policy and organisational level, the moral discourse on patient autonomy gets intertwined with the instrumental discourse on healthcare budget savings. This is manifested in the ambiguities the nurses face in fostering patient autonomy in their daily home care practice. To support nurses, critical thinking, moral sensitivity and trans-professional working should be part of their professional development. The turn towards autonomy in healthcare raises moral questions about responsibilities for care. Promoting patient autonomy should be a collaborative endeavour and deliberation of patients, professional and informal caregivers together.

Moral imperatives for academic medicine.

PubMed

Thompson, J N

1997-12-01

As the health care system becomes dominated by managed care, academic medicine must do more than simply learn how to continue to offer the same level of care with ever-tightening resources and in new practice environments. Three moral imperatives must guide how medicine is practiced and taught: (1) patients' health and well-being must always be foremost, centered in quality of care and respect for life; (2) the emotional and spiritual needs of patients must be considered, not just the physical needs; (3) academic medicine must instill in its trainees discipline, passion, and skills to meet their obligation to be lifelong learners. These imperatives make it more important than ever for medical educators to tackle two crucial questions: What kind of person makes the best possible physician? And what constitutes the best possible training for that person? Taking these questions seriously in the new era of health care may mean that medical educators need to rethink the teaching of medicine. One example of how this might be done is the Curriculum for 2002 Committee recently formed at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. It is becoming clear that medical educators can do a better and more comprehensive job of helping future physicians uncover and strengthen their own morality and, in the face of managed care's pressures, renew their loyalty to medicine as a service rather than a business. Morally sensitized physicians can better deal with the hard issues of medicine, such as euthanasia and abortion, and can help their students examine these issues. Most important, they can show their students that physicians are members of a moral community dedicated to something other than its own self-interest.

Why Is There a Gay Pride Flag on My 9-Year-Old's Backpack?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sedillo, Paul James

2018-01-01

Gifted children are often empathetic, morally sensitive, and feel a responsibility toward others. As they become aware of the injustices in their surrounding communities, they may embark on a quest for justice for individuals who are oppressed, marginalized, or misunderstood. With Gay Pride Month in June bringing increased visibility and awareness…

Making Great Kids Greater: Easing the Burden of Being Gifted

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sisk, Dorothy

2008-01-01

On the surface, gifted children may appear to be well adjusted, but they are often highly sensitive, perfectionistic, and intense. They usually have an acute awareness of moral issues, with a unique perception of themselves and others and deeper feelings at an earlier age than their peers. Because of these intense qualities, they may suffer from…

Socio-Sexual Education: A Practical Study in Formal Thinking and Teachable Moments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wagner, Paul A.

2011-01-01

Sex education is almost as sensitive a topic in public schooling as is the imposition of high-stakes testing. Both typically claim to be value-free contributions to the development of the student's cognitive, psychological and sometimes even moral maturity. Ironically each seems to short-change students in all three areas of development. The focus…

Black money in white coats: whither medical ethics?

PubMed

Chattopadhyay, Subrata

2008-01-01

There has been a sea change in the ethos of medicine in India in recent decades. Academic dishonesty of an alarming nature has been reported in medical colleges. Moral degeneration and corruption have engulfed the establishment at the highest level. The head of the Medical Council of India was found guilty of corruption and stripped of his position a few years ago. Many professors in private medical colleges draw a part of their salary as "black"money. There is little discussion on this growing malady within the profession. Professional medical associations have turned a blind eye towards unethical practices; sincere efforts to take a stand on ethical medicine are lacking. Marginalisation of ethics raises questions about the professional integrity, moral sensitivity and social responsibility of practitioners of modern medicine in India.

Commentary on Fiester's "Ill-placed democracy: ethics consultations and the moral status of voting".

PubMed

Dubler, Nancy Neveloff

2011-01-01

Autumn Fiester identifies an important element in clinical ethics consultation (CEC) that she labels, from the Greek, aporia, "state of perplexity," evidenced in CEC as ethical ambiguity. Fiester argues that the inherent difficulties of cases so characterized render them inappropriate for voting and more amenable to mediation and the search for consensus. This commentary supports Fiester's analysis and adds additional reasons for rejecting voting as a process for resolving disputes in CEC including: it distorts the analysis by empowering individual voters preferences and biases rather than focusing on the interests and wishes of the patient and family; it offers an insufficiently sensitive model for resolving the awesome, nuanced, conflicted, and ethically complex issues surrounding life and death; it marginalizes minority opinions that may have moral validity.

Strong activation of bile acid-sensitive ion channel (BASIC) by ursodeoxycholic acid

PubMed Central

Wiemuth, Dominik; Sahin, Hacer; Lefèvre, Cathérine M.T.; Wasmuth, Hermann E.; Gründer, Stefan

2013-01-01

Bile acid-sensitive ion channel (BASIC) is a member of the DEG/ENaC gene family of unknown function. Rat BASIC (rBASIC) is inactive at rest. We have recently shown that cholangiocytes, the epithelial cells lining the bile ducts, are the main site of BASIC expression in the liver and identified bile acids, in particular hyo- and chenodeoxycholic acid, as agonists of rBASIC. Moreover, it seems that extracellular divalent cations stabilize the resting state of rBASIC, because removal of extracellular divalent cations opens the channel. In this addendum, we demonstrate that removal of extracellular divalent cations potentiates the activation of rBASIC by bile acids, suggesting an allosteric mechanism. Furthermore, we show that rBASIC is strongly activated by the anticholestatic bile acid ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), suggesting that BASIC might mediate part of the therapeutic effects of UDCA. PMID:23064163

Utilitarianism.

PubMed

Gillon, R

1985-05-11

In one of a series of British Medical Journal articles on the philosophical foundations of medical ethics, Gillon outlines the pros and cons of utilitarian theories of ethics, which determine the morality of actions by whether or not they increase happiness or decrease suffering. He counters utilitarian claims to have overcome the disadvantages of deontological theories by pointing out flaws in the coherence, justification, and results of utilitarian arguments, as these arguments are exemplified in the writings of Bentham, Mill, and Hare. He observes that many modern utilitarians have overcome problems with their basic theories by accommodating aspects of deontological thinking.

[Bioethics of principles].

PubMed

Pérez-Soba Díez del Corral, Juan José

2008-01-01

Bioethics emerges about the tecnological problems of acting in human life. Emerges also the problem of the moral limits determination, because they seem exterior of this practice. The Bioethics of Principles, take his rationality of the teleological thinking, and the autonomism. These divergence manifest the epistemological fragility and the great difficulty of hmoralñ thinking. This is evident in the determination of autonomy's principle, it has not the ethical content of Kant's propose. We need a new ethic rationality with a new refelxion of new Principles whose emerges of the basic ethic experiences.

Analyse von Unterrichtsmaterialien der Menschenrechtsbildung

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lenhart, Volker

2002-07-01

This article surveys five manuals on human rights education, examining and comparing them according to a set of basic categories such as the educational level of the target audience, the learning objectives and the educational content. This approach is used to establish the overall curricular orientation of the manuals. In addition, one teaching unit from each manual is selected for special analysis. Based on the results of this survey, the author argues that the tradition of moral education elaborated by Lawrence Kohlberg should be integrated into our concept of human rights teaching and learning.

Infusing Diversity and Equity Into Clinical Teaching: Training the Trainers.

PubMed

Wilson-Mitchell, Karline; Handa, Manavi

2016-11-01

Clinical instructors in health care disciplines are charged with engaging students in experiential learning wherein respect and cultural sensitivity is applied. This article reports on the results of 3 diversity workshops conducted for clinical preceptors and field instructors from various disciplines. The workshops were developed in response to students' growing concerns that their academic learning experiences were negatively affected by dissatisfying management of differences between students, faculty, and preceptors with respect to ethno-racial group membership, socioeconomic level, and degree of privilege and power. The workshops included a didactic session that presented basic principles of social and health equity followed by small-group reflection about various ethical and moral dilemmas that were presented in clinical education scenarios. Examples of discrimination on a variety of levels were addressed in these workshops, including race, ethnicity, immigration status, sexual orientation, religion, body size and appearance, ability, age, socioeconomic class, religious faith, and gender. The group exercises and discussion from these sessions provided valuable insight and approaches to difficult but common areas of discomfiture encountered in the clinical teaching setting. This article presents the findings from participants of these diversity workshops in order to encourage the application of equity principles into clinical teaching in midwifery and other health care education contexts. © 2016 by the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

What values in design? The challenge of incorporating moral values into design.

PubMed

Manders-Huits, Noëmi

2011-06-01

Recently, there is increased attention to the integration of moral values into the conception, design, and development of emerging IT. The most reviewed approach for this purpose in ethics and technology so far is Value-Sensitive Design (VSD). This article considers VSD as the prime candidate for implementing normative considerations into design. Its methodology is considered from a conceptual, analytical, normative perspective. The focus here is on the suitability of VSD for integrating moral values into the design of technologies in a way that joins in with an analytical perspective on ethics of technology. Despite its promising character, it turns out that VSD falls short in several respects: (1) VSD does not have a clear methodology for identifying stakeholders, (2) the integration of empirical methods with conceptual research within the methodology of VSD is obscure, (3) VSD runs the risk of committing the naturalistic fallacy when using empirical knowledge for implementing values in design, (4) the concept of values, as well as their realization, is left undetermined and (5) VSD lacks a complimentary or explicit ethical theory for dealing with value trade-offs. For the normative evaluation of a technology, I claim that an explicit and justified ethical starting point or principle is required. Moreover, explicit attention should be given to the value aims and assumptions of a particular design. The criteria of adequacy for such an approach or methodology follow from the evaluation of VSD as the prime candidate for implementing moral values in design.

Perspective: creating an ethical workplace: reverberations of resident work hours reform.

PubMed

Lopez, Lenny; Katz, Joel T

2009-03-01

Medical professionals are a community of highly educated individuals with a commitment to a core set of ideals and principles. This community provides both technical and ethical socialization. The development of ethical physicians is highly linked to experiences in the training period. Moral traits are situation-sensitive psychological and behavioral dispositions. The consequence of long duty hours on the moral development of physicians is less understood. The clinical environment of medical training programs can be so intense as to lead to conditions that may actually deprofessionalize trainees. The dynamic relationship between individual character traits and the situational dependence of their expression suggests that a systems approach will help promote and nurture moral development. Ethical behavior can be supported by systems that make it more difficult to veer from the ideal. Work hours limits are a structural change that will help preserve public safety by preventing physicians from taking the moral shortcuts that can occur with increasing work and time pressures. Work hours rules are beneficial but insufficient to optimize an ethical work and training environment. Additional measures need to be put in place to ensure that ethical tensions are not created between the patient's well-being and the resident's adherence to work hours rules. The ethical ideals of physician autonomy, selflessness, and accountability to the patient must be protected through the judicious and flexible use of work hours limits, physician extenders, census caps, nonteaching services, and high-quality handoffs.

The Social Explanatory Styles Questionnaire: Assessing Moderators of Basic Social-Cognitive Phenomena Including Spontaneous Trait Inference, the Fundamental Attribution Error, and Moral Blame

PubMed Central

Gill, Michael J.; Andreychik, Michael R.

2014-01-01

Why is he poor? Why is she failing academically? Why is he so generous? Why is she so conscientious? Answers to such everyday questions—social explanations—have powerful effects on relationships at the interpersonal and societal levels. How do people select an explanation in particular cases? We suggest that, often, explanations are selected based on the individual's pre-existing general theories of social causality. More specifically, we suggest that over time individuals develop general beliefs regarding the causes of social events. We refer to these beliefs as social explanatory styles. Our goal in the present article is to offer and validate a measure of individual differences in social explanatory styles. Accordingly, we offer the Social Explanatory Styles Questionnaire (SESQ), which measures three independent dimensions of social explanatory style: Dispositionism, historicism, and controllability. Studies 1–3 examine basic psychometric properties of the SESQ and provide positive evidence regarding internal consistency, factor structure, and both convergent and divergent validity. Studies 4–6 examine predictive validity for each subscale: Does each explanatory dimension moderate an important phenomenon of social cognition? Results suggest that they do. In Study 4, we show that SESQ dispositionism moderates the tendency to make spontaneous trait inferences. In Study 5, we show that SESQ historicism moderates the tendency to commit the Fundamental Attribution Error. Finally, in Study 6 we show that SESQ controllability predicts polarization of moral blame judgments: Heightened blaming toward controllable stigmas (assimilation), and attenuated blaming toward uncontrollable stigmas (contrast). Decades of research suggest that explanatory style regarding the self is a powerful predictor of self-functioning. We think it is likely that social explanatory styles—perhaps comprising interactive combinations of the basic dimensions tapped by the SESQ—will be similarly potent predictors of social functioning. We hope the SESQ will be a useful tool for exploring that possibility. PMID:25007152

Moral Sensitivity in the Context of Socioscientific Issues in High School Science Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fowler, Samantha R.; Zeidler, Dana L.; Sadler, Troy D.

2009-01-01

This study is a part of a larger study that examined using socioscientific issues (SSI) as a form of effective science teaching. The purpose was to investigate how teaching a year-long curriculum using SSI affects science learning outcomes. In this report, we examine the effects of a SSI-driven curriculum on the development of students' moral…

Contemporary Moral Problems in Chemistry: Effect of Peer Presentations on Students' Awareness of Science and Society Issues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Harold B., III; Brown, Steven D.; Johnston, Murray V.

2005-01-01

A study is conducted about including a course curriculum that would inform and sensitize students to social issues relating to science in a setting that emphasizes oral and visual communication. This would help students to develop critical thinking skills, practice communication skills, and gain confidence in their ability to think through public…

A New Approach: Making Ethical Decisions regarding Adult Learner Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Missey, Jeanne T.

Many new student affairs professionals have had little or no experience in applying such codes to different learners. How to address issues where codes are insufficient and how to make student affairs professionals sensitive to the moral and ethical issues of adult learners are addressed in this paper. It is not meant as a guide, but as a tool for…

The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children's Altruism across the World.

PubMed

Decety, Jean; Cowell, Jason M; Lee, Kang; Mahasneh, Randa; Malcolm-Smith, Susan; Selcuk, Bilge; Zhou, Xinyue

2015-11-16

Prosocial behaviors are ubiquitous across societies. They emerge early in ontogeny and are shaped by interactions between genes and culture. Over the course of middle childhood, sharing approaches equality in distribution. Since 5.8 billion humans, representing 84% of the worldwide population, identify as religious, religion is arguably one prevalent facet of culture that influences the development and expression of prosociality. While it is generally accepted that religion contours people's moral judgments and prosocial behavior, the relation between religiosity and morality is a contentious one. Here, we assessed altruism and third-party evaluation of scenarios depicting interpersonal harm in 1,170 children aged between 5 and 12 years in six countries (Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, USA, and South Africa), the religiousness of their household, and parent-reported child empathy and sensitivity to justice. Across all countries, parents in religious households reported that their children expressed more empathy and sensitivity for justice in everyday life than non-religious parents. However, religiousness was inversely predictive of children's altruism and positively correlated with their punitive tendencies. Together these results reveal the similarity across countries in how religion negatively influences children's altruism, challenging the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

John Woolman and Ethical Progress in Kitcher's Pragmatic Naturalism.

PubMed

Barresi, John

2017-01-01

The development of John Woolman’s views on slavery plays an important evidentiary role in Philip Kitcher’s recent book, The ethical project (Kitcher 2011). In this work Kitcher takes what he calls a “pragmatic naturalist” approach to ethics and claims that the discovery of ethical truth plays no role in the emergence of ethical progress. To support his view, he argues that Woolman’s contribution was not due to his discovery of an ethical truth about slavery, not previously known, but due to his sensitivity to slavery and his influence on others, which contributed to collective progressive change in moral norms involving slavery. While not disputing Kitcher’s ethical theory, I argue that personal discoveries of a moral psychological nature made by Woolman served both as insights and motivations for his contribution. Thus, even if there are no such things as independent ethical truths that can be discovered by individuals, a fully naturalistic approach to ethical progress requires that we make room not only for group-level progressive evolution of norms, but also for individual discoveries of a moral psychological nature that can sometimes cause an individual to play a significant initiating role in progressive ethical transitions that occur at a group level.

To defer or to stand up? How offender formidability affects third party moral outrage.

PubMed

Jensen, Niels Holm; Petersen, Michael Bang

2011-03-16

According to models of animal behavior, the relative formidability of conspecifics determines the utility of deferring versus aggressing in situations of conflict. Here we apply and extend these models by investigating how the formidability of exploiters shapes third party moral outrage in humans. Deciding whether to defer to or stand up against a formidable exploiter is a complicated decision as there is both much to lose (formidable individuals are able and prone to retaliate) and much to gain (formidable individuals pose a great future threat). An optimally designed outrage system should, therefore, be sensitive to these cost- benefit trade-offs. To test this argument, participants read scenarios containing exploitative acts (trivial vs. serious) and were presented with head-shot photos of the apparent exploiters (formidable vs. non-formidable). As predicted, results showed that, compared to the non- formidable exploiter, the formidable exploiter activated significantly more outrage in male participants when the exploitative act was serious. Conversely, when it was trivial, the formidable exploiter activated significantly less outrage in male participants. However, these findings were conditioned by the exploiters' perceived trustworthiness. Among female participants, the results showed that moral outrage was not modulated by exploiter formidability.

Moral theological analysis of direct versus indirect abortion.

PubMed

Haas, John M

2017-08-01

Cases of a vital conflict, where the lives of both the mother and child are at risk during pregnancy, have been the subject of recent vigorous debate. The basic principles put forth in the Ethical and Religious Directives are reviewed, as is the principle of double effect. An illustrative case of severe cardiomyopathy in a pregnant woman is described and it is noted that the principle of double effect would not apply. Counter arguments are noted, focusing on Martin Rhonheimer who posits that in the case of vital conflicts, such as performing a craniotomy on a baby stuck in the birth canal, taking the baby's life does not constitute a direct abortion because moral norms do not apply in the extreme conflict situation where both mother and child will die. He states that the death of the fetus is not intentional in these cases. He overlooks "how the life is being saved" and that a choice has been made, which implies a moral act, not just a physical one. Rhonheimer wants to make his moral judgment solely on the basis of intention, prescinding from what actually occurs in the physical world of cause and effect. This is clearly against the teaching in Evangelium vitae. Ethics deal with the deliberate chosen actions in space and time of embodied human beings; it deals inescapably with material actions, with specifications of intentions. Rhonheimer states, "a killing or an abortion is 'direct,' not because the death of the fetus is caused in some physically direct way, but because it is willed as the means to an end." However the death of the child cannot be excluded from the act and is therefore of necessity included in it. What the acting person chooses includes what happens physically in this act. If the action theory proposed by Rhonheimer is accepted, it could be very difficult to avoid death-dealing actions from taking place in Catholic hospitals. This is a moral analysis of cases of "vital conflicts," where the lives of both the mother and child are at risk during a pregnancy. It is stated by some ethicists that directly killing the baby to save the life of the mother is morally justified, even when the direct action of the doctor is to kill the baby. Examples are provided to illustrate how Catholic moral principles apply. It is concluded that direct killing, regardless of the intention, is not justified. The doctor should always work to try and save the lives of both the mother and the child. One should never be directly killed even if the intention is to save the life of the other.

The effects of moral judgment and moral identity on moral behavior: an empirical examination of the moral individual.

PubMed

Reynolds, Scott J; Ceranic, Tara L

2007-11-01

Recognizing limitations in classic cognitive moral development theory, several scholars have drawn from theories of identity to suggest that moral behavior results from both moral judgments and moral identity. The authors conducted 2 survey-based studies with more than 500 students and managers to test this argument. Results demonstrated that moral identity and moral judgments both independently influenced moral behavior. In addition, in situations in which social consensus regarding the moral behavior was not high, moral judgments and moral identity interacted to shape moral behavior. This interaction effect indicated that those who viewed themselves as moral individuals pursued the most extreme alternatives (e.g., never cheating, regularly cheating)--a finding that affirms the motivational power of a moral identity. The authors conclude by considering the implications of this research for both theory and practice. (c) 2007 APA

Validity and reliability of an instrument for assessing case analyses in bioengineering ethics education.

PubMed

Goldin, Ilya M; Pinkus, Rosa Lynn; Ashley, Kevin

2015-06-01

Assessment in ethics education faces a challenge. From the perspectives of teachers, students, and third-party evaluators like the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and the National Institutes of Health, assessment of student performance is essential. Because of the complexity of ethical case analysis, however, it is difficult to formulate assessment criteria, and to recognize when students fulfill them. Improvement in students' moral reasoning skills can serve as the focus of assessment. In previous work, Rosa Lynn Pinkus and Claire Gloeckner developed a novel instrument for assessing moral reasoning skills in bioengineering ethics. In this paper, we compare that approach to existing assessment techniques, and evaluate its validity and reliability. We find that it is sensitive to knowledge gain and that independent coders agree on how to apply it.

Islamic perspective on human cloning and stem cell research.

PubMed

Larijani, B; Zahedi, F

2004-12-01

Recent advances in the field of cloning and stem cell research have introduced new hope for treatment of serious diseases. But this promise has been accompanied by enormous questions. Currently, cloning is a matter of public discussion. It is rare that a field of science causes debate and challenge not only among scientists but also among ethicists, religious scholars, governments, and politicians. One important concern is religious arguments. Various religions have different attitudes toward the morality of these subjects; even within a particular religious tradition there is a diversity of opinions. The following article briefly reviews Islamic perspectives about reproductive/therapeutic cloning and stem cell research. The majority of Muslim jurists distinguish between reproductive and therapeutic cloning. The moral status of the human embryo, the most sensitive and disputed point in this debate, is also discussed according to Holy Quran teachings.

Reproduction trends and the emergence of moral panic.

PubMed

Hanmer, J

1987-01-01

Are we witnessing a moral panic or a moral evaluation in the responses to the new reproductive technologies? Locating women in reproductive technology is a particularly powerful way into a discussion of values and consequences, intended or unintended. Twelve areas are isolated for discussion beginning with issues of definition and location: What is reproductive and genetic engineering? and How does human reproduction fit into bio-technological developments generally? Next issues are raised about how the new developments are being shaped ideologically and how they are being promoted by the state. A series of legal issues affecting women, men, children, embryos and fetuses follow. The focus then shifts to the way women are ideologically constructed: Why is there an assumption that woman = mother, and mother = heterosexual married or stable cohabiting woman?--and socially controlled: Why assume technological change in human reproductive processes means the basic subordination of women to men will not alter? The usefulness of the new technologies in relieving involuntary childlessness is then queried which leads on to a questioning of whether these developments are qualitatively different from other technologies used in human reproduction. Futuristic concerns such as the importance of the male pregnancy and the social consequences of fully medicalising human reproduction are raised. The last area to be considered is protest by women and suggested alternative approaches to increase the social visibility and recognition of the needs and interest of women in the current and potential use of the new medical and scientific developments.

A functional imaging investigation of moral deliberation and moral intuition

PubMed Central

Harenski, Carla L.; Antonenko, Olga; Shane, Matthew S.; Kiehl, Kent A.

2014-01-01

Prior functional imaging studies of moral processing have utilized ‘explicit’ moral tasks that involve moral deliberation (e.g., reading statements such as ‘he shot the victim’ and rating the moral appropriateness of the behavior) or ‘implicit’ moral tasks that involve moral intuition (e.g., reading similar statements and memorizing them for a test but not rating their moral appropriateness). Although the neural mechanisms underlying moral deliberation and moral intuition may differ, these have not been directly compared. Studies using explicit moral tasks have reported increased activity in several regions, most consistently the medial prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction. In the few studies that have utilized implicit moral tasks, medial prefrontal activity has been less consistent, suggesting the medial prefrontal cortex is more critical for moral deliberation than moral intuition. Thus, we hypothesized that medial prefrontal activity would be increased during an explicit, but not an implicit, moral task. Participants (n = 28) were scanned using fMRI while viewing 50 unpleasant pictures, half of which depicted moral violations. Half of the participants rated pictures on moral violation severity (explicit task) while the other half indicated whether pictures occurred indoors or outdoors (implicit task). As predicted, participants performing the explicit, but not the implicit, task showed increased ventromedial prefrontal activity while viewing moral pictures. Both groups showed increased temporo-parietal junction activity while viewing moral pictures. These results suggest that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex may contribute more to moral deliberation than moral intuition, whereas the temporo-parietal junction may contribute more to moral intuition than moral deliberation. PMID:19878727

Educating Moral Emotions or Moral Selves: A False Dichotomy?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kristjansson, Kristjan

2010-01-01

In the post-Kohlbergian era of moral education, a "moral gap" has been identified between moral cognition and moral action. Contemporary moral psychologists lock horns over how this gap might be bridged. The two main contenders for such bridge-building are moral emotions and moral selves. I explore these two options from an Aristotelian…

An Examination of Income Effect on Consumers' Ethical Evaluation of Counterfeit Drugs Buying Behaviour: A Cross-Sectional Study in Qatar and Sudan.

PubMed

Alfadl, Abubakr Abdelraouf; Ibrahim, Mohamed Izham Mohamed; Maraghi, Fatima Abdulla; Mohammad, Khadijah Shhab

2016-09-01

There are limited studies on consumer behaviour toward counterfeit products and the determining factors that motivate willingness to purchase counterfeit items. This study aimed to fill this literature gap through studying differences in individual ethical evaluations of counterfeit drug purchase and whether that ethical evaluation affected by difference in income. It is hypothesized that individuals with lower/higher income make a more/less permissive evaluation of ethical responsibility regarding counterfeit drug purchase. To empirically test the research assumption, a comparison was made between people who live in the low-income country Sudan and people who live in the high-income country Qatar. The study employed a face-to-face structured interview survey methodology to collect data from 1,170 subjects and the Sudanese and Qatari samples were compared using independent t-test at alpha level of 0.05 employing SPSS version 22.0. Sudanese and Qatari individuals were significantly different on all items. Sudanese individuals scored below 3 for all Awareness of Societal Consequences (ASC) items indicating that they make more permissive evaluation of ethical responsibility regarding counterfeit drug purchase. Both groups shared a basic positive moral agreement regarding subjective norm indicating that influence of income is not evident. Findings indicate that low-income individuals make more permissive evaluation of ethical responsibility regarding counterfeit drugs purchase when highlighting awareness of societal consequences used as a deterrent tool, while both low and high-income individuals share a basic positive moral agreement when subjective norm dimension is exploited to discourage unethical buying behaviour.

Audio gunshot detection and localization systems: History, basic design, and future possibilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Graves, Jordan R.

For decades, law enforcement organizations have increasingly utilized audio detection and localization systems to identify potential gunshot incidents and to respond accordingly. These systems have grown from simple microphone configurations used to estimate location into complex arrays that seem to pinpoint gunfire to within mere feet of its actual occurrence. Such technology comes from a long and dynamic history of developing equipment dating back to the First World War. Additionally, though basic designs require little in terms of programming or engineering experience, the mere presence of this tool invokes a firestorm of debate amongst economists, law enforcement groups, and the general public, which leads to questions about future possibilities for its use. The following pages will retell the history of these systems from theoretical conception to current capabilities. This work will also dissect these systems to reveal fundamental elements of their inner workings, in order to build a basic demonstrative system. Finally, this work will discuss some legal and moral points of dissension, and will explore these systems’ roles in society now and in the future, in additional applications as well.

What is the responsibility of national government with respect to vaccination?

PubMed

Verweij, Marcel F; Houweling, Hans

2014-12-12

Given the ethical aspects of vaccination policies and current threats to public trust in vaccination, it is important that governments follow clear criteria for including new vaccines in a national programme. The Health Council of the Netherlands developed such a framework of criteria in 2007, and has been using this as basis for advisory reports about several vaccinations. However, general criteria alone offer insufficient ground and direction for thinking about what the state ought to do. In this paper, we present and defend two basic ethical principles that explain why certain vaccinations are the state's moral-political responsibility, and that may further guide decision-making about the content and character of immunisation programmes. First and foremost, the state is responsible for protecting the basic conditions for public health and societal life. Secondly, states are responsible for promoting and securing equal access to basic health care, which may also include certain vaccinations. We argue how these principles can find reasonable support from a broad variety of ethical and political views, and discuss several implications for vaccination policies. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fair shares: a preliminary framework and case analyzing the ethics of offshoring.

PubMed

Gordon, Cameron; Zimmerman, Alan

2010-06-01

Much has been written about the offshoring phenomenon from an economic efficiency perspective. Most authors have attempted to measure the net economic effects of the strategy and many purport to show that "in the long run" that benefits will outweigh the costs. There is also a relatively large literature on implementation which describes the best way to manage the offshoring process. But what is the morality of offshoring? What is its "rightness" or "wrongness?" Little analysis of the ethics of offshoring has been completed thus far. This paper develops a preliminary framework for analyzing the ethics of offshoring and then applies this framework to basic case study of offshoring in the U.S. The paper following discusses the definition of offshoring; shifts to the basic philosophical grounding of the ethical concepts; develops a template for conducting an ethics analysis of offshoring; applies this template using basic data for offshoring in the United States; and conducts a preliminary ethical analysis of the phenomenon in that country, using a form of utilitarianism as an analytical baseline. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research.

Moral distress and moral conflict in clinical ethics.

PubMed

Fourie, Carina

2015-02-01

Much research is currently being conducted on health care practitioners' experiences of moral distress, especially the experience of nurses. What moral distress is, however, is not always clearly delineated and there is some debate as to how it should be defined. This article aims to help to clarify moral distress. My methodology consists primarily of a conceptual analysis, with especial focus on Andrew Jameton's influential description of moral distress. I will identify and aim to resolve two sources of confusion about moral distress: (1) the compound nature of a narrow definition of distress which stipulates a particular cause, i.e. moral constraint, and (2) the distinction drawn between moral dilemma (or, more accurately, moral conflict) and moral distress, which implies that the two are mutually exclusive. In light of these concerns, I argue that the definition of moral distress should be revised so that moral constraint should not be a necessary condition of moral distress, and that moral conflict should be included as a potential cause of distress. Ultimately, I claim that moral distress should be understood as a specific psychological response to morally challenging situations such as those of moral constraint or moral conflict, or both. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Importance of Moral Construal: Moral versus Non-Moral Construal Elicits Faster, More Extreme, Universal Evaluations of the Same Actions

PubMed Central

Van Bavel, Jay J.; Packer, Dominic J.; Haas, Ingrid Johnsen; Cunningham, William A.

2012-01-01

Over the past decade, intuitionist models of morality have challenged the view that moral reasoning is the sole or even primary means by which moral judgments are made. Rather, intuitionist models posit that certain situations automatically elicit moral intuitions, which guide moral judgments. We present three experiments showing that evaluations are also susceptible to the influence of moral versus non-moral construal. We had participants make moral evaluations (rating whether actions were morally good or bad) or non-moral evaluations (rating whether actions were pragmatically or hedonically good or bad) of a wide variety of actions. As predicted, moral evaluations were faster, more extreme, and more strongly associated with universal prescriptions—the belief that absolutely nobody or everybody should engage in an action—than non-moral (pragmatic or hedonic) evaluations of the same actions. Further, we show that people are capable of flexibly shifting from moral to non-moral evaluations on a trial-by-trial basis. Taken together, these experiments provide evidence that moral versus non-moral construal has an important influence on evaluation and suggests that effects of construal are highly flexible. We discuss the implications of these experiments for models of moral judgment and decision-making. PMID:23209557

Toys are me: children's extension of self to objects.

PubMed

Diesendruck, Gil; Perez, Reut

2015-01-01

Adults tend to believe that objects can function as extensions of people's selves. This belief has been demonstrated in that changes to people's sense of self affect their attachment to personally valuable objects, and vice-versa. Here we tested the development of this belief. In Study 1 we found that manipulating 5-year-olds' self-worth via positive or negative feedback on performance, affected their willingness to part with personally valuable objects, but had no effect vis-à-vis non-valuable objects. In Study 2 we found that 9-, but not 5-year-olds were more willing to give a personally valuable object to someone morally repulsive after the object had been cleaned of all remnants of the child's self, than before. Study 2b showed an analogous effect in 5-year-olds' willingness to receive an object from someone morally repulsive. These findings intimate that the extension of self to objects via contagion may derive not only from cultural values such as consumerism, materialism, or individualism, but also from basic human needs. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Regulating with imagery and the complexity of basic emotions. Comment on "The quartet theory of human emotions: An integrative and neurofunctional model" by S. Koelsch et al.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meyer, Marcel; Kuchinke, Lars

2015-06-01

Literature, music and the arts have long attested to the complexity of human emotions. Hitherto, psychological and biological theories of emotions have largely neglected this rich heritage. In their review Koelsch and colleagues [1] have embarked upon the pioneering endeavour of integrating the diverse perspectives in emotion research. Noting that the focus of prior neurobiological theories relies mainly on animal studies, the authors sought to complement this body of research with a model of complex ("moral") emotions in humans (henceforth: complex emotions). According to this novel framework, there are four main interacting affective centres in the brain. Each centre is associated with a dominant affective function, such as ascending activation (brainstem), pain/pleasure (diencephalon), attachment-related affects (hippocampus) or moral emotions and unconscious cognitive appraisal (orbitofrontal cortex). Furthermore, language is ascribed a key role in (a) the communication of subjective feeling (reconfiguration) and (b) in the conscious regulation of emotions (by means of logic and rational thought).

Self-determination vs. family-determination: two incommensurable principles of autonomy: a report from East Asia.

PubMed

Fan, Ruiping

1997-01-01

Most contemporary bioethicists believe that Western bioethical principles, such as the principle of autonomy, are universally binding wherever bioethics is found. According to these bioethicists, these principles may be subject to culturally-conditioned further interpretations for their application in different nations or regions, but an 'abstract content' of each principle remains unchanged, which provides 'an objective basis for moral judgment and international law'. This essay intends to demonstrate that this is not the case. Taking the principle of autonomy as an example, this essay argues that there is no such shared 'abstract content' between the Western bioethical principle of autonomy and the East Asian bioethical principle of autonomy. Other things being equal, the Western principle of autonomy demands self-determination, assumes a subjective conception of the good and promotes the value of individual independence, whilst the East Asian principle of autonomy requires family-determination, presupposes an objective conception of the good and upholds the value of harmonious dependence. They differ from each other in the most general sense and basic moral requirement.

The UK National Health Service's 'innovation agenda': lessons on commercialisation and trust.

PubMed

Sterckx, Sigrid; Cockbain, Julian

2014-01-01

The UK National Health Service (the 'NHS'), encouraged by the 2011 report Innovation Health and Wealth, Accelerating Adoption and Diffusion in the NHS, and empowered by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, is in the process of adopting a new agenda for stimulating innovation in healthcare. For this, the bodies, body materials, and confidential health information of NHS patients may be co-opted. We explain why this brings the NHS into a moral conflict with its basic goal of providing a universal healthcare service. Putting NHS databases at the disposal of industry, without addressing ethical concerns regarding the privacy, autonomy, and moral integrity of patients and without requiring a 'kick-back' to enhance the service that the NHS provides, is inappropriate. As this article shows, with reference to the commercial arena of direct-to-consumer genetic testing, it is crucial that patient and public trust in the NHS is not eroded. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Islam, mental health and law: a general overview.

PubMed

Tzeferakos, Georgios A; Douzenis, Athanasios I

2017-01-01

Islam is the dominant religion in about 56 countries around the globe, and has more than 1.2 billion followers. Islam represents a holistic way of life, and according to a large proportion of its followers, the Islamic law or Shari'ah should prevail over secular law and should be implemented as state law. The etymological root of the word Shari'ah can be traced back to the harsh life in the desert and it means "pathway to be followed" or "path to the water hole," since the water was the basic element and preserver of life. At the dawn of its historical course and at its moral and ethical core, Islam introduced many interesting and innovative beliefs concerning the mentally ill. Islam underlines the moral necessity for the protection and care of the vulnerable individuals, as dictated by God himself. On the other hand, beliefs about "possession" and stigmatization influence the peoples' attitude against and apprehension of mental disorders. This strange admixture is reflected upon the status of the mental health services and corresponding legislation found in the different countries of the Islamic world.

The dual moral self: moral centrality and internal moral motivation.

PubMed

Krettenauer, Tobias

2011-01-01

In this study, the relationship between two aspects of the moral self, moral centrality and internal moral motivation, was analyzed. It is argued that these 2 aspects are conceptually distinct but nonetheless empirically related. Based on a cross-sectional study of 205 adolescents (M age = 14.83 years, SD = 2.21 years) it was found that moral centrality and internal moral motivation, even though substantially correlated, interacted in predicting moral emotion expectancies. Even though moral centrality was unrelated to adolescents' age it predicted a longitudinal increase in internal moral motivation over a 1-year interval. Overall, the findings call for a differentiation of moral centrality and internal moral motivation as 2 distinct but interrelated aspects of moral self-development that follow different developmental trajectories and are differentially related to age. At the same time, the study points out that adolescence may be less important for the development of the moral self than commonly assumed.

JPRS Report, Soviet Union, Kommunist.

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-01-22

despite all trials. Today our literature, graphic arts, music , motion pictures and theater have their own Soviet clas- sics which embody the best...of the most sensitive and emotional aspects of social life: increased impressionability and responsiveness and a sharpened moral feeling "func- tion... musical life is becoming richer and filled with more individuality. It is as though culture and art are being restored in their truly complex

Striving for the moral self: the effects of recalling past moral actions on future moral behavior.

PubMed

Jordan, Jennifer; Mullen, Elizabeth; Murnighan, J Keith

2011-05-01

People's desires to see themselves as moral actors can contribute to their striving for and achievement of a sense of self-completeness. The authors use self-completion theory to predict (and show) that recalling one's own (im)moral behavior leads to compensatory rather than consistent moral action as a way of completing the moral self. In three studies, people who recalled their immoral behavior reported greater participation in moral activities (Study 1), reported stronger prosocial intentions (Study 2), and showed less cheating (Study 3) than people who recalled their moral behavior. These compensatory effects were related to the moral magnitude of the recalled event, but they did not emerge when people recalled their own positive or negative nonmoral behavior (Study 2) or others' (im)moral behavior (Study 3). Thus, the authors extend self-completion theory to the moral domain and use it to integrate the research on moral cleansing (remunerative moral strivings) and moral licensing (relaxed moral strivings).

Just caring: defining a basic benefit package.

PubMed

Fleck, Leonard M

2011-12-01

What should be the content of a package of health care services that we would want to guarantee to all Americans? This question cannot be answered adequately apart from also addressing the issue of fair health care rationing. Consequently, as I argue in this essay, appeal to the language of "basic," "essential," "adequate," "minimally decent," or "medically necessary" for purposes of answering our question is unhelpful. All these notions are too vague to be useful. Cost matters. Effectiveness matters. The clinical circumstances of a patient matters. But what we must ultimately determine is what we mutually agree are the just claims to needed health care of each American in a relatively complex range of clinical circumstances. Answering this question will require a public moral conversation, a fair process of rational democratic deliberation aimed at defining both just claims to needed health care and just limits.

Moral status, justice, and the common morality: challenges for the principlist account of moral change.

PubMed

Hodges, Kevin E; Sulmasy, Daniel P

2013-09-01

The theory of principlism elaborated by Beauchamp and Childress in Principles of Biomedical Ethics has become extremely influential in bioethics. The theory employs the idea of the common morality as a foundation for the principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. According to this account, the content of the common morality is universal and constant, while variability in morals is due to the fact that the issue of who is included within the scope of moral status evolves over time. This suggests that issues of moral status are not part of the common morality at all, and this presents a conundrum: questions of moral status seem central to any substantive account of justice, and any conception of the common morality that excludes moral status therefore seems inadequate for supporting a robust principle of justice. We argue that proponents of common morality theory are left with four options: (1) making moral status a part of the objective common morality and ignoring evidence that views about moral status do seem to vary over time and place; (2) excluding justice from the substantive content of the common morality; (3) taking common morality to be an imperfect approximation of an independently justified and universal foundationalist ethic against which the common morality is judged; or (4) weakening claims about the universality of common morality, thereby allowing the common morality to support a variety of principles of justice applicable only within particular communities that have specified the scope of moral status. We suspect that proponents of common morality theory will not view any of these options favorably, which raises questions about the ultimate contribution of that account.

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: part 1: overview and reviews--defining and describing the field and its practices.

PubMed

Buniak, Liana; Darragh, Martina; Giordano, James

2014-05-16

Neuroethics entails investigations of neurocognitive mechanisms of morality and ethics; and studies and address of the ethical issues spawned by the use of neuroscience and its technologies to investigate cognition, emotion and actions. These two principal emphases, or what have been called "traditions" of neuroethics both mirror traditional bioethical discussions (such as debates about the safety of technological and pharmaceutical advances and ethical implications of new scientific and technological discoveries), and engage discourse about neuroscientific investigations of (proto-moral and moral) cognition, emotions and behaviors, and what such findings may mean for human beliefs and conduct - from the individual to the political levels.Given the growth, range, and rapid maturation of the field of neuroethics we provide an iterative, four-part document that affords a repository of international papers, books, and chapters that address the field in overview, and present discussion(s) of more particular aspects and topics of neuroethics. This first installment lists reviews and overviews of the discipline, and broad summaries of basic developments and issues of the field. To systematically survey the neuroethics literature, searches were performed by accessing 11 databases, 8 additional literature depositories, and 4 individual journal searches using indexing language for National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medical Subject Heading databases. Searches and assurance against overlapping coverage were conducted using the RefWorks citation management program. Overview, review and reflections upon the history and multicultural perspectives of neuroethics were obtained and relevant listings from international journals, books, and book chapters are provided. Part I will be followed by three installments that will address a): the neuroscience of morality and ethics, including discussions of free will, and personal autonomy; b) "second tradition neuroethics", to include specific ethical issues in neuroscience; clinical neuroethics; and c) neuroethics education/training; neuroethics and society; neuroethics and law; neuroethics and policy; and international neuroethics.

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: part 1: overview and reviews – defining and describing the field and its practices

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Neuroethics entails investigations of neurocognitive mechanisms of morality and ethics; and studies and address of the ethical issues spawned by the use of neuroscience and its technologies to investigate cognition, emotion and actions. These two principal emphases, or what have been called “traditions” of neuroethics both mirror traditional bioethical discussions (such as debates about the safety of technological and pharmaceutical advances and ethical implications of new scientific and technological discoveries), and engage discourse about neuroscientific investigations of (proto-moral and moral) cognition, emotions and behaviors, and what such findings may mean for human beliefs and conduct - from the individual to the political levels. Given the growth, range, and rapid maturation of the field of neuroethics we provide an iterative, four-part document that affords a repository of international papers, books, and chapters that address the field in overview, and present discussion(s) of more particular aspects and topics of neuroethics. This first installment lists reviews and overviews of the discipline, and broad summaries of basic developments and issues of the field. Methods To systematically survey the neuroethics literature, searches were performed by accessing 11 databases, 8 additional literature depositories, and 4 individual journal searches using indexing language for National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medical Subject Heading databases. Searches and assurance against overlapping coverage were conducted using the RefWorks citation management program. Results Overview, review and reflections upon the history and multicultural perspectives of neuroethics were obtained and relevant listings from international journals, books, and book chapters are provided. Part I will be followed by three installments that will address a): the neuroscience of morality and ethics, including discussions of free will, and personal autonomy; b) “second tradition neuroethics”, to include specific ethical issues in neuroscience; clinical neuroethics; and c) neuroethics education/training; neuroethics and society; neuroethics and law; neuroethics and policy; and international neuroethics. PMID:24885037

Further clarity on cooperation and morality.

PubMed

Oderberg, David S

2017-04-01

I explore the increasingly important issue of cooperation in immoral actions, particularly in connection with healthcare. Conscientious objection, especially as pertains to religious freedom in healthcare, has become a pressing issue in the light of the US Supreme Court judgement in Hobby Lobby Section 'Moral evaluation using the basic principles of cooperation' outlines a theory of cooperation inspired by Catholic moral theologians such as those cited by the court. The theory has independent plausibility and is at least worthy of serious consideration-in part because it is an instance of double-effect reasoning, which is also independently plausible despite its association with moral theology. Section 'Case study: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby ' examines Hobby Lobby in detail. Even if the judgement was correct in that case the reasoning was not, as it involved applying a 'mere sincerity' test to the cooperation question. The mere sincerity test leads to absurd consequences, whereas a reasonableness test applied using the theory of cooperation defended here would avoid absurdity. Section 'A question of remoteness: "accommodations" and opt-outs' explores the post- Hobby Lobby problem further, examining opt-outs and accommodations: the Little Sisters of the Poor case shows how opt-outs are misunderstood on a mere sincerity test, which the court rightly rejected. Section 'Application to the medical field: Doogan and Wood ' discusses the UK case of Doogan and Wood , concerning participation in abortion. Again, a judicially recognised ethic of cooperation, if it were part of the fabric of legal reasoning in such cases, would have enabled the conscientious objectors in this and similar situations to have their freedom of conscience and religion respected in a way that it currently is not. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

Moral attentiveness: who pays attention to the moral aspects of life?

PubMed

Reynolds, Scott J

2008-09-01

This research draws from social cognitive theory to develop a construct known as moral attentiveness, the extent to which an individual chronically perceives and considers morality and moral elements in his or her experiences, and proposes that moral attentiveness affects a variety of behaviors. A series of 5 studies with undergraduates, MBA students, and managers were conducted to create and validate a reliable multidimensional scale and to provide evidence that moral attentiveness is associated with (a) the recall and reporting of self- and others' morality-related behaviors, (b) moral awareness, and (c) moral behavior. Results of the studies suggest that moral attentiveness has a significant effect on how individuals understand and act in their moral worlds.

Predictors of Moral Disengagement in Sport.

PubMed

Shields, David Light; Funk, Christopher D; Bredemeier, Brenda Light

2015-12-01

Researchers have made productive use of Bandura's (1991) construct of moral disengagement (MD) to help explain why sport participants deviate from ethical ideals. In this study of intercollegiate athletes from diverse sports (N = 713), we examined MD in relation to other character-related variables: empathy, moral identity, moral attentiveness, and contesting orientations. We also examined whether moral attentiveness conforms to the pattern of "bracketed morality" found in moral reasoning (Shields & Bredemeier, 1995) and moral behavior (Kavussanu, Boardley, Sagar, & Ring, 2013). Results indicated that MD correlated positively with perceptual moral attentiveness and war contesting orientation; MD correlated negatively with empathy, moral identity, reflective moral attentiveness, and partnership contesting orientation. Results of hierarchical regression demonstrated that gender, contesting orientations, moral identity, and one form of moral attentiveness were significant predictors of MD. Finally, sport participants were found to be less morally attentive in sport than in everyday life.

Precursors to morality in development as a complex interplay between neural, socioenvironmental, and behavioral facets

PubMed Central

Cowell, Jason M.; Decety, Jean

2015-01-01

The nature and underpinnings of infants’ seemingly complex, third-party, social evaluations remain highly contentious. Theoretical perspectives oscillate between rich and lean interpretations of the same expressed preferences. Although some argue that infants and toddlers possess a “moral sense” based on core knowledge of the social world, others suggest that social evaluations are hierarchical in nature and the product of an integration of rudimentary general processes such as attention allocation and approach and avoidance. Moreover, these biologically prepared minds interact in social environments that include significant variation, which are likely to impact early social evaluations and behavior. The present study examined the neural underpinnings of and precursors to moral sensitivity in infants and toddlers (n = 73, ages 12–24 mo) through a series of interwoven measures, combining multiple levels of analysis including electrophysiological, eye-tracking, behavioral, and socioenvironmental. Continuous EEG and time-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) and gaze fixation were recorded while children watched characters engaging in prosocial and antisocial actions in two different tasks. All children demonstrated a neural differentiation in both spectral EEG power density modulations and time-locked ERPs when perceiving prosocial or antisocial agents. Time-locked neural differences predicted children’s preference for prosocial characters and were influenced by parental values regarding justice and fairness. Overall, this investigation casts light on the fundamental nature of moral cognition, including its underpinnings in general processes such as attention and approach–withdrawal, providing plausible mechanisms of early change and a foundation for forward movement in the field of developmental social neuroscience. PMID:26324885

Imaginative ethics--bringing ethical praxis into sharper relief.

PubMed

Hansson, Mats G

2002-01-01

The empirical basis for this article is three years of experience with ethical rounds at Uppsala University Hospital. Three standard approaches of ethical reasoning are examined as potential explanations of what actually occurs during the ethical rounds. For reasons given, these are not found to be satisfying explanations. An approach called "imaginative ethics", is suggested as a more satisfactory account of this kind of ethical reasoning. The participants in the ethical rounds seem to draw on a kind of moral competence based on personal life experience and professional competence and experience. By listening to other perspectives and other experiences related to one particular patient story, the participants imagine alternative horizons of moral experience and explore a multitude of values related to clinical practice that might be at stake. In his systematic treatment of aesthetics in the Critique of Judgement, Kant made use of an operation of thought that, if applied to ethics, will enable us to be more sensitive to the particulars of each moral situation. Based on this reading of Kant, an account of imaginative ethics is developed in order to bring the ethical praxis of doctors and nurses into sharper relief. The Hebraic and the Hellenic traditions of imagination are used in order to illuminate some of the experiences of ethical rounds. In conclusion, it is argued that imaginative ethics and principle-based ethics should be seen as complementary in order to endow a moral discourse with ethical authority. Kantian ethics will do the job if it is remembered that Kant suggested only a modest, negative role of principle-based deliberation.

Moral Intuitions, Moral Expertise and Moral Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Musschenga, Albert W.

2009-01-01

In this article I examine the consequences of the dominance of intuitive thinking in moral judging and deciding for the role of moral reasoning in moral education. I argue that evidence for the reliability of moral intuitions is lacking. We cannot determine when we can trust our intuitive moral judgements. Deliberate and critical reasoning is…

Medical ethics, moral philosophy and moral tradition.

PubMed

Murray, T H

1987-01-01

Medical ethics is commonly assumed to be a form of 'applied moral philosophy' in which practical moral judgments are deduced from moral theories. This account of the relationship between moral theory and moral judgment is inadequate in several reports. The deductivist approach often results in inadequate attention being given to social, historical and developmental contexts. It also fails to explain some common phenomena in practical moral reasoning. In contrast to the emphasis in deductivism, a case-centered or casuistic practical ethics insists on immersion in the particularities of cases and on interpretation of details in light of moral maxims and other mid-level forms of moral reasoning. Two features of casuistics that ought to be distinguished but frequently are not, are: (1) the emphasis on immersion and interpretation, and (2) a claim about the relation between moral judgment and moral theory as sources of moral knowledge. Once we consider case-centered moral judgments as sources of moral knowledge, we must also begin to look critically but open-mindedly to moral traditions which, upon examination, appear to be more dynamic and to have more reformist potential than is commonly assumed.

Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is associated with impairments in both spontaneous and deliberative moral judgments

PubMed Central

Cameron, C. Daryl; Reber, Justin; Spring, Victoria L.; Tranel, Daniel

2018-01-01

Implicit moral evaluations—spontaneous, unintentional judgments about the moral status of actions or persons—are thought to play a pivotal role in moral experience, suggesting a need for research to model these moral evaluations in clinical populations. Prior research reveals that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a critical area underpinning affect and morality, and patients with vmPFC lesions show abnormalities in moral judgment and moral behavior. We use indirect measurement and multinomial modeling to understand differences in implicit moral evaluations among patients with vmPFC lesions. Our model quantifies multiple processes of moral judgment: implicit moral evaluations in response to distracting moral transgressions (Unintentional Judgment), accurate moral judgments about target actions (Intentional Judgment), and a directional tendency to judge actions as morally wrong (Response Bias). Compared to individuals with non-vmPFC brain damage and neurologically healthy comparisons, patients with vmPFC lesions showed a dual deficit in processes of moral judgment. First, patients with vmPFC lesions showed reduced Unintentional Judgment about moral transgressions, but not about non-moral negative affective distracters. Second, patients with vmPFC lesions showed reduced Intentional Judgment about target actions. These findings highlight the utility of a formal modeling approach in moral psychology, revealing a dual deficit in multiple component processes of moral judgment among patients with vmPFC lesions. PMID:29382558

Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is associated with impairments in both spontaneous and deliberative moral judgments.

PubMed

Cameron, C Daryl; Reber, Justin; Spring, Victoria L; Tranel, Daniel

2018-03-01

Implicit moral evaluations-spontaneous, unintentional judgments about the moral status of actions or persons-are thought to play a pivotal role in moral experience, suggesting a need for research to model these moral evaluations in clinical populations. Prior research reveals that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a critical area underpinning affect and morality, and patients with vmPFC lesions show abnormalities in moral judgment and moral behavior. We use indirect measurement and multinomial modeling to understand differences in implicit moral evaluations among patients with vmPFC lesions. Our model quantifies multiple processes of moral judgment: implicit moral evaluations in response to distracting moral transgressions (Unintentional Judgment), accurate moral judgments about target actions (Intentional Judgment), and a directional tendency to judge actions as morally wrong (Response Bias). Compared to individuals with non-vmPFC brain damage and neurologically healthy comparisons, patients with vmPFC lesions showed a dual deficit in processes of moral judgment. First, patients with vmPFC lesions showed reduced Unintentional Judgment about moral transgressions, but not about non-moral negative affective distracters. Second, patients with vmPFC lesions showed reduced Intentional Judgment about target actions. These findings highlight the utility of a formal modeling approach in moral psychology, revealing a dual deficit in multiple component processes of moral judgment among patients with vmPFC lesions. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Testing Moral Foundation Theory: Are Specific Moral Emotions Elicited by Specific Moral Transgressions?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Landmann, Helen; Hess, Ursula

2018-01-01

Moral foundation theory posits that specific moral transgressions elicit specific moral emotions. To test this claim, participants (N = 195) were asked to rate their emotions in response to moral violation vignettes. We found that compassion and disgust were associated with care and purity respectively as predicted by moral foundation theory.…

Virtual Morality: Transitioning from Moral Judgment to Moral Action?

PubMed Central

Francis, Kathryn B.; Howard, Charles; Howard, Ian S.; Gummerum, Michaela; Ganis, Giorgio; Anderson, Grace; Terbeck, Sylvia

2016-01-01

The nature of moral action versus moral judgment has been extensively debated in numerous disciplines. We introduce Virtual Reality (VR) moral paradigms examining the action individuals take in a high emotionally arousing, direct action-focused, moral scenario. In two studies involving qualitatively different populations, we found a greater endorsement of utilitarian responses–killing one in order to save many others–when action was required in moral virtual dilemmas compared to their judgment counterparts. Heart rate in virtual moral dilemmas was significantly increased when compared to both judgment counterparts and control virtual tasks. Our research suggests that moral action may be viewed as an independent construct to moral judgment, with VR methods delivering new prospects for investigating and assessing moral behaviour. PMID:27723826

Morality in everyday life.

PubMed

Hofmann, Wilhelm; Wisneski, Daniel C; Brandt, Mark J; Skitka, Linda J

2014-09-12

The science of morality has drawn heavily on well-controlled but artificial laboratory settings. To study everyday morality, we repeatedly assessed moral or immoral acts and experiences in a large (N = 1252) sample using ecological momentary assessment. Moral experiences were surprisingly frequent and manifold. Liberals and conservatives emphasized somewhat different moral dimensions. Religious and nonreligious participants did not differ in the likelihood or quality of committed moral and immoral acts. Being the target of moral or immoral deeds had the strongest impact on happiness, whereas committing moral or immoral deeds had the strongest impact on sense of purpose. Analyses of daily dynamics revealed evidence for both moral contagion and moral licensing. In sum, morality science may benefit from a closer look at the antecedents, dynamics, and consequences of everyday moral experience. Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Exclusive inclusion: the violation of human rights and US immigration policy.

PubMed

Drevdahl, Denise J; Dorcy, Kathleen Shannon

2007-01-01

In this article, we examine US immigration policies relative to those who work as nurses and those who are manual/low-wage laborers. Recruiting foreign nurses from developing countries to alleviate the nursing shortage is a common practice. While specialized visas for these healthcare professionals facilitate the visa application and approval process, immigrants employed in low-wage positions are subjected to long waits for visas, workplace raids, and subsequent deportation. Selective assistance to some immigrants violates basic human rights and global expectations of justice. Moral and ethical frameworks need to guide US immigration policy.

Well-being and fairness in the distribution of scarce health resources.

PubMed

Segev, Re'em

2005-06-01

Based on a general thesis regarding the proper resolution of interpersonal conflicts, this paper suggests a normative framework for the distribution of scarce health resources. The proposed thesis includes two basic ideas. First, individual well-being is the fundamental value. Second, interpersonal conflicts affecting well-being should be resolved in light of several conceptions of fairness, reflecting the independent value of persons and the moral significance of responsibility of individuals for the existence of interpersonal conflicts. These ideas are elaborated in several principles that are applied with respect to the distribution of scarce health resources.

Collection time again.

PubMed

Elder, D L

1984-01-01

Looking forward to your next round of collection calls? Few of us do, yet collections play a vital role in every group practice, large or small. This crop of practical collection tips is guaranteed to boost the morale of everyone involved in the collection process. Not only are the basics of a good collection call set down, but result-getting responses to frequent debtor excuses are provided. Telephoning the debtor patient need not be a dreaded task. Just have confidence, keep in mind that the patient does owe you for services rendered in good faith, and pick up the phone--it's a snap!

Violence the Western way.

PubMed

Roth, B E

1997-10-01

Despite the quiet revolution in response to changing conceptualizations of gender in psychoanalysis, the Western has remained the domain of aggressive phallic masculinity. The iconic imagery of the Western, when combined with its narrative trajectory, is used to tell stories of violent encounters between men. The acceptance of the genre, and its duplication by other cultures and film makers, indicates that the Westerns' imagery and moral solutions tap into some basic deep structures of anxiety and pleasure in violence between men. As long as societies require subtle sublimations of aggressive and violent drives, it is likely that men will seek imaginary regressive experiences to discharge frustrations.

PubMed

von der Weid, Guillaume

The drug industry has a poor public image. Although its role is to treat disease, it has a poorer reputation than cigarette makers or the automotive industry. This situation must be analysed from three overlapping points of view: 1) the complexity of a market, in which most of the costs are hidden; 2) the difficulty of a connected society to organize debates on political questions related to basic values, and finally 3) the pervading distinction between morality and profits. This clarification might help the industry to become a fully fledged actor in the field of healthcare in order to participate in the improvement of the healthcare offer for the population.

Comparison of variants of carbol-fuchsin solution in Ziehl-Neelsen for detection of acid-fast bacilli.

PubMed

Selvakumar, N; Sekar, M Gomathi; Rahman, F; Syamsunder, A; Duraipandian, M; Wares, F; Narayanan, P R

2005-02-01

To evaluate Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) staining using variants of carbol-fuchsin solution, duplicate smears from 416 samples were stained with ZN, one set with 1% basic fuchsin and the other 0.3%. Another set of duplicate smears from 398 samples were stained with ZN, one with 1% basic fuchsin and the other 0.1%. The coded smears were read and discrepancies resolved. All samples underwent mycobacterial culture. The sensitivity of ZN using 0.3% (65%) and 1% basic fuchsin (62%) was comparable, while it was reduced using 0.1% (74%) compared to 1% basic fuchsin (83%). Reducing the concentration of basic fuchsin below 0.3% in ZN staining was found to significantly reduce its sensitivity.

The neural correlates of reciprocity are sensitive to prior experience of reciprocity.

PubMed

Cáceda, Ricardo; Prendes-Alvarez, Stefania; Hsu, Jung-Jiin; Tripathi, Shanti P; Kilts, Clint D; James, G Andrew

2017-08-14

Reciprocity is central to human relationships and is strongly influenced by multiple factors including the nature of social exchanges and their attendant emotional reactions. Despite recent advances in the field, the neural processes involved in this modulation of reciprocal behavior by ongoing social interaction are poorly understood. We hypothesized that activity within a discrete set of neural networks including a putative moral cognitive neural network is associated with reciprocity behavior. Nineteen healthy adults underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning while playing the trustee role in the Trust Game. Personality traits and moral development were assessed. Independent component analysis was used to identify task-related functional brain networks and assess their relationship to behavior. The saliency network (insula and anterior cingulate) was positively correlated with reciprocity behavior. A consistent array of brain regions supports the engagement of emotional, self-referential and planning processes during social reciprocity behavior. Published by Elsevier B.V.

The neural correlates of moral decision-making: A systematic review and meta-analysis of moral evaluations and response decision judgements.

PubMed

Garrigan, Beverley; Adlam, Anna L R; Langdon, Peter E

2016-10-01

The aims of this systematic review were to determine: (a) which brain areas are consistently more active when making (i) moral response decisions, defined as choosing a response to a moral dilemma, or deciding whether to accept a proposed solution, or (ii) moral evaluations, defined as judging the appropriateness of another's actions in a moral dilemma, rating moral statements as right or wrong, or identifying important moral issues; and (b) shared and significantly different activation patterns for these two types of moral judgements. A systematic search of the literature returned 28 experiments. Activation likelihood estimate analysis identified the brain areas commonly more active for moral response decisions and for moral evaluations. Conjunction analysis revealed shared activation for both types of moral judgement in the left middle temporal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, and medial frontal gyrus. Contrast analyses found no significant clusters of increased activation for the moral evaluations-moral response decisions contrast, but found that moral response decisions additionally activated the left and right middle temporal gyrus and the right precuneus. Making one's own moral decisions involves different brain areas compared to judging the moral actions of others, implying that these judgements may involve different processes. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Moralized Psychology or Psychologized Morality? Ethics and Psychology in Recent Theorizing about Moral and Character Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carr, David

2007-01-01

Moral philosophy seems well placed to claim the key role in theorizing about moral education. Indeed, moral philosophers have from antiquity had much to say about psychological and other processes of moral formation. Given this history, it may seem ironic that much systematic latter-day theorizing about moral education has been social scientific,…

Neural evidence for moral intuition and the temporal dynamics of interactions between emotional processes and moral cognition.

PubMed

Gui, Dan-Yang; Gan, Tian; Liu, Chao

2016-01-01

Behavioral and neurological studies have revealed that emotions influence moral cognition. Although moral stimuli are emotionally charged, the time course of interactions between emotions and moral judgments remains unknown. In the present study, we investigated the temporal dynamics of the interaction between emotional processes and moral cognition. The results revealed that when making moral judgments, the time course of the event-related potential (ERP) waveform was significantly different between high emotional arousal and low emotional arousal contexts. Different stages of processing were distinguished, showing distinctive interactions between emotional processes and moral reasoning. The precise time course of moral intuition and moral reasoning sheds new light on theoretical models of moral psychology. Specifically, the N1 component (interpreted as representing moral intuition) did not appear to be influenced by emotional arousal. However, the N2 component and late positive potential were strongly affected by emotional arousal; the slow wave was influenced by both emotional arousal and morality, suggesting distinct moral processing at different emotional arousal levels.

The Unifying Moral Dyad: Liberals and Conservatives Share the Same Harm-Based Moral Template.

PubMed

Schein, Chelsea; Gray, Kurt

2015-08-01

Do moral disagreements regarding specific issues (e.g., patriotism, chastity) reflect deep cognitive differences (i.e., distinct cognitive mechanisms) between liberals and conservatives? Dyadic morality suggests that the answer is "no." Despite moral diversity, we reveal that moral cognition--in both liberals and conservatives--is rooted in a harm-based template. A dyadic template suggests that harm should be central within moral cognition, an idea tested--and confirmed--through six specific hypotheses. Studies suggest that moral judgment occurs via dyadic comparison, in which counter-normative acts are compared with a prototype of harm. Dyadic comparison explains why harm is the most accessible and important of moral content, why harm organizes--and overlaps with--diverse moral content, and why harm best translates across moral content. Dyadic morality suggests that various moral content (e.g., loyalty, purity) are varieties of perceived harm and that past research has substantially exaggerated moral differences between liberals and conservatives. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

When does feeling moral actually make you a better person? Conceptual abstraction moderates whether past moral deeds motivate consistency or compensatory behavior.

PubMed

Conway, Paul; Peetz, Johanna

2012-07-01

According to the moral licensing literature, moral self-perceptions induce compensatory behavior: People who feel moral act less prosocially than those who feel immoral. Conversely, work on moral identity indicates that moral self-perceptions motivate behavioral consistency: People who feel moral act more prosocially than those who feel less so. In three studies, the authors reconcile these propositions by demonstrating the moderating role of conceptual abstraction. In Study 1, participants who recalled performing recent (concrete) moral or immoral behavior demonstrated compensatory behavior, whereas participants who considered temporally distant (abstract) moral behavior demonstrated behavioral consistency. Study 2 confirmed that this effect was unique to moral self-perceptions. Study 3 manipulated whether participants recalled moral or immoral actions concretely or abstractly, and replicated the moderation pattern with willingness to donate real money to charity. Together, these findings suggest that concrete moral self-perceptions activate self-regulatory behavior, and abstract moral self-perceptions activate identity concerns.

Is moral bioenhancement dangerous?

PubMed

Drake, Nicholas

2016-01-01

In a recent response to Persson and Savulescu's Unfit for the Future, Nicholas Agar argues that moral bioenhancement is dangerous. His grounds for this are that normal moral judgement should be privileged because it involves a balance of moral subcapacities; moral bioenhancement, Agar argues, involves the enhancement of only particular moral subcapacities, and thus upsets the balance inherent in normal moral judgement. Mistaken moral judgements, he says, are likely to result. I argue that Agar's argument fails for two reasons. First, having strength in a particular moral subcapacity does not necessarily entail a worsening of moral judgement; it can involve strength in a particular aspect of morality. Second, normal moral judgement is not sufficiently likely to be correct to be the standard by which moral judgements are measured. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

The relationship between moral judgment and cooperation in children with high-functioning autism

PubMed Central

Li, Jing; Zhu, Liqi; Gummerum, Michaela

2014-01-01

This study investigated moral judgment in children with high-functioning autism and their cooperation in prisoner's dilemma game with partners of different moralities. Thirty-eight 6- to 12-year-old high-functioning autistic (HFA) children and 31 typically developing (TD) children were recruited. Children were asked to judge story protagonists' morality. After making this moral judgment correctly, they were asked to play with the morally nice and the morally naughty child in a repeated prisoner's dilemma game. Results showed that both HFA and TD children made correct moral judgments, and that HFA children might even have more rigid criteria for what constitutes morally naughty acts. HFA children's cooperation did not differ depending on the morality of the interaction partner, while TD children showed higher cooperation when interacting with the morally nice than the morally naughty child did. Thus, partner's morality did influence TD children's but not HFA children's subsequent cooperation. PMID:24603775

A cybernetic theory of morality and moral autonomy.

PubMed

Chambers, J

2001-04-01

Human morality may be thought of as a negative feedback control system in which moral rules are reference values, and moral disapproval, blame, and punishment are forms of negative feedback given for violations of the moral rules. In such a system, if moral agents held each other accountable, moral norms would be enforced effectively. However, even a properly functioning social negative feedback system could not explain acts in which individual agents uphold moral rules in the face of contrary social pressure. Dr. Frances Kelsey, who withheld FDA approval for thalidomide against intense social pressure, is an example of the degree of individual moral autonomy possible in a hostile environment. Such extreme moral autonomy is possible only if there is internal, psychological negative feedback, in addition to external, social feedback. Such a cybernetic model of morality and moral autonomy is consistent with certain aspects of classical ethical theories.

Wrongness in different relationships: Relational context effects on moral judgment.

PubMed

Simpson, Ain; Laham, Simon M; Fiske, Alan Page

2016-01-01

Morality primarily serves social-relational functions. However, little research in moral psychology investigates how relational factors impact moral judgment, and a theoretically grounded approach to such investigations is lacking. We used Relational Models Theory and Moral Foundations Theory to explore how varying actor-victim relationships impacts judgment of different types of moral violations. Across three studies, using a diverse range of moral violations and varying the experimental design, relational context substantially influenced third-party judgment of moral violations, and typically independent of several factors strongly associated with moral judgment. Results lend novel but mixed support to Relationship Regulation Theory and provide some novel implications for Moral Foundations Theory. These studies highlight the importance of relational factors in moral psychology and provide guidelines for exploring how relational factors might shape moral judgment.

Tightening the focus: moral panic, moral regulation and liberal government.

PubMed

Hier, Sean P

2011-09-01

The purpose of this article is to tighten the focus of moral panic studies by clarifying and elaborating on an analytical framework that conceptualizes moral panic as a form of moral regulation. The first part of the article explains why moral panic should be conceptualized as a form of moral regulation. The second part presents a rejoinder to Critcher's (2009) critique of the widening focus of moral panic studies. The third part elaborates on the conceptual relationship between the sociologies of moral panic and moral regulation by offering fresh insights into the sociological and political importance of moral panic as a technique of liberal government. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2011.

Enhancing professionalism using ethics education as part of a dental licensure board's disciplinary action. Part 2. Evidence of the process.

PubMed

Bebeau, Muriel J

2009-01-01

Pretest scores were analyzed for 41 professionals referred for ethics assessment by a dental licensing board. Two were exempt from instruction based on pretest performance on five well-validated measures; 38 completed an individualized course designed to remediate deficiencies in ethical abilities. Statistically significant change (effect sizes ranging from .55 to 5.0) was observed for ethical sensitivity (DEST scores), moral reasoning (DIT scores), and role concept (essays and PROI scores). Analysis of the relationships between ability deficiencies and disciplinary actions supports the explanatory power of Rest's Four Component Model of Morality. Of particular interest is the way the model helped referred professionals deconstruct summary judgments about character and see them as capacities that can be further developed. The performance-based assessments, especially the DEST, were particularly useful in identifying shortcomings in ethical implementation. Referred practitioners highly valued the emphasis on ethical implementation, suggesting the importance of addressing what to do and say in ethically challenging cases. Finally, the required self-assessments of learning confirm the value of the process for professional renewal (i.e., a renewed commitment to professional ideals) and of enhanced abilities not only to reason about moral problems, but to implement actions.

Moral conflict and competing duties in the initiation of a biomedical HIV prevention trial with minor adolescents.

PubMed

Knopf, Amelia S; Gilbert, Amy Lewis; Zimet, Gregory D; Kapogiannis, Bill G; Hosek, Sybil G; Fortenberry, J Dennis; Ott, Mary A

2017-01-01

Biomedical HIV prevention research with minors is complicated by the requirement of parental consent, which may disclose sensitive information to parents. We examine the experience of principal investigators (PIs) and study personnel who faced this complex ethical issue in the first biomedical HIV prevention study that allowed minors to self-consent for enrollment. We conducted in-depth interviews with PIs and study personnel from 13 medical trial sites in cities across the United States. Data were analyzed using a conventional content analysis. Participants experienced moral conflict as they struggled to fulfill conflicting duties in this trial involving minor adolescents with multiple vulnerabilities. Our participants experienced conflict between the two types of duties-protective and scientific-previously identified by Merritt. Protective duties were owed to the child, the parents, and the institution, and participants expressed tension between the actions that would protect these subgroups and the actions necessary to fulfill their scientific duties. Moral conflict was resolved in a variety of ways, including reflecting on the protocol's alignment with federal regulations, modifying consent language, considering each individual for enrollment carefully, and accepting institutional review board (IRB) decisions. Potential solutions for future studies are discussed, and include flexible protocol consent procedures and centralized IRB reviews.

Ethical psychiatry in an uncertain world: conversations and parallel truths.

PubMed

Carson, Alexander M; Lepping, Peter

2009-06-25

Psychiatric practice is often faced with complex situations that seem to pose serious moral dilemmas for practitioners. Methods for solving these dilemmas have included the development of more objective rules to guide the practitioner such as utilitarianism and deontology. A more modern variant on this objective model has been 'Principlism' where 4 mid level rules are used to help solve these complex problems. In opposition to this, there has recently been a focus on more subjective criteria for resolving complex moral dilemmas. In particular, virtue ethics has been posited as a more sensitive method for helping doctors to reason their way through difficult ethical issues. Here the focus is on the character traits of the practitioner. Bloch and Green advocated another way whereby more objective methods such as Principlism and virtue ethics are combined to produce what they considered sound moral reasoning in psychiatrists. This paper points out some difficulties with this approach and instead suggests that a better model of ethical judgment could be developed through the use of narratives or stories. This idea puts equal prima facie value on the patient's and the psychiatrist's version of the dilemma they are faced with. It has the potential to lead to a more genuine empathy and reflective decision-making.

Felt Moral Obligation and the Moral Judgement-Moral Action Gap: Toward a Phenomenology of Moral Life

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Richard N.; Gantt, Edwin E.

2012-01-01

The step-off point for this article is the problem of the "moral judgement-moral action gap" as found in contemporary literature of moral education and moral development. We argue that this gap, and the conceptual problems encountered by attempts to bridge it, reflects the effect of a different, deeper and more problematic conceptual gap: the…

Communicative versus strategic rationality: Habermas theory of communicative action and the social brain.

PubMed

Schaefer, Michael; Heinze, Hans-Jochen; Rotte, Michael; Denke, Claudia

2013-01-01

In the philosophical theory of communicative action, rationality refers to interpersonal communication rather than to a knowing subject. Thus, a social view of rationality is suggested. The theory differentiates between two kinds of rationality, the emancipative communicative and the strategic or instrumental reasoning. Using experimental designs in an fMRI setting, recent studies explored similar questions of reasoning in the social world and linked them with a neural network including prefrontal and parietal brain regions. Here, we employed an fMRI approach to highlight brain areas associated with strategic and communicative reasoning according to the theory of communicative action. Participants were asked to assess different social scenarios with respect to communicative or strategic rationality. We found a network of brain areas including temporal pole, precuneus, and STS more activated when participants performed communicative reasoning compared with strategic thinking and a control condition. These brain regions have been previously linked to moral sensitivity. In contrast, strategic rationality compared with communicative reasoning and control was associated with less activation in areas known to be related to moral sensitivity, emotional processing, and language control. The results suggest that strategic reasoning is associated with reduced social and emotional cognitions and may use different language related networks. Thus, the results demonstrate experimental support for the assumptions of the theory of communicative action.

Teaching Morally and Teaching Morality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fenstermacher, Gary D.; Osguthorpe, Richard D.; Sanger, Matthew N.

2009-01-01

In this article, the authors introduce what they believe is an important distinction between teaching morality and teaching morally. In P-12 schools, the moral education debate often focuses on character education programs or other moral curricula. Such programs and curricula are championed as a means of teaching morality and transmitting moral…

Fostering Nurses' Moral Agency and Moral Identity: The Importance of Moral Community.

PubMed

Liaschenko, Joan; Peter, Elizabeth

2016-09-01

It may be the case that the most challenging moral problem of the twenty-first century will be the relationship between the individual moral agent and the practices and institutions in which the moral agent is embedded. In this paper, we continue the efforts that one of us, Joan Liaschenko, first called for in 1993, that of using feminist ethics as a lens for viewing the relationship between individual nurses as moral agents and the highly complex institutions in which they do the work of nursing. Feminist ethics, with its emphasis on the inextricable relationship between ethics and politics, provides a useful lens to understand the work of nurses in context. Using Margaret Urban Walker's and Hilde Lindemann's concepts of identity, relationships, values, and moral agency, we argue that health care institutions can be moral communities and profoundly affect the work and identity and, therefore, the moral agency of all who work within those structures, including nurses. Nurses are not only shaped by these organizations but also have the power to shape them. Because moral agency is intimately connected to one's identity, moral identity work is essential for nurses to exercise their moral agency and to foster moral community in health care organizations. We first provide a brief history of nursing's morally problematic relationship with institutions and examine the impact institutional master narratives and corporatism exert today on nurses' moral identities and agency. We close by emphasizing the significance of ongoing dialogue in creating and sustaining moral communities, repairing moral identities, and strengthening moral agency. © 2016 The Hastings Center.

Alcohol dependence associated with increased utilitarian moral judgment: a case control study.

PubMed

Khemiri, Lotfi; Guterstam, Joar; Franck, Johan; Jayaram-Lindström, Nitya

2012-01-01

Recent studies indicate that emotional processes, mediated by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), are of great importance for moral judgment. Neurological patients with VMPC dysfunction have been shown to generate increased utilitarian moral judgments, i.e. are more likely to endorse emotionally aversive actions in order to maximize aggregate welfare, when faced with emotionally salient personal moral dilemmas. Patients with alcohol dependence (AD) also exhibit impairments in functions mediated by the prefrontal cortex, but whether they exhibit increased utilitarian moral reasoning has not previously been investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate moral judgment in AD patients (n = 20) compared to healthy controls (n = 20) matched by sex, age and education years. Each subject responded to a battery of 50 hypothetical dilemmas categorized as non-moral, moral impersonal and moral personal. They also responded to a questionnaire evaluating explicit knowledge of social and moral norms. Results confirmed our hypothesis that AD patients generated increased utilitarian moral judgment compared to controls when faced with moral personal dilemmas. Crucially, there was no difference in their responses to non-moral or impersonal moral dilemmas, nor knowledge of explicit social and moral norms. One possible explanation is that damage to the VMPC, caused by long term repeated exposure to alcohol results in emotional dysfunction, predisposing to utilitarian moral judgment. This work elucidates a novel aspect of the neuropsychological profile of AD patients, namely a tendency to generate utilitarian moral judgment when faced with emotionally salient moral personal dilemmas.

Alcohol Dependence Associated with Increased Utilitarian Moral Judgment: A Case Control Study

PubMed Central

Khemiri, Lotfi; Guterstam, Joar; Franck, Johan; Jayaram-Lindström, Nitya

2012-01-01

Recent studies indicate that emotional processes, mediated by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), are of great importance for moral judgment. Neurological patients with VMPC dysfunction have been shown to generate increased utilitarian moral judgments, i.e. are more likely to endorse emotionally aversive actions in order to maximize aggregate welfare, when faced with emotionally salient personal moral dilemmas. Patients with alcohol dependence (AD) also exhibit impairments in functions mediated by the prefrontal cortex, but whether they exhibit increased utilitarian moral reasoning has not previously been investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate moral judgment in AD patients (n = 20) compared to healthy controls (n = 20) matched by sex, age and education years. Each subject responded to a battery of 50 hypothetical dilemmas categorized as non-moral, moral impersonal and moral personal. They also responded to a questionnaire evaluating explicit knowledge of social and moral norms. Results confirmed our hypothesis that AD patients generated increased utilitarian moral judgment compared to controls when faced with moral personal dilemmas. Crucially, there was no difference in their responses to non-moral or impersonal moral dilemmas, nor knowledge of explicit social and moral norms. One possible explanation is that damage to the VMPC, caused by long term repeated exposure to alcohol results in emotional dysfunction, predisposing to utilitarian moral judgment. This work elucidates a novel aspect of the neuropsychological profile of AD patients, namely a tendency to generate utilitarian moral judgment when faced with emotionally salient moral personal dilemmas. PMID:22761922

Moral knowledge: some reflections on moral controversies, incompatible moral epistemologies, and the culture wars.

PubMed

Engelhardt, H Tristram

2004-01-01

An authentic Christian bioethical account of abortion must take into consideration the conflicting epistemologies that separate Christian moral theology from secular moral philosophy. Moral epistemologies directed to the issue of abortion that fail to appreciate the orientation of morality to God will also fail adequately to appreciate the moral issues at stake. Christian accounts of the bioethics of abortion that reduce moral-theological considerations to moral-philosophical considerations will not only fail to appreciate fully the offense of abortion, but morally mislead. This article locates the bioethics of abortion within the theology of the Church of the first millennium, emphasizing that abortion was prohibited, whether or not one considered the embryo or fetus to be ensouled.

Moral Enhancement Meets Normative and Empirical Reality: Assessing the Practical Feasibility of Moral Enhancement Neurotechnologies.

PubMed

Dubljević, Veljko; Racine, Eric

2017-06-01

Moral enhancement refers to the possibility of making individuals and societies better from a moral standpoint. A fierce debate has emerged about the ethical aspects of moral enhancement, notably because steering moral enhancement in a particular direction involves choosing amongst a wide array of competing options, and these options entail deciding which moral theory or attributes of the moral agent would benefit from enhancement. Furthermore, the ability and effectiveness of different neurotechnologies to enhance morality have not been carefully examined. In this paper, we assess the practical feasibility of moral enhancement neurotechnologies. We reviewed the literature on neuroscience and cognitive science models of moral judgment and analyzed their implications for the specific target of intervention (cognition, volition or affect) in moral enhancement. We also reviewed and compared evidence on available neurotechnologies that could serve as tools of moral enhancement. We conclude that the predictions of rationalist, emotivist, and dual process models are at odds with evidence, while different intuitionist models of moral judgment are more likely to be aligned with it. Furthermore, the project of moral enhancement is not feasible in the near future as it rests on the use of neurointerventions, which have no moral enhancement effects or, worse, negative effects. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Neural basis of moral verdict and moral deliberation

PubMed Central

Borg, Jana Schaich; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Calhoun, Vince D.; Kiehl, Kent A.

2011-01-01

How people judge something to be morally right or wrong is a fundamental question of both the sciences and the humanities. Here we aim to identify the neural processes that underlie the specific conclusion that something is morally wrong. To do this, we introduce a novel distinction between “moral deliberation,” or the weighing of moral considerations, and the formation of a “moral verdict,” or the commitment to one moral conclusion. We predict and identify hemodynamic activity in the bilateral anterior insula and basal ganglia that correlates with committing to the moral verdict “this is morally wrong” as opposed to “this is morally not wrong,” a finding that is consistent with research from economic decision-making. Using comparisons of deliberation-locked vs. verdict-locked analyses, we also demonstrate that hemodynamic activity in high-level cortical regions previously implicated in morality—including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, and temporoparietal junction—correlates primarily with moral deliberation as opposed to moral verdicts. These findings provide new insights into what types of processes comprise the enterprise of moral judgment, and in doing so point to a framework for resolving why some clinical patients, including psychopaths, may have intact moral judgment but impaired moral behavior. PMID:21590588

Moral foundations vignettes: a standardized stimulus database of scenarios based on moral foundations theory.

PubMed

Clifford, Scott; Iyengar, Vijeth; Cabeza, Roberto; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter

2015-12-01

Research on the emotional, cognitive, and social determinants of moral judgment has surged in recent years. The development of moral foundations theory (MFT) has played an important role, demonstrating the breadth of morality. Moral psychology has responded by investigating how different domains of moral judgment are shaped by a variety of psychological factors. Yet, the discipline lacks a validated set of moral violations that span the moral domain, creating a barrier to investigating influences on judgment and how their neural bases might vary across the moral domain. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by developing and validating a large set of moral foundations vignettes (MFVs). Each vignette depicts a behavior violating a particular moral foundation and not others. The vignettes are controlled on many dimensions including syntactic structure and complexity making them suitable for neuroimaging research. We demonstrate the validity of our vignettes by examining respondents' classifications of moral violations, conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and demonstrating the correspondence between the extracted factors and existing measures of the moral foundations. We expect that the MFVs will be beneficial for a wide variety of behavioral and neuroimaging investigations of moral cognition.

Zones of consensus and zones of conflict: questioning the "common morality" presumption in bioethics.

PubMed

Turner, Leigh

2003-09-01

Many bioethicists assume that morality is in a state of wide reflective equilibrium. According to this model of moral deliberation, public policymaking can build upon a core common morality that is pretheoretical and provides a basis for practical reasoning. Proponents of the common morality approach to moral deliberation make three assumptions that deserve to be viewed with skepticism. First, they commonly assume that there is a universal, transhistorical common morality that can serve as a normative baseline for judging various actions and practices. Second, advocates of the common morality approach assume that the common morality is in a state of relatively stable, ordered, wide reflective equilibrium. Third, casuists, principlists, and other proponents of common morality approaches assume that the common morality can serve as a basis for the specification of particular policies and practical recommendations. These three claims fail to recognize the plural moral traditions that are found in multicultural, multiethnic, multifaith societies such as the United States and Canada. A more realistic recognition of multiple moral traditions in pluralist societies would be considerable more skeptical about the contributions that common morality approaches in bioethics can make to resolving contentious moral issues.

Moral foundations vignettes: a standardized stimulus database of scenarios based on moral foundations theory

PubMed Central

Iyengar, Vijeth; Cabeza, Roberto; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter

2016-01-01

Research on the emotional, cognitive, and social determinants of moral judgment has surged in recent years. The development of moral foundations theory (MFT) has played an important role, demonstrating the breadth of morality. Moral psychology has responded by investigating how different domains of moral judgment are shaped by a variety of psychological factors. Yet, the discipline lacks a validated set of moral violations that span the moral domain, creating a barrier to investigating influences on judgment and how their neural bases might vary across the moral domain. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by developing and validating a large set of moral foundations vignettes (MFVs). Each vignette depicts a behavior violating a particular moral foundation and not others. The vignettes are controlled on many dimensions including syntactic structure and complexity making them suitable for neuroimaging research. We demonstrate the validity of our vignettes by examining respondents’ classifications of moral violations, conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and demonstrating the correspondence between the extracted factors and existing measures of the moral foundations. We expect that the MFVs will be beneficial for a wide variety of behavioral and neuroimaging investigations of moral cognition. PMID:25582811

Identity as a Source of Moral Motivation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hardy, Sam A.; Carlo, Gustavo

2005-01-01

Theory and research regarding moral motivation has focused for decades on the roles of moral reasoning and, to some extent, moral emotion. Recently, however, several models of morality have positioned identity as an additional important source of moral motivation. An individual has a moral identity to the extent that he or she has constructed his…

Education in Moral Theory and the Improvement of Moral Thought

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Friday, Jonathan

2004-01-01

This article questions whether the study of normative moral theory and its application to particular moral problems has a beneficial effect upon someone seeking to improve the quality of their moral thinking. A broad outline of the conception of moral thinking underlying moral theory and applied ethics is considered, particularly the logical…

On Shermer on morality.

PubMed

Miller, Christian B

2016-11-01

This is my critical commentary on Michael Shermer's paper "Morality is real, objective, and natural." Shermer and I agree that morality is both real and objective. Here I raise serious reservations about both Shermer's account of where morality comes from and his account of what morality tells us to do. His approach to the foundations of morality would allow some very disturbing behaviors to count as moral, and his approach to what morality says does not provide the action guidance we need from a moral theory. © 2016 New York Academy of Sciences.

Who Is Experiencing What Kind of Moral Distress? Distinctions for Moving from a Narrow to a Broad Definition of Moral Distress.

PubMed

Fourie, Carina

2017-06-01

Moral distress, according to Andrew Jameton's highly influential definition, occurs when a nurse knows the morally correct action to take but is constrained in some way from taking this action. The definition of moral distress has been broadened, first, to include morally challenging situations that give rise to distress but which are not necessarily linked to nurses feeling constrained, such as those associated with moral uncertainty. Second, moral distress has been broadened so that it is not confined to the experiences of nurses. However, such a broadening of the concept does not mean that the kind of moral distress being experienced, or the role of the person experiencing it, is morally irrelevant. I argue that differentiating between categories of distress-e.g., constraint and uncertainty-and between groups of health professionals who might experience moral distress is potentially morally relevant and should influence the analysis, measurement, and amelioration of moral distress in the clinic. © 2017 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.

Moral reasoning and emotion attributions of adolescent bullies, victims, and bully-victims.

PubMed

Perren, Sonja; Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Eveline; Malti, Tina; Hymel, Shelley

2012-11-01

This study investigated different facets of moral development in bullies, victims, and bully-victims among Swiss adolescents. Extending previous research, we focused on both bullying and victimization in relation to adolescents' morally disengaged and morally responsible reasoning as well as moral emotion attributions. A total of 516 adolescents aged 12-18 (57% females) reported the frequency of involvement in bullying and victimization. Participants were categorized as bullies (14.3%), bully-victims (3.9%), and victims (9.7%). Moral judgment, moral justifications, and emotion attributions to a hypothetical perpetrator of a moral transgression (relational aggression) were assessed. Bullies showed more morally disengaged reasoning than non-involved students. Bully-victims more frequently indicated that violating moral rules is right. Victims produced more victim-oriented justifications (i.e., more empathy) but fewer moral rules. Among victims, the frequency of morally responsible justifications decreased and the frequency of deviant rules increased with age. The findings are discussed from an integrative moral developmental perspective. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

Moral Complexity: The Fatal Attraction of Truthiness and the Importance of Mature Moral Functioning.

PubMed

Narvaez, Darcia

2010-03-01

Recently, intuitionist theories have been effective in capturing the academic discourse about morality. Intuitionist theories, like rationalist theories, offer important but only partial understanding of moral functioning. Both can be fallacious and succumb to truthiness: the attachment to one's opinions because they "feel right," potentially leading to harmful action or inaction. Both intuition and reasoning are involved in deliberation and expertise. Both are malleable from environmental and educational influence, making questions of normativity-which intuitions and reasoning skills to foster-of utmost importance. Good intuition and reasoning inform mature moral functioning, which needs to include capacities that promote sustainable human well-being. Individual capacities for habituated empathic concern and moral metacognition-moral locus of control, moral self-regulation, and moral self-reflection-comprise mature moral functioning, which also requires collective capacities for moral dialogue and moral institutions. These capacities underlie moral innovation and are necessary for solving the complex challenges humanity faces. © The Author(s) 2010.

Slaves, embryos, and nonhuman animals: moral status and the limitations of common morality theory.

PubMed

Lindsay, Ronald A

2005-12-01

Common morality theory must confront apparent counterexamples from the history of morality, such as the widespread acceptance of slavery in prior eras, that suggest core norms have changed over time. A recent defense of common morality theory addresses this problem by drawing a distinction between the content of the norms of the common morality and the range of individuals to whom these norms apply. This distinction is successful in reconciling common morality theory with practices such as slavery, but only at the cost of underscoring the limits of common morality theory, in particular its inability to resolve disputes about the moral status of entities. Given that many controversies in bioethics center on the disputed status of various entities, such as embryos and nonhuman animals, this is an important limitation. Nonetheless, common morality theory still can be a useful resource in diminishing moral conflict on issues that do not involve disputes over moral status.

[The contribution of neuroscience to the understanding of moral behavior].

PubMed

Slachevsky, Andrea; Silva, Jaime R; Prenafeta, María Luisa; Novoa, Fernando

2009-03-01

The neuro-scientific study of moral actions and judgments is particularly relevant to medicine, especially when assessing behavior disorders secondary to brain diseases. In this paper, moral behavior is reviewed from an evolutionary and neuro-scientific perspective. We discuss the role of emotions in moral decisions, the role of brain development in moral development and the cerebral basis of moral behavior. Empirical evidence shows a relationship between brain and moral development: changes in cerebral architecture are related to changes in moral decision complexity. Moral development takes a long time, achieving its maturity during adulthood. It is suggested that moral cognition depends on cerebral regions and neural networks related to emotional and cognitive processing (i.e. prefrontal and temporal cortex) and that moral judgments are complex affective and cognitive phenomena. This paper concludes with the suggestion that a satisfactory clinical/legal evaluation of a patient requires that the neural basis of moral behavior should be taken into account.

Moral identity as moral ideal self: links to adolescent outcomes.

PubMed

Hardy, Sam A; Walker, Lawrence J; Olsen, Joseph A; Woodbury, Ryan D; Hickman, Jacob R

2014-01-01

The purposes of this study were to conceptualize moral identity as moral ideal self, to develop a measure of this construct, to test for age and gender differences, to examine links between moral ideal self and adolescent outcomes, and to assess purpose and social responsibility as mediators of the relations between moral ideal self and outcomes. Data came from a local school sample (Data Set 1: N = 510 adolescents; 10-18 years of age) and a national online sample (Data Set 2: N = 383 adolescents; 15-18 years of age) of adolescents and their parents. All outcome measures were parent-report (Data Set 1: altruism, moral personality, aggression, and cheating; Data Set 2: environmentalism, school engagement, internalizing, and externalizing), whereas other variables were adolescent-report. The 20-item Moral Ideal Self Scale showed good reliability, factor structure, and validity. Structural equation models demonstrated that, even after accounting for moral identity internalization, in Data Set 1 moral ideal self positively predicted altruism and moral personality and negatively predicted aggression, whereas in Data Set 2 moral ideal self positively predicted environmentalism and negatively predicted internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Further, purpose and social responsibility mediated most relations between moral ideal self and the outcomes in Data Set 2. Moral ideal self was unrelated to age but differentially predicted some outcomes across age. Girls had higher levels of moral ideal self than boys, although moral identity did not differentially predict outcomes between genders. Thus, moral ideal self is a salient element of moral identity and may play a role in morally relevant adolescent outcomes. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Moral Identity Predicts Doping Likelihood via Moral Disengagement and Anticipated Guilt.

PubMed

Kavussanu, Maria; Ring, Christopher

2017-08-01

In this study, we integrated elements of social cognitive theory of moral thought and action and the social cognitive model of moral identity to better understand doping likelihood in athletes. Participants (N = 398) recruited from a variety of team sports completed measures of moral identity, moral disengagement, anticipated guilt, and doping likelihood. Moral identity predicted doping likelihood indirectly via moral disengagement and anticipated guilt. Anticipated guilt about potential doping mediated the relationship between moral disengagement and doping likelihood. Our findings provide novel evidence to suggest that athletes, who feel that being a moral person is central to their self-concept, are less likely to use banned substances due to their lower tendency to morally disengage and the more intense feelings of guilt they expect to experience for using banned substances.

An ethical duty: Let astronautical development unfold - to make the people more secure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bernasconi, Marco C.

2014-11-01

In examining alternative space-development models, one observes that Heinlein postulated the first Moon flight as the outcome of the focused action of an individual - building upon an ample commercial aerospace transportation infrastructure. The same technological basis and entrepreneurial drive would then sustain a fast human and economic expansion on three new planets. Instead, historically, humans reached the Moon thanks to a "Faustian bargain" between astronautical developers and governments. This approach brought the early Apollo triumphs, but it also created the presumption of this method as the sole one for enabling space development. Eventually, the application of this paradigm caused the decline of the astronautical endeavor. Thus, just as conventional methods became unable to sustain the astronautical endeavor, space development appeared as vital, e.g., to satisfy the people's basic needs (metabolic resources, energy, materials, and space), as shown elsewhere. Such an endeavor must grow from actions generating new wealth through commercial activities to become self-supporting. Acquisition and distribution of multiform space resources call, however, for a sound ethical environment, as predatory governments can easily forfeit those resources. The paper begins the search for means apt to maintain a societal environment suited for this purpose. Among numerous initiatives needed, dissemination of factual information and moral-right education support take a central position: In fact, the vital condition for true Astronautics - a vast increase in actual respect of moral rights - can also become its best consequence, as the prosperity from the space arena empowers the people, making them materially safer and more secure in their fundamental moral rights.

Normal taste acuity and preference in female adolescents with impaired 6-n-propylthiouracil sensitivity.

PubMed

Nagai, Ayako; Kubota, Masaru; Sakai, Midori; Higashiyama, Yukie

2014-01-01

This study was conducted to determine the relationship between 6-n-propylthiouracil sensitivity and taste characteristics in female students at Nara Women's University. Participants (n=135) were screened for 6-npropylthiouracil sensitivity using a taste test with 0.56 mM 6-n-propylthiouracil solution, and the sensitivity was confirmed by an assay for the bitter-taste receptor gene, TAS2R38. Based on the screening results, 33 6-npropylthiouracil tasters and 21 non-tasters were enrolled. The basic characteristics that are thought to influence taste acuity, including body mass index, saliva volume and serum micronutrient concentrations (iron, zinc and copper), were similar between the two groups. In an analysis using a filter-paper disc method, there were no differences in the acuity for four basic tastes (sweet, salty, sour and bitter) between 6-n-propylthiouracil tasters and non-tasters. In addition, the taste preference for the four basic tastes as measured by a visual analogue scale was also comparable between the two groups. This is the first study to demonstrate that 6-n-propylthiouracil nontasters have taste sensitivity for the four basic tastes similar to that in 6-n-propylthiouracil tasters, at least in female adolescents, as measured by the gustatory test using a filter-paper disc method.

Concern for Close or Distant Others: The Distinction between Moral Identity and Moral Inclusion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Passini, Stefano

2016-01-01

Research has analyzed the relationship between moral identity--the extent to which people experience their moral character as being central to their self-conception--and the inclusion of other people within one's own moral circle. These studies underline that the higher the moral identity, the larger the moral circle. However, recent studies have…

Moral Reasoning and Personality Variables in Relation to Moral Behavior.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dras, Stephen R.; And Others

The relation of moral reasoning to moral behavior has been the subject of a substantial number of empirical studies; it may be more productive to employ a configuration of characteristics to predict moral behavior. To investigate the relation of moral reasoning and personality variables to moral behavior, 74 undergraduates, 30 males and 44…

The Concept of the Moral Domain in Moral Foundations Theory and Cognitive Developmental Theory: Horses for Courses?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maxwell, Bruce; Beaulac, Guillaume

2013-01-01

Moral foundations theory chastises cognitive developmental theory for having foisted on moral psychology a restrictive conception of the moral domain which involves arbitrarily elevating the values of justice and caring. The account of this negative influence on moral psychology, referred to in the moral foundations theory literature as the…

Beyond the Cognitive and the Virtue Approaches to Moral Education: Some Theoretical Foundations for an Integrated Account of Moral Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roh, Young-Ran

2000-01-01

Explores theoretical foundation for integrated approach to moral education; discusses rational choice and moral action within human reflective structure; investigates moral values required for integrative approach to moral education; discusses content of moral motivation, including role of emotion and reason. (Contains 15 references.) (PKP)

Moral Action as Social Capital, Moral Thought as Cultural Capital

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kang, Min Ju; Glassman, Michael

2010-01-01

This paper explores the idea that moral thought/reasoning and moral actions are actually two separate phenomena that have little relationship to each other. The idea that moral thinking does or can control moral action creates a difficult dualism between our knowledge about morality and our everyday actions. These differences run parallel to the…

The mediating role of disgust sensitivity and thought-action fusion between religiosity and obsessive compulsive symptoms.

PubMed

Inozu, Mujgan; Ulukut, Fulya Ozcanli; Ergun, Gokce; Alcolado, Gillian M

2014-10-01

Psychological theories of obsessions and compulsions have long recognised that strict religious codes and moral standards might promote thought-action fusion (TAF) appraisals. These appraisals have been implicated in the transformation of normally occurring intrusions into clinically distressing obsessions. Furthermore, increased disgust sensitivity has also been reported to be associated with obsessive compulsive (OC) symptoms. No research, however, has investigated the mediating roles of TAF and disgust sensitivity between religiosity and OC symptoms. This study was composed of 244 undergraduate students who completed measures of OC symptoms, TAF, disgust sensitivity, religiosity and negative effect. Analyses revealed that the relationship between religiosity and OC symptoms was mediated by TAF and disgust sensitivity. More importantly, the mediating role of TAF was not different across OC symptom subtypes, whereas the mediating role of disgust sensitivity showed different patterns across OC symptom subtypes. These findings indicate that the tendency for highly religious Muslims to experience greater OC symptoms is related to their heightened beliefs about disgust sensitivity and the importance of thoughts. © 2014 International Union of Psychological Science.

Culture and the quest for universal principles in moral reasoning.

PubMed

Sachdeva, Sonya; Singh, Purnima; Medin, Douglas

2011-06-01

The importance of including cultural perspectives in the study of human cognition has become apparent in recent decades, and the domain of moral reasoning is no exception. The present review focuses on moral cognition, beginning with Kohlberg's model of moral development which relies heavily on people's justifications for their judgments and then shifting to more recent theories that rely on rapid, intuitive judgments and see justifications as more or less irrelevant to moral cognition. Despite this dramatic shift, analyses of culture and moral decision-making have largely been framed as a quest for and test of universal principles of moral judgment. In this review, we discuss challenges that remain in trying to understand crosscultural variability in moral values and the processes that underlie moral cognition. We suggest that the universalist framework may lead to an underestimation of the role of culture in moral reasoning. Although the field has made great strides in incorporating more and more cultural perspectives in order to understand moral cognition, theories of moral reasoning still do not allow for substantial variation in how people might conceptualize the domain of the moral. The processes that underlie moral cognition may not be a human universal in any simple sense, because moral systems may play different roles in different cultures. We end our review with a discussion of work that remains to be done to understand cultural variation in the moral domain.

SKIN SENSITIZATION AND ALLERGIC CONTACT DERMATITIS (BASIC COURSE): THE GLOBAL REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT - CONTINUING EDUCATION COURSE; 1 OF 4 SPEAKERS FOR AN SOT BASIC COURSE

EPA Science Inventory

New regulations have emerged in recent years giving guidance on how best to conduct skin sensitization testing on new chemical entities. For example, recently The Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) in the U.S. and the European Ce...

The new synthesis in moral psychology.

PubMed

Haidt, Jonathan

2007-05-18

People are selfish, yet morally motivated. Morality is universal, yet culturally variable. Such apparent contradictions are dissolving as research from many disciplines converges on a few shared principles, including the importance of moral intuitions, the socially functional (rather than truth-seeking) nature of moral thinking, and the coevolution of moral minds with cultural practices and institutions that create diverse moral communities. I propose a fourth principle to guide future research: Morality is about more than harm and fairness. More research is needed on the collective and religious parts of the moral domain, such as loyalty, authority, and spiritual purity.

Implicit moral evaluations: A multinomial modeling approach.

PubMed

Cameron, C Daryl; Payne, B Keith; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Scheffer, Julian A; Inzlicht, Michael

2017-01-01

Implicit moral evaluations-i.e., immediate, unintentional assessments of the wrongness of actions or persons-play a central role in supporting moral behavior in everyday life. Yet little research has employed methods that rigorously measure individual differences in implicit moral evaluations. In five experiments, we develop a new sequential priming measure-the Moral Categorization Task-and a multinomial model that decomposes judgment on this task into multiple component processes. These include implicit moral evaluations of moral transgression primes (Unintentional Judgment), accurate moral judgments about target actions (Intentional Judgment), and a directional tendency to judge actions as morally wrong (Response Bias). Speeded response deadlines reduced Intentional Judgment but not Unintentional Judgment (Experiment 1). Unintentional Judgment was stronger toward moral transgression primes than non-moral negative primes (Experiments 2-4). Intentional Judgment was associated with increased error-related negativity, a neurophysiological indicator of behavioral control (Experiment 4). Finally, people who voted for an anti-gay marriage amendment had stronger Unintentional Judgment toward gay marriage primes (Experiment 5). Across Experiments 1-4, implicit moral evaluations converged with moral personality: Unintentional Judgment about wrong primes, but not negative primes, was negatively associated with psychopathic tendencies and positively associated with moral identity and guilt proneness. Theoretical and practical applications of formal modeling for moral psychology are discussed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An Examination of Income Effect on Consumers’ Ethical Evaluation of Counterfeit Drugs Buying Behaviour: A Cross-Sectional Study in Qatar and Sudan

PubMed Central

Alfadl, Abubakr Abdelraouf; Maraghi, Fatima Abdulla; Mohammad, Khadijah Shhab

2016-01-01

Introduction There are limited studies on consumer behaviour toward counterfeit products and the determining factors that motivate willingness to purchase counterfeit items. Aim This study aimed to fill this literature gap through studying differences in individual ethical evaluations of counterfeit drug purchase and whether that ethical evaluation affected by difference in income. It is hypothesized that individuals with lower/higher income make a more/less permissive evaluation of ethical responsibility regarding counterfeit drug purchase. Materials and Methods To empirically test the research assumption, a comparison was made between people who live in the low-income country Sudan and people who live in the high-income country Qatar. The study employed a face-to-face structured interview survey methodology to collect data from 1,170 subjects and the Sudanese and Qatari samples were compared using independent t-test at alpha level of 0.05 employing SPSS version 22.0. Results Sudanese and Qatari individuals were significantly different on all items. Sudanese individuals scored below 3 for all Awareness of Societal Consequences (ASC) items indicating that they make more permissive evaluation of ethical responsibility regarding counterfeit drug purchase. Both groups shared a basic positive moral agreement regarding subjective norm indicating that influence of income is not evident. Conclusion Findings indicate that low-income individuals make more permissive evaluation of ethical responsibility regarding counterfeit drugs purchase when highlighting awareness of societal consequences used as a deterrent tool, while both low and high-income individuals share a basic positive moral agreement when subjective norm dimension is exploited to discourage unethical buying behaviour. PMID:27790465

A Quantitative Analysis of Moral Exemplars Presented in Moral Education Textbooks in Korea and Japan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Han, Hyemin; Park, Sung Choon; Kim, Jongsung; Jeong, Changwoo; Kunii, Yutaka; Kim, Sora

2018-01-01

This study is a comparative analysis of the characteristics of moral exemplars presented in moral education textbooks in Korea and Japan. The purpose of the study is to examine and compare moral values presented through the lives and stories of moral exemplars in the two countries that have moral education as an independent and separate subject…

Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks

PubMed Central

Wills, Julian A.; Jost, John T.; Tucker, Joshua A.; Van Bavel, Jay J.

2017-01-01

Political debate concerning moralized issues is increasingly common in online social networks. However, moral psychology has yet to incorporate the study of social networks to investigate processes by which some moral ideas spread more rapidly or broadly than others. Here, we show that the expression of moral emotion is key for the spread of moral and political ideas in online social networks, a process we call “moral contagion.” Using a large sample of social media communications about three polarizing moral/political issues (n = 563,312), we observed that the presence of moral-emotional words in messages increased their diffusion by a factor of 20% for each additional word. Furthermore, we found that moral contagion was bounded by group membership; moral-emotional language increased diffusion more strongly within liberal and conservative networks, and less between them. Our results highlight the importance of emotion in the social transmission of moral ideas and also demonstrate the utility of social network methods for studying morality. These findings offer insights into how people are exposed to moral and political ideas through social networks, thus expanding models of social influence and group polarization as people become increasingly immersed in social media networks. PMID:28652356

Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks.

PubMed

Brady, William J; Wills, Julian A; Jost, John T; Tucker, Joshua A; Van Bavel, Jay J

2017-07-11

Political debate concerning moralized issues is increasingly common in online social networks. However, moral psychology has yet to incorporate the study of social networks to investigate processes by which some moral ideas spread more rapidly or broadly than others. Here, we show that the expression of moral emotion is key for the spread of moral and political ideas in online social networks, a process we call "moral contagion." Using a large sample of social media communications about three polarizing moral/political issues ( n = 563,312), we observed that the presence of moral-emotional words in messages increased their diffusion by a factor of 20% for each additional word. Furthermore, we found that moral contagion was bounded by group membership; moral-emotional language increased diffusion more strongly within liberal and conservative networks, and less between them. Our results highlight the importance of emotion in the social transmission of moral ideas and also demonstrate the utility of social network methods for studying morality. These findings offer insights into how people are exposed to moral and political ideas through social networks, thus expanding models of social influence and group polarization as people become increasingly immersed in social media networks.

A Kantian moral duty for the soon-to-be demented to commit suicide.

PubMed

Cooley, Dennis R

2007-06-01

It has been argued that, on Kantian grounds, pedophiles, rapists and murderers are morally obligated to take their own lives prior to committing a violent action that will end their moral agency. That is, to avoid destroying the agent's moral life by performing a morally suicidal action, the agent, while he still is a moral agent, should end his body's life. Although the cases of dementia and the morally reprehensible are vastly different, this Kantian interpretation might be useful in the debate on the permissibility of suicide for those facing dementia's effects. If moral agents have a duty to act as moral agents, then those who will lose their moral identity as moral agents have an obligation to themselves to end their physical lives prior to losing their dignity as persons.

A defense of the common morality.

PubMed

Beauchamp, Tom L

2003-09-01

Phenomena of moral conflict and disagreement have led writers in ethics to two antithetical conclusions: Either valid moral distinctions hold universally or they hold relative to a particular and contingent moral framework, and so cannot be applied with universal validly. Responding to three articles in this issue of the Journal that criticize his previously published views on the common morality, the author maintains that one can consistently deny universality to some justified moral norms and claim universality for others. Universality is located on the common morality and nonuniversality in other parts of the moral life, called "particular moralities." The existence of universal moral standards is defended in terms of: (1) a theory of the objectives of morality, (2) an account of the norms that achieve those objectives, and (3) an account of normative justification (both pragmatic and coherentist).

A concept analysis of moral resilience.

PubMed

Young, Peter D; Rushton, Cynda Hylton

Nurses experience moral distress, which has led to emotional distress, frustration, anger, and nurse attrition. Overcoming moral distress has become a significant focus in nursing research. The continued focus on moral distress has not produced sustainable solutions within the nursing profession. Since positive language may alter the outcomes of morally distressing situations, we look to better understand one such positive phrase, moral resilience. We explored moral resilience through a literature search using 11 databases to identify instances of the phrase. Occurrences of moral resilience were then divided into three distinct categories: antecedents, attributes, and consequences, and following this, major themes within each category were identified. There is a dearth of scholarship on moral resilience, and additionally, there is currently no unifying definition. Despite this, our analysis offers promising direction in refining the concept. This concept analysis reveals differences in how moral resilience is understood. More conceptual work is needed to refine the definition of moral resilience and understand how the concept is useful in mitigating the negative consequences of moral distress and other types of moral adversity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How does morality work in the brain? A functional and structural perspective of moral behavior

PubMed Central

Pascual, Leo; Rodrigues, Paulo; Gallardo-Pujol, David

2013-01-01

Neural underpinnings of morality are not yet well understood. Researchers in moral neuroscience have tried to find specific structures and processes that shed light on how morality works. Here, we review the main brain areas that have been associated with morality at both structural and functional levels and speculate about how it can be studied. Orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortices are implicated in emotionally-driven moral decisions, while dorsolateral prefrontal cortex appears to moderate its response. These competing processes may be mediated by the anterior cingulate cortex. Parietal and temporal structures play important roles in the attribution of others' beliefs and intentions. The insular cortex is engaged during empathic processes. Other regions seem to play a more complementary role in morality. Morality is supported not by a single brain circuitry or structure, but by several circuits overlapping with other complex processes. The identification of the core features of morality and moral-related processes is needed. Neuroscience can provide meaningful insights in order to delineate the boundaries of morality in conjunction with moral psychology. PMID:24062650

Common morality and moral reform.

PubMed

Wallace, K A

2009-01-01

The idea of moral reform requires that morality be more than a description of what people do value, for there has to be some measure against which to assess progress. Otherwise, any change is not reform, but simply difference. Therefore, I discuss moral reform in relation to two prescriptive approaches to common morality, which I distinguish as the foundational and the pragmatic. A foundational approach to common morality (e.g., Bernard Gert's) suggests that there is no reform of morality, but of beliefs, values, customs, and practices so as to conform with an unchanging, foundational morality. If, however, there were revision in its foundation (e.g., in rationality), then reform in morality itself would be possible. On a pragmatic view, on the other hand, common morality is relative to human flourishing, and its justification consists in its effectiveness in promoting flourishing. Morality is dependent on what in fact does promote human flourishing and therefore, could be reformed. However, a pragmatic approach, which appears more open to the possibility of moral reform, would need a more robust account of norms by which reform is measured.

Adolescents' aggressive and prosocial behaviors: links with social information processing, negative emotionality, moral affect, and moral cognition.

PubMed

Laible, Deborah J; Murphy, Tia Panfile; Augustine, Mairin

2014-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine whether moral affect, moral cognition, negative emotionality, and attribution biases independently predicted adolescents' prosocial and aggressive behavior in adolescence. A total of 148 adolescents completed self-report measures of prosocial and aggressive behavior, moral affect, moral cognition, negative emotionality, and attribution biases. Although in general all 3 factors (emotional, moral, and social cognitive) were correlated with adolescent social behavior, the most consistent independent predictors of adolescent social behavior were moral affect and cognition. These findings have important implications for intervention and suggest that programs that promote adolescent perspective taking, moral reasoning, and moral affect are needed to reduce aggressive behavior and promote prosocial behavior.

A comparison of four measures of moral reasoning.

PubMed

Wilmoth, G H; McFarland, S G

1977-08-01

Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Scale, Gilligan et al.'s Sexual Moral Judgment Scale, Maitland and Goldman's Objective Moral Judgment Scale, and Hogan's Maturity of Moral Judgment Scale, were examined for reliability and inter-scale relationships. All measures except the Objective Moral Judgment Scale had good reliabilities. The obtained relations between the Moral Judgment Scale and the Sexual Moral Judgment Scale replicated previous research. The Objective Moral Judgment Scale was not found to validly assess the Kohlberg stages. The Maturity of Moral Judgment Scale scores were strongly related to the subjects's classification on the Kohlberg stages, and the scale appears to offer a reliable, quickly scored, and valid index of mature thought, although the scale's continuous scores do not permit clear stage classification.

Liberating Moral Reflection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Horell, Harold D.

2013-01-01

The author argues that if we are to foster life-giving and liberating moral reflection, we must first liberate moral reflection from distortions; specifically, from the distorting effects of moral insensitivity, destructive moral relativism, and confusions resulting from a failure to understand the dynamics of moral reflection. The author proposes…

Communicating the Neuroscience of Psychopathy and Its Influence on Moral Behavior: Protocol of Two Experimental Studies

PubMed Central

Blakey, Robert; Askelund, Adrian D.; Boccanera, Matilde; Immonen, Johanna; Plohl, Nejc; Popham, Cassandra; Sorger, Clarissa; Stuhlreyer, Julia

2017-01-01

Neuroscience has identified brain structures and functions that correlate with psychopathic tendencies. Since psychopathic traits can be traced back to physical neural attributes, it has been argued that psychopaths are not truly responsible for their actions and therefore should not be blamed for their psychopathic behaviors. This experimental research aims to evaluate what effect communicating this theory of psychopathy has on the moral behavior of lay people. If psychopathy is blamed on the brain, people may feel less morally responsible for their own psychopathic tendencies and therefore may be more likely to display those tendencies. An online study will provide participants with false feedback about their psychopathic traits supposedly based on their digital footprint (i.e., Facebook likes), thus classifying them as having either above-average or below-average psychopathic traits and describing psychopathy in cognitive or neurobiological terms. This particular study will assess the extent to which lay people are influenced by feedback regarding their psychopathic traits, and how this might affect their moral behavior in online tasks. Public recognition of these potential negative consequences of neuroscience communication will also be assessed. A field study using the lost letter technique will be conducted to examine lay people’s endorsement of neurobiological, as compared to cognitive, explanations of criminal behavior. This field and online experimental research could inform the future communication of neuroscience to the public in a way that is sensitive to the potential negative consequences of communicating such science. In particular, this research may have implications for the future means by which neurobiological predictors of offending can be safely communicated to offenders. PMID:28352238

Developing and Testing a Scale of Moral Thinking and Communication (MTC) Functioning: A Preliminary Study and Its Implications for Moral Development and Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Chi-Ming Angela; Thoma, Stephen J.

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a scale assessing students' moral thinking and communication (MTC) functioning as well as to explore the implications for moral development and education. The rationale of MTC functioning, including interaction of four independent competencies: moral awareness, moral judgement, moral discourse, and…

Recognizing Moral Identity as a Cultural Construct.

PubMed

Jia, Fanli; Krettenauer, Tobias

2017-01-01

Current research on moral identity shows that moral identity predicts moral action in Western cultures but not in non-Western cultures. The present paper argues that this may be due to the fact that the concept of moral identity is culturally biased. In order to remedy this situation, we argue that researchers should broaden their scopes of inquiry by adding a cultural lens to their studies of moral identity. This change is important because although some concept of moral identity likely exists in all cultures, it may function in different ways and at different levels in each place. We propose that moral identity is a context-dependent construct tied to varying social and cultural obligations. We argue that Western moral identity stresses an individually oriented morality, whereas, people from Eastern cultures consider a highly moral person to be societally oriented. We conclude by discussing the implications of this view for future research.

The Epistemology of Moral Bioenhancement.

PubMed

Crutchfield, Parker

2016-07-01

Moral bioenhancement is the potential practice of manipulating individuals' moral behaviors by biological means in order to help resolve pressing moral issues such as climate change and terrorism. This practice has obvious ethical implications, and these implications have been and continue to be discussed in the bioethics literature. What have not been discussed are the epistemological implications of moral bioenhancement. This article details some of these implications of engaging in moral bioenhancement. The argument begins by making the distinction between moral bioenhancement that manipulates the contents of mental states (e.g. beliefs) and that which manipulates other, non-representational states (e.g. motivations). Either way, I argue, the enhanced moral psychology will fail to conform to epistemic norms, and the only way to resolve this failure and allow the moral bioenhancement to be effective in addressing the targeted moral issues is to make the moral bioenhancement covert. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Why be moral? Moral identity motivation and age.

PubMed

Krettenauer, Tobias; Victor, Rosemary

2017-08-01

Moral identity research to date has largely failed to provide evidence for developmental trends in moral identity, presumably because of restrictions in the age range of studies and the use of moral identity measures that are insensitive to age-related change. The present study investigated moral identity motivation across a broad age range (14-65 years, M = 33.48; N = 252) using a modified version of the Good Self-Assessment Interview. Individuals' moral identity motivation was coded and categorized as external, internal, or relationship-oriented. It was found that with age, external moral identity motivation decreased, whereas internal moral identity motivation increased. Effects of age were stronger in adolescence and emerging adulthood than in young adulthood and middle age. Findings underscore the developmental nature of the moral identity construct and suggest that moral motivation becomes more self-integrated with age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The Theory of Dyadic Morality: Reinventing Moral Judgment by Redefining Harm.

PubMed

Schein, Chelsea; Gray, Kurt

2018-02-01

The nature of harm-and therefore moral judgment-may be misunderstood. Rather than an objective matter of reason, we argue that harm should be redefined as an intuitively perceived continuum. This redefinition provides a new understanding of moral content and mechanism-the constructionist Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM). TDM suggests that acts are condemned proportional to three elements: norm violations, negative affect, and-importantly-perceived harm. This harm is dyadic, involving an intentional agent causing damage to a vulnerable patient (A→P). TDM predicts causal links both from harm to immorality (dyadic comparison) and from immorality to harm (dyadic completion). Together, these two processes make the "dyadic loop," explaining moral acquisition and polarization. TDM argues against intuitive harmless wrongs and modular "foundations," but embraces moral pluralism through varieties of values and the flexibility of perceived harm. Dyadic morality impacts understandings of moral character, moral emotion, and political/cultural differences, and provides research guidelines for moral psychology.

Storytelling in Earth sciences: The eight basic plots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Phillips, Jonathan

2012-11-01

Reporting results and promoting ideas in science in general, and Earth science in particular, is treated here as storytelling. Just as in literature and drama, storytelling in Earth science is characterized by a small number of basic plots. Though the list is not exhaustive, and acknowledging that multiple or hybrid plots and subplots are possible in a single piece, eight standard plots are identified, and examples provided: cause-and-effect, genesis, emergence, destruction, metamorphosis, convergence, divergence, and oscillation. The plots of Earth science stories are not those of literary traditions, nor those of persuasion or moral philosophy, and deserve separate consideration. Earth science plots do not conform those of storytelling more generally, implying that Earth scientists may have fundamentally different motivations than other storytellers, and that the basic plots of Earth Science derive from the characteristics and behaviors of Earth systems. In some cases preference or affinity to different plots results in fundamentally different interpretations and conclusions of the same evidence. In other situations exploration of additional plots could help resolve scientific controversies. Thus explicit acknowledgement of plots can yield direct scientific benefits. Consideration of plots and storytelling devices may also assist in the interpretation of published work, and can help scientists improve their own storytelling.

Cellular therapies for heart disease: unveiling the ethical and public policy challenges.

PubMed

Raval, Amish N; Kamp, Timothy J; Hogle, Linda F

2008-10-01

Cellular therapies have emerged as a potential revolutionary treatment for cardiovascular disease. Promising preclinical results have resulted in a flurry of basic research activity and spawned multiple clinical trials worldwide. However, the optimal cell type and delivery mode have not been determined for target patient populations. Nor have the mechanisms of benefit for the range of cellular interventions been clearly defined. Experiences to date have unveiled a myriad of ethical and public policy challenges which will affect the way researchers and clinicians make decisions for both basic and clinical research. Stem cells derived from embryos are at the forefront of the ethical and political debate, raising issues of which derivation methods are morally and socially permissible to pursue, as much as which are technically feasible. Adult stem cells are less controversial; however, important challenges exist in determining study design, cell processing, delivery mode, and target patient population. Pathways to successful commercialization and hence broad accessibility of cellular therapies for heart disease are only beginning to be explored. Comprehensive, multi-disciplinary and collaborative networks involving basic researchers, clinicians, regulatory officials and policymakers are required to share information, develop research, regulatory and policy standards and enable rational and ethical cell-based treatment approaches.

Motivational Aspects of Moral Learning and Progress

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curren, Randall

2014-01-01

This article addresses a puzzle about moral learning concerning its social context and the potential for moral progress: Won't the social context of moral learning shape moral perceptions, beliefs, and motivation in ways that will inevitably "limit" moral cognition, motivation, and progress? It addresses the relationships between…

Children's Moral Emotions and Moral Cognition: Towards an Integrative Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malti, Tina; Latzko, Brigitte

2010-01-01

This chapter presents a brief introduction to the developmental and educational literature linking children's moral emotions to cognitive moral development. A central premise of the chapter is that an integrative developmental perspective on moral emotions and moral cognition provides an important conceptual framework for understanding children's…

The Virtues in John Wilson's Approach to Moral Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tobin, Bernadette

2000-01-01

Explores John Wilson's ideas on moral education, arguing against Wilson's criticism of virtue theory. Evaluates Wilson's account of moral education from the perspective of a neo-Aristotelian sense of morality and moral development. Focuses on a part of Wilson's work, "A New Introduction to Moral Education." (CMK)

Cultural Conceptions of Morality: Examining Laypeople's Associations of Moral Character

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vauclair, Christin-Melanie; Wilson, Marc; Fischer, Ronald

2014-01-01

Whether moral conceptions are universal or culture-specific is controversial in moral psychology. One option is to refrain from imposing theoretical constraints and to ask laypeople from different cultures how "they" conceptualize morality. Our article adopts this approach by examining laypeople's associations of moral character in…

'My child will never initiate Ultimate Harm': an argument against moral enhancement.

PubMed

Tonkens, Ryan

2015-03-01

Recently, there has been a lot of philosophical work published on the morality of moral enhancement. One thing that tends to get overlooked in this literature is that there are many different potential methods of morally enhancing humans, and a blanket moral assessment of them may not be warranted. Here I focus on one mode of moral enhancement, namely, prenatal genetic moral enhancement, and offer a normative assessment of it. I argue that there is good reason to adopt a parent-centred perspective (as opposed to a social or state-centred perspective) towards the ethics of prenatal genetic moral enhancement, and, once we do so, that there is good reason to argue that prenatal genetic attempts at moral enhancement are morally problematic and ought not to be pursued. The main reasons for this have to do with the nature of moral enhancement research, and the idea that prospective parents are justified in not assuming that their children will be morally depraved. I leave it open as to whether other modes of morally enhancing humans fare better, morally speaking. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Cultural competence in healthcare in the community: A concept analysis.

PubMed

Henderson, Saras; Horne, Maria; Hills, Ruth; Kendall, Elizabeth

2018-03-07

This study aims to conduct a concept analysis on cultural competence in community healthcare. Clarification of the concept of cultural competence is needed to enable clarity in the definition and operation, research and theory development to assist healthcare providers to better understand this evolving concept. Rodgers' evolutionary concept analysis method was used to clarify the concept's context, surrogate terms, antecedents, attributes and consequences and to determine implications for further research. Articles from 2004 to 2015 were sought from Medline, PubMed, CINAHL and Scopus using the terms "cultural competency" AND "health," "cultural competence" OR "cultural safety" OR "cultural knowledge" OR "cultural awareness" OR cultural sensitivity OR "cultural skill" AND "Health." Articles with antecedents, attributes and consequences of cultural competence in community health were included. The 26 articles selected included nursing (n = 8), health (n = 8), psychology (n = 2), social work (n = 1), mental health (n = 3), medicine (n = 3) and occupational therapy (n = 1). Findings identify cultural openness, awareness, desire, knowledge and sensitivity and encounter as antecedents of cultural competence. Defining attributes are respecting and tailoring care aligned with clients' values, needs, practices and expectations, providing equitable and ethical care, and understanding. Consequences of cultural competence are satisfaction with care, the perception of quality healthcare, better adherence to treatments, effective interaction and improved health outcomes. An interesting finding is that the antecedents and attributes of cultural competence appear to represent a superficial level of understanding, sometimes only manifested through the need for social desirability. What is reported as critical in sustaining competence is the carers' capacity for a higher level of moral reasoning attainable through formal education in cultural and ethics knowledge. Our conceptual analysis incorporates moral reasoning in the definition of cultural competence. Further research to underpin moral reasoning with antecedents, attributes and consequences could enhance its clarity and promote a sustainable enactment of cultural competence. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Nurse moral distress: A survey identifying predictors and potential interventions.

PubMed

Rathert, Cheryl; May, Douglas R; Chung, Hye Sook

2016-01-01

Ethical dilemmas and conflicts are inherent in today's health care organizations and may lead to moral distress, which is often associated with physical and psychological symptoms. Although the existence of moral distress has been observed by scholars for decades, most of the research has been descriptive and has examined what types of health care conflicts lead to distress. This study tested a comprehensive model, underpinned by Social Cognitive Theory, that examined work environment and intrapersonal variables that may influence moral distress. We surveyed nursing staff employed in a U.S. acute care hospital (response rate=45%; n=290). More than half of the respondents reported they experience ethical dilemmas and conflicts from several times a month to daily, and nearly half reported they experience moral distress at least several times a month. Structural equation modeling analysis simultaneously examined the effects of five independent variables on moral distress and moral voice: (a) frequency of ethical dilemmas and conflicts; (b) moral efficacy; (c) ethics communication; (d) ethical environment; and (e) organizational ethics support. Results revealed significant independent effects of the frequency of ethics issues and organizational ethics support on moral distress. Bootstrapping analysis indicated that voice fully mediated the relationship between moral efficacy and moral distress, and partially mediated the relationship between organizational ethics support and distress. Supplemental analysis revealed that organizational ethics support moderated the moral efficacy-voice-moral distress relationship such that when organizational support was low, moral efficacy was negatively related to moral distress via voice. Although it may be impossible to eliminate all ethical dilemmas and conflicts, leaders and organizations may wish to help improve nurses' moral efficacy, which appears to give rise to voice, and reduced moral distress. Increasing organizational ethics support may be a key approach. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Moral distress: levels, coping and preferred interventions in critical care and transitional care nurses.

PubMed

Wilson, Melissa A; Goettemoeller, Diana M; Bevan, Nancy A; McCord, Jennifer M

2013-05-01

To examine the level and frequency of moral distress in staff nurses working in two types of units in an acute care hospital and to gather information for future interventions addressing moral distress. In 2008, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses published a Position Statement on Moral Distress. Nurses working in units where critically ill patients are admitted may encounter distressing situations. Moral distress is the painful feelings and/or psychological disequilibrium that may occur when taking care of patients. An exploratory, descriptive design study was used to identify the type and frequency of moral distress experienced by nurses. The setting was an acute care hospital in which the subjects were sampled from two groups of nurses based on their unit assignment. A descriptive, questionnaire study was used. Nurses completed the 38-item moral distress scale, a coping questionnaire, and indicated their preferred methods for institutional support in managing distressing situations. A convenience sample of staff nurses was approached to complete the moral distress questionnaire. Overall, the nurses reported low levels of moral distress. Situations creating the highest levels of moral distress were those related to futile care. A significance between group differences was found in the physician practice dimension. Specific resources were identified to help guide future interventions to recognise and manage moral distress. Nurses reported lower levels and frequency of moral distress in these units but their open-ended responses appeared to indicate moral distress. Nurses identified specific resources that they would find helpful to alleviate moral distress. There are numerous studies that identify the situations and the impact of moral distress, but not many studies explore treatments and interventions for moral distress. This study attempted to identify nurse preferences for lessening the impact of moral distress. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Moral thought-action fusion and OCD symptoms: the moderating role of religious affiliation.

PubMed

Siev, Jedidiah; Chambless, Dianne L; Huppert, Jonathan D

2010-04-01

The empirical literature on the relationship between moral thought-action fusion (TAF) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by mixed findings. Previous studies have reported religious group differences in moral TAF and the relationship between moral TAF and religiosity. In light of those studies and considering the apparent role of moral TAF in scrupulosity, the purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the possible role of religion as a moderator of the relationship between moral TAF and OCD symptoms. The results revealed that (a) Christians endorsed higher levels of moral TAF than did Jews independent of OCD symptoms; (b) religiosity was correlated with moral TAF in Christians but not in Jews, suggesting that Christian religious adherence is related to beliefs about the moral import of thoughts; and (c) moral TAF was related to OCD symptoms only in Jews. That is, for Christians, moral TAF was related to religiosity but not OCD symptoms, and for Jews, moral TAF was related to OCD symptoms but not religiosity. These results imply that moral TAF is only a marker of pathology when such beliefs are not culturally normative (e.g., as a function of religious teaching or doctrine). (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Why Does the “Sinner” Act Prosocially? The Mediating Role of Guilt and the Moderating Role of Moral Identity in Motivating Moral Cleansing

PubMed Central

Ding, Wan; Xie, Ruibo; Sun, Binghai; Li, Weijian; Wang, Duo; Zhen, Rui

2016-01-01

Numerous studies have found that people tend to commit prosocial acts subsequent to previous immoral acts, as a response to the latter. This phenomenon is called moral cleansing or moral compensation. However, the specific mechanism how previous immoral acts motivate moral compensatory behaviors is still not fully understood. This study aimed to examine the roles of guilt and moral identity in the relation between previous immoral acts and subsequent prosocial behaviors to clarify the mechanism. Based on the extant research, the current study proposed a moderated mediation model to illustrate the process of moral cleansing. Specifically, a previous immoral act motivates guilt, which further leads to subsequent prosocial behaviors, while moral identity facilitates this process. The participants were primed by a recalling task (immoral act vs. a neutral event). The results support the hypothesized model and provide a framework that explains moral cleansing by integrating the roles of guilt and moral identity. These findings highlight the dynamic nature of people’s morality with regard to how people adapt moral behaviors to protect their moral self-image. PMID:27660617

The development of moral emotions and decision-making from adolescence to early adulthood: a 6-year longitudinal study.

PubMed

Krettenauer, Tobias; Colasante, Tyler; Buchmann, Marlis; Malti, Tina

2014-04-01

Adolescents' emotions in the context of moral decision-making repeatedly have been shown to predict actual behaviour. However, little systematic information on developmental change regarding these emotion expectancies has been available thus far. This longitudinal study investigated anticipated moral emotions and decision-making between the ages of 15 and 21 in a representative sample of Swiss adolescents (N = 1,258; 54 % female; M = 15.30 years). Anticipated moral emotions and decision-making were assessed through a semi-structured interview procedure. Using Bernoulli hierarchical linear modeling, it was found that positive feelings after a moral transgression (i.e., "happy victimizer" responses) decreased over time, whereas positive feelings after a moral decision (i.e., "happy moralist" responses) increased. However, this pattern was contingent upon the moral scenario presented. Systematic relationships between anticipated moral emotions and moral personality characteristics of sympathy, conscientiousness, and agreeableness were found, even when controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive ability. Overall, this study demonstrates that the development of anticipated moral emotions is not limited to childhood. Furthermore, our findings suggest that moral emotions serve as an important link between moral personality development and decision-making processes that are more proximal to everyday moral behavior.

Moral identity and the experience of moral elevation in response to acts of uncommon goodness.

PubMed

Aquino, Karl; McFerran, Brent; Laven, Marjorie

2011-04-01

Four studies using survey and experimental designs examined whether people whose moral identity is highly self-defining are more susceptible to experiencing a state of moral elevation after being exposed to acts of uncommon moral goodness. Moral elevation consists of a suite of responses that motivate prosocial action tendencies. Study 1 showed that people higher (vs. lower) in moral identity centrality reported experiencing more intense elevating emotions, had more positive views of humanity, and were more desirous of becoming a better person after reading about an act of uncommon goodness than about a merely positive situation or an act of common benevolence. Study 2 showed that those high in moral identity centrality were more likely to recall acts of moral goodness and experience moral elevation in response to such events more strongly. These experiences were positively related to self-reported prosocial behavior. Study 3 showed a direct effect on behavior using manipulated, rather than measured, moral identity centrality. Study 4 replicated the effect of moral identity on the states of elevation as well as on self-reported physical sensations and showed that the elevation mediates the relationship between moral identity, witnessing uncommon goodness, and prosocial behavior.

The ABC of moral development: an attachment approach to moral judgment

PubMed Central

Govrin, Aner

2014-01-01

As with other cognitive faculties, the etiology of moral judgment and its connection to early development is complex. Because research is limited, the causative and contributory factors to the development of moral judgment in preverbal infants are unclear. However, evidence is emerging from studies within both infant research and moral psychology that may contribute to our understanding of the early development of moral judgments. Though its finding are preliminary, this proposed paradigm synthesizes these findings to generate an overarching, model of the process that appears to contribute to the development of moral judgment in the first year of life. I will propose that through early interactions with the caregiver, the child acquires an internal representation of a system of rules that determine how right/wrong judgments are to be construed, used, and understood. By breaking moral situations down into their defining features, the attachment model of moral judgment outlines a framework for a universal moral faculty based on a universal, innate, deep structure that appears uniformly in the structure of almost all moral judgments regardless of their content. The implications of the model for our understanding of innateness, universal morality, and the representations of moral situations are discussed. PMID:24478739

Mapping the Moral Domain

PubMed Central

Graham, Jesse; Nosek, Brian A.; Haidt, Jonathan; Iyer, Ravi; Koleva, Spassena; Ditto, Peter H.

2010-01-01

The moral domain is broader than the empathy and justice concerns assessed by existing measures of moral competence, and it is not just a subset of the values assessed by value inventories. To fill the need for reliable and theoretically-grounded measurement of the full range of moral concerns, we developed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) based on a theoretical model of five universally available (but variably developed) sets of moral intuitions: Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity, Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity. We present evidence for the internal and external validity of the scale and the model, and in doing so present new findings about morality: 1. Comparative model fitting of confirmatory factor analyses provides empirical justification for a five-factor structure of moral concerns. 2. Convergent/discriminant validity evidence suggests that moral concerns predict personality features and social group attitudes not previously considered morally relevant. 3. We establish pragmatic validity of the measure in providing new knowledge and research opportunities concerning demographic and cultural differences in moral intuitions. These analyses provide evidence for the usefulness of Moral Foundations Theory in simultaneously increasing the scope and sharpening the resolution of psychological views of morality. PMID:21244182

Human rights and the right to abortion in Latin America.

PubMed

Zúñiga-Fajuri, Alejandra

2014-03-01

The scope of this study is to question the fact that in some countries in Latin America (Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic) abortion is still forbidden in all situations. Even after all the debate on this thorny issue, the theory of human rights is not often used in the defense of abortion. This is clearly related to the pervasive, albeit unspoken belief that, due to their condition, pregnant women inherently lose their full human rights and should surrender and even give up their lives in favor of the unborn child. This article seeks to show that an adequate reading of the theory of human rights should include abortion rights through the first two trimesters of pregnancy, based on the fact that basic liberties can only be limited for the sake of liberty itself. It also seeks to respond to those who maintain that the abortion issue cannot be resolved since the exact point in the development of the embryo that distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate abortion cannot be determined. There are strong moral and scientific arguments for an approach capable of reducing uncertainty and establishing the basis for criminal law reforms that focus on the moral importance of trimester laws.

Granting death with dignity: patient, family and professional perspectives.

PubMed

Leung, Doris

2007-04-01

Dignity is a complex construct lacking clear meaning. While conceptualizing dignity as a basic right is useful in determining and justifying social and economic costs of health care, it is insufficient in considerations of personal dignity at the end of life. There is a dissonance between how dignity is shown to matter to healthcare professionals compared to patients. Furthermore, dignity is not clearly linked in the empirical literature to variables of quality of life and to a dignified death. Current studies about the construct of dignity enhance understanding of how we extrinsically construct moral worth, but not of how individuals interpret intrinsic moral worth through maintaining their personal integrity and attitudes of being cared for. References to key qualitative studies illuminate how clinicians ethically negotiate a creation of dying with dignity. As one's personal integrity fades, caregivers (i.e. healthcare providers, family and friends) are challenged to recognise and attend to the individual's vulnerability. I suggest that caregivers nurture personal integrity - through gestures that remember and honour aspects of the other as he/she was once known. Perhaps only through others can dying people be granted death with a sense of personal dignity.

Evil games.

PubMed

Chambers, David W

2010-01-01

A defining characteristic of humans is our capacity to create a better world through mutual action. Traditional ethics attempts to define and impose the one or several things we should all want. The alternative argued here is that we can retain our individual definitions of what matters and still work together for mutual improvement. Agreeing on common ethical principles is not a precondition for an effective moral life. This approach to morality is based on game theory, which holds that in purposely social interactions: (a) there are basic understandings, (b) individuals pursue their own interests, (c) we can judge others' interests, and (d) the distribution of benefits and burdens depends on the joint action of individuals, not on the action of individuals in isolation. In this view, immorality becomes a matter of cheating in the game of life. The three primary forms of cheating are deception (misleading others into thinking they are playing a game other than the one that is to their advantage to play), coercion (blocking courses of action others would normally be entitled to), and reneging (playing the game and then dodging the payoff if one does not like the outcome). These three evils are illustrated by Shakespeare's plays Othello, Richard III, and Antony and Cleopatra.

Moral Philosophy, Moral Expertise, and the Argument from Disagreement.

PubMed

Cross, Ben

2016-03-01

Several recent articles have weighed in on the question of whether moral philosophers can be counted as moral experts. One argument denying this has been rejected by both sides of the debate. According to this argument, the extent of disagreement in modern moral philosophy prevents moral philosophers from being classified as moral experts. Call this the Argument From Disagreement (AD). In this article, I defend a version of AD. Insofar as practical issues in moral philosophy are characterized by disagreement between moral philosophers who are more or less equally well credentialed on the issue, non-philosophers have no good reasons to defer to their views. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Influence of the cortical midline structures on moral emotion and motivation in moral decision-making.

PubMed

Han, Hyemin; Chen, Jingyuan; Jeong, Changwoo; Glover, Gary H

2016-04-01

The present study aims to examine the relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural level. Traditional moral psychological studies have suggested the role of moral self as the moderator of moral cognition, so activity of moral self would present at the neural level. The present study examined the interaction between the CMS and other moral-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological interaction analysis of functional images acquired while 16 subjects were solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, we performed Granger causality analysis to demonstrate the direction of influences between activities in the regions in moral decision-making. We first demonstrate there are significant positive interactions between two central CMS seed regions-i.e., the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)-and brain regions associated with moral functioning including the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula (AI); on the other hand, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with the seed regions. Second, several significant Granger causality was found from CMS to insula regions particularly under the moral-personal condition. Furthermore, significant dominant influence from the AI to PI was reported. Moral psychological implications of these findings are discussed. The present study demonstrated the significant interaction and influence between the CMS and morality-related regions while subject were solving moral dilemmas. Given that, activity in the CMS is significantly involved in human moral functioning. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Relation of Moral Judgment Development and Educational Experience to Recall of Moral Narratives and Expository Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Narvaez, Darcia; Gleason, Tracy

2007-01-01

Moral text processing was used as an ecologically valid method for assessing implicit and explicit moral understanding and development. The authors tested undergraduates, seminarians, and graduate students in political science and philosophy for recall of moral narratives and moral expository texts. Multivariate analyses of covariance using…

Moral Psychology and the Problem of Moral Criteria

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Welch, Patrick

2011-01-01

This article is intended as an initial investigation into the foundations of moral psychology. I primarily examine a recent work in moral education, Daniel Lapsley's and Darcia Narvaez"s "Character education", whose authors seem to assume at points that criteria for discerning moral actions and moral traits can be derived apart from ethics or…

Cultural Integrity and Social and Emotional Competence Promotion: Work Notes on Moral Competence.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jagers, Robert J.

2001-01-01

Describes evolving efforts to promote African American children's social and emotional competencies, examining moral competence. Proposes a cultural psychology framework to highlight the theme of communalism and morality of care. Identifies various moral events, offering knowledge of moral emotions and moral self-efficacy as key constructs.…

The Forms and Functions of Real-Life Moral Decision-Making.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krebs, Dennis L.; Denton, Kathy; Wark, Gillian

1997-01-01

Observes that the Kohlbergian model of morality does not give a good account of the ways in which people make moral decisions in their everyday lives. Argues that a functional model of moral judgment and moral behavior derived from evolutionary theory may supply a better account of real-life morality. (DSK)