Gilligan's Moral Orientation Hypothesis: Strategies of Justification and Practical Deliberation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keefer, Matthew Wilks

Previous studies failed to determine whether Gilligan's (1982) justice and care perspectives represent two distinct orientations of moral reasoning. Using methods developed in research on reasoning and discourse processes, a study used a discursive framework to validate an alternate methodology for the investigation of moral orientation reasoning.…

Moral Reasoning in Genetics Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van der Zande, Paul; Brekelmans, Mieke; Vermunt, Jan D.; Waarlo, Arend Jan

2009-01-01

Recent neuropsychological research suggests that intuition and emotion play a role in our reasoning when we are confronted with moral dilemmas. Incorporating intuition and emotion into moral reflection is a rather new idea in the educational world, where rational reasoning is preferred. To develop a teaching and learning strategy to address this…

The relationship of ethics education to moral sensitivity and moral reasoning skills of nursing students.

PubMed

Park, Mihyun; Kjervik, Diane; Crandell, Jamie; Oermann, Marilyn H

2012-07-01

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students.

Teacher Reasoning and Moral Judgement in the Context of Student Discipline Situations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

MacCallum, Judith A.

This study was conducted to investigate the moral development of teachers, their reasoning about student discipline incidents, and whether a teacher's own moral development might affect desired student outcomes. An inservice course on student discipline entitled "Managing Student Behavior: A Whole School Approach to Discipline" (MSB) was…

Children's giving: moral reasoning and moral emotions in the development of donation behaviors.

PubMed

Ongley, Sophia F; Nola, Marta; Malti, Tina

2014-01-01

This study investigated the role of moral reasoning and moral emotions (i.e., sympathy and guilt) in the development of young children's donating behavior (N = 160 4- and 8-year-old children). Donating was measured through children's allocation of resources (i.e., stickers) to needy peers and was framed as a donation to "World Vision." Children's sympathy was measured with both self- and primary caregiver-reports and participants reported their anticipation of guilt feelings following actions that violated prosocial moral norms, specifically the failure to help or share. Participants also provided justifications for their anticipated emotions, which were coded as representing moral or non-moral reasoning processes. Children's moral reasoning emerged as a significant predictor of donating behavior. In addition, results demonstrated significant developmental and gender effects, with 8-year-olds donating significantly more than 4-year-olds and 4-year-old girls making higher value donations than boys of the same age. We discuss donation behaviors within the broader context of giving and highlight the moral developmental antecedents of giving behaviors in childhood.

Children’s giving: moral reasoning and moral emotions in the development of donation behaviors

PubMed Central

Ongley, Sophia F.; Nola, Marta; Malti, Tina

2014-01-01

This study investigated the role of moral reasoning and moral emotions (i.e., sympathy and guilt) in the development of young children’s donating behavior (N = 160 4- and 8-year-old children). Donating was measured through children’s allocation of resources (i.e., stickers) to needy peers and was framed as a donation to “World Vision.” Children’s sympathy was measured with both self- and primary caregiver-reports and participants reported their anticipation of guilt feelings following actions that violated prosocial moral norms, specifically the failure to help or share. Participants also provided justifications for their anticipated emotions, which were coded as representing moral or non-moral reasoning processes. Children’s moral reasoning emerged as a significant predictor of donating behavior. In addition, results demonstrated significant developmental and gender effects, with 8-year-olds donating significantly more than 4-year-olds and 4-year-old girls making higher value donations than boys of the same age. We discuss donation behaviors within the broader context of giving and highlight the moral developmental antecedents of giving behaviors in childhood. PMID:24904474

Sex Differences in the Development of Moral Reasoning: A Rejoinder to Baumrind.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walker, Lawrence J.

1986-01-01

Addresses the criticisms of Diana Baumrind's review of his research on sex differences in moral reasoning development. Discusses issues such as the nature of moral development, the focus on adulthood, the choice of statistics, the effect of differing sample sizes and scoring systems, and the role of sexual experiences in explaining variability in…

Critiquing the Reasons for Making Artificial Moral Agents.

PubMed

van Wynsberghe, Aimee; Robbins, Scott

2018-02-19

Many industry leaders and academics from the field of machine ethics would have us believe that the inevitability of robots coming to have a larger role in our lives demands that robots be endowed with moral reasoning capabilities. Robots endowed in this way may be referred to as artificial moral agents (AMA). Reasons often given for developing AMAs are: the prevention of harm, the necessity for public trust, the prevention of immoral use, such machines are better moral reasoners than humans, and building these machines would lead to a better understanding of human morality. Although some scholars have challenged the very initiative to develop AMAs, what is currently missing from the debate is a closer examination of the reasons offered by machine ethicists to justify the development of AMAs. This closer examination is especially needed because of the amount of funding currently being allocated to the development of AMAs (from funders like Elon Musk) coupled with the amount of attention researchers and industry leaders receive in the media for their efforts in this direction. The stakes in this debate are high because moral robots would make demands on society; answers to a host of pending questions about what counts as an AMA and whether they are morally responsible for their behavior or not. This paper shifts the burden of proof back to the machine ethicists demanding that they give good reasons to build AMAs. The paper argues that until this is done, the development of commercially available AMAs should not proceed further.

An Application of Kohlberg's Moral Reasoning Theory to Understanding Problems of Marital and Family Communication.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winsor, Jerry L.; Lower, Frank J.

The concepts of moral reasoning developed by Lawrence Kohlberg can be applied to the analysis of communication in intimate relationships in an attempt to deal with the high rate of marital dissolution. Kohlberg has identified three levels of moral reasoning: (1) preconventional, in which a person reasons in terms of punishment, reward, or exchange…

Moral orientation of elderly persons: considering ethical dilemmas in health care.

PubMed

Pinch, W J; Parsons, M E

1997-09-01

Knowledge about moral development and elderly persons is very limited. A hermeneutical interpretative study was conducted with healthy elderly persons (n = 20) in order to explore and describe their moral orientation based on the paradigms of justice (Kohlberg) and care (Gilligan). The types of moral reasoning, dominance, alignment and orientation were determined. All but one participant included both types of reasoning when discussing an ethical conflict. None of the men's moral reasoning was dominated by caring, but justice dominated the reasoning of four women. The implications for ethical decision-making and future research are discussed.

Kohlberg's theory of moral development: insights into rights reasoning.

PubMed

Peens, B J; Louw, D A

2000-01-01

Kohlberg's theory of moral development was based on extensive research done on the reactions of people of all ages to specific moral situational dilemmas. Kohlberg was specifically interested in reasoning processes involved in decision-making. The way in which children perceive their rights is also based on reasoning processes that are inextricably linked to their level of development and more specifically to their level of moral development since the area of human rights can be considered essentially moral. Since Kohlberg's theory is primarily concerned with development, a great deal of insight can be gained into the developmental shift that occurs in children's reasoning about the rights to which they feel they should be entitled. This article focuses on Kohlberg's six-stage theory, specifically as it pertains to reasoning processes similar to those that would be used in rights reasoning. At each stage the authors propose a potential view of how children at each developmental stage might perceive their rights based on the description Kohlberg gives of the developmental trends associated with each stage. A critical assessment of Kohlberg's work is also given in order to highlight certain considerations about the limitations of this theory that need to be considered for future research.

Moral Reasoning: Its Relation to Logical Thinking and Role-Taking.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Marion E.

1978-01-01

In a sample of 100 children, aged 8-14, there was a clear association between consolidated concrete operational thinking and Kohlberg's Stage 2 moral reasoning, and some evidence that, in order of development, logical thinking precedes role-taking, which precedes moral reasoning, at corresponding levels of conceptual complexity. (Author/SJL)

It's not all about moral reasoning: Understanding the content of Moral Case Deliberation.

PubMed

Svantesson, Mia; Silén, Marit; James, Inger

2018-03-01

Moral Case Deliberation is one form of clinical ethics support described as a facilitator-led collective moral reasoning by healthcare professionals on a concrete moral question connected to their practice. Evaluation research is needed, but, as human interaction is difficult to standardise, there is a need to capture the content beyond moral reasoning. This allows for a better understanding of Moral Case Deliberation, which may contribute to further development of valid outcome criteria and stimulate the normative discussion of what Moral Case Deliberation should contain. To explore and compare the content beyond moral reasoning in the dialogue in Moral Case Deliberation at Swedish workplaces. A mixed-methods approach was applied for analysing audio-recordings of 70 periodic Moral Case Deliberation meetings at 10 Swedish workplaces. Moral Case Deliberation facilitators and various healthcare professions participated, with registered nurses comprising the majority. Ethical considerations: No objection to the study was made by an Ethical Review Board. After oral and written information was provided, consent to be recorded was assumed by virtue of participation. Other than 'moral reasoning' (median (md): 45% of the spoken time), the Moral Case Deliberations consisted of 'reflections on the psychosocial work environment' to a varying extent (md: 29%). Additional content comprised 'assumptions about the patient's psychosocial situation' (md: 6%), 'facts about the patient's situation' (md: 5%), 'concrete problem-solving' (md: 6%) and 'process' (md: 3%). The findings suggest that a restorative function of staff's wellbeing in Moral Case Deliberation is needed, as this might contribute to good patient care. This supports outcome criteria of improved emotional support, which may include relief of moral distress. However, facilitators need a strategy for how to proceed from the participants' own emotional needs and to develop the use of their emotional knowing to focus on the ethically difficult patient situation.

Aggressive and prosocial children's emotion attributions and moral reasoning.

PubMed

Malti, Tina; Gasser, Luciano; Buchmann, Marlis

2009-01-01

Aggressive and prosocial children's emotion attributions and moral reasoning were investigated. Participants were 235 kindergarten children (M=6.2 years) and 136 elementary-school children (M=7.6 years) who were selected as aggressive or prosocial based on (kindergarten) teacher ratings. The children were asked to evaluate hypothetical rule violations, attribute emotions they would feel in the role of the victimizer, and justify their responses. Compared with younger prosocial children, younger aggressive children attributed fewer negative emotions and were more likely to provide sanction-oriented justifications when evaluating rule violations negatively. Furthermore, age-, gender- and context-effects in moral development occurred. The context-effects included both effects of transgression type (i.e., prosocial morality vs. fairness) on emotion attributions and moral reasoning and the effects of the context of moral evaluation and emotion attribution on moral reasoning. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of emotion attributions and moral reasoning as antecedents of children's aggressive and prosocial behavior. Copyright 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Individual Differences in Moral Development: Does Intelligence Really Affect Children's Moral Reasoning and Moral Emotions?

PubMed

Beißert, Hanna M; Hasselhorn, Marcus

2016-01-01

This study investigates the relationship between intelligence and individual differences in children's moral development across a range of different moral transgressions. Taking up prior research that showed morality and intelligence to be related in adolescents and adults, the current study wants to test if these findings can be extended to younger children. The study was designed to address some of the shortcomings in prior research by examining young children aged between 6 years; 4 months and 8 years; 10 months, using a broad concept of moral development including emotional aspects and applying an approach that is closely connected to children's daily lives. Participants ( N = 129) completed a standardized intelligence test and were presented four moral transgression stories to assess moral development. Results demonstrated that findings from prior research with adolescents or adults cannot simply be extended to younger participants. No significant correlations of moral development and intelligence were found for any of the presented stories. This provides first evidence that - at least in middle childhood - moral developmental status seems to be independent from children's general intelligence assessed by figural inductive reasoning tests.

Lecture-based versus problem-based learning in ethics education among nursing students.

PubMed

Khatiban, Mahnaz; Falahan, Seyede Nayereh; Amini, Roya; Farahanchi, Afshin; Soltanian, Alireza

2018-01-01

Moral reasoning is a vital skill in the nursing profession. Teaching moral reasoning to students is necessary toward promoting nursing ethics. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of problem-based learning and lecture-based methods in ethics education in improving (1) moral decision-making, (2) moral reasoning, (3) moral development, and (4) practical reasoning among nursing students. This is a repeated measurement quasi-experimental study. Participants and research context: The participants were nursing students in a University of Medical Sciences in west of Iran who were randomly assigned to the lecture-based (n = 33) or the problem-based learning (n = 33) groups. The subjects were provided nursing ethics education in four 2-h sessions. The educational content was similar, but the training methods were different. The subjects completed the Nursing Dilemma Test before, immediately after, and 1 month after the training. The data were analyzed and compared using the SPSS-16 software. Ethical considerations: The program was explained to the students, all of whom signed an informed consent form at the baseline. The two groups were similar in personal characteristics (p > 0.05). A significant improvement was observed in the mean scores on moral development in the problem-based learning compared with the lecture-based group (p < 0.05). Although the mean scores on moral reasoning improved in both the problem-based learning and the lecture-based groups immediately after the training and 1 month later, the change was significant only in the problem-based learning group (p < 0.05). The mean scores on moral decision-making, practical considerations, and familiarity with dilemmas were relatively similar for the two groups. The use of the problem-based learning method in ethics education enhances moral development among nursing students. However, further studies are needed to determine whether such method improves moral decision-making, moral reasoning, practical considerations, and familiarity with the ethical issues among nursing students.

Examining the Impact of Prior Academic Achievement on Moral Reasoning Development among College Students: A Growth Curve Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corcoran, Roisin P.; O'Flaherty, Joanne

2016-01-01

Moral reasoning is concerned with making decisions regarding the appropriate course of action in particular situations and has been highlighted as a critical factor that may facilitate (or impede) the effectiveness of educational programs in promoting positive outcomes. This study examined the trajectories of moral reasoning as measured by the…

Parental Monitoring Predicts Students' Prosocial and Impulsive Tendencies Relevant to Consequence-Based Reasoning in a Blended Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hong, Jon-Chao; Hwang, Ming-Yueh; Tai, Kai-Hsin; Kuo, Yen-Chun

2016-01-01

Consequential reasoning relevant to moral development has not been effectively practised in elementary schools in Taiwan. The present study designed a "To Do or Not To Do" website for students to explore moral dilemma situations and exercise consequence-based moral reasoning. Effective data from 160 fifth-grade students were collected…

Politics, moral reasoning and the Defining Issues Test: a reply to Barnett et al. (1995).

PubMed

Emler, N; Palmer-Canton, E; St James, A

1998-12-01

Previous research has consistently shown that those on the political Right tend to prefer or use conventional or Stage 4 moral reasoning, while those on the political Left prefer principled or Stage 5 reasoning (cf. Kohlberg, 1976). One interpretation of this finding is that developmental level of moral reasoning influences a person's political views, another that the moral 'stages' associated with contrasting political positions are in fact contrasting politico-moral ideologies and that people choose the form of moral reasoning which best expresses their own political identity. We report four studies to test aspects of these alternatives. Participants (N = 50) in Study 1 rated moral arguments representing different stages as differentially relevant to people of varying political persuasions. In Study 2, participants (N = 106), assigned to play the role of constituency political parties (either Labour or Conservative) selecting candidates to represent their party, evaluated imaginary candidates differentially as a function of the kinds of moral arguments the candidates expressed. In Study 3 (N = 61), principled and particularly conventional moral arguments were again found to express contrasting political identities. In Study 4 (N = 51) a manipulation of the salience of participants' political identity produced as predicted high correlations between moral reasoning scores and measures of political attitudes when political identity was salient but not when personal identity was salient. The findings overall, however, only partially support the view that political identity influences moral reasoning. We conclude that, although degree of preference for conventional or Stage 4 reasoning is a function of political identity, principled reasoning may be unrelated to political orientation. We also propose that these two forms of reasoning do not reflect successive development stages and that preference for one may be independent of preference for the other.

On the Reasons We Want Teachers of Good Disposition and Moral Character

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Osguthorpe, Richard D.

2008-01-01

The point of this article is to make a case for teachers of moral disposition without regard for the moral development of students. The article concludes that there are multiple reasons for wanting teachers of good disposition and moral character; that teachers' dispositions are best conceived as modifiers to the methods that they employ; and that…

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.

Personality Correlates of Moral Reasoning: A Preliminary Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lifton, Peter D.

Although psychologists often disagree over the definition, underlying process, and methodology associated with the study of moral development, they agree that differences disappear among individuals possessing a similar type of reasoning. To study individual personality differences among people identified as moral by the theories of Kohlberg,…

Integrating a Moral Reasoning Game in a Blended Learning Setting: Effects on Students' Interest and Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hong, Jon-Chao; Hwang, Ming-Yueh; Wu, Nien-Chen; Huang, Ying-Luan; Lin, Pei-Hsin; Chen, Yi-Ling

2016-01-01

A new approach to moral education using blended learning has been developed. This approach involves 10 scenarios that are designed as a web-based game and serves as a basis for group moral-consequence-based reasoning, which is developed based on a hypothetical-deductive model. The aim of the study was to examine the changes in students' blended…

Sex Differences in Moral Reasoning: Response to Walker's (1984) Conclusion That There Are None.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baumrind, Diana

1986-01-01

Takes issue with Lawrence Walker's literature review on developmental and individual differences in moral reasoning which found no consistent evidence for sex differences in moral development. Argues instead that the source and specific nature of these differences have yet to be established. (HOD)

Moral Reasoning and Religious Belief: Does Content Influence Structure?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Norman, Antony D.; Richards, Herbert C.; Bear, George G.

1998-01-01

Studies the inference from Kohlbergian theory that content and structure in moral development are independent. Administered Kohlberg's moral dilemmas of life versus law, punishment versus conscience, and authority versus contract. Finds differences in choices and reasoning between students in private Christian schools and public schools, as well…

Practical Reason in Practice: Reflections on a Business Ethics Course.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Warren, Richard C.

1995-01-01

A business ethics course aiming to depict business as a system of relationships and responsibilities covers the following areas: consideration of the moral climate of society, character development, exercise of moral imagination, and moral reasoning. The course introduces ethical theory and argument in a business context. (SK)

Transformational leadership and moral reasoning.

PubMed

Turner, Nick; Barling, Julian; Epitropaki, Olga; Butcher, Vicky; Milner, Caroline

2002-04-01

Terms such as moral and ethical leadership are used widely in theory, yet little systematic research has related a sociomoral dimension to leadership in organizations. This study investigated whether managers' moral reasoning (n = 132) was associated with the transformational and transactional leadership behaviors they exhibited as perceived by their subordinates (n = 407). Managers completed the Defining Issues Test (J. R. Rest, 1990), whereas their subordinates completed the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (B. M. Bass & B. J. Avolio, 1995). Analysis of covariance indicated that managers scoring in the highest group of the moral-reasoning distribution exhibited more transformational leadership behaviors than leaders scoring in the lowest group. As expected, there was no relationship between moral-reasoning group and transactional leadership behaviors. Implications for leadership development are discussed.

Children's Sympathy, Guilt, and Moral Reasoning in Helping, Cooperation, and Sharing: A 6-Year Longitudinal Study.

PubMed

Malti, Tina; Ongley, Sophia F; Peplak, Joanna; Chaparro, Maria P; Buchmann, Marlis; Zuffianò, Antonio; Cui, Lixian

2016-11-01

This study examined the role of sympathy, guilt, and moral reasoning in helping, cooperation, and sharing in a 6-year, three-wave longitudinal study involving 175 children (M age 6.10, 9.18, and 12.18 years). Primary caregivers reported on children's helping and cooperation; sharing was assessed behaviorally. Child sympathy was assessed by self- and teacher reports, and self-attributed feelings of guilt-sadness and moral reasoning were assessed by children's responses to transgression vignettes. Sympathy predicted helping, cooperation, and sharing. Guilt-sadness and moral reasoning interacted with sympathy in predicting helping and cooperation; both sympathy and guilt-sadness were associated with the development of sharing. The findings are discussed in relation to the emergence of differential motivational pathways to helping, cooperation, and sharing. © 2016 The Authors. Child Development © 2016 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Individual Differences in Moral Development: Does Intelligence Really Affect Children’s Moral Reasoning and Moral Emotions?

PubMed Central

Beißert, Hanna M.; Hasselhorn, Marcus

2016-01-01

This study investigates the relationship between intelligence and individual differences in children’s moral development across a range of different moral transgressions. Taking up prior research that showed morality and intelligence to be related in adolescents and adults, the current study wants to test if these findings can be extended to younger children. The study was designed to address some of the shortcomings in prior research by examining young children aged between 6 years; 4 months and 8 years; 10 months, using a broad concept of moral development including emotional aspects and applying an approach that is closely connected to children’s daily lives. Participants (N = 129) completed a standardized intelligence test and were presented four moral transgression stories to assess moral development. Results demonstrated that findings from prior research with adolescents or adults cannot simply be extended to younger participants. No significant correlations of moral development and intelligence were found for any of the presented stories. This provides first evidence that – at least in middle childhood – moral developmental status seems to be independent from children’s general intelligence assessed by figural inductive reasoning tests. PMID:28066287

The Development of Prosocial Moral Reasoning and a Prosocial Orientation in Young Adulthood: Concurrent and Longitudinal Correlates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eisenberg, Nancy; Hofer, Claire; Sulik, Michael J.; Liew, Jeffrey

2014-01-01

We examined stability and change in prosocial moral reasoning (PRM) assessed longitudinally at ages 20/21, 22/23, 24/25, 26/27, and 31/32 years (N = 32; 16 female) using a pencil-and-paper measure of moral reasoning and examined relations of PRM and prosocial behavior with one another and with empathy, sympathy measured with self- and friend…

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.

Moral Reasoning and Empathy in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Implications for Moral Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Senland, Amie K.; Higgins-D'Alessandro, Ann

2013-01-01

A mixed methods approach was used to understand moral reasoning and empathy in 12- to 18-year-old adolescents with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD) compared to same age typically developing (TD) youth. Adolescents completed measures assessing empathy (perspective-taking, personal distress, and empathic concern), and moral…

Arrested Development? Comparing Educational Leadership Students with National Norms on Moral Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greer, Jennifer L.; Searby, Linda J.; Thoma, Stephen J.

2015-01-01

Purpose: The public expects school leaders to be moral exemplars, yet prior research indicates that teachers and, more recently, school principals may score lower than other career groups on a widely used measure of moral reasoning, the Defining Issues Test. Moreover, little empirical research has been conducted on educators during leadership…

Regression of Moral Reasoning during Medical Education: Combined Design Study to Evaluate the Effect of Clinical Study Years

PubMed Central

Hren, Darko; Marušić, Matko; Marušić, Ana

2011-01-01

Background Moral reasoning is important for developing medical professionalism but current evidence for the relationship between education and moral reasoning does not clearly apply to medical students. We used a combined study design to test the effect of clinical teaching on moral reasoning. Methods We used the Defining Issues Test-2 as a measure of moral judgment, with 3 general moral schemas: Personal Interest, Maintaining Norms, and Postconventional Schema. The test was applied to 3 consecutive cohorts of second year students in 2002 (n = 207), 2003 (n = 192), and 2004 (n = 139), and to 707 students of all 6 study years in 2004 cross-sectional study. We also tested 298 age-matched controls without university education. Results In the cross-sectional study, there was significant main effect of the study year for Postconventional (F(5,679) = 3.67, P = 0.003) and Personal Interest scores (F(5,679) = 3.38, P = 0.005). There was no effect of the study year for Maintaining Norms scores. 3rd year medical students scored higher on Postconventional schema score than all other study years (p<0.001). There were no statistically significant differences among 3 cohorts of 2nd year medical students, demonstrating the absence of cohort or point-of-measurement effects. Longitudinal study of 3 cohorts demonstrated that students regressed from Postconventional to Maintaining Norms schema-based reasoning after entering the clinical part of the curriculum. Interpretation Our study demonstrated direct causative relationship between the regression in moral reasoning development and clinical teaching during medical curriculum. The reasons may include hierarchical organization of clinical practice, specific nature of moral dilemmas faced by medical students, and hidden medical curriculum. PMID:21479204

Me or you? Neural correlates of moral reasoning in everyday conflict situations in adolescents and adults.

PubMed

Sommer, Monika; Meinhardt, Jörg; Rothmayr, Christoph; Döhnel, Katrin; Hajak, Göran; Rupprecht, Rainer; Sodian, Beate

2014-01-01

Throughout adolescence, progress in the understanding of the moral domain as well as changes in moral behavior is observable. We tested 16 adolescents (14-16 years of age) and 16 healthy adults (22-31 years of age) on the developmental changes in everyday moral decision making using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Using verbal stories describing everyday moral conflict situations, subjects had to decide between a moral standard or a personal desire. In the moral conflict situations, adolescents not only chose significantly more often the hedonistic alternative than adults, but they also reported higher certainty ratings. Contrasted with everyday social conflict situations that required a decision between a social-oriented behavior and a personal need, moral conflict situations induced an activity increase in frontal areas, the middle temporal gyrus, the thalamus, and the parahippocampal gyrus in adolescents compared to adults. Moreover, a closer look at the moral conflict situations revealed that adolescents showed more activity than adults in brain areas that are also centrally involved in theory of mind (ToM) during morally oriented decisions in contrast to personal-oriented decisions. This indicated that the development of moral reasoning may be strongly correlated with the development of ToM reasoning.

Impacts of Socratic questioning on moral reasoning of nursing students.

PubMed

Torabizadeh, Camellia; Homayuni, Leyla; Moattari, Marzieh

2018-03-01

Nurses are often faced with complex situations that made them to make ethical decisions; and to make such decisions, they need to possess the power of moral reasoning. Studies in Iran show that the majority of nursing students lack proper ethical development. Socratic teaching is a student-centered method which is strongly opposed to the lecturing method. This study was conducted to evaluate the impacts of Socratic questioning on the moral reasoning of the nursing students. In a quasi-experimental study, Crisham's Nursing Dilemma Test was used to evaluate the results of three groups before, immediately after, and 2 months after intervention. The data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical software (v 15). Participants and research context: Through random allocation, 103 nursing students were divided into three groups. In experiment group 1 (37 students), intervention consisted of Socratic questioning-based sessions on ethics and how to deal with moral dilemmas; experiment group 2 (33 students) attended a 4-h workshop; and the control group (33 students) was not subject to any interventions. Signed informed consent forms: This research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University. All the participants signed written informed consents. There were significant differences between experiment group 1 and experiment group 2's pre-test and post-test scores on moral reasoning (p ≤ 0.001, p ≤ 0.001), nursing principled thinking (p ≤ 0.001, p ≤ 0.001), and practical considerations (p ≤ 0.001, p ≤ 0.031). Both the teaching approaches improved the subjects' moral reasoning; however, Socratic questioning proved more effective than lecturing. Compared to other similar studies in Iran and other countries, the students had inadequate moral reasoning competence. This study confirms the need for the development of an efficient course on ethics in the nursing curriculum. Also, it appears that Socratic questioning is an effective method to teach nursing ethics and develop nursing students' competence of moral reasoning.

Evaluating moral reasoning in nursing education.

PubMed

McLeod-Sordjan, Renee

2014-06-01

Evidence-based practice suggests the best approach to improving professionalism in practice is ethics curricula. However, recent research has demonstrated that millennium graduates do not advocate for patients or assert themselves during moral conflicts. The aim of this article is the exploration of evaluation techniques to evaluate one measurable outcome of ethics curricula: moral reasoning. A review of literature, published between 1995 and 2013, demonstrated that the moral orientations of care and justice as conceptualized by Gilligan and Kohlberg are utilized by nursing students to solve ethical dilemmas. Data obtained by means of reflective journaling, Ethics of Care Interview (ECI) and Defining Issues Test (DIT), would objectively measure the interrelated pathways of care-based and justice-based moral reasoning. In conclusion, educators have an ethical responsibility to foster students' ability to exercise sound clinical judgment, and support their professional development. It is recommended that educators design authentic assessments to demonstrate student's improvement of moral reasoning. © The Author(s) 2013.

Emotional learning and the development of differential moralities: implications from research on psychopathy.

PubMed

Blair, R James R; White, Stuart F; Meffert, Harma; Hwang, Soonjo

2013-09-01

In this paper, we will argue that (1) four classes of norm can be distinguished from a neuro-cognitive perspective; (2) learning the prohibitive power of these norms relies on relatively independent emotional systems; (3) individuals with psychopathy show selective impairment for one of these emotional learning systems and two classes of norm: care based and justice based; and (4) while emotional learning systems are necessary for appropriate moral development/reasoning, they are not sufficient for moral development/reasoning.

A Comparative Study of Moral Development of Korean and British Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baek, Hye-Jeong

2002-01-01

Explores Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development in relation to Korean and British children. Illustrates cultural differences in moral orientations. Notes it was not possible to match responses from Korean children to Kohlberg's manual. Suggests that interpretation of children's moral reasoning should be based on consideration of cultural…

The Consolidation/Transition Model in Moral Reasoning Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walker, Lawrence J.; Gustafson, Paul; Hennig, Karl H.

2001-01-01

This longitudinal study with 62 children and adolescents examined the validity of the consolidation/transition model in the context of moral reasoning development. Results of standard statistical and Bayesian techniques supported the hypotheses regarding cyclical patterns of change and predictors of stage transition, and demonstrated the utility…

Preparing for Ethical Leadership: A Longitudinal Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Myers, Lewis A., Jr.

2015-01-01

According to Johnson (2001) and Rest (1979) a leader who has developed a high level of moral reasoning will tend to make decisions that are better from an ethical/moral perspective than a leader who has achieved a lower level of moral reasoning. The mission statement at this university states that graduates will be prepared through training in…

The Relationship between Empathy-Related Constructs and Care-Based Moral Development in Young Adulthood

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Skoe, Eva E. A.

2010-01-01

This study examined the link between care-based moral reasoning and three different aspects of empathy--perspective taking, sympathy and personal distress. Participants were 30 female and 28 male students, ranging in age from 20 to 42 years. As expected, results showed that perspective taking uniquely predicted care-based moral reasoning levels…

Sport, Moral Development, and the Role of the Teacher: Implications for Research and Moral Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arnold, Peter J.

2001-01-01

Examines the inadequacies of some purely justice or moral reasoning approaches to moral development in sport, especially when viewed from the perspective of virtue theory and Aristotelian concepts of phronesis and habituation, arguing that the latter approach provides more complete criteria for formulating a new model of the nature of the moral.…

A Study of Moral Reasoning Development of Teacher Education Students in Northern Louisiana

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wade, April Mitchell

2015-01-01

This quantitative descriptive study identified the differences in the moral reasoning development levels between undergraduate teacher education students enrolled in methods courses and graduate teacher education students enrolled in an alternative certification education program using the Defining Issues Test-2 instrument. Based on Kohlberg's…

The measurement of principled morality by the Kohlberg Moral Dilemma Questionnaire.

PubMed

Heilbrun, A B; Georges, M

1990-01-01

The four stages preceding the postconventional level in the Kohlberg (1958, 1971, 1976) system of moral development are described as involving moral judgments that conform to external conditions of punishment, reward, social expectation, and conformity to the law. No special level of self-control seems necessary to behave in keeping with these conditions of external reinforcement. In contrast, the two stages of postconventional (principled) mortality involve defiance of majority opinion and defiance of the law--actions that would seem to require greater self-control. This study was concerned with whether postconventional moral reasoning, as measured by the Kohlberg Moral Dilemma Questionnaire (MDQ), can be associated with higher self-control. If so, prediction of principled moral behavior from the MDQ would be based not only on postconventional moral reasoning but bolstered by the necessary level of self-control as well. College students who came the closest to postconventional moral reasoning showed better self-control than college students who were more conventional or preconventional in their moral judgments. These results support the validity of the MDQ for predicting principled moral behavior.

Development of Moral Emotions and Decision-Making from Childhood to Young Adulthood

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hasegawa, Mari

2016-01-01

This study investigated the development of moral decision-making and moral emotion attributions in antisocial behavior and peer relationship dilemma scenarios. Participants were 540 school- and college-aged students, who were asked to explain their moral decision-making, subsequent emotions, and reasoning in regard to the scenarios. We combined…

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…

Socio-economic factors related to moral reasoning in childhood and adolescence: the missing link between brain and behavior

PubMed Central

Caravita, Simona C. S.; Giardino, Simona; Lenzi, Leonardo; Salvaterra, Mariaelena; Antonietti, Alessandro

2012-01-01

Neuroscientific and psychological research on moral development has until now developed independently, referring to distinct theoretical models, contents, and methods. In particular, the influence of socio-economic and cultural factors on morality has been broadly investigated by psychologists but as yet has not been investigated by neuroscientists. The value of bridging these two areas both theoretically and methodologically has, however, been suggested. This study aims at providing a first connection between neuroscientific and psychological literature on morality by investigating whether socio-economic dimensions, i.e., living socio-geographic/economic area, immigrant status and socio-economic status (SES), affect moral reasoning as operationalized in moral domain theory (a seminal approach in psychological studies on morality) and in Greene et al. (2001) perspective (one of the main approaches in neuroethics research). Participants were 81 primary school (M = 8.98 years; SD = 0.39), 72 middle school (M = 12.14 years; SD = 0.61), and 73 high school (M = 15.10 years; SD = 0.38) students from rural and urban areas. Participants' immigrant status (native vs. immigrant) and family SES level were recorded. Moral reasoning was assessed by means of a series of personal and impersonal dilemmas based on Greene et al. (2001) neuroimaging experiment and a series of moral and socio-conventional rule dilemmas based on the moral domain theory. Living socio-geographic/economic area, immigrant status and SES mainly affected evaluations of moral and, to a higher extent, socio-conventional dilemmas, but had no impact on judgment of personal and impersonal dilemmas. Results are mainly discussed from the angle of possible theoretical links and suggestions emerging for studies on moral reasoning in the frameworks of neuroscience and psychology. PMID:23015787

The Responsibility of Colleges and Universities for Building Ethical and Moral Character in Their Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perlman, Daniel H.

The role of the college or university in facilitating the ethical and moral development of college students is addressed. The views of Kohlberg, Perry, and others who have studied ethical and moral development are briefly reviewed. These psychologists suggest that there is a hierarchy or continuum for the development of moral reasoning. Colleges…

On The Limits of Rational Moral Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leming, James S.

1981-01-01

Explores reasons for the current ineffectiveness of moral education and offers an alternative perspective on the proper purpose and methods for moral education. This ideal moral education is based primarily on the belief that social interactions during childhood are highly significant in the development of morality and on the functionalist…

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.

Protection as care: moral reasoning and moral orientation among ethnically and socioeconomically diverse older women.

PubMed

Dakin, Emily

2014-01-01

This study examined moral reasoning among ethnically and socioeconomically diverse older women based on the care and justice moral orientations reflecting theoretical frameworks developed by Carol Gilligan and Lawrence Kohlberg, respectively. A major gap in this area of research and theory development has been the lack of examination of moral reasoning in later life. This study addressed this gap by assessing socioeconomically and ethnically diverse older women's reasoning in response to ethical dilemmas showing conflict between autonomy, representative of Kohlberg's justice orientation, and protection, representative of Gilligan's care orientation. The dilemmas used in this study came from adult protective services (APS), the U.S. system that investigates and intervenes in cases of elder abuse and neglect. Subjects were 88 African American, Latina, and Caucasian women age 60 or over from varying socioeconomic status backgrounds who participated in eight focus groups. Overall, participants favored protection over autonomy in responding to the case scenarios. Their reasoning in responding to these dilemmas reflected an ethic of care and responsibility and a recognition of the limitations of autonomy. This reasoning is highly consistent with the care orientation. Variations in the overall ethic of care and responsibility based on ethnicity and SES also are discussed. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc.

A Multi-Institutional Assessment of Moral Reasoning Development among First-Year Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayhew, Matthew J.; Seifert, Tricia A.; Pascarella, Ernest T.

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the co-curricular experiences, course-taking behaviors, and educational practices that influence the moral reasoning development of 1,469 first-year students at 19 American colleges and universities. Results showed that contexts and practices that encourage students to engage divergent perspectives when…

Germ-line gene therapy and the medical imperative.

PubMed

Munson, Ronald; Davis, Lawrence H

1992-06-01

Somatic cell gene therapy has yielded promising results. If germ cell gene therapy can be developed, the promise is even greater: hundreds of genetic diseases might be virtually eliminated. But some claim the procedure is morally unacceptable. We thoroughly and sympathetically examine several possible reasons for this claim but find them inadequate. There is no moral reason, then, not to develop and employ germ-line gene therapy. Taking the offensive, we argue next that medicine has a prima facie moral obligation to do so.

Justice and Caring and the Problem of Moral Relativism: Reframing the Gender Question in Ethics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brell, Carl D., Jr.

1989-01-01

Examines the issue of moral relativism as it pertains to conceptualizations of gender effect on moral development. Reviews positions of theorists regarding the importance of formal and contextually relative criteria to the development of moral reasoning. Argues that neither a justice nor a caring ethic alone can solve the problem of moral…

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.

"I like to Treat Others as Others Would Treat Me": The Development of Prosocial Selves in an Urban Youth Organization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Deutsch, Nancy L.

2005-01-01

The field of moral development has moved toward an identity-based model suggesting that moral action stems not only from moral reasoning but from a desire to act in ways consistent with one's self-concept. Moral identity, in turn, is rooted in social relationships. This idea, that one's sense of self drives moral behavior and that this identity is…

Dual Trajectories of Reactive and Proactive Aggression from Mid-childhood to Early Adolescence: Relations to Sensation Seeking, Risk Taking, and Moral Reasoning.

PubMed

Cui, Lixian; Colasante, Tyler; Malti, Tina; Ribeaud, Denis; Eisner, Manuel P

2016-05-01

We examined the roles of sensation seeking, risk taking, and moral reasoning in the development of reactive and proactive aggression. Data were drawn from a multiethnic, longitudinal study of children from Switzerland (N = 1571; 52 % male; assessed annually over 6 years; 7-years-old at Time 1). At all 6 time points, teachers reported children's reactive and proactive aggression via questionnaire. Children's sensation seeking (at Time 1) and risk taking (at Time 2) were assessed with two interactive computer tasks and their moral reasoning was assessed at Time 2 in response to four hypothetical vignettes depicting moral transgressions. Parallel process Latent Class Growth Analysis (PP-LCGA) identified six dual trajectories of reactive and proactive aggression. Children with either childhood-limited or adolescent-onset aggression showed high sensation seeking. Children with persistent, high levels of both reactive and proactive aggression across time showed high levels of sensation seeking and risk taking, as well as low levels of moral reasoning. Children with only high risk taking were more likely to display moderate levels of aggression across time. These findings highlight the shared and differential roles of sensation seeking, risk taking, and moral reasoning in the dual development of reactive and proactive aggression from mid-childhood to early adolescence. We discuss implications for common and tailored strategies to combat these aggression subtypes.

Moral Motivation, Moral Judgment, and Antisocial Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brooks, Jeff; Bock, Tonia; Narvaez, Darcia

2013-01-01

The link between judgment and action is weak throughout psychology, including moral psychology. That is, people often do not act in accordance with their reasoning. Might moral judgment development be better viewed as a capacity that inhibits "immoral" behavior? One model that helps account for the moral judgment-action gap is Rest's…

Stages of Ethical Reasoning and Moral Norms of Carib Youths

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gorsuch, Richard L.; Barnes, M. Louise

1973-01-01

Ethical development was investigated in a cross-cultural context by examining both the cognitive structure of ethical reasoning and the content of perceived moral norms in black Carib boys of British Honduras in the framework of stage theory. (Author/JM)

Using Propensity Scores for Estimating Causal Effects: A Study in the Development of Moral Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grunwald, Heidi E.; Mayhew, Matthew J.

2008-01-01

The purpose of this study was to illustrate the use of propensity scores for creating comparison groups, partially controlling for pretreatment course selection bias, and estimating the treatment effects of selected courses on the development of moral reasoning in undergraduate students. Specifically, we used a sample of convenience for comparing…

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…

Prosocial development in late adolescence: a longitudinal study.

PubMed

Eisenberg, N; Carlo, G; Murphy, B; Van Court, P

1995-08-01

Change in prosocial moral reasoning over 15 years, gender differences in prosocial reasoning, and the interrelations of moral reasoning, prosocial behavior, and empathy-related emotional responses were examined with longitudinal data from 17-18- and 19-20-year-olds and data from adolescents interviewed for the first time. Hedonistic reasoning declined in use until adolescence, and then increased somewhat in early adulthood. Needs-oriented and stereotypic reasoning increased until mid-childhood or early adolescence and then declined in use. Direct reciprocity and approval reasoning, which appeared to be on the decline in mid-adolescence in previous follow-ups, showed no decline into early adulthood. Several modes of higher-level reasoning increased in use across adolescence and early adulthood. Females' overall reasoning was higher than males'. Scores on interview and objective measures of prosocial moral reasoning were positively correlated. Consistent with expectations, there was some evidence of relations among prosocial reasoning, prosocial behavior, sympathy, and perspective taking.

Infusing the School Counseling Internship with a Global Perspective to Promote Ego Development, Moral Reasoning, and Ethnocultural Empathy: A Deliberate Psychological Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robertson, Derek Lane

2013-01-01

This study utilized a quasi-experimental, pre and posttest, comparison group design to determine the effects of a semester long deliberate psychological education (DPE), infused with a global perspective to promote ego development, moral reasoning and ethnocultural empathy in an intervention group composed of school counseling interns. The…

Affect and Moral Reasoning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olejnik, Anthony B.; LaRue, Asenath A.

1980-01-01

Positive and negative mood conditions do affect principled moral reasoning. Results do not imply that affective states raise levels of moral reasoning, but a positive affective state provides a condition conducive to using more principled level moral reasoning. (Author/JAC)

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…

Influences of Technology-Related Playful Activity and Thought on Moral Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bergen, Doris; Davis, Darrel

2011-01-01

Many early developmental theorists such as Freud, Erikson, Piaget, and Vygotsky suggested that play--which the authors of this article define as both playful activity and playful thought--had the power to influence the moral emotions, behaviors, and reasoning of children. More recent researchers have also found evidence of moral development in…

Moral Developmental Science between Changing Paradigms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keller, Monika

2012-01-01

This review encompasses a time-span of about 50 years of research on morality and moral development. It discusses Kohlberg's (1984) work as a milestone that constituted the cognitive developmental viewpoint of morality and that dominated research for about three decades. In this paradigm the role of reasoning and deliberation was emphasized as the…

The Development of Moral Reasoning and Perceptions of Parental Behavior in Students from Kuwait.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gielen, Uwe P.; And Others

1992-01-01

Presents a study in which students from Kuwait were given Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT) to measure the development of moral judgment skills. Explains that results were compared with scales measuring student perception of parental behavior. Concludes that the DIT may not be a valid test for development of moral judgment in an Arab culture. (DK)

Moral reasoning and decisions in dilemmas of neonatal care.

PubMed

Candee, D; Sheehan, T J; Cook, C D; Husted, S D; Bargen, M

1982-10-01

The relationship between levels of moral reasoning and decisions in dilemmas of neonatal care was investigated in a sample of 452 pediatricians. Subjects included residents, faculty members, and practitioners recruited from a variety of university-affiliated and community hospitals. It was hypothesized that physicians whose moral reasoning was more fully developed would less actively treat particular cases. Such cases might include those where a patient's family requested such a limit (designated "negative family attitude") or the quality of life likely to be led after therapy was so low as to preclude even a minimal degree of human activity or social interaction (designated "unsalvageable prognosis"). The hypothesis was tested through the use of two questionnaires. The first questionnaire, devised by Crane, assessed the physician's reported degree of activism in treating six cases of infants born with severe defects. The structure of moral reasoning was measured by a second questionnaire, Rest's Defining Issue Test. Subjects were scored by the degree to which they use universal, ethical principles in resolving a series of moral dilemmas. Results of the absolute level of activism (Table 1) showed that among both residents and postresidents, the degree to which cases are actively treated depends, for salvageable patients, on the type of damage and on the possibility for research. Results involving moral reasoning showed a different pattern among residents and postresidents. Among residents, a significant correlation exists between principled reasoning and the absence of active treatment (r = - 0.41, Form A; r = - 0.23, Form B). As predicted, such correlations were strongest for cases of negative family attitude or of unsalvageable prognosis. The pattern of correlations among postresidents showed either no relationship to moral reasoning or the reverse of the residency pattern (r = -0.08, Form A; r = 0.30, Form B). The influence of the type of institution a resident operates within was assessed by analysis of variance. Inasmuch as moral reasoning and institutional type both had significant main effects (Form A), their magnitude differed. Institutional type accounted for 43% of the variation in mean activism scores whereas moral reasoning accounted for only 4%; however, because one could, a priori, expect institutional norms and customs to be powerful determinants of behavior, any additional, identifiable influence deserves attention. The structure of individuals' moral reasoning seems to be such an influence.

The Psychometric Properties of the Socio-Moral Reflection Measure-Short Form and the Moral Theme Inventory for Men with and without Intellectual Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Langdon, Peter E.; Murphy, Glynis H.; Clare, Isabel C. H.; Palmer, Emma J.

2010-01-01

Drawing conclusions from the literature regarding the moral development of people with intellectual disabilities (IDs) is difficult because of the use of unstandardised and idiosyncratic measures. In order to address this short-coming, a moral reasoning production measure (the Socio-Moral Reflection Measure-Short Form; SRM-SF) and a recognition…

Moral Reasoning as a Process of Information Integration.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaplan, Martin F.

Four experiments were conducted to explore issues in the development and modification of both moral choices and judgments of achievement using concepts and data from a social judgment perspective. In the first experiment, college students functioning at different reasoning levels indicated on a 20-point scale their strength of belief that an…

Moral Reasoning in Gifted and Average I.Q. Third and Fourth Graders.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sager, Susan M.; Workman, Susan H.

In an examination of the relationship between academic giftedness and the development of moral reasoning, six story pairs varying intentionality with either personal injury or property damage were group administered to 104 third and fourth graders, 52 of whom had been previously identified as gifted. Results failed to demonstrate any significant…

Professional Citizenship and Otherness Leadership Development: Examining the Relationships among Meaning, Moral Reasoning, and Diversity Competencies of Graduate Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edwards, Alexander Kyei

2009-01-01

This dissertation explored the relationships among three variables: meaning, moral reasoning, and diversity competencies. The relationships were examined to attempt explaining two central themes: professional citizenship and otherness leadership. A sampling of graduate students from business and education colleges at a Midwestern public…

Moral reasoning and personality traits.

PubMed

Mudrack, Peter E

2006-06-01

Moral reasoning should not be clearly associated with measures of personality traits. Although this assumption pervades the moral reasoning literature, it may not always be true. This paper provides evidence that moral reasoning, as assessed with P scores of the Defining Issues Test, is indeed positively associated with five traits from the California Psychological Inventory: Achievement via Independence, Intellectual Efficiency, Tolerance, Responsibility, and Capacity for Status. Such relationships make conceptual sense, shed light on the meaning and implications of moral reasoning, call into question prevailing assumptions in the literature, and may encourage investigators to broaden the types of research questions asked in the context of moral reasoning.

Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding Predict Moral Development in Early Childhood

PubMed Central

Lane, Jonathan D.; Wellman, Henry M.; Olson, Sheryl L.; LaBounty, Jennifer; Kerr, David C. R.

2011-01-01

The current study utilized longitudinal data to investigate how theory of mind (ToM) and emotion understanding (EU) concurrently and prospectively predicted young children’s moral reasoning and decision-making. One hundred twenty-eight children were assessed on measures of ToM and EU at 3.5 years- and 5.5 years-of-age. At 5.5 years, children were also assessed on the quality of moral reasoning and decision-making they used to negotiate prosocial moral dilemmas, in which the needs of a story protagonist conflict with the needs of another story character. More sophisticated EU predicted greater use of physical- and material-needs reasoning, and a more advanced ToM predicted greater use of psychological-needs reasoning. Most intriguing, ToM and EU jointly predicted greater use of higher-level acceptance-authority reasoning, which is likely a product of children’s increasing appreciation for the knowledge held by trusted adults and children’s desire to behave in accordance with social expectations. PMID:21121472

Theory of mind and emotion understanding predict moral development in early childhood.

PubMed

Lane, Jonathan D; Wellman, Henry M; Olson, Sheryl L; LaBounty, Jennifer; Kerr, David C R

2010-11-01

The current study utilized longitudinal data to investigate how theory of mind (ToM) and emotion understanding (EU) concurrently and prospectively predicted young children's moral reasoning and decision making. One hundred twenty-eight children were assessed on measures of ToM and EU at 3.5 and 5.5 years of age. At 5.5 years, children were also assessed on the quality of moral reasoning and decision making they used to negotiate prosocial moral dilemmas, in which the needs of a story protagonist conflict with the needs of another story character. More sophisticated EU predicted greater use of physical- and material-needs reasoning, and a more advanced ToM predicted greater use of psychological-needs reasoning. Most intriguing, ToM and EU jointly predicted greater use of higher-level acceptance-authority reasoning, which is likely a product of children's increasing appreciation for the knowledge held by trusted adults and children's desire to behave in accordance with social expectations.

Measuring Moral Thinking from a Neo-Kohlbergian Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thoma, Stephen J.

2014-01-01

The neo-Kohlbergian model revises and extends Lawrence Kohlberg's model of moral reasoning development to better reflect advances in research and theory. In moving from Kohlberg's global stage model to a multi-process description of moral functioning, these modifications are most evident in the ways in which moral thinking is described,…

Using Vignettes to Tap Into Moral Reasoning in Public Health Policy: Practical Advice and Design Principles From a Study on Food Advertising to Children

PubMed Central

Taylor, Emily; Hoang, Sylvia; Cook, Brian

2014-01-01

In this article, we describe a process for designing and applying vignettes in public health policy research and practice. We developed this methodology for a study on moral reasoning underpinning policy debate on food advertising to children. Using vignettes prompted policy actors who were relatively entrenched in particular ways of speaking professionally about a controversial and ethically challenging issue to converse in a more authentic and reflective way. Vignettes hold benefits and complexities. They can focus attention on moral conflicts, draw out different types of evidence to support moral reasoning, and enable simultaneous consideration of real and ideal worlds. We suggest a process and recommendations on design features for crafting vignettes for public health policy. PMID:25121818

Using vignettes to tap into moral reasoning in public health policy: practical advice and design principles from a study on food advertising to children.

PubMed

Mah, Catherine L; Taylor, Emily; Hoang, Sylvia; Cook, Brian

2014-10-01

In this article, we describe a process for designing and applying vignettes in public health policy research and practice. We developed this methodology for a study on moral reasoning underpinning policy debate on food advertising to children. Using vignettes prompted policy actors who were relatively entrenched in particular ways of speaking professionally about a controversial and ethically challenging issue to converse in a more authentic and reflective way. Vignettes hold benefits and complexities. They can focus attention on moral conflicts, draw out different types of evidence to support moral reasoning, and enable simultaneous consideration of real and ideal worlds. We suggest a process and recommendations on design features for crafting vignettes for public health policy.

Liberalism, legal moralism and moral disagreement.

PubMed

Kuflik, Arthur

2005-01-01

According to "legal moralism" it is part of law's proper role to "enforce morality as such". I explore the idea that legal moralism runs afoul of morality itself: there are good moral reasons not to require by law all that there is nevertheless good moral reason to do. I suggest that many such reasons have broad common-sense appeal and could be appreciated even in a society in which everyone completely agreed about what morality requires. But I also critique legal moralism from the special perspective of liberal political justice. Liberalism requires that citizens who disagree with one another on a number of morally significant matters nevertheless coexist and cooperate within a political framework of basic rights protections. When it comes to working out the most basic terms of their political association, citizens are expected to address one another within the limits of what Rawls has called "public reason". Critics of liberalism claim that this is an essentially a-moral (or expedient) attempt to evade substantive moral issues--such as the moral status of the fetus. I argue, on the contrary, that liberalism's emphasis on public reason is itself grounded in very deep--though (suitably) "non-comprehensive"--moral considerations.

Differences in Moral Judgment on Animal and Human Ethics Issues between University Students in Animal-Related, Human Medical and Arts Programs.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Ostini, Remo; Phillips, Clive J C

2016-01-01

Moral judgment in relation to animal ethics issues has rarely been investigated. Among the research that has been conducted, studies of veterinary students have shown greater use of reasoning based on universal principles for animal than human ethics issues. This study aimed to identify if this was unique to students of veterinary and other animal-related professions. The moral reasoning of first year students of veterinary medicine, veterinary technology, and production animal science was compared with that of students in non-animal related disciplines of human medicine and arts. All students (n = 531) completed a moral reasoning test, the VetDIT, with animal and human scenarios. When compared with reasoning on human ethics issues, the combined group of students evaluating animal ethics issues showed higher levels of Universal Principles reasoning, lower levels of Personal Interest reasoning and similar levels of Maintaining Norms reasoning. Arts students showed more personal interest reasoning than students in most animal-related programs on both animal and human ethics issues, and less norms-based reasoning on animal ethics issues. Medical students showed more norms-based reasoning on animal ethics issues than all of the animal-related groups. There were no differences in principled reasoning on animal ethics issues between program groups. This has implications for animal-related professions and education programs showing that students' preference for principled reasoning on animal ethics issues is not unique to animal-related disciplines, and highlighting the need to develop student (and professional) capacity to apply principled reasoning to address ethics issues in animal industries to reduce the risk of moral distress.

Differences in Moral Judgment on Animal and Human Ethics Issues between University Students in Animal-Related, Human Medical and Arts Programs

PubMed Central

Verrinder, Joy M.; Ostini, Remo; Phillips, Clive J. C.

2016-01-01

Moral judgment in relation to animal ethics issues has rarely been investigated. Among the research that has been conducted, studies of veterinary students have shown greater use of reasoning based on universal principles for animal than human ethics issues. This study aimed to identify if this was unique to students of veterinary and other animal-related professions. The moral reasoning of first year students of veterinary medicine, veterinary technology, and production animal science was compared with that of students in non-animal related disciplines of human medicine and arts. All students (n = 531) completed a moral reasoning test, the VetDIT, with animal and human scenarios. When compared with reasoning on human ethics issues, the combined group of students evaluating animal ethics issues showed higher levels of Universal Principles reasoning, lower levels of Personal Interest reasoning and similar levels of Maintaining Norms reasoning. Arts students showed more personal interest reasoning than students in most animal-related programs on both animal and human ethics issues, and less norms-based reasoning on animal ethics issues. Medical students showed more norms-based reasoning on animal ethics issues than all of the animal-related groups. There were no differences in principled reasoning on animal ethics issues between program groups. This has implications for animal-related professions and education programs showing that students’ preference for principled reasoning on animal ethics issues is not unique to animal-related disciplines, and highlighting the need to develop student (and professional) capacity to apply principled reasoning to address ethics issues in animal industries to reduce the risk of moral distress. PMID:26934582

The Debate Continues: Are There Gender Differences in Moral Reasoning as Defined by Kohlberg?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bruess, Brian J.; Pearson, Frances C.

2002-01-01

Examines changes in moral reasoning among college students and seeks to determine whether there are gender differences in the process. Women scored higher than men on both Principled moral reasoning and Davison's moral index and graduating students scored higher than first-year students on Davison's moral index. Discusses whether Kohlberg's theory…

The Impact of Partial Sleep Deprivation on Moral Reasoning in Military Officers

PubMed Central

Olsen, Olav Kjellevold; Pallesen, Ståle; Eid, Jarle

2010-01-01

Study Objectives: The present study explores the impact of long-term partial sleep deprivation on the activation of moral justice schemas, which are suggested to play a prominent role in moral reasoning and the formation of moral judgments and behavior. Design: Participants judged 5 dilemmas in rested and partially sleep deprived condition, in a counterbalanced design. Setting: In classroom and field exercises at the Norwegian Naval Academy and the Norwegian Army Academy. Participants: Seventy-one Norwegian naval and army officer cadets. Measurements and Results: The results showed that the officers' ability to conduct mature and principally oriented moral reasoning was severely impaired during partial sleep deprivation compared to the rested state. At the same time, the officers became substantially more rules-oriented in the sleep deprived condition, while self-oriented moral reasoning did not change. Interaction effects showed that those officers who displayed high levels of mature moral reasoning (n = 24) in the rested condition, lost much of this capacity during sleep deprivation in favor of a strong increase in rules-oriented moral reasoning as well as self-orientation. Conversely, officers at low levels of mature moral reasoning in rested condition (n = 23) were unaffected by sleep deprivation. Conclusions: The present data show that long-term partial sleep deprivation has an impact on the activation of moral justice schemas, and consequently on the ability to make moral justice judgments. Citation: Olsen OK; Pallesen S; Eid J. The impact of partial sleep deprivation on moral reasoning in military officers. SLEEP 2010;33(8):1086-1090. PMID:20815191

The correlation between concept mastery and stage of moral reasoning student using socio-scientific issues on reproductive system material

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lestari, T. A.; Saefudin; Priyandoko, D.

2018-05-01

This research aims to analyze the correlation between concept mastery and moral stages of students. The research method using a correlational study with stratified random sampling technique. The population in this research is all of eleventh grade students in Senior High School Bandung. Data were collected from 297 eleventh grade students of three Senior High School in Bandung with use the instrument in the form of examination and stage of moral reasoning questionnaire. The stage of moral reasoning in this research consists of two student’s moral reasoning categories based on 16 questionnaire as the indicators from Jones et al. (2007). The results of this research shows that the average of eleventh grade student’s moral reasoning stage is the advanced stage. The results of this research shows that the concept mastery and the stage of moral reasoning indicates that there are 0.370 0f a positive correlation. This research provides an overview of eleventh grade student about concept mastery and stage of moral reasoning using socio-scientific issues.

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.

The interactive roles of parenting, emotion regulation and executive functioning in moral reasoning during middle childhood.

PubMed

Hinnant, J Benjamin; Nelson, Jackie A; O'Brien, Marion; Keane, Susan P; Calkins, Susan D

2013-01-01

We examined mother-child co-operative behaviour, children's emotion regulation and executive function, as well as combinations of these factors, as predictors of moral reasoning in 89 10-year-old children. Dyadic co-operation was coded from videotaped observations of laboratory puzzle and speech tasks. Emotion regulation was derived from maternal report, and executive functioning was assessed with the Tower of London task. Moral reasoning was coded during mother-child conversations about morally ambiguous, peer-conflict situations. Two significant interactions indicated that children from more co-operative dyads who also had higher executive function skills had higher moral reasoning scores than other children, and children lower in both emotion regulation and executive function had lower moral reasoning scores than other children. The results contribute to the literature on the multiple and interactive levels of influence on moral reasoning in childhood.

The Interactive Roles of Parenting, Emotion Regulation and Executive Functioning in Moral Reasoning during Middle Childhood

PubMed Central

Hinnant, J. Benjamin; Nelson, Jackie A.; O’Brien, Marion; Keane, Susan P.; Calkins, Susan D.

2013-01-01

We examined mother-child cooperative behavior, children’s emotion regulation and executive function, as well as combinations of these factors, as predictors of moral reasoning in 89 10-year-old children. Dyadic cooperation was coded from videotaped observations of laboratory puzzle and speech tasks. Emotion regulation was derived from maternal report, and executive functioning was assessed with the Tower of London task. Moral reasoning was coded during mother-child conversations about morally ambiguous, peer-conflict situations. Two significant interactions indicated that children from more cooperative dyads who also had higher executive function skills had higher moral reasoning scores than other children, and children lower in both emotion regulation and executive function had lower moral reasoning scores than other children. The results contribute to the literature on the multiple and interactive levels of influence on moral reasoning in childhood. PMID:23650955

East German Children's and Adolescents' Friendship and Moral Reasoning before and after German Reunification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gummerum, Michaela; Keller, Monika

2012-01-01

Few studies so far have investigated whether abrupt social changes in a society affect the development of friendship and moral reasoning. In this study, 2 cohorts of 188 East German children and adolescents (aged 7, 9, 12, and 15 years) were interviewed in 1990 and 2005. Participants were asked about the importance of close friendship (friendship…

The Effects of Off-Campus Service Learning on the Moral Reasoning of College Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lies, James M.; Bock, Tonia; Brandenberger, Jay; Trozzolo, Thomas A.

2012-01-01

This research examines the effects of an off-campus service learning program on the moral reasoning development of college students. A pre-post quasi-experimental design was employed with two groups of college students (aged 18-22), one that engaged in service learning and the other which did not. The intervention was an eight-week summer service…

The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.

PubMed

Haidt, J

2001-10-01

Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent that rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology.

Best friends' discussions of social dilemmas.

PubMed

McDonald, Kristina L; Malti, Tina; Killen, Melanie; Rubin, Kenneth H

2014-02-01

Peer relationships, particularly friendships, have been theorized to contribute to how children and adolescents think about social and moral issues. The current study examined how young adolescent best friends (191 dyads; 53.4% female) reason together about multifaceted social dilemmas and how their reasoning is related to friendship quality. Mutually-recognized friendship dyads were videotaped discussing dilemmas entailing moral, social-conventional and prudential/pragmatic issues. Both dyad members completed a self-report measure of friendship quality. Dyadic data analyses guided by the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model indicated that adolescent and friend reports of friendship qualities were related to the forms of reasoning used during discussion. Friends who both reported that they could resolve conflicts in a constructive way were more likely to use moral reasoning than friends who reported that their conflict resolution was poor or disagreed on the quality of their conflict resolution. The findings provide evidence for the important role that friendship interaction may play in adolescents' social and moral development.

Best Friends’ Discussions of Social Dilemmas

PubMed Central

McDonald, Kristina L.; Malti, Tina; Killen, Melanie; Rubin, Kenneth H.

2013-01-01

Peer relationships, particularly friendships, have been theorized to contribute to how children and adolescents think about social and moral issues. The current study examined how young adolescent best friends (191 dyads; 53.4% female) reason together about multifaceted social dilemmas and how their reasoning is related to friendship quality. Mutually-recognized friendship dyads were videotaped discussing dilemmas entailing moral, social-conventional and prudential/pragmatic issues. Both dyad members completed a self-report measure of friendship quality. Dyadic data analyses guided by the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model indicated that adolescent and friend's reports of friendship qualities were related to the forms of reasoning used during discussion. Friends who both reported that they could resolve conflicts in a constructive way were more likely to use moral reasoning than friends who reported that their conflict resolution was poor or disagreed on the quality of their conflict resolution. The findings provide evidence for the important role that friendship interaction may play in adolescents’ social and moral development. PMID:23666555

[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.

Nursing students' responses to ethical dilemmas in nursing practice.

PubMed

Dierckx de Casterlé, B; Grypdonck, M; Vuylsteke-Wauters, M; Janssen, P J

1997-01-01

In literature as well as in nursing practice a growing concern about nurses' ethical competence can be observed. Based on the cognitive theory of moral development by Kohlberg, this research examined nursing students' ethical behaviour in five nursing dilemmas. Ethical behaviour refers not only to the ethical reasoning of nursing students but also to the relationship between reasoning and behaviour. Kohlberg's definition of morality was refined by adding a care perspective. The results show that the majority of students can be located in the fourth moral stage according to Kohlberg's theory, that is, the conventional level of moral development. This finding implies that students are still guided by professional rules, norms and duties, and have not (yet) succeeded in making personal ethical decisions on the basis of their own principles and acting according to such decisions.

The development of moral judgments concerning capital punishment.

PubMed

Kohlberg, Lawrence; Elfenbein, Donald

1975-07-01

Data from a 20-year longitudinal study of the development of moral judgment in American males indicate that the most mature stages evince moral condemnation of the death penalty. The authors conclude that American moral standards are evolving towards a view of execution as unjust punishment. They contend that a theory of punishment based on the highest stage of moral reasoning is more valid than lower-stage justifications for capital punishment, and that it provides a rational basis for asserting the immorality--and unconstitutionality--of capital punishment, irrespective of uncertainties as to the deterrent efficacy of the death penalty.

Children's and Their Friends' Moral Reasoning: Relations with Aggressive Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gasser, Luciano; Malti, Tina

2012-01-01

Friends' moral characteristics such as their moral reasoning represent an important social contextual factor for children's behavioral socialization. Guided by this assumption, we compared the effects of children's and friends' moral reasoning on their aggressive behavior in a low-risk sample of elementary school children. Peer nominations and…

Leadership, Cross-Cultural Contact, Socio-Economic Status, and Formal Operational Reasoning about Moral Dilemmas among Mexican Non-Literate Adults and High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Commons, Michael Lamport; Galaz-Fontes, Jesus Francisco; Morse, Stanley Jay

2006-01-01

Kohlberg proposed that various cultural, social and educational factors may influence moral reasoning. As far as the authors know, participants in previous studies of moral reasoning have been, largely, educated persons, irrespective of their culture. Two studies on moral reasoning were conducted in a Mexican--United States border city. The first…

Moral-Character Development for Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lapsley, Daniel; Woodbury, Ryan

2016-01-01

In this article the authors accept the common view that moral-character education is immanent to the life of classroom and schools and inevitable even when remanded to the hidden curriculum. Most schools claim to address the moral formation of students, and many educators enter the profession for values-laden reasons. Yet the language of values,…

Generation Conservation: Children's Developing Folkbiological and Moral Conceptions of Protecting Endangered Species

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ruckert, Jolina H.

2016-01-01

Research Findings: This study investigated folkbiological concepts that structure children's moral reasoning regarding conservation. Participants (N = 52; 7- and 10-year-olds, gender balanced) were interviewed regarding their values, moral obligations, and rights concerns for endangered and extinct animals. Across the 2 ages, children drew on the…

Moral Dilemmas and the Environment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Piburn, Michael D.

Stages of moral reasoning through which children develop, as researched by developmental psychologists Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, are outlined in the introduction of this paper. The six stages are defined and exemplified by the moral issue of the value of human life. The developmental model, as it is argued, is suitable for instruction in…

Leader Perceptions of Ethical/Moral leadership in Community College Business School Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

England, David Lee

2014-01-01

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to identify the perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes of educational leadership toward implementation of ethical leadership in the taught curriculum. The need for skills in ethical/moral leadership has engendered renewed interest in development of ethical/moral reasoning. This movement has…

Three Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Tell Why People Do Right

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hardman, Elizabeth L.

2012-01-01

This paper presents the results of a small preliminary investigation of the moral judgment of three children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) using case study research methodology to describe their moral orientations and explore how their reasoning patterns might affect the development of a cooperative moral orientation. Data were…

Communicating moral reasoning in medicine as an expression of respect for patients and integrity among professionals.

PubMed

Kaldjian, Lauris Christopher

2013-01-01

The communication of moral reasoning in medicine can be understood as a means of showing respect for patients and colleagues through the giving of moral reasons for actions. This communication is especially important when disagreements arise. While moral reasoning should strive for impartiality, it also needs to acknowledge the individual moral beliefs and values that distinguish each person (moral particularity) and give rise to the challenge of contrasting moral frameworks (moral pluralism). Efforts to communicate moral reasoning should move beyond common approaches to principles-based reasoning in medical ethics by addressing the underlying beliefs and values that define our moral frameworks and guide our interpretations and applications of principles. Communicating about underlying beliefs and values requires a willingness to grapple with challenges of accessibility (the degree to which particular beliefs and values are intelligible between persons) and translatability (the degree to which particular beliefs and values can be transposed from one moral framework to another) as words and concepts are used to communicate beliefs and values. Moral dialogues between professionals and patients and among professionals themselves need to be handled carefully, and sometimes these dialogues invite reference to underlying beliefs and values. When professionals choose to articulate such beliefs and values, they can do so as an expression of respectful patient care and collaboration and as a means of promoting their own moral integrity by signaling the need for consistency between their own beliefs, words and actions.

Post-conventional moral reasoning is associated with increased ventral striatal activity at rest and during task.

PubMed

Fang, Zhuo; Jung, Wi Hoon; Korczykowski, Marc; Luo, Lijuan; Prehn, Kristin; Xu, Sihua; Detre, John A; Kable, Joseph W; Robertson, Diana C; Rao, Hengyi

2017-08-02

People vary considerably in moral reasoning. According to Kohlberg's theory, individuals who reach the highest level of post-conventional moral reasoning judge moral issues based on deeper principles and shared ideals rather than self-interest or adherence to laws and rules. Recent research has suggested the involvement of the brain's frontostriatal reward system in moral judgments and prosocial behaviors. However, it remains unknown whether moral reasoning level is associated with differences in reward system function. Here, we combined arterial spin labeling perfusion and blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging and measured frontostriatal reward system activity both at rest and during a sequential risky decision making task in a sample of 64 participants at different levels of moral reasoning. Compared to individuals at the pre-conventional and conventional level of moral reasoning, post-conventional individuals showed increased resting cerebral blood flow in the ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Cerebral blood flow in these brain regions correlated with the degree of post-conventional thinking across groups. Post-conventional individuals also showed greater task-induced activation in the ventral striatum during risky decision making. These findings suggest that high-level post-conventional moral reasoning is associated with increased activity in the brain's frontostriatal system, regardless of task-dependent or task-independent states.

Moral development and reproductive health decisions.

PubMed

McFadden, E A

1996-01-01

This article reviews the concepts of biomedical ethics, the justice perspective, and the care perspective of moral development and moral decision making; integrates key aspects of each to women's reproductive health nursing practice; and gives examples of application of these models to use as a framework for the assessment of moral development in guiding women in making reproductive health decisions. Emphasis is placed on the need for an integrated approach to assessment of the recognition of and response to what an individual identifies as a moral dilemma. Discussion of two different perspectives, justice and caring, is presented with application to women's health concerns. Nurses are encouraged to assess their moral development and appraisal of issues that constitute moral dilemmas and their ensuing decision making processes and those of clients. Techniques for obtaining information about moral reasoning are suggested. Rather than a traditional framework for the assessment of moral development, the uniqueness of individual women's experiences as they pertain to the case context is recommended to assess the client's appraisal of the circumstances of a perceived moral situation from the client's vantage point.

Moral reasoning of Piagetian-matched retarded and nonretarded children and adolescents.

PubMed

Kahn, J V

1983-09-01

The moral reasoning of four IQ/etiology groups was investigated: 19 organically abnormal moderately retarded, 19 organically abnormal mildly retarded, 19 mildly retarded due to psychosocial disadvantage, and 19 nonretarded individuals. In each group 12 Ss were preoperational and seven concrete operational. Moral reasoning was assessed by an instrument using moral dilemmas based on Kohlberg's procedures. The Slosson Intelligence Test was used to determine the IQs and mental ages of each S. Piagetian stage was determined with the standard conservation of number tasks. The findings indicated no overall significant differences between the mildly retarded and the nonretarded Ss or between the mildly retarded and the moderately retarded Ss, but differences were found between the moderately retarded and the nonretarded Ss. A significant interaction was found between the two independent variables, IQ/etiology and cognitive level. The results were discussed as supporting Zigler's development position and as damaging to Kohlberg's position.

Teaching Educational Leaders to Move from Moral Reasoning to Moral Action

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pijanowski, John

2017-01-01

Ethical leadership is critical to effective schools. However, earlier research showed that ethics and moral reasoning were often not formally taught nor assessed in pre-service leadership programs. In this study I examined graduate programs' approaches to curriculum, instruction, and assessment of learning in ethics and moral reasoning. Rest's…

Explaining the moral of the story.

PubMed

Walker, Caren M; Lombrozo, Tania

2017-10-01

Although storybooks are often used as pedagogical tools for conveying moral lessons to children, the ability to spontaneously extract "the moral" of a story develops relatively late. Instead, children tend to represent stories at a concrete level - one that highlights surface features and understates more abstract themes. Here we examine the role of explanation in 5- and 6-year-old children's developing ability to learn the moral of a story. Two experiments demonstrate that, relative to a control condition, prompts to explain aspects of a story facilitate children's ability to override salient surface features, abstract the underlying moral, and generalize that moral to novel contexts. In some cases, generating an explanation is more effective than being explicitly told the moral of the story, as in a more traditional pedagogical exchange. These findings have implications for moral comprehension, the role of explanation in learning, and the development of abstract reasoning in early childhood. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Prosocial Growth during College: Results of a National Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brandenberger, Jay W.; Bowman, Nicholas A.

2015-01-01

Ethical growth and prosocial development are increasingly salient learning outcomes in higher education. Previous research has shown that the traditional college years facilitate moral development, especially with respect to moral reasoning. This research examined the impact of college experiences on students' sense of active responsibility for…

A Cross-Cultural Validation of Stage Development: A Rasch Re-Analysis of Longitudinal Socio-Moral Reasoning Data

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boom, Jan; Wouters, Hans; Keller, Monika

2007-01-01

Kohlberg's characterization of moral development as displaying an invariant hierarchical order of structurally consistent stages is losing ground. However, by applying Rasch analysis, Dawson recently gave new interpretation and support to his characterization of stage development. Using Rasch models, we replicated and strengthened her findings in…

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

PubMed

Carpendale, J I; Krebs, D L

1992-04-01

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

East German children's and adolescents' friendship and moral reasoning before and after German reunification.

PubMed

Gummerum, Michaela; Keller, Monika

2012-01-01

Few studies so far have investigated whether abrupt social changes in a society affect the development of friendship and moral reasoning. In this study, 2 cohorts of 188 East German children and adolescents (aged 7, 9, 12, and 15 years) were interviewed in 1990 and 2005. Participants were asked about the importance of close friendship (friendship concept) as well as their moral decisions and reasoning in a friendship dilemma. Overall, results show that in 2005, East German participants referred to normative and interpersonal-altruistic-empathic concerns significantly more often than participants interviewed in 1990. Reference to relationship concerns decreased from 1990 to 2005. With few exceptions, these cohort effects were equally found in younger (children) and older (adolescents) age groups.

Moral Reasoning of MSW Social Workers and the Influence of Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaplan, Laura E.

2006-01-01

This research examined the influence of undergraduate degree and ethics education on the moral reasoning of social workers. Statistical analyses found MSW social workers with liberal arts undergraduate degrees more likely to prefer postconventional levels of moral reasoning, defined as greater complexity of thought and principled reasoning. The…

A Mind-Reader Does Not Always Have Deontological Moral Judgments and Prosocial Behavior: A Developmental Perspective

PubMed Central

Hao, Jian; Liu, Yanchun

2016-01-01

The rationalistic theories of morality emphasize that reasoning plays an important role in moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Theory of mind as a reasoning ability in the mental domain has been considered a facilitator of moral development. The present study examined whether theory of mind was consistently positively associated with morality from middle childhood to late adulthood. Two hundred and four participants, including 48 elementary school children, 45 adolescents, 62 younger adults, and 49 older adults, completed theory of mind, moral judgment and prosocial behavior tasks. Theory of mind was measured with strange stories that tapped into an understanding of lies, white lies, double bluffs, irony, and persuasion. Moral judgments were measured with variants of the trolley dilemma. Prosocial behavior was measured through participants' performance in an interactive situation in which a helping request was made. The results indicated specific rather than similar developmental trajectories of theory of mind, moral judgments, and prosocial behavior. There was a quadratic trend in theory of mind, a combination of quadratic and cubic trends in deontological moral judgments and a linear decline in helping behavior. It is thus suggested that theory of mind may not be associated with morality in an unchanging way during development. Further results indicated that theory of mind and deontological moral judgments were negatively correlated for children, adolescents, and older adults but positively correlated for younger adults. Theory of mind and helping behavior were positively correlated for children but negatively correlated for adolescents. However, the relationships disappeared in adulthood. In sum, the present study reveals that theory of mind may be a nice tool for its facilitation of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior, but it may also be a nasty tool for its blocking of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Moreover, theory of mind may be a permanent tool for moral judgment development but a temporary tool for prosocial behavior development. Thus, the present study enriches the rationalistic theories of morality from a developmental perspective. Different relationships between theory of mind and morality from middle childhood to late adulthood are discussed. PMID:27602011

A Mind-Reader Does Not Always Have Deontological Moral Judgments and Prosocial Behavior: A Developmental Perspective.

PubMed

Hao, Jian; Liu, Yanchun

2016-01-01

The rationalistic theories of morality emphasize that reasoning plays an important role in moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Theory of mind as a reasoning ability in the mental domain has been considered a facilitator of moral development. The present study examined whether theory of mind was consistently positively associated with morality from middle childhood to late adulthood. Two hundred and four participants, including 48 elementary school children, 45 adolescents, 62 younger adults, and 49 older adults, completed theory of mind, moral judgment and prosocial behavior tasks. Theory of mind was measured with strange stories that tapped into an understanding of lies, white lies, double bluffs, irony, and persuasion. Moral judgments were measured with variants of the trolley dilemma. Prosocial behavior was measured through participants' performance in an interactive situation in which a helping request was made. The results indicated specific rather than similar developmental trajectories of theory of mind, moral judgments, and prosocial behavior. There was a quadratic trend in theory of mind, a combination of quadratic and cubic trends in deontological moral judgments and a linear decline in helping behavior. It is thus suggested that theory of mind may not be associated with morality in an unchanging way during development. Further results indicated that theory of mind and deontological moral judgments were negatively correlated for children, adolescents, and older adults but positively correlated for younger adults. Theory of mind and helping behavior were positively correlated for children but negatively correlated for adolescents. However, the relationships disappeared in adulthood. In sum, the present study reveals that theory of mind may be a nice tool for its facilitation of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior, but it may also be a nasty tool for its blocking of deontological moral judgments and prosocial behavior. Moreover, theory of mind may be a permanent tool for moral judgment development but a temporary tool for prosocial behavior development. Thus, the present study enriches the rationalistic theories of morality from a developmental perspective. Different relationships between theory of mind and morality from middle childhood to late adulthood are discussed.

Gilligan Revisited: Methodological Issues in the Study of Gender and Moral Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dickey, Barbara; And Others

A study examined Carol Gilligan's theory of moral reasoning, seeking evidence to either support or deny the claim that individuals primarily use one of two different sets of sex-related constructs to arrive at decisions when faced with moral dilemmas. Subjects, 20 young lawyers and psychologists (equally divided as to men and women), were…

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…

Reason and Virtues: The Paradox of R. S. Peters on Moral Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haydon, Graham

2009-01-01

This article examines the work of R. S. Peters on moral development and moral education, as represented in his papers collected under that name, pointing out that these writings have been relatively neglected. It approaches these writings through the lens of the "familiar story" that philosophical work on this topic switched during, roughly, the…

The justificatory power of moral experience.

PubMed

van Thiel, G J M W; van Delden, J J M

2009-04-01

A recurrent issue in the vast amount of literature on reasoning models in ethics is the role and nature of moral intuitions. In this paper, we start from the view that people who work and live in a certain moral practice usually possess specific moral wisdom. If we manage to incorporate their moral intuitions in ethical reasoning, we can arrive at judgements and (modest) theories that grasp a moral experience that generally cannot be found outside the practice. Reflective equilibrium (RE) provides a framework for balancing moral intuitions, ethical principles and general theories. Nevertheless, persisting problems associated with the use of intuitions need to be addressed. One is the objection that moral intuitions lack the credibility necessary to guide moral reasoning. Ethicists have tried to solve this problem by formulating criteria to separate the "bad" intuitions from the "good" ones at the beginning of the reasoning process. We call this the credible input-justified outcome strategy. An example is the appeal to the common morality by Beauchamp and Childress. We think this approach is unsuccessful. As an alternative, we outline the good reasoning-justified outcome strategy. It connects to a variant of RE in which intuitions from different sources are incorporated. We argue that the elements of RE have different levels of justificatory power at the start of reasoning. In our strategy, each element can gain or lose justificatory power when it is tested in a reasoning process that meets several criteria.

Moral Bioenhancement, Freedom and Reason.

PubMed

Persson, Ingmar; Savulescu, Julian

2016-01-01

In this paper we reply to the most important objections to our advocacy of moral enhancement by biomedical means - moral bioenhancement - that John Harris advances in his new book How to be Good . These objections are to effect that such moral enhancement undercuts both moral reasoning and freedom. The latter objection is directed more specifically at what we have called the God Machine, a super-duper computer which predicts our decisions and prevents decisions to perpertrate morally atrocious acts. In reply, we argue first that effective moral bioenhancement presupposes moral reasoning rather than undermines it. Secondly, that the God Machine would leave us with extensive freedom and that the restrictions it imposes on it are morally justified by the prevention of harm to victims.

The Relationship Between Principled Moral Reasoning and Cheating Behavior under Threat and Nonthreat Situations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leming, James S.

Based upon the theory of moral stages devised by educational psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, this report examines the influence of the social situation on principled moral reasoning and on cheating. Research assessed the level of moral reasoning for 152 college juniors and seniors using Rest's Defining Issues Test (1976) in which levels of low,…

Moral Reasoning Patterns and Influential Factors in the Context of Environmental Problems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tuncay, Busra; Yilmaz-Tuzun, Ozgul; Teksoz, Gaye Tuncer

2012-01-01

This study investigated pre-service science teachers' (PSTs') moral reasoning patterns and the factors underlying these reasoning patterns. Local and non-local environmental dilemmas were used to examine moral reasoning patterns. An explanatory design was used with the collection and analysis of quantitative data, which was subsequently refined…

The design of moral education website for college students based on ASP.NET

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sui, Chunling; Du, Ruiqing

2012-01-01

Moral education website offers an available solution to low transmission speed and small influence areas of traditional moral education. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the design of one moral education website and the advantages of using it to help moral teaching. The reason for moral education website was discussed at the beginning of this paper. Development tools were introduced. The system design was illustrated with module design and database design. How to access data in SQL Server database are discussed in details. Finally a conclusion was made based on the discussions in this paper.

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.

Displaced and non-displaced Colombian children's evaluations of moral transgressions, retaliation, and reconciliation

PubMed Central

Ardila-Rey, Alicia; Killen, Melanie; Brenick, Alaina

2015-01-01

In order to assess the effects of displacement and exposure to violence on children's moral reasoning, Colombian children exposed to minimal violence (non-displaced or low-risk) (N = 99) and to extreme violence (displaced or high-risk) (N = 94), evenly divided by gender, at 6-, 9-, and 12 - years of age, were interviewed regarding their evaluation of peer-oriented moral transgressions (hitting and not sharing toys). The vast majority of children evaluated moral transgressions as wrong. Group and age differences were revealed, however, regarding provocation and retaliation. Children who were exposed to violence, in contrast to those with minimum exposure, judged it more legitimate to inflict harm or deny resources when provoked and judged it more okay to retaliate for reasons of retribution. Surprisingly, and somewhat hopefully, all children viewed reconciliation as feasible. The results are informative regarding theories of morality, culture, and the effects of violence on children's social development. PMID:25722543

Fair Play for Kids: effects on the moral development of children in physical education.

PubMed

Gibbons, S L; Ebbeck, V; Weiss, M R

1995-09-01

Commitment to the principles of sportspersonship is an acknowledged goal for school physical education. However, few programs have been implemented to investigate moral development changes in physical activity settings. A field experiment was designed to examine the effect of participation in educational activities selected from Fair Play for Kids (1990) on the moral judgment, reason, intention, and prosocial behavior of children (N = 452) in the 4th through 6th grades. Six intact classrooms at each grade level (N = 18) were randomly assigned to the following groups: (a) control, (b) Fair Play for Kids curriculum during physical education only, or (c) Fair Play for Kids curriculum during all school subjects. Experimental protocol extended for 7 months of an academic year, and moral development indicators were assessed prior to and following the intervention. Using class as the unit of analysis, 3 x 2 (Group x Time) repeated measures analyses of variance revealed that both treatment groups were significantly higher than the control group at posttest for moral judgment, reason, and intention scores. For students within classes, repeated measures analyses showed that treatment group participants had significantly higher posttest scores on all 4 measures as compared to students in the control group. Results provide initial validation of the Fair Play For Kids curriculum for effecting change in the moral development of elementary school students.

Classical and Contemporary Approaches for Moral Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cam, Zekeriya; Seydoogullari, Sedef; Cavdar, Duygu; Cok, Figen

2012-01-01

Most of the information in the moral development literature depends on Theories of Piaget and Kohlberg. The theoretical contribution by Gilligan and Turiel are not widely known and not much resource is available in Turkish. For this reason introducing and discussing the theories of Gilligan and Turiel and more comprehensive perspective for moral…

Abortion, infanticide and moral context.

PubMed

Porter, Lindsey

2013-05-01

In 'After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?', Giubilini and Minerva argue that infanticide should be permitted for the same reasons as abortion. In particular, they argue that infanticide should be permitted even for reasons that do not primarily serve the interests (or would-be best interests) of the newborn. They claim that abortion is permissible for reasons that do not primarily serve the interests (or would-be interests) of the fetus because fetuses lack a right to life. They argue that newborns also lack a right to life, and they conclude that therefore, the same reasons that justify abortion can justify infanticide. This conclusion does not follow. The lack of a right to life is not decisive. Furthermore, the justificatory power of a given reason is a function of moral context. Generalisations about reasons across dissimilar moral contexts are invalid. However, a similar conclusion does follow-that fetus-killing and newborn-killing are morally identical in identical moral contexts-but this conclusion is trivial, since fetuses and newborns are never in identical moral contexts.

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.'

Care Reasoning Development and Family Socialisation Patterns in Later Adolescence: A Longitudinal Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pratt, Michael W.; Skoe, Eva E.; Arnold, Mary Louise

2004-01-01

Over the past 20 years, care reasoning has been increasingly recognised as an important aspect of moral development. Skoe has developed an interview measure of levels of care reasoning about the needs of self and other in relationships, the Ethic of Care Interview or ECI. In the present longitudinal research, we investigated developmental changes…

The Moral Development of the Child: An Integrated Model

PubMed Central

Ma, Hing Keung

2013-01-01

Previous theories of moral development such as those by Piaget and Kohlberg usually focused on the cognitive or rational aspect, and seldom included the affective aspect in their construction. The characteristics of the stages of moral development in the present paper are elaborated with special reference to psychological needs, altruism and human relationships, and justice reasoning. The three stages are: (1) Physical Survival, Selfishness, and Obedience, (2) Love Needs, Reciprocal Altruism, and Instrumental Purpose; and (3) Belongingness Needs, Primary Group Altruism, and Mutual Interpersonal Expectations. At Stage 1, a deep and profound attachment to parents, empathy toward the significant others, and obedience to authorities all contribute to the physical survival of a person at this stage. People at Stage 2 are self-protective, dominant, exploitative, and opportunistic. The need to love and to be loved is gratified on the basis of reciprocal altruism. People at Stage 3 have a strong desire to gratify their belongingness needs to a primary group. They are willing to sacrifice for the benefits of the group at great cost. While the psychological needs and altruism are related to the affective aspect of moral development, the justice reasoning is related to the cognitive aspect. The proposed theoretical model attempts to integrate the affective and cognitive aspects of moral development, and prototypic responses to questions related to hypothetical moral dilemmas are presented to substantiate the proposed stage structures. It is hypothesized that the sequence of these three stages is invariant of person and culture. PMID:24350226

The moral development of the child: an integrated model.

PubMed

Ma, Hing Keung

2013-01-01

Previous theories of moral development such as those by Piaget and Kohlberg usually focused on the cognitive or rational aspect, and seldom included the affective aspect in their construction. The characteristics of the stages of moral development in the present paper are elaborated with special reference to psychological needs, altruism and human relationships, and justice reasoning. The three stages are: (1) Physical Survival, Selfishness, and Obedience, (2) Love Needs, Reciprocal Altruism, and Instrumental Purpose; and (3) Belongingness Needs, Primary Group Altruism, and Mutual Interpersonal Expectations. At Stage 1, a deep and profound attachment to parents, empathy toward the significant others, and obedience to authorities all contribute to the physical survival of a person at this stage. People at Stage 2 are self-protective, dominant, exploitative, and opportunistic. The need to love and to be loved is gratified on the basis of reciprocal altruism. People at Stage 3 have a strong desire to gratify their belongingness needs to a primary group. They are willing to sacrifice for the benefits of the group at great cost. While the psychological needs and altruism are related to the affective aspect of moral development, the justice reasoning is related to the cognitive aspect. The proposed theoretical model attempts to integrate the affective and cognitive aspects of moral development, and prototypic responses to questions related to hypothetical moral dilemmas are presented to substantiate the proposed stage structures. It is hypothesized that the sequence of these three stages is invariant of person and culture.

Kohlberg and Piaget on Stages and Moral Reasoning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carpendale, Jeremy I. M.

2000-01-01

Maintains that although Kohlberg emphasized the importance of perspective taking in moral reasoning, his view of developmental stages is inconsistent with this position. Argues that a modification of Kohlberg's conception of stages drawing on Piagetian theory would result in a view of moral reasoning as a process of coordinating all perspectives…

The Male Group Effect: Measuring Moral Judgment and Reasoning among Two Cohorts of First-Year College Men

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Terry, Daniel J.

2013-01-01

What kinds of experiences, interventions, or programs within the college context appear to foster or enhance moral growth beyond what one would expect developmentally from any 18-22 year old student? This quasi-experimental study is directed toward the effects of a particular aspect of the college environment on the moral judgment development of a…

Religious Conviction, Morality and Social Convention among Finnish Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vainio, Annukka

2011-01-01

The assumptions of Kohlberg, Turiel and Shweder regarding the features of moral reasoning were compared empirically. The moral reasoning of Finnish Evangelical Lutheran, Conservative Laestadian and non-religious adolescents was studied using Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview and Turiel Rule Transgression Interview methods. Religiosity and choice…

A preliminary investigation into the moral reasoning abilities of UK veterinarians.

PubMed

Batchelor, C E M; Creed, A; McKeegan, D E F

2015-08-01

Veterinary medicine is an ethically challenging profession, but the ethical reasoning abilities of practising veterinarians in the UK have never been formally assessed. This study investigated moral reasoning ability in 65 qualified veterinarians (38 practising and 27 academic) and 33 members of the public in the UK using the Defining Issues Test. Academic veterinarians had higher scores than members of the public but practising veterinarians did not. There was large variation in moral reasoning abilities among qualified veterinarians. Moral reasoning score in veterinarians did not improve with years of experience. These results show that despite having a professional degree moral reasoning skills of practising veterinarians may be insufficient to deal with the demands of their profession. This could have implications for animal welfare, client services and veterinarian wellbeing. The results highlight the need for more training in this area. British Veterinary Association.

Toward a science of morality: response to Christian Miller's critique.

PubMed

Shermer, Michael

2016-11-01

In developing a science of morality, many examples are provided not only to document the moral progress that has been made over the centuries, but also the reasons why and how this progress has been made. Instead of moralizing about human action and social problems that we find deplorable or undesirable, ever since the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment we started seeing them as problems to be solved. A science of morality begins with the discovery of rights and other moral values and emotions, starting with the recognition of the individual as an autonomous moral agent with an evolved natural desire to survive and flourish. © 2016 New York Academy of Sciences.

Students' Moral Reasoning as Related to Cultural Background and Educational Experience.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bar-Yam, Miriam; And Others

The relationship between moral development and cultural and educational background is examined. Approximately 120 Israeli youth representing different social classes, sex, religious affiliation, and educational experience were interviewed. The youth interviewed included urban middle and lower class students, Kibbutz-born, Youth Aliyah…

Can Youth Sport Build Character?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shields, David Light; Bredemeier, Brenda Light; Power, F. Clark

2001-01-01

Participation and competition in some sports are associated with lower stages of moral reasoning. Coaches can foster moral development by starting with the right mental model, holding benchmark meetings about team values, setting goals for physical and character skills, making time for guided discussion sessions, building community, modeling…

Oppositional Defiance, Moral Reasoning and Moral Value Evaluation as Predictors of Self-Reported Juvenile Delinquency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beerthuizen, Marinus G. C. J.; Brugman, Daniel; Basinger, Karen S.

2013-01-01

This study investigated the relationships among oppositional defiant attitudes, moral reasoning, moral value evaluation and self-reported delinquent behaviour in adolescents ("N" = 351, "M"[subscript AGE] = 13.8 years, "SD"[subscript AGE] = 1.1). Of particular interest were the moderating effects of age, educational…

The Emergence of Metaethical Reasoning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Langford, Peter E.

A multidimensional model of the growth of moral reasoning is described that is significantly different from those proposed by Kohlberg and Piaget. A study that tests several aspects of the model on university students is reported. The suggestion that well-developed chains of reasons are a prerequisite for the emergence of metaethical reasoning was…

Separating Judicial from Legislative Reasoning in Moral Dilemma Interviews.

PubMed

Langford, Peter E

1997-12-01

Unlike previous studies of the development of reasoning about moral dilemmas, the 2 studies reported separated judicial reasoning (the application of rules) from legislative reasoning (the justification of rules), as well as attending to other aspects of context, using a modification of the weakly interpretive scoring method of Langford and D'Cruz. This assigns justifications to relatively simple conceptually defined categories. Findings were in accord with substantially modified versions of the views of Piaget and Kohlberg, according to which legislative reasoning can be divided into 3 main types of stages in the period 7-21 years: heteronomy (Piaget) or egocentrism (Kohlberg); local groups (attention to group interests, harmony, and reciprocity in local groups), wider groups (attention to these thing in wider groups). Findings contradicted Gibbs's theory.

Is procreative beneficence obligatory?

PubMed

Saunders, Ben

2015-02-01

Julian Savulescu defends the principle of procreative beneficence, according to which parents have a prima facie moral obligation to choose the child with the best expected life. In this paper, I argue that Savulescu fails to show that procreative beneficence is genuinely obligatory, because of his equivocation between moral reason and moral obligation. Savulescu assumes that morality requires us to do what we have most (moral) reason to do, but many deny this, for instance because they believe we have reasons (but no obligation) to perform supererogatory actions. Even if parents have moral reasons to choose the child with the best expected life, they may not be under any obligation to do so. 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.

An anthropological exploration of contemporary bioethics: the varieties of common sense.

PubMed

Turner, L

1998-04-01

Patients and physicians can inhabit distinctive social worlds where they are guided by diverse understandings of moral practice. Despite the contemporary presence of multiple moral traditions, religious communities and ethnic backgrounds, two of the major methodological approaches in bioethics, casuistry and principlism, rely upon the notion of a common morality. However, the heterogeneity of ethnic, moral, and religious traditions raises questions concerning the singularity of common sense. Indeed, it might be more appropriate to consider plural traditions of moral reasoning. This poses a considerable challenge for bioethicists because the existence of plural moral traditions can lead to difficulties regarding "closure" in moral reasoning. The topics of truth-telling, informed consent, euthanasia, and brain death and organ transplantation reveal the presence of different understandings of common sense. With regard to these subjects, plural accounts of "common sense" moral reasoning exist.

Age-Related Differences in Contribution of Rule-Based Thinking toward Moral Evaluations.

PubMed

Caravita, Simona C S; De Silva, Lindamulage N; Pagani, Vera; Colombo, Barbara; Antonietti, Alessandro

2017-01-01

This study aims to investigate the interplay of different criteria of moral evaluation, related to the type of the rule and context characteristics, in moral reasoning of children, early, and late adolescents. Students attending to fourth, seventh, and tenth grade were asked to evaluate the acceptability of rule breaking actions using ad hoc scenarios. Results suggest that the role of different moral evaluation criteria changes by age. During adolescence a greater integration of the moral criteria emerged. Moreover, adolescents also prioritized the evaluation of moral rule (forbidding to harm others) violations as non-acceptable when the perpetrator harms an innocent victim by applying a direct personal force. The relevance of these findings to increase the understanding of how moral reasoning changes by age for the assessment of impairments in moral reasoning of non-normative groups is also discussed.

Patterns of Hierarchy in Formal and Principled Moral Reasoning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zeidler, Dana Lewis

Measurements of formal reasoning and principled moral reasoning ability were obtained from a sample of 99 tenth grade students. Specific modes of formal reasoning (proportional reasoning, controlling variables, probabilistic, correlational and combinatorial reasoning) were first examined. Findings support the notion of hierarchical relationships…

Temperament, Parenting, and Moral Development: Specificity of Behavior and Context.

PubMed

Augustine, Mairin E; Stifter, Cynthia A

2015-05-01

This longitudinal study highlights the role of specific parenting behaviors in specific contexts when predicting moral development in children of varying temperament types. A sample of mother-child dyads took part in a competing demands task involving differing "do" and "don't" contextual demands when the child was 2 years of age. Child temperament was also assessed at this time, yielding inhibited, exuberant, and low-reactive temperament groups. Children's moral behavior was assessed at 5.5 years of age. Models examining the interaction of temperament and mother behaviors in each context indicated that mother's reasoning/explanation and ignoring in the "do" context predicted later moral behavior in inhibited children, whereas redirection and commands in the "don't" context predicted moral behavior in exuberant children.

Connecting United States Air Force Core Values to Mission Accomplishment

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-04

making ( Kohlberg , 2008), to published works with a specific focus on ethics in the Air Force. The case studies referenced throughout the paper are used...useful backdrop for solving this problem. Lawrence Kohlberg , an American psychologist, experimentally derived a model for moral development based...on the cognitive reasoning one employs in making moral decisions and solving ethical quandaries ( Kohlberg , 2008). How one thinks through moral and

The Relationship between Moral Reasoning and Pedagogical Preferences in Kenyan and American College Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plueddemann, James E.

1989-01-01

Investigates the relationship between moral reasoning and instructional preference in a cross-cultural setting. Questions whether the kind of schooling as well as the amount of schooling correlate with levels of moral reasoning. Finds significant correlations. Contends that the importance of this study lies in its use to facilitate the adaptation…

Identifying mediating factors of moral reasoning in science education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeidler, Dana L.; Schafer, Larry E.

The purpose of this research was to examine how science content knowledge, moral reasoning ability, attitudes, and past experiences mediate the formation of moral judgments on environmental dilemmas. The study was conducted in two phases using environmental science majors and nonscience majors of college age. Phase One determined if environmental science majors exhibited higher levels of moral reasoning on nontechnical environmental social issues than on general social issues and examined the extent to which possible mediating factors accounted for differences in moral reasoning. Phase Two was qualitative in nature, the purpose of which was to observe and identify trends in conversations between subjects as to how certain mediating factors are revealed as people form moral judgments. The framework on which this study was constructed incorporates a progressive educational position; a position that views science education as being interdisciplinary, and a social means to a social end.

An anthropological exploration of contemporary bioethics: the varieties of common sense.

PubMed Central

Turner, L

1998-01-01

Patients and physicians can inhabit distinctive social worlds where they are guided by diverse understandings of moral practice. Despite the contemporary presence of multiple moral traditions, religious communities and ethnic backgrounds, two of the major methodological approaches in bioethics, casuistry and principlism, rely upon the notion of a common morality. However, the heterogeneity of ethnic, moral, and religious traditions raises questions concerning the singularity of common sense. Indeed, it might be more appropriate to consider plural traditions of moral reasoning. This poses a considerable challenge for bioethicists because the existence of plural moral traditions can lead to difficulties regarding "closure" in moral reasoning. The topics of truth-telling, informed consent, euthanasia, and brain death and organ transplantation reveal the presence of different understandings of common sense. With regard to these subjects, plural accounts of "common sense" moral reasoning exist. PMID:9603001

Age-Related Differences in Contribution of Rule-Based Thinking toward Moral Evaluations

PubMed Central

Caravita, Simona C. S.; De Silva, Lindamulage N.; Pagani, Vera; Colombo, Barbara; Antonietti, Alessandro

2017-01-01

This study aims to investigate the interplay of different criteria of moral evaluation, related to the type of the rule and context characteristics, in moral reasoning of children, early, and late adolescents. Students attending to fourth, seventh, and tenth grade were asked to evaluate the acceptability of rule breaking actions using ad hoc scenarios. Results suggest that the role of different moral evaluation criteria changes by age. During adolescence a greater integration of the moral criteria emerged. Moreover, adolescents also prioritized the evaluation of moral rule (forbidding to harm others) violations as non-acceptable when the perpetrator harms an innocent victim by applying a direct personal force. The relevance of these findings to increase the understanding of how moral reasoning changes by age for the assessment of impairments in moral reasoning of non-normative groups is also discussed. PMID:28473788

Liberating reason from the passions: overriding intuitionist moral judgments through emotion reappraisal.

PubMed

Feinberg, Matthew; Willer, Robb; Antonenko, Olga; John, Oliver P

2012-07-01

A classic problem in moral psychology concerns whether and when moral judgments are driven by intuition versus deliberate reasoning. In this investigation, we explored the role of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that involves construing an emotion-eliciting situation in a way that diminishes the intensity of the emotional experience. We hypothesized that although emotional reactions evoke initial moral intuitions, reappraisal weakens the influence of these intuitions, leading to more deliberative moral judgments. Three studies of moral judgments in emotionally evocative, disgust-eliciting moral dilemmas supported our hypothesis. A greater tendency to reappraise was related to fewer intuition-based judgments (Study 1). Content analysis of open-ended descriptions of moral-reasoning processes revealed that reappraisal was associated with longer time spent in deliberation and with fewer intuitionist moral judgments (Study 2). Finally, in comparison with participants who simply watched an emotion-inducing film, participants who had been instructed to reappraise their reactions while watching the film subsequently reported less intense emotional reactions to moral dilemmas, and these dampened reactions led, in turn, to fewer intuitionist moral judgments (Study 3).

Explaining Moral Behavior.

PubMed

Osman, Magda; Wiegmann, Alex

2017-03-01

In this review we make a simple theoretical argument which is that for theory development, computational modeling, and general frameworks for understanding moral psychology researchers should build on domain-general principles from reasoning, judgment, and decision-making research. Our approach is radical with respect to typical models that exist in moral psychology that tend to propose complex innate moral grammars and even evolutionarily guided moral principles. In support of our argument we show that by using a simple value-based decision model we can capture a range of core moral behaviors. Crucially, the argument we propose is that moral situations per se do not require anything specialized or different from other situations in which we have to make decisions, inferences, and judgments in order to figure out how to act.

Two kinds of potentiality: a critique of McGinn on the ethics of abortion.

PubMed

Jacquette, D

2001-01-01

In Moral Literacy, or How to Do the Right Thing, Colin McGinn proposes a consequentialist solution to the abortion dilemma. McGinn interprets moral rights and moral interests as attributable only to actually sentient beings by virtue of their ability to experience pleasure or pain. McGinn argues against the moral rights of potentially conscious human fetuses, on the grounds that the unjoined ova and spermatoza of any fertile men and women are also potentially sentient, but we do not generally suppose that unjoined human genetic germ plasm has moral rights. I argue that McGinn's reply equivocates between two different senses of 'potential sentience.' I distinguish between strong and weak potentiality, or between naturally probably potentiality and merely logically possible potentiality. I agree that it is reasonable to deny that a weak or merely logically possible potentially sentient fetus that would result from any unjoined ovum and sperm has a moral right to life. But I claim that this fact does not diminish the plausibility of extending a moral right or potential moral right to life to a naturally probable potentially sentient fetus, which we have good reason to believe will actually become sentient in the natural course of things if nothing is done to prevent its normal development. I conclude that it is not merely the potentiality, but the strong potentiality of a healthy, normally developing fetus that is soon to acquire sentience, moral interests, and, on McGinn's own terms, a moral right to life, that continues to sustain the abortion controversy, even among those who also want respect a woman's right to reproductive self-determination.

Reflection and reasoning in moral judgment.

PubMed

Paxton, Joseph M; Ungar, Leo; Greene, Joshua D

2012-01-01

While there is much evidence for the influence of automatic emotional responses on moral judgment, the roles of reflection and reasoning remain uncertain. In Experiment 1, we induced subjects to be more reflective by completing the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) prior to responding to moral dilemmas. This manipulation increased utilitarian responding, as individuals who reflected more on the CRT made more utilitarian judgments. A follow-up study suggested that trait reflectiveness is also associated with increased utilitarian judgment. In Experiment 2, subjects considered a scenario involving incest between consenting adult siblings, a scenario known for eliciting emotionally driven condemnation that resists reasoned persuasion. Here, we manipulated two factors related to moral reasoning: argument strength and deliberation time. These factors interacted in a manner consistent with moral reasoning: A strong argument defending the incestuous behavior was more persuasive than a weak argument, but only when increased deliberation time encouraged subjects to reflect. Copyright © 2011 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Renewing professionalism in dental education: overcoming the market environment.

PubMed

Masella, Richard S

2007-02-01

The most important mission of dental education is development of student professionalism. It is only within the context of professionalism that specialized knowledge and technical expertise find meaning. Altruism, integrity, caring, community focus, and commitment to excellence are attributes of professionalism. Its backbone is the obligation of service to people before service to self--a social contract. Professionalism can and should be acquired by targeted interventions, not as an assumed by-product of dental education. Top-down, rule-based professionalism is contrasted with its experience-based, mentor-mediated, socially driven counterpart. Moral principles are inherent in professional development and the professional way of life. Unfortunately, American society, including higher education, glorifies a market mentality centered on expansion and profit. Through formal and hidden curricula, dental schools send mixed messages to students about the importance of professionalism. Institutional consensus on professionalism should be developed among faculty, administration, and students through passionate advocacy and careful analysis of dentistry's moral convictions. The consensus message should communicate to stakeholders that morality and ethics "really count." Maximum student exposure to faculty exemplars, substantial service-learning experiences, and portfolio use are likely to enhance professionalism, which should be measured for every student, every semester, along with faculty and institutional assessment. Research reveals a significant relationship between levels of student moral reasoning and measures of clinical performance and shows that moral reasoning ability can be enhanced in dental students. Valid and reliable surveys exist to assess student moral reasoning. Documented student unprofessional behavior is a predictor of future state professional board disciplinary action against practitioners, along with low admissions test scores and course failures in the first two professional school years. ADEA Policy Statements recognize the importance of professionalism in student development. From day 1 of dental school, faculty and students should have no doubt as to what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior in academic and clinical settings. With education and experience, dental students and dentists are likely to elevate their standards of professionalism.

Neural foundation of human moral reasoning: an ALE meta-analysis about the role of personal perspective.

PubMed

Boccia, M; Dacquino, C; Piccardi, L; Cordellieri, P; Guariglia, C; Ferlazzo, F; Ferracuti, S; Giannini, A M

2017-02-01

Moral sense is defined as a feeling of the rightness or wrongness of an action that knowingly causes harm to people other than the agent. The large amount of data collected over the past decade allows drawing some definite conclusions about the neurobiological foundations of moral reasoning as well as a systematic investigation of methodological variables during fMRI studies. Here, we verified the existence of converging and consistent evidence in the current literature by means of a meta-analysis of fMRI studies of moral reasoning, using activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis. We also tested for a possible neural segregation as function of the perspective used during moral reasoning i.e., first or third person perspectives. Results demonstrate the existence of a wide network of areas underpinning moral reasoning, including orbitofrontal cortex, insula, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex as well as precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex. Within this network we found a neural segregation as a function of the personal perspective, with 1PP eliciting higher activation in the bilateral insula and superior temporal gyrus as well as in the anterior cingulate cortex, lingual and fusiform gyri, middle temporal gyrus and precentral gyrus in the left hemisphere, and 3PP eliciting higher activation in the bilateral amygdala, the posterior cingulate cortex, insula and supramarginal gyrus in the left hemisphere as well as the medial and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere. These results shed some more light on the contribution of these areas to moral reasoning, strongly supporting a functional specialization as a function of the perspective used during moral reasoning.

Beliefs, Values, Ethics and Moral Reasoning in Socio-Scientific Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yap, Siew Fong

2014-01-01

The realisation to integrate science, ethics and morality is recognised with growing impetus in recent years (as noted with introducing the Australian Curriculum "Science as a Human Endeavour" strand), to develop sophisticated epistemologies of science, which includes an appreciation of the social context including ethical thinking. To…

A Study of Moral Development and Personality Relationships in Adolescents and Young Adult Catholic Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polovy, Patricia

1980-01-01

Those who preferred principled levels of moral reasoning were seen as being dependable, rational, creative, intelligent, and accepting of rules and constraints of society, but at the same time, able to think independently and aware of the need for change. (Author)

Do Ethics Classes Teach Ethics?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curzer, Howard J.; Sattler, Sabrina; DuPree, Devin G.; Smith-Genthôs, K. Rachelle

2014-01-01

The ethics assessment industry is currently dominated by the second version of the Defining Issues Test (DIT2). In this article, we describe an alternative assessment instrument called the Sphere-Specific Moral Reasoning and Theory Survey (SMARTS), which measures the respondent's level of moral development in several respects. We describe eight…

An Examination of Moral Development in Specific Subpopulations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCarthy, Maureen A.; Horn, Elaine M.

This paper reports on a study to investigate measurement of moral reasoning with respect to age. Additional potential influencing factors, including ethnicity, gender, and influence of early environmental factors, also have been included for analysis in this study. Twenty-seven nontraditional students participating in a new student orientation…

Casuistry as bioethical method: an empirical perspective.

PubMed

Braunack-Mayer, A

2001-07-01

This paper examines the role that casuistry, a model of bioethical reasoning revived by Jonsen and Toulmin, plays in ordinary moral reasoning. I address the question: 'What is the evidence for contemporary casuistry's claim that everyday moral reasoning is casuistic in nature?' The paper begins with a description of the casuistic method, and then reviews the empirical arguments Jonsen and Toulmin offer to show that every-day moral decision-making is casuistic. Finally, I present the results of qualitative research conducted with 15 general practitioners (GPs) in South Australia, focusing on the ways in which these GP participants used stories and anecdotes in their own moral reasoning. This research found that the GPs interviewed did use a form of casuistry when talking about ethical dilemmas. However, the GPs' homespun casuistry often lacked one central element of casuistic reasoning--clear paradigm cases on which to base comparisons. I conclude that casuistic reasoning does appear to play a role in every-day moral decision-making, but that it is a more subdued role than perhaps casuists would like.

Systematic review of character development and childhood chronic illness.

PubMed

Maslow, Gary R; Hill, Sherika N

2016-05-08

To review empirical evidence on character development among youth with chronic illnesses. A systematic literature review was conducted using PubMed and PSYCHINFO from inception until November 2013 to find quantitative studies that measured character strengths among youth with chronic illnesses. Inclusion criteria were limited to English language studies examining constructs of character development among adolescents or young adults aged 13-24 years with a childhood-onset chronic medical condition. A librarian at Duke University Medical Center Library assisted with the development of the mesh search term. Two researchers independently reviewed relevant titles (n = 549), then abstracts (n = 45), and finally manuscripts (n = 3). There is a lack of empirical research on character development and childhood-onset chronic medical conditions. Three studies were identified that used different measures of character based on moral themes. One study examined moral reasoning among deaf adolescents using Kohlberg's Moral Judgement Instrument; another, investigated moral values of adolescent cancer survivors with the Values In Action Classification of Strengths. A third study evaluated moral behavior among young adult survivors of burn injury utilizing the Tennessee Self-Concept, 2(nd) edition. The studies observed that youth with chronic conditions reasoned at less advanced stages and had a lower moral self-concept compared to referent populations, but that they did differ on character virtues and strengths when matched with healthy peers for age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Yet, generalizations could not be drawn regarding character development of youth with chronic medical conditions because the studies were too divergent from each other and biased from study design limitations. Future empirical studies should learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature on character development among youth with chronic medical conditions.

Systematic review of character development and childhood chronic illness

PubMed Central

Maslow, Gary R; Hill, Sherika N

2016-01-01

AIM: To review empirical evidence on character development among youth with chronic illnesses. METHODS: A systematic literature review was conducted using PubMed and PSYCHINFO from inception until November 2013 to find quantitative studies that measured character strengths among youth with chronic illnesses. Inclusion criteria were limited to English language studies examining constructs of character development among adolescents or young adults aged 13-24 years with a childhood-onset chronic medical condition. A librarian at Duke University Medical Center Library assisted with the development of the mesh search term. Two researchers independently reviewed relevant titles (n = 549), then abstracts (n = 45), and finally manuscripts (n = 3). RESULTS: There is a lack of empirical research on character development and childhood-onset chronic medical conditions. Three studies were identified that used different measures of character based on moral themes. One study examined moral reasoning among deaf adolescents using Kohlberg’s Moral Judgement Instrument; another, investigated moral values of adolescent cancer survivors with the Values In Action Classification of Strengths. A third study evaluated moral behavior among young adult survivors of burn injury utilizing the Tennessee Self-Concept, 2nd edition. The studies observed that youth with chronic conditions reasoned at less advanced stages and had a lower moral self-concept compared to referent populations, but that they did differ on character virtues and strengths when matched with healthy peers for age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Yet, generalizations could not be drawn regarding character development of youth with chronic medical conditions because the studies were too divergent from each other and biased from study design limitations. CONCLUSION: Future empirical studies should learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature on character development among youth with chronic medical conditions. PMID:27170931

Moral Reasoning and Political Ideology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fishkin, James; And Others

1973-01-01

This study showed that subjects who reasoned at the conventional moral level were politically conservative, while preconventional subjects favored violent radicalism. The seemingly intimate relationship between the logical structures of moral argumentation and the content of political idealogy is discussed. (Author/JB)

Exploring the Reliability and Validity of the Social-Moral Awareness Test

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Livesey, Alexandra; Dodd, Karen; Pote, Helen; Marlow, Elizabeth

2012-01-01

Background: The aim of the study was to explore the validity of the social-moral awareness test (SMAT) a measure designed for assessing socio-moral rule knowledge and reasoning in people with learning disabilities. Comparisons between Theory of Mind and socio-moral reasoning allowed the exploration of construct validity of the tool. Factor…

Irish Student Teachers' Levels of Moral Reasoning: Context, Comparisons, and Contributing Influences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Flaherty, Joanne; Gleeson, Jim

2017-01-01

The moral role of the teacher has long been recognised and this has implications for the selection and education of student teachers. There is growing recognition of the importance of teachers' capacity to make sound moral judgements and of the influence of teachers' levels of moral reasoning on their professional practice. The paper presents the…

Assessing Veterinary and Animal Science Students' Moral Judgment Development on Animal Ethics Issues.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Phillips, Clive J C

2015-01-01

Little has been done to assess veterinarians' moral judgment in relation to animal ethics issues. Following development of the VetDIT, a new moral judgment measure for animal ethics issues, this study aimed to refine and further validate the VetDIT, and to identify effects of teaching interventions on moral judgment and changes in moral judgment over time. VetDIT-V1 was refined into VetDIT-V2, and V3 was developed as a post-intervention test to prevent repetition. To test these versions for comparability, veterinary and animal science students (n=271) were randomly assigned to complete different versions. The VetDIT discriminates between stages of moral judgment, condensed into three schemas: Personal Interest (PI), Maintaining Norms (MN), and Universal Principles (UP). There were no differences in the scores for MN and UP between the versions, and we equated PI scores to account for differences between versions. Veterinary science students (n=130) who completed a three-hour small-group workshop on moral development theory and ethical decision making increased their use of UP in moral reasoning, whereas students (n=271) who received similar information in a 50-minute lecture did not. A longitudinal comparison of matched first- and third-year students (n=39) revealed no moral judgment development toward greater use of UP. The VetDIT is therefore useful for assessing moral judgment of animal and human ethics issues in veterinary and other animal-related professions. Intensive small-group workshops using moral development knowledge and skills, rather than lectures, are conducive to developing veterinary students' moral judgment.

The Moral Reasoning of Adolescent Boys and Girls in the Light of Gilligan's Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kalsoom, Farhat; Behlol, Malik Ghulam; Kayani, Muhammad Munir; Kaini, Aneesa

2012-01-01

The study was conducted to assess the moral reasoning of adolescent boys and girls in the light of Gilligan theory. The main objectives of the study were to investigate the moral reasoning of adolescent boys and girls with reference to responsibility orientation versus justice orientation and to compare the frequency of adolescent boys and girls…

'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.

The Relationship of Moral Reasoning to Sex Guilt and Sex Experience in College Couples.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cross, Herbert; D'Augelli, Judith F.

Seventy-six college couples were interviewed with Kohlberg's moral dilemmas interview, given the Mosher Sex Guilt scale and took a sex experience inventory. Men, women, and couples who were at the law and order stage of moral reasoning were higher on sex guilt than those at other levels of morality. Male sex experience was associated with morality…

Effects of Alcohol on Moral Functioning in Male Social Drinkers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fincham, Frank; Barling, Julian

1979-01-01

Alcohol consumption was not found to affect the stage of moral reasoning of the subjects, but an inverse relationship was found between the amount of alcohol consumed and the subjects' discrimination of relevant from irrelevant information in their moral reasoning. (BH)

Brazilian adolescents' prosocial moral judgment and behavior: relations to sympathy, perspective taking, gender-role orientation, and demographic characteristics.

PubMed

Eisenberg, N; Zhou, Q; Koller, S

2001-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine demographic and individual difference variables that predict level of prosocial moral judgment and self-reported prosocial behavior and to test mediating or moderating relations among predictors. The relations of prosocial moral reasoning and self-reported prosocial behavior to perspective taking, sympathy, age, sociometric status, and gender-role orientation were examined with a sample of 149 Brazilian adolescents who completed a series of questionnaire measures. Prosocial moral judgment was expected to be predicted by both sympathy and perspective taking, whereas sympathy or prosocial moral judgment was expected to mediate the relations of femininity and perspective taking to prosocial behavior. Self-reported perspective taking and sympathy interacted when predicting prosocial moral judgment; adolescents who were high in either sympathy or perspective taking (or both) scored high in prosocial moral reasoning. A feminine orientation predicted sympathy and perspective taking, perspective taking predicted prosocial moral reasoning and sympathy, and sympathy had both direct and indirect paths (through moral judgment) to prosocial behavior. The findings generally were consistent with the contention that both the tendency to take others' perspectives and to sympathize are related to level of prosocial moral reasoning, which in turn motivates prosocial behavior. Moreover, patterns of correlations among variables were similar to those found in the United States.

Exploring the Impact of Formal Education on the Moral Reasoning Abilities of College Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nather, Fatima

2013-01-01

The present study was to investigate the patterns of moral reasoning of a sample of college students at Kuwait University, and to examine the effect of education level upon their moral reasoning abilities. A sample of 90 college male students participated in this study. They ranged in age from 17-25. For the purpose of this study they were divided…

Neuroscience, moral reasoning, and the law.

PubMed

Knabb, Joshua J; Welsh, Robert K; Ziebell, Joseph G; Reimer, Kevin S

2009-01-01

Modern advancements in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology have given neuroscientists the opportunity to more fully appreciate the brain's contribution to human behavior and decision making. Morality and moral reasoning are relative newcomers to the growing literature on decision neuroscience. With recent attention given to the salience of moral factors (e.g. moral emotions, moral reasoning) in the process of decision making, neuroscientists have begun to offer helpful frameworks for understanding the interplay between the brain, morality, and human decision making. These frameworks are relatively unfamiliar to the community of forensic psychologists, despite the fact that they offer an improved understanding of judicial decision making from a biological perspective. This article presents a framework reviewing how event-feature-emotion complexes (EFEC) are relevant to jurors and understanding complex criminal behavior. Future directions regarding converging fields of neuroscience and legal decision making are considered. Copyright 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Epistemological Development and Judgments and Reasoning about Teaching Methods

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spence, Sarah; Helwig, Charles C.

2013-01-01

Children's, adolescents', and adults' (N = 96 7-8, 10-11, and 13-14-year-olds and university students) epistemological development and its relation to judgments and reasoning about teaching methods was examined. The domain (scientific or moral), nature of the topic (controversial or noncontroversial), and teaching method (direct instruction by…

Mass Media and Moral Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stein, Aletha Huston

Commercial television as it currently exists presents moral content and values that are often contrary to the predominant values of the society. It emphasizes violence and illegal action; it perpetuates a system in which groups of people are devalued because of sex, race, age, and other such criteria. There is good reason to believe that this type…

The Concept of Cultural Relativity in Moral Judgments Concerning Gender-Related Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyd, D. R.; And Others

The comparative study was designed to determine whether cultural relativism and ethical reasoning develop in a hierarchical manner when applied to culturally different phenomena. The phenomena investigated were moral judgments concerning gender-related issues. Thirty-six first through sixth-grade students from two private schools and 130…

On Reasons We Want Teachers to Care

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nguyen, Jade

2016-01-01

Much of the literature supports the moral development theory as a justification for teachers to care, where teachers should care for their students because it contributes to their moral education as caring persons. If no causal relationship can be established, the question remains whether we would want teachers to care, preferably one that does…

Empathy, Altruism, and Moral Development in Home Schooled Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kingston, Skylar T.; Medlin, Richard G.

2005-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to compare empathy, altruism, moral reasoning, and prosocial behavior in home schooled children and children attending public schools, and to assess attitudes toward religion and values in their parents. Homeschooling parents were more concerned with teaching their children their values and religious beliefs,…

Examining Moral Judgment and Ethical Decision-Making in Information Technology Managers and Their Relationship

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shahand, Assadullah

2010-01-01

Growing incidences of corporate ethical misconducts have revived the debate over ethical reasoning and moral development of corporate managers. The role of information technology (IT) in the ethical dilemmas is becoming more evident as virtual environments become increasingly popular, organizations adopt digital form of record keeping, and the…

Development of a moral judgment measure for veterinary education.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Phillips, Clive J C

2014-01-01

Veterinarians increasingly face animal ethics issues, conflicts, and dilemmas, both in practice and in policy, such as the tension between clients' and animals' interests. Little has been done to measure the capacity of veterinarians to make ethical judgments to prevent and address these issues or to identify the effectiveness of strategies to build this capacity. The objectives of this study were, first, to develop a test to identify the capacity of veterinarians to make ethical decisions in relation to animal ethics issues and, second, to assess students' perceptions of the usefulness of three methods for the development of ethical decision making. The Veterinary Defining Issues Test (VetDIT) was piloted with 88 first-year veterinary students at an Australian university. The veterinary students were at a variety of reasoning stages in their use of the Personal Interest (PI), Maintaining Norms (MN), and Universal Principles (UP) reasoning methods in relation to both human ethics and animal ethics issues and operated at a higher level of reasoning for animal than human ethics. Thirty-eight students assessed three methods for developing ethical decision-making skills and identified these as being helpful in clarifying their positions, clarifying others' positions, increasing awareness of the complexity of making ethical decisions, using ethical frameworks and principles, and improving moral reasoning skills, with two methods identified as most helpful. These methods and the VetDIT have the potential to be used as tools for development and assessment of moral judgment in veterinary education to address animal ethics issues.

Morality, Reason and Feeling.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bailey, Charles

1980-01-01

This paper argues that morality is essentially a matter of rational reflection and judgment and has little to do with feelings or affections. The notions of reason and justification are analyzed. Four types of feelings are defined and shown to provide inadequate bases for moral judgment. (Author/SJL)

Procreative reasons-relevance: on the moral significance of why we have children.

PubMed

Lotz, Mianna

2009-06-01

Advances in reproductive technologies - in particular in genetic screening and selection - have occasioned renewed interest in the moral justifiability of the reasons that motivate the decision to have a child. The capacity to select for desired blood and tissue compatibilities has led to the much discussed 'saviour sibling' cases in which parents seek to 'have one child to save another'. Heightened interest in procreative reasons is to be welcomed, since it prompts a more general philosophical interrogation of the grounds for moral appraisal of reasons-to-parent, and of the extent to which such reasons are relevant to the moral assessment of procreation itself. I start by rejecting the idea that we can use a distinction between 'other-regarding' and 'future-child-regarding' reasons as a basis on which to distinguish good from bad procreative reasons. I then offer and evaluate three potential grounds for elucidating and establishing a relationship between procreative motivation and the rightness/wrongness of procreative conduct: the predictiveness, the verdictiveness, and the expressiveness of procreative reasons.

Using Insights from Applied Moral Psychology to Promote Ethical Behavior Among Engineering Students and Professional Engineers.

PubMed

Gelfand, Scott D

2016-10-01

In this essay I discuss a novel engineering ethics class that has the potential to significantly decrease the likelihood that students (and professionals) will inadvertently or unintentionally act unethically in the future. This class is different from standard engineering ethics classes in that it focuses on the issue of why people act unethically and how students (and professionals) can avoid a variety of hurdles to ethical behavior. I do not deny that it is important for students to develop cogent moral reasoning and ethical decision-making as taught in traditional college-level ethics classes, but as an educator, I aim to help students apply moral reasoning in specific, real-life situations so they are able to make ethical decisions and act ethically in their academic careers and after they graduate. Research in moral psychology provides evidence that many seemingly irrelevant situational factors affect the moral judgment of most moral agents and frequently lead agents to unintentionally or inadvertently act wrongly. I argue that, in addition to teaching college students moral reasoning and ethical decision-making, it is important to: 1. Teach students about psychological and situational factors that affect people's ethical judgments/behaviors in the sometimes stressful, emotion-laden environment of the workplace; 2. Guide students to engage in critical reflection about the sorts of situations they personally might find ethically challenging before they encounter those situations; and 3. Provide students with strategies to help them avoid future unethical behavior when they encounter these situations in school and in the workplace.

Metaphysics and Methods in Moral Enquiry and Education: Some Old Philosophical Wine for New Theoretical Bottles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carr, David

2014-01-01

If we reject sentimentalist accounts of the nature of moral motivation and education, then we may regard some form of reason as intrinsic to any genuine moral response. The large question for moral education is therefore that of the nature of such reason--perhaps more especially of its status as knowledge. In this regard, there is evidence of some…

Moral reasoning in women with posttraumatic stress disorder related to childhood abuse

PubMed Central

Nazarov, Anthony; Walaszczyk, Victoria; Frewen, Paul; Oremus, Carolina; Lanius, Ruth; McKinnon, Margaret C.

2016-01-01

Background Preliminary evidence suggests that relative to healthy controls, patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show deficits on several inter-related social cognitive tasks, including theory of mind, and emotion comprehension. Systematic investigations examining other aspects of social cognition, including moral reasoning, have not been conducted in PTSD stemming from childhood trauma. Objective To conduct a comprehensive assessment of moral reasoning performance in individuals with PTSD stemming from childhood abuse. Method Moral reasoning performance was assessed in 28 women with PTSD related to prolonged childhood trauma and 19 matched healthy controls. Performance was assessed using 12 modified moral dilemmas and was queried in three domains: utilitarian/deontological sacrificial dilemmas (personal and impersonal), social order vs. compassion, and altruism vs. self-interest. Participants were asked whether a proposed action was morally acceptable or unacceptable and whether or not they would perform this action under the circumstances described. Results Women with PTSD were less likely to carry out utilitarian actions in personal, sacrificial moral dilemmas, a choice driven primarily by consequential intrapersonal disapproval. Increased concern regarding intrapersonal disapproval was related to higher symptoms of guilt in the PTSD group. Patients with PTSD demonstrated less altruistic moral reasoning, primarily associated with decreased empathic role-taking for beneficiaries. Conclusions Women with PTSD due to childhood trauma show alterations in moral reasoning marked by decreased utilitarian judgment and decreased altruism. Childhood trauma may continue to impact moral choices made into adulthood. Highlights of the article Moral judgment processing was found to be altered in women with PTSD related to chronic childhood trauma. In comparison to healthy women, women with PTSD were less likely to approve utilitarian actions when required to assume their agency in dilemmas involving the infliction of direct physical harm. Decreased likelihood of utilitarian action approval by the PTSD sample was driven by significantly enhanced endorsement of guilt and shame as consequences of such actions. Endorsement of guilt and shame in moral dilemmas was related to increased severity of current clinical symptoms of guilt. PMID:27837580

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.

The failure of medical education to develop moral reasoning in medical students

PubMed Central

Murrell, Vicki S.

2014-01-01

Objectives The goal of this study was to determine differences in moral judgment among students in medical school. Methods This cross-sectional study involved students currently enrolled in undergraduate medical education. Recruited via email, 192 students took an online version of the Defining Issues Test to determine their current stage of moral judgment, as well as their percentage of post conventional thought. Independent variables included year of graduation, which indicated curriculum completion as well as participation in a professionalism course. Data was analyzed primarily using One-Way Analysis of Variance. Results Of the 192 participants, 165 responses were utilized. ANOVA showed no significant differences in moral judgment between or among any of the student cohorts, which were grouped by year of matriculation. Comparisons included students in the four years of medical school, divided by graduation year; students about to graduate (n=30) vs. those still in school (n=135); and students who had participated in a course in professionalism (n=91) vs. those who had not (n=74). Conclusions These results demonstrate a lack of evolution in the moral reasoning of medical students and raise the issue of what might stimulate positive changes in moral judgment during the medical school experience. PMID:25543016

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.

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.

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."

Reflection and Reasoning in Moral Judgment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paxton, Joseph M.; Ungar, Leo; Greene, Joshua D.

2012-01-01

While there is much evidence for the influence of automatic emotional responses on moral judgment, the roles of reflection and reasoning remain uncertain. In Experiment 1, we induced subjects to be more reflective by completing the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) prior to responding to moral dilemmas. This manipulation increased utilitarian…

Moral Reasoning, Academic Dishonesty, and Business Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bélanger, Charles H.; Leonard, Valorie M.; LeBrasseur, Rolland

2012-01-01

This study links moral reasoning, academic dishonesty, and business students. Undergraduate business students (N = 1357) from eight Ontario (Canada) universities responded to a survey to express their perceptions and expectations of their academic environment and the variables that can help them to understand what is morally right and what is…

Children's Moral Reasoning about Illness in Chhattisgarh, Central India

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Froerer, Peggy

2011-01-01

This article is about children's moral reasoning about illness and supernatural retribution in a rural tribal community in Chhattisgarh, central India. Detailed ethnographic analysis is devoted to the norms and experiences within which conceptions about illness causality and morality are formed. The author is principally interested in the…

Assessing Students' Moral Reasoning of a Values-Based Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

You, Di; Penny, Neil H.

2011-01-01

Students' moral reasoning was assessed at a religiously affiliated liberal arts university. Cohort data were collected from undergraduate students who had entered the university as freshmen: 364 students in 2007 and 264 students in 2009. The results indicated that there was a significant increase in students' post-conventional moral reasoning…

Habituated Reason: Aristotle and the "Paradox of Moral Education"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kristjansson, Kristjan

2006-01-01

R.S. Peters coined the term "paradox of moral education". In this article, the author identifies two subordinate paradoxes: how habituated reason is psychologically possible and how heteronomously formed autonomy is morally/politically possible and justifiable. He sketches possible Aristotelian solutions of those paradoxes and argues that for…

Moral Reasoning about School Bullying in Involved Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levasseur, Caroline; Desbiens, Nadia; Bowen, François

2017-01-01

The aim of the present study was to investigate how bullying incident participant roles and moral reasoning relate to each other in adolescents. To do so, we examined sociomoral judgments about hypothetical bullying incidents and moral disengagement in adolescents identified as bullies, defenders of the victim and passive bystanders. Six-hundred…

Sociology as Moral Philosophy (and Vice Versa).

PubMed

Vandenberghe, Frédéric

2017-11-01

In this article, I want to make an attempt to reconnect sociology to moral philosophy and moral philosophy to sociology. The thesis I want to defend is that sociology continues by other means the venerable tradition of practical and moral philosophy. Like its forebears, it stands and falls with a defense of "practical wisdom" (Aristotle) and "practical reason" (Kant). The development of a moral sociology presupposes, however, that one recognizes and rejects Max Weber's theory of axiological neutrality as an extremist position and that one carefully articulates prescriptive and descriptive, internal and external, as well as observer and actor positions. © 2017 Canadian Sociological Association/La Société canadienne de sociologie.

A single cognitive heuristic process meets the complexity of domain-specific moral heuristics.

PubMed

Dubljević, Veljko; Racine, Eric

2014-10-01

The inherence heuristic (a) offers modest insights into the complex nature of both the is-ought tension in moral reasoning and moral reasoning per se, and (b) does not reflect the complexity of domain-specific moral heuristics. Formal and general in nature, we contextualize the process described as "inherence heuristic" in a web of domain-specific heuristics (e.g., agent specific; action specific; consequences specific).

The priesthood of bioethics and the return of casuistry.

PubMed

Wildes, K W

1993-02-01

Several recent attempts to develop models of moral reasoning have attempted to use some form of casuistry as a way to resolve the moral controversies of clinical ethics. One of the best known models of casuistry is that of Jonsen and Toulmin who attempt to transpose a particular model of casuistry, that of Roman Catholic confessional practice, to contemporary moral disputes. This attempt is flawed in that it fails to understand both the history of the model it seeks to transpose and the morally pluralistic context of secular, postmodern society. The practice of casuistry which Jonsen and Toulmin wish to revive is a practice set in the context of a community with a shared set of moral values and structures of moral authority. Without a set of common moral values and rankings, and a moral authority to interpret cases the casuistry of the postmodern age will be pluralistic, that is, there will be many casuistries not just one.

Children's early helping in action: Piagetian developmental theory and early prosocial behavior.

PubMed

Hammond, Stuart I

2014-01-01

After a brief overview of recent research on early helping, outlining some central problems, and issues, this paper examines children's early helping through the lens of Piagetian moral and developmental theory, drawing on Piaget's "Moral Judgment of the Child" (Piaget, 1932/1997), "Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood" (Piaget, 1945/1951), and the "Grasp of Consciousness" (Piaget, 1976). Piaget refers to a level of moral development in action that precedes heteronomous and autonomous moral reasoning. This action level allows children to begin to interact with people and objects. In his later work, Piaget explores the gradual construction of understanding from this activity level. Taken together, these elements of Piagetian theory provide a promising conceptual framework for understanding the development of early helping.

Moral Psychology Must Not Be Based on Faith and Hope: Commentary on Narvaez (2010).

PubMed

Haidt, Jonathan

2010-03-01

Narvaez (2010, this issue) calls for a moral psychology in which reasoning and intuitions are equal partners. But empirical research on the power of implicit processes and on the weakness of everyday reasoning indicates that the partnership is far from equal. The ancient rationalist faith that good reasoning can be taught and that it will lead to improved behavior is no longer justified. The social intuitionist model (Haidt, 2001) is a more realistic portrayal of the ways that moral intuition and reasoning work together. © The Author(s) 2010.

Influence of Structured Group Experience on Moral Judgments of Preschoolers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moran, James D., III; O'Brien, Gayle

This study examines the influence of social experiences received in a group-care setting on the development of moral reasoning in young children. Thirty-five children approximately 4 years old, participated in the study. Twenty of the subjects attended day care or nursery school; the remaining 15 did not attend any group-care programs. Each child…

Historical development of vegetarianism.

PubMed

Whorton, J C

1994-05-01

Vegetarianism pursued for reasons of physical health is a recent practice historically. Before the 19th century, avoidance of animal food was justified with moral and metaphysical arguments. During the early 1800s, however, an intensified desire for improved health combined with the ascendance of science to a position of cultural authority helped to promote the formulation of physiological arguments for vegetarianism. Theories of the nutritional superiority of a vegetable diet were nevertheless shaped by moral convictions, giving vegetarian spokesmen such as Sylvester Graham and John Harvey Kellogg the appearance of being dietary fanatics. Only as nutritional science expanded from the mid-20th century onward did vegetarianism acquire general recognition as a healthful dietary alternative. But because that alternative is still often selected for moral or other nonscientific reasons, nutritional education of vegetarians remains an essential activity.

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.

Moral dilemmas and abortion decision-making: Lessons learnt from abortion research in England and Wales.

PubMed

Hoggart, Lesley

2018-05-21

This paper scrutinises the concepts of moral reasoning and personal reasoning, problematising the binary model by looking at young women's pregnancy decision-making. Data from two UK empirical studies are subjected to theoretically driven qualitative secondary analysis, and illustrative cases show how complex decision-making is characterised by an intertwining of the personal and the moral, and is thus best understood by drawing on moral relativism.

A Relational Approach to Moral Decision-Making: The Majority Opinion in "Planned Parenthood v. Casey."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sullivan, Patricia A.; Goldzwig, Steven R.

1995-01-01

Defines a relational approach to moral reasoning. Notes that the Supreme Court, in "Planned Parenthood v. Casey," rejected simplistic approaches to moral reasoning and acknowledged the complex web of relationships involved in abortion decision making. Suggests that rhetoricians "revision" the art of persuasion to place more…

Attitudes, Values and Moral Reasoning as Predictors of Delinquency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tarry, Hammond; Emler, Nicholas

2007-01-01

Attitudes to institutional authority, strength of support for moral values and maturity of socio-moral reasoning have all been identified as potential predictors of adolescent delinquency. In a sample of 12-15-year-old boys (N = 789), after checking for effects of age, IQ, social background and ethnicity, self-reported delinquency was…

Moral, Conventional, and Personal Rules: The Perspective of Foster Youth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mullins, David; Tisak, Marie S.

2006-01-01

Forty-five foster youth (9-13 year old and 14-17 year olds) were asked to evaluate moral, conventional, and personal rules and violations by providing judgments and reasons. The results suggest that foster youths' judgments distinguished between the moral, conventional, and personal domains. However, in providing reasons to support their judgments…

Leadership May Provide the Means of Moving Up in Adult Moral Developmental Stages.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galaz-Fontes, Jesus Francisco; And Others

Although Kohlberg and others have proposed that various social psychological and cultural factors may influence a person's level of moral reasoning, most work in this area has been conducted among relatively well educated persons in so called advanced societies. These two studies investigated stages of reasoning about moral dilemmas among…

The Intersection of Emotional and Sociocognitive Competencies with Civic Engagement in Middle Childhood and Adolescence.

PubMed

Metzger, Aaron; Alvis, Lauren M; Oosterhoff, Benjamin; Babskie, Elizabeth; Syvertsen, Amy; Wray-Lake, Laura

2018-03-23

Civic developmental theory anticipates connections between normative developmental competencies and civic engagement, but little previous research has directly studied such links. The current study sought to contribute to civic development theory by examining associations between emotional and sociocognitive competencies (empathy, emotion regulation, prosocial moral reasoning, future-orientation) and civic engagement (volunteering, informal helping, political behaviors and beliefs, environmental behaviors, social responsibility values, civic skills). Data came from a geographically and racially diverse sample of 2467 youth (M age  = 13.4, Range: 8-20 years, 56% female). The results indicated that empathy and future-orientation significantly predicted nearly all forms of civic engagement, whereas emotion regulation and prosocial moral reasoning were uniquely associated with specific forms of civic engagement. Exploratory multi-group models indicated that empathy and emotion regulation were more strongly associated with civic engagement among younger youth and prosocial moral reasoning and future-orientation were more strongly related to civic engagement among older youth. The findings help to advance developmental theory of youth civic engagement.

The developmental origins of moral concern: An examination of moral boundary decision making throughout childhood

PubMed Central

Wilks, Matti; Redshaw, Jonathan; Nielsen, Mark

2018-01-01

Prominent theorists have made the argument that modern humans express moral concern for a greater number of entities than at any other time in our past. Moreover, adults show stable patterns in the degrees of concern they afford certain entities over others, yet it remains unknown when and how these patterns of moral decision-making manifest in development. Children aged 4 to 10 years (N = 151) placed 24 pictures of human, animal, and environmental entities on a stratified circle representing three levels of moral concern. Although younger and older children expressed similar overall levels of moral concern, older children demonstrated a more graded understanding of concern by including more entities within the outer reaches of their moral circles (i.e., they were less likely to view moral inclusion as a simple in vs. out binary decision). With age children extended greater concern to humans than other forms of life, and more concern to vulnerable groups, such as the sick and disabled. Notably, children’s level of concern for human entities predicted their prosocial behavior. The current research provides novel insights into the development of our moral reasoning and its structure within childhood. PMID:29813134

The developmental origins of moral concern: An examination of moral boundary decision making throughout childhood.

PubMed

Neldner, Karri; Crimston, Daniel; Wilks, Matti; Redshaw, Jonathan; Nielsen, Mark

2018-01-01

Prominent theorists have made the argument that modern humans express moral concern for a greater number of entities than at any other time in our past. Moreover, adults show stable patterns in the degrees of concern they afford certain entities over others, yet it remains unknown when and how these patterns of moral decision-making manifest in development. Children aged 4 to 10 years (N = 151) placed 24 pictures of human, animal, and environmental entities on a stratified circle representing three levels of moral concern. Although younger and older children expressed similar overall levels of moral concern, older children demonstrated a more graded understanding of concern by including more entities within the outer reaches of their moral circles (i.e., they were less likely to view moral inclusion as a simple in vs. out binary decision). With age children extended greater concern to humans than other forms of life, and more concern to vulnerable groups, such as the sick and disabled. Notably, children's level of concern for human entities predicted their prosocial behavior. The current research provides novel insights into the development of our moral reasoning and its structure within childhood.

From ethics of care to psychology of care: reconnecting ethics of care to contemporary moral psychology

PubMed Central

Govrin, Aner

2014-01-01

Moral psychology once regarded ethics of care as a promising theory. However, there is evidence to suggest that nowadays moral psychology completely ignores ethics of care’s various insights. Moreover, ethics of care’s core concepts – compassion, dependence, and the importance of early relations to moral development– are no longer considered to be relevant to the development of new theories in the field. In this paper, I will firstly discuss some of the reasons which, over recent years, have contributed to the marginalization of the role of ethics of care in moral psychology. Next, I will show that ethics of care’s most promising idea centered on the care given to an infant and the importance of that care to the development of moral thinking. In this context, I will be describing the implications of John Bowlby’s attachment theories, infant research, findings in moral psychology and neuroscience. I will argue that ethics of care needs to be radically re-thought and replaced by a psychology of care, an attachment approach to moral judgment, which would establish the centrality of the caregiver’s role in moral development. The philosophical implications of this approach to the understanding of the “rationalists” and “intuitionists” debate about the true nature of moral judgment is also discussed. PMID:25368588

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…

Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding Predict Moral Development in Early Childhood

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lane, Jonathan D.; Wellman, Henry M.; Olson, Sheryl L.; LaBounty, Jennifer; Kerr, David C. R.

2010-01-01

The current study utilized longitudinal data to investigate how theory of mind (ToM) and emotion understanding (EU) concurrently and prospectively predicted young children's moral reasoning and decision making. One hundred twenty-eight children were assessed on measures of ToM and EU at 3.5 and 5.5 years of age. At 5.5 years, children were also…

The Effects of Recency and Story Content on Children's Moral Judgments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moran, James D., III; McCullers, John C.

To investigate the effects of recency and specific story content on the development of moral reasoning, 16 stories were read to children at ages 4, 7, and 11 years and to college freshmen (a total of 24 participants per age level). Stories contained either positive or negative intention and either positive or negative consequences in one of four…

Relationships among Play Behaviors Reported by College Students and Their Responses to Moral Issues: A Pilot Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Darrel R.; Bergen, Doris

2014-01-01

This study investigated whether the types and amount of playful activity and thought exhibited from early childhood to adulthood are related to aspects of moral development, such as empathy, behavior, and reasoning. It explored whether the assertions of theorists such as Piaget, Vygotsky, and Erikson regarding the facilitative effect of games with…

Empathy-related responding and prosocial behaviour.

PubMed

Eisenberg, Nancy

2007-01-01

In this paper I differentiate among empathy, sympathy and personal distress and discuss the central role of empathy-related responding in positive (including moral) development. Empathy-related responding, especially sympathy, is likely an important source of prosocial, other-oriented motivation. In fact, empathy-related responding, especially sympathy, has been associated with prosocial behaviour (voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another, e.g. helping, sharing); this relation has been obtained for both specific instances of empathy-related responding and for dispositional sympathy. In addition, sympathy (or sometimes empathy) has been linked to relatively high levels of moral reasoning and social competence, and to low levels of aggression and antisocial behaviour. In my talk, I will review research on the relation of empathy-related responding to prosocial behaviour, the consistency of costly prosocial behaviour over time and the possible role of sympathy in its consistency, and the relation of empathy-related responding to moral reasoning, antisocial behaviour and social competence. Examples of research, including longitudinal research in our laboratory, are provided to illustrate these relations. Because of its close relations to social and prosocial responding, an understanding of empathy-related responding contributes to efforts to promote children's moral development.

Developing Character and Values for Global Citizens: Analysis of pre-service science teachers' moral reasoning on socioscientific issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Hyunju; Chang, Hyunsook; Choi, Kyunghee; Kim, Sung-Won; Zeidler, Dana L.

2012-04-01

Character and values are the essential driving forces that serve as general guides or points of reference for individuals to support decision-making and to act responsibly about global socioscientific issues (SSIs). Based on this assumption, we investigated to what extent pre-service science teachers (PSTs) of South Korea possess character and values as global citizens; these values include ecological worldview, socioscientific accountability, and social and moral compassion. Eighteen PSTs participated in the SSI programs focusing on developing character and values through dialogical and reflective processes. SSIs were centered on the use of nuclear power generation, climate change, and embryonic stem cell research. The results indicated that PSTs showed three key elements of character and values, but failed to apply consistent moral principles on the issues and demonstrated limited global perspectives. While they tended to approach the issues with emotion and sympathy, they nonetheless failed to perceive themselves as major moral agents who are able to actively resolve large-scale societal issues. This study also suggests that the SSI programs can facilitate socioscientific reasoning to include abilities such as recognition of the complexity of SSIs, examine issues from multiple perspectives, and exhibit skepticism about information.

The Effect of Personal Orientations toward Intergroup Relations on Moral Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Passini, Stefano

2014-01-01

This article examined how the group membership of the person being judged influenced the level of moral reasoning. Nearly 200 ordinary Italians were given two measures of moral ingroup inclusiveness (the Bogardus social distance scale and a self-categorization measure) and the short form of Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT). The protagonists in…

In the Orchard: Farm Worker Children's Moral and Environmental Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Severson, Rachel L.; Kahn, Peter H., Jr.

2010-01-01

In this study, farm worker children (N = 40) in 2nd and 5th grade were interviewed about (a) their conceptions and judgments of pesticide exposure and (b) their reasoning about the moral standing of nature. First, results showed that all participants negatively judged pesticide exposure based on moral obligatory criteria. Yet, most children…

The Relationship between Human Values and Moral Reasoning as Components of Moral Behavior.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frost, Lynn Weaver; Michael, William B.; Guarino, Anthony J.

The relationship of scores on a measure of moral reasoning to the perceived relative importance of statements of value that M. Rokeach (1973) conceptualized as being instrumental (states of being) or terminal (end states of existence) was studied with 66 undergraduate students. The pattern of relationships between the scores and the relative…

Bayous and Jungle Rivers: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Children's Environmental Moral Reasoning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kahn, Peter H., Jr.

1997-01-01

Examines environmental moral reasoning and values in African American children and their parents in Houston and Brazilian children in a large city and in a river village along the Amazon. Finds similarities of moral concerns and obligations to the environment in all three communities, structured by concerns for human welfare, fairness, and rights.…

Moral Reasoning and Student Perceptions of the Middle East: Observations on Student Learning from an Internet Dialog

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stover, William J.

2006-01-01

This article explores the relationship between the religious based moral reasoning of Judaism and Islam and college student subjects' attitudes toward political entities involved in Middle East conflict, Israel and Arab states. Subjects learn about the moral positions by observing parts of an interactive, Internet dialog among Christian, Jewish,…

Children's Moral and Ecological Reasoning about the Prince William Sound Oil Spill.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kahn, Peter H., Jr.

1997-01-01

Examined the moral and ecological reasoning of second, fifth, and eighth graders regarding the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Found that children understood negative effects of the spill, cared that harm occurred to shoreline and marine life, and thought it violated a moral obligation. Fifth and eighth graders used a greater proportion of anthropocentric…

An investigation of care-based vs. rule-based morality in frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and healthy controls.

PubMed

Carr, Andrew R; Paholpak, Pongsatorn; Daianu, Madelaine; Fong, Sylvia S; Mather, Michelle; Jimenez, Elvira E; Thompson, Paul; Mendez, Mario F

2015-11-01

Behavioral changes in dementia, especially behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), may result in alterations in moral reasoning. Investigators have not clarified whether these alterations reflect differential impairment of care-based vs. rule-based moral behavior. This study investigated 18 bvFTD patients, 22 early onset Alzheimer's disease (eAD) patients, and 20 healthy age-matched controls on care-based and rule-based items from the Moral Behavioral Inventory and the Social Norms Questionnaire, neuropsychological measures, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) regions of interest. There were significant group differences with the bvFTD patients rating care-based morality transgressions less severely than the eAD group and rule-based moral behavioral transgressions more severely than controls. Across groups, higher care-based morality ratings correlated with phonemic fluency on neuropsychological tests, whereas higher rule-based morality ratings correlated with increased difficulty set-shifting and learning new rules to tasks. On neuroimaging, severe care-based reasoning correlated with cortical volume in right anterior temporal lobe, and rule-based reasoning correlated with decreased cortical volume in the right orbitofrontal cortex. Together, these findings suggest that frontotemporal disease decreases care-based morality and facilitates rule-based morality possibly from disturbed contextual abstraction and set-shifting. Future research can examine whether frontal lobe disorders and bvFTD result in a shift from empathic morality to the strong adherence to conventional rules. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

An Investigation of Care-Based vs. Rule-Based Morality in Frontotemporal Dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Healthy Controls

PubMed Central

Carr, Andrew R.; Paholpak, Pongsatorn; Daianu, Madelaine; Fong, Sylvia S.; Mather, Michelle; Jimenez, Elvira E.; Thompson, Paul; Mendez, Mario F.

2015-01-01

Behavioral changes in dementia, especially behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), may result in alterations in moral reasoning. Investigators have not clarified whether these alterations reflect differential impairment of care-based vs. rule-based moral behavior. This study investigated 18 bvFTD patients, 22 early onset Alzheimer’s disease (eAD) patients, and 20 healthy age-matched controls on care-based and rule-based items from the Moral Behavioral Inventory and the Social Norms Questionnaire, neuropsychological measures, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) regions of interest. There were significant group differences with the bvFTD patients rating care-based morality transgressions less severely than the eAD group and rule-based moral behavioral transgressions more severely than controls. Across groups, higher care-based morality ratings correlated with phonemic fluency on neuropsychological tests, whereas higher rule-based morality ratings correlated with increased difficulty set-shifting and learning new rules to tasks. On neuroimaging, severe care-based reasoning correlated with cortical volume in right anterior temporal lobe, and rule-based reasoning correlated with decreased cortical volume in the right orbitofrontal cortex. Together, these findings suggest that frontotemporal disease decreases care-based morality and facilitates rule-based morality possibly from disturbed contextual abstraction and set-shifting. Future research can examine whether frontal lobe disorders and bvFTD result in a shift from empathic morality to the strong adherence to conventional rules. PMID:26432341

Children’s early helping in action: Piagetian developmental theory and early prosocial behavior

PubMed Central

Hammond, Stuart I.

2014-01-01

After a brief overview of recent research on early helping, outlining some central problems, and issues, this paper examines children’s early helping through the lens of Piagetian moral and developmental theory, drawing on Piaget’s “Moral Judgment of the Child” (Piaget, 1932/1997), “Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood” (Piaget, 1945/1951), and the “Grasp of Consciousness” (Piaget, 1976). Piaget refers to a level of moral development in action that precedes heteronomous and autonomous moral reasoning. This action level allows children to begin to interact with people and objects. In his later work, Piaget explores the gradual construction of understanding from this activity level. Taken together, these elements of Piagetian theory provide a promising conceptual framework for understanding the development of early helping. PMID:25101027

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.

The Relationship between Intuitive Action Choices and Moral Reasoning on Animal Ethics Issues in Students of Veterinary Medicine and Other Relevant Professions.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Phillips, Clive J C

2018-01-01

With growing understanding of animals' capabilities, and public and organizational pressures to improve animal welfare, moral action by veterinarians and other relevant professionals to address animal issues is increasingly important. Little is known about how their action choices relate to their moral reasoning on animal ethics issues. A moral judgment measure, the VetDIT, with three animal and three non-animal scenarios, was used to investigate the action choices of 619 students in five animal- and two non-animal-related professional programs in one Australian university, and how these related to their moral reasoning based on Personal Interest (PI), Maintaining Norms (MN), or Universal Principles (UP) schemas. Action choices showed significant relationships to PI, MN, and UP questions, and these varied across program groups. Having a previous degree or more experience with farm animals had a negative relationship, and experience with horses or companion animals a positive relationship, with intuitive action choices favoring life and bodily integrity of animals. This study helps to explain the complex relationship between intuitive moral action choices and moral reasoning on animal ethics issues. As a useful research and educational tool for understanding this relationship, the VetDIT can enhance ethical decision making.

Detaching reasons from aims: fair play and well-being in soccer as a function of pursuing performance-approach goals for autonomous or controlling reasons.

PubMed

Vansteenkiste, Maarten; Mouratidis, Athanasios; Lens, Willy

2010-04-01

In two cross-sectional studies we investigated whether soccer players' well-being (Study 1) and moral functioning (Studies 1 and 2) is related to performance-approach goals and to the autonomous and controlling reasons underlying their pursuit. In support of our hypotheses, we found in Study 1 that autonomous reasons were positively associated with vitality and positive affect, whereas controlling reasons were positively related to negative affect and mostly unrelated to indicators of morality. To investigate the lack of systematic association with moral outcomes, we explored in Study 2 whether performance-approach goals or their underlying reasons would yield an indirect relation to moral outcomes through their association with players' objectifying attitude-their tendency to depersonalize their opponents. Structural equation modeling showed that controlling reasons for performance-approach goals were positively associated with an objectifying attitude, which in turn was positively associated to unfair functioning. Results are discussed within the achievement goal perspective (Elliot, 2005) and self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000).

Social justifications for moral emotions: when reasons for disgust are less elaborated than for anger.

PubMed

Russell, Pascale Sophie; Giner-Sorolla, Roger

2011-06-01

In the present research, we tested the unreasoning disgust hypothesis: moral disgust, in particular in response to a violation of a bodily norm, is less likely than moral anger to be justified with cognitively elaborated reasons. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to explain why they felt anger and disgust toward pedophiles. Participants were more likely to invoke elaborated reasons, versus merely evaluative responses, when explaining their anger, versus disgust. Experiment 2 used a between-participants design; participants explained why they felt either anger or disgust toward seven groups that either violated a sexual or nonsexual norm. Again, elaborated reasons were less prevalent when explaining their disgust versus anger and, in particular, when explaining disgust toward a group that violated a sexual norm. Experiment 3 further established that these findings are due to a lower accessibility of elaborated reasons for bodily disgust, rather than inhibition in using them when provided. From these findings, it can be concluded that communicating external reasons for moral disgust at bodily violations is made more difficult due to the unavailability of those reasons to people.

Exploring the psychological underpinnings of the moral mandate effect: motivated reasoning, group differentiation, or anger?

PubMed

Mullen, Elizabeth; Skitka, Linda J

2006-04-01

When people have strong moral convictions about outcomes, their judgments of both outcome and procedural fairness become driven more by whether outcomes support or oppose their moral mandates than by whether procedures are proper or improper (the moral mandate effect). Two studies tested 3 explanations for the moral mandate effect. In particular, people with moral mandates may (a) have a greater motivation to seek out procedural flaws when outcomes fail to support their moral point of view (the motivated reasoning hypothesis), (b) be influenced by in-group distributive biases as a result of identifying with parties that share rather than oppose their moral point of view (the group differentiation hypothesis), or (c) react with anger when outcomes are inconsistent with their moral point of view, which, in turn, colors perceptions of both outcomes and procedures (the anger hypothesis). Results support the anger hypothesis.

Theory skepticism and moral dilemmas.

PubMed

Seay, Gary

2002-09-01

Moral-theory skepticism is not an option in any sort of thinking that could actually be used in resolving dilemmas in applied ethics, since its characteristic doctrines entail positions that in practice often will lead to a kind of paralysis in in moral reasoning, where persons faced with having to decide what to do in particularly difficulty cases are unable to rule out the most implausible conclusions. Moral-theory skepticism thus makes it difficult to formulate decision-making procedures that will provide guidance in action, and, so, seems not to succeed as a fully coherent account of moral reasoning.

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 Construction of Moral Rationality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moshman, D.

1995-01-01

Offers a theoretical account of moral rationality within a rational constructivist paradigm examining the nature and relationship of rationality and reasoning. Suggests progressive changes through developmental levels of moral rationality. Proposes a developmental moral epistemology that accommodates moral pluralism to a greater degree than does…

Moral reasoning among professional caregivers in nursing homes.

PubMed

Mattiasson, A C; Andersson, L

1995-06-01

This article examines the responses from a sample of Swedish nursing home staff workers to a hypothetical ethical conflict highlighting the issue of restraint. The responses were analyzed in two ways: first, Piaget's theory of moral development was used to differentiate between "autonomous" and "heteronomous" awareness, and second, the responses were analyzed from the perspective of ethical principles, that is, autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. The findings indicate that autonomous ethical awareness took precedence over heteronomous ethical awareness. The dominant moral values were the principle of beneficence, followed by the principle of autonomy.

Common law morality.

PubMed

Arras, John D

1990-01-01

Arras reviews A.R. Jonsen and S. Toulmin's The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (University of California Press; 1988). Jonsen and Toulmin, both of whom worked with the federal National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects, critique the role of ethical theory in practical deliberation and attack the belief that moral theories are "universal, mutually exclusive sources of...ethical truth." They argue that "all genuine ethics is already concrete and particular," and champion casuistical reasoning with its emphasis on particularity and practical judgment. Arras find The Abuse of Casuistry to be "a fascinating and thought-provoking study of moral methodology that will enrich our understanding of moral reasoning and quicken the ongoing debate over the appropriate role of ethical theory in bioethical analysis." He questions, however, the authors' faith in casuistry as the means to achieve social consensus on biomedical controversies.

Can cognitive psychological research on reasoning enhance the discussion around moral judgments?

PubMed

Bialek, Michal; Terbeck, Sylvia

2016-08-01

In this article we will demonstrate how cognitive psychological research on reasoning and decision making could enhance discussions and theories of moral judgments. In the first part, we will present recent dual-process models of moral judgments and describe selected studies which support these approaches. However, we will also present data that contradict the model predictions, suggesting that approaches to moral judgment might be more complex. In the second part, we will show how cognitive psychological research on reasoning might be helpful in understanding moral judgments. Specifically, we will highlight approaches addressing the interaction between intuition and reflection. Our data suggest that a sequential model of engaging in deliberation might have to be revised. Therefore, we will present an approach based on Signal Detection Theory and on intuitive conflict detection. We predict that individuals arrive at the moral decisions by comparing potential action outcomes (e.g., harm caused and utilitarian gain) simultaneously. The response criterion can be influenced by intuitive processes, such as heuristic moral value processing, or considerations of harm caused.

RPA Field Simulations:Dilemma Training for Legal and Ethical Decision Making

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-11-07

Simulation  Two phases in RPA Field Simulation – classroom phase and field phase  Purpose: link theoretical understanding/ moral reasoning with...rapid, informed decision-making/ moral behavior IRREGULAR WARFARE  U.S. dominates conventional warfare, but irregular warfare falls under Things...aspects: Mental simulation of action Modify Implement Will it work? MORAL REASONING/BEHAVIOR Military-Leader Responsibility requires

The neural basis of implicit moral attitude--an IAT study using event-related fMRI.

PubMed

Luo, Qian; Nakic, Marina; Wheatley, Thalia; Richell, Rebecca; Martin, Alex; Blair, R James R

2006-05-01

Recent models of morality have suggested the importance of affect-based automatic moral attitudes in moral reasoning. However, previous investigations of moral reasoning have frequently relied upon explicit measures that are susceptible to voluntary control. To investigate participant's automatic moral attitudes, we used a morality Implicit Association Test (IAT). Participants rated the legality of visually depicted legal and illegal behaviors of two different intensity levels (e.g., high intensity illegal = interpersonal violence; low intensity illegal = vandalism) both when the target concept (e.g., illegal) was behaviorally paired with an associated attribute (e.g., bad; congruent condition) or an unassociated attribute (e.g., good; incongruent condition). Behaviorally, an IAT effect was shown; RTs were faster in the congruent rather than incongruent conditions. At the neural level, implicit moral attitude, as indexed by increased BOLD response as a function of stimulus intensity, was associated with increased activation in the right amygdala and the ventromedial orbitofrontal cortex. In addition, performance on incongruent trials relative to congruent trials was associated with increased activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 47), left subgenual cingulate gyrus (BA 25), bilateral premotor cortex (BA 6) and the left caudate. The functional contributions of these regions in moral reasoning are discussed.

Moral dilemmas in females: children are more utilitarian than adults

PubMed Central

Bucciarelli, Monica

2015-01-01

Influential theories on moral judgments propose that they rely either on emotions or on innate moral principles. In contrast, the mental model theory postulates that moral judgments rely on reasoning, either intuition or deliberation. The theory allows for the possibility that intuitions lead to utilitarian judgments. This paper reports two experiments involving fifth-grade children, adolescents, and adults; the results revealed that children reason intuitively to resolve moral dilemmas in which action and inaction lead to different outcomes. In particular, the results showed female children to be more utilitarian than female adults in resolving classical moral dilemmas: they preferred an action that achieved a good outcome for a greater number of people. Within the mental model theory's framework there is no reason to expect that females and males differ in their ability to reason, but at the moment the results for females cannot be generalized to males who were not properly represented in the adults groups of the two experiments. The result revealing that (female) children are more utilitarian than (female) adults, which is hard to explain via many current theories, was predicted by the mental model theory. PMID:26441722

Eager feelings and vigilant reasons: Regulatory focus differences in judging moral wrongs

PubMed Central

Cornwell, James F. M.; Higgins, E. Tory

2015-01-01

For over a decade, moral psychologists have been actively researching the processes underlying moral judgments that are made intuitively without reference to an action’s concrete harms or injustice, such as the well-known case of non-procreative, consensual incest. We suggest that the reason some judge this scenario as wrong (using intuitive feelings) and others do not (using deliberative reasons) is due to an important motivational distinction. Consistent with this view, across seven studies, we demonstrate that negative judgments of such intuitive moral scenarios are more intense when processed in the promotion focus compared to the prevention focus, and that this is due to differences in whether eager (intuitive) versus vigilant (deliberative) means are employed in judging these moral wrongs. By examining various boundary conditions for this phenomenon and foundations for these judgments, we learn about the overall differences between promotion and prevention regarding how proscriptive judgments are processed, and begin to integrate these differences with existing theories in moral psychology. PMID:26726912

Developing Moral Maturity: An Evaluation of the Media Ethics Course Using the DIT-2

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Auger, Giselle A.; Gee, Charlie

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to add to the limited body of knowledge on the effect of the media ethics course, specifically to investigate the effect of the course on the growth in moral judgment reasoning of students through a quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test analysis using the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2). Results demonstrated…

Universality and Cultural Diversity in Professional Ethical Development: From Kohlberg to Dynamic Systems Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Minkang

2012-01-01

Upholding ethical standards is part of what it means to be a professional and therefore part of professional education, but to what extent is the development of ethical reasoning universal across cultures, or is it highly dependent on culture? If universal, how can we explain the unique patterns of moral reasoning and behaviour in Asia, which…

Abnormal Moral Reasoning in Complete and Partial Callosotomy Patients

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Michael B.; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Young, Liane; King, Danielle; Paggi, Aldo; Fabri, Mara; Polonara, Gabriele; Gazzaniga, Michael S.

2010-01-01

Recent neuroimaging studies suggest lateralized cerebral mechanisms in the right temporal parietal junction are involved in complex social and moral reasoning, such as ascribing beliefs to others. Based on this evidence, we tested 3 anterior-resected and 3 complete callosotomy patients along with 22 normal subjects on a reasoning task that…

Reasons of the heart: emotion, rationality, and the "wisdom of repugnance".

PubMed

Kaebnick, Gregory E

2008-01-01

Much work in bioethics tries to sidestep bedrock questions about moral values. This is fine if we agree on our values; arguments about human enhancement suggest we do not. One bedrock question underlying these arguments concerns the role of emotion in morality: worries about enhancement are derided as emotional and thus irrational. In fact, both emotion and reason are integral to all moral judgment.

Ethics Education Seen through the Lens of Habermas's Conception of Practical Reason: The Quebec Education Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bouchard, Nancy; Morris, Ronald W.

2012-01-01

This paper examines the Quebec Education Program (QEP), particularly the new course in ethics and religious culture (ERC), in the light of Habermas's conception of the moral and ethical uses of practical reason. Habermas's discursive theory of morality is used to assess the program's understanding of what it means to be competent in moral matters.…

Moral Reasoning in Violent Contexts: Displaced and Non-Displaced Colombian Children's Evaluations of Moral Transgressions, Retaliation, and Reconciliation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ardila-Rey, Alicia; Killen, Melanie; Brenick, Alaina

2009-01-01

In order to assess the effects of displacement and exposure to violence on children's moral reasoning, Colombian children exposed to minimal violence (non-displaced or low risk; N = 99) and to extreme violence (displaced or high risk; N = 94), evenly divided by gender at 6, 9, and 12 years of age, were interviewed regarding their evaluation of…

The Role of Moral Disengagement in the Associations between Children's Social Goals and Aggression

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Visconti, Kari Jeanne; Ladd, Gary W.; Kochenderfer-Ladd, Becky

2015-01-01

The construct of moral disengagement has increasingly been used by researchers to account for the asymmetry between children's moral reasoning and their moral behavior. According to this theory, moral disengagement occurs most aptly when children are motivated to violate their moral beliefs, such as when they hold antisocial goals during social…

Relationships among Moral and Contesting Variables and Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior in Sport

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

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

2018-01-01

The current study of US intercollegiate athletes (n = 1066) involved in multiple sports investigated relationships among moral (moral reasoning maturity, moral value evaluation [MVE], and moral identity), contesting (partnership and war orientations) and behavioral (prosocial and antisocial) variables in sport. Among other relationships, results…

"Living Drawing": Aesthetic Teaching for Moral Artists

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Jiwon

2016-01-01

With its inherent attributes such as qualitative immediacy, imaginativeness, and embodiment, John Dewey's concept of aesthetic experience makes a difference in moral education, in the ways of empathetic moral perception, moral reasoning, and moral action. If it matters then how can we help students gain aesthetic experience? By analyzing teacher…

The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment.

PubMed

Greene, Joshua D; Nystrom, Leigh E; Engell, Andrew D; Darley, John M; Cohen, Jonathan D

2004-10-14

Traditional theories of moral psychology emphasize reasoning and "higher cognition," while more recent work emphasizes the role of emotion. The present fMRI data support a theory of moral judgment according to which both "cognitive" and emotional processes play crucial and sometimes mutually competitive roles. The present results indicate that brain regions associated with abstract reasoning and cognitive control (including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex) are recruited to resolve difficult personal moral dilemmas in which utilitarian values require "personal" moral violations, violations that have previously been associated with increased activity in emotion-related brain regions. Several regions of frontal and parietal cortex predict intertrial differences in moral judgment behavior, exhibiting greater activity for utilitarian judgments. We speculate that the controversy surrounding utilitarian moral philosophy reflects an underlying tension between competing subsystems in the brain.

Linking biomedical engineering ethics case study approach and policy.

PubMed

Dibrell, William; Dobie, Elizabeth Ann

2007-01-01

In this paper we link bioengineering case study methods to the development of policy. The case study approach to ethics is an excellent way to show the complex nature of practical/moral reasoning. This approach can, however, lead to a kind of overwhelming complexity. The individual nature of each case makes it difficult to identify the most important information and difficult to see what moral considerations are most relevant. In order to make the overwhelming complexity less debilitating, we present a framework for moral decision making derived from suggestions made by W.D. Ross and Virginia Held. Ross articulates the multiple sources of morality and Held deepens the discussion by reminding us of the foundational importance of care and sympathy to our moral natures. We show how to use the notion of prima facie duty and discuss moral conflict. In doing this, we show how the framework, applied to cases, can be of assistance in helping us develop policies and codes of ethics with sufficient plasticity to be useful in the complex world of the bioengineer.

Contextual and perceptual brain processes underlying moral cognition: a quantitative meta-analysis of moral reasoning and moral emotions.

PubMed

Sevinc, Gunes; Spreng, R Nathan

2014-01-01

Human morality has been investigated using a variety of tasks ranging from judgments of hypothetical dilemmas to viewing morally salient stimuli. These experiments have provided insight into neural correlates of moral judgments and emotions, yet these approaches reveal important differences in moral cognition. Moral reasoning tasks require active deliberation while moral emotion tasks involve the perception of stimuli with moral implications. We examined convergent and divergent brain activity associated with these experimental paradigms taking a quantitative meta-analytic approach. A systematic search of the literature yielded 40 studies. Studies involving explicit decisions in a moral situation were categorized as active (n = 22); studies evoking moral emotions were categorized as passive (n = 18). We conducted a coordinate-based meta-analysis using the Activation Likelihood Estimation to determine reliable patterns of brain activity. Results revealed a convergent pattern of reliable brain activity for both task categories in regions of the default network, consistent with the social and contextual information processes supported by this brain network. Active tasks revealed more reliable activity in the temporoparietal junction, angular gyrus and temporal pole. Active tasks demand deliberative reasoning and may disproportionately involve the retrieval of social knowledge from memory, mental state attribution, and construction of the context through associative processes. In contrast, passive tasks reliably engaged regions associated with visual and emotional information processing, including lingual gyrus and the amygdala. A laterality effect was observed in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, with active tasks engaging the left, and passive tasks engaging the right. While overlapping activity patterns suggest a shared neural network for both tasks, differential activity suggests that processing of moral input is affected by task demands. The results provide novel insight into distinct features of moral cognition, including the generation of moral context through associative processes and the perceptual detection of moral salience.

Contextual and Perceptual Brain Processes Underlying Moral Cognition: A Quantitative Meta-Analysis of Moral Reasoning and Moral Emotions

PubMed Central

Sevinc, Gunes; Spreng, R. Nathan

2014-01-01

Background and Objectives Human morality has been investigated using a variety of tasks ranging from judgments of hypothetical dilemmas to viewing morally salient stimuli. These experiments have provided insight into neural correlates of moral judgments and emotions, yet these approaches reveal important differences in moral cognition. Moral reasoning tasks require active deliberation while moral emotion tasks involve the perception of stimuli with moral implications. We examined convergent and divergent brain activity associated with these experimental paradigms taking a quantitative meta-analytic approach. Data Source A systematic search of the literature yielded 40 studies. Studies involving explicit decisions in a moral situation were categorized as active (n = 22); studies evoking moral emotions were categorized as passive (n = 18). We conducted a coordinate-based meta-analysis using the Activation Likelihood Estimation to determine reliable patterns of brain activity. Results & Conclusions Results revealed a convergent pattern of reliable brain activity for both task categories in regions of the default network, consistent with the social and contextual information processes supported by this brain network. Active tasks revealed more reliable activity in the temporoparietal junction, angular gyrus and temporal pole. Active tasks demand deliberative reasoning and may disproportionately involve the retrieval of social knowledge from memory, mental state attribution, and construction of the context through associative processes. In contrast, passive tasks reliably engaged regions associated with visual and emotional information processing, including lingual gyrus and the amygdala. A laterality effect was observed in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, with active tasks engaging the left, and passive tasks engaging the right. While overlapping activity patterns suggest a shared neural network for both tasks, differential activity suggests that processing of moral input is affected by task demands. The results provide novel insight into distinct features of moral cognition, including the generation of moral context through associative processes and the perceptual detection of moral salience. PMID:24503959

Warrior Ethos Revisited: Implications for the Future

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-03-15

ambiguous circumstances which will require a high degree of moral judgment in the reasoned application of force. Adapting Army culture to meet these...relationships and places high priority on the development of moral character. The Army Capstone Concept 2016-2028 argues that while the character of war...assessment of the situation”.5 As the Army through its Capstone Concept seeks to define required future capabilities, what cultural changes if any

Cognition and norms: toward a developmental account of moral agency in social dilemmas.

PubMed

Meyer, Leandro F F; Braga, Marcelo J

2014-01-01

Most recent developments in the study of social dilemmas give an increasing amount of attention to cognition, belief systems, valuations, and language. However, developments in this field operate almost entirely under epistemological assumptions which only recognize the instrumental form of rationality and deny that "value judgments" or "moral questions" have cognitive content. This standpoint erodes the moral aspect of the choice situation and obstructs acknowledgment of the links connecting cognition, inner growth, and moral reasoning, and the significance of such links in reaching cooperative solutions to many social dilemmas. Concurrently, this standpoint places the role of communication and mutual understanding in promoting cooperation in morally relevant conflicts of action in a rather mysterious situation. This paper draws on Habermas's critique of instrumental action, and on the most recent developments in institutional and behavioral economics with a view to enhancing our knowledge of the interventions used to cope with social dilemmas. We conclude the paper with a brief presentation of a research strategy for examining the capacity of alternative developmental models to predict dissimilar choices under similar incentive conditions in social dilemmas.

Cognition and norms: toward a developmental account of moral agency in social dilemmas

PubMed Central

Meyer, Leandro F. F.; Braga, Marcelo J.

2015-01-01

Most recent developments in the study of social dilemmas give an increasing amount of attention to cognition, belief systems, valuations, and language. However, developments in this field operate almost entirely under epistemological assumptions which only recognize the instrumental form of rationality and deny that “value judgments” or “moral questions” have cognitive content. This standpoint erodes the moral aspect of the choice situation and obstructs acknowledgment of the links connecting cognition, inner growth, and moral reasoning, and the significance of such links in reaching cooperative solutions to many social dilemmas. Concurrently, this standpoint places the role of communication and mutual understanding in promoting cooperation in morally relevant conflicts of action in a rather mysterious situation. This paper draws on Habermas’s critique of instrumental action, and on the most recent developments in institutional and behavioral economics with a view to enhancing our knowledge of the interventions used to cope with social dilemmas. We conclude the paper with a brief presentation of a research strategy for examining the capacity of alternative developmental models to predict dissimilar choices under similar incentive conditions in social dilemmas. PMID:25610414

TMS affects moral judgment, showing the role of DLPFC and TPJ in cognitive and emotional processing.

PubMed

Jeurissen, Danique; Sack, Alexander T; Roebroeck, Alard; Russ, Brian E; Pascual-Leone, Alvaro

2014-01-01

Decision-making involves a complex interplay of emotional responses and reasoning processes. In this study, we use TMS to explore the neurobiological substrates of moral decisions in humans. To examining the effects of TMS on the outcome of a moral-decision, we compare the decision outcome of moral-personal and moral-impersonal dilemmas to each other and examine the differential effects of applying TMS over the right DLPFC or right TPJ. In this comparison, we find that the TMS-induced disruption of the DLPFC during the decision process, affects the outcome of the moral-personal judgment, while TMS-induced disruption of TPJ affects only moral-impersonal conditions. In other words, we find a double-dissociation between DLPFC and TPJ in the outcome of a moral decision. Furthermore, we find that TMS-induced disruption of the DLPFC during non-moral, moral-impersonal, and moral-personal decisions lead to lower ratings of regret about the decision. Our results are in line with the dual-process theory and suggest a role for both the emotional response and cognitive reasoning process in moral judgment. Both the emotional and cognitive processes were shown to be involved in the decision outcome.

Inhibition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kupperman, Joel J.

1978-01-01

Explores the use of the concept of inhibition in moral philosophy. Argues that there are strong practical reasons for basing moral teaching on simple moral rules and for inculcating inhibitions about breaking these rules. (Author)

Selective Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bandura, Albert

2002-01-01

Addresses the issue of selective moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. Argues that moral functioning is governed by self-reactive selfhood rather than by dispassionate abstract reasoning. Concludes that the massive threats to human welfare stem mainly from deliberate acts of principle rather than from unrestrained acts of impulse.…

The Effect of Teaching Medical Ethics on Medical Students' Moral Reasoning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Self, Donnie J; And Others

1989-01-01

A study of the effect of incorporating medical ethics into the medical curriculum and comparing two teaching methods (lecture and case studies) found higher moral reasoning after instruction, but neither method was significantly more effective. (Author/MSE)

To give or not to give: children's and adolescents' sharing and moral negotiations in economic decision situations.

PubMed

Gummerum, Michaela; Keller, Monika; Takezawa, Masanori; Mata, Jutta

2008-01-01

This study interconnects developmental psychology of fair and moral behavior with economic game theory. One hundred eighty-nine 9- to 17-year-old students shared a sum of money as individuals and groups with another anonymous group (dictator game). Individual allocations did not differ by age but did by gender and were predicted by participants' preferences for fair allocations. Group decision making followed a majority process. Level of moral reasoning did not predict individual offers, but group members with a higher moral reasoning ability were more influential during group negotiations and in influencing group outcomes. The youngest participants justified offers more frequently by referring to simple distribution principles. Older participants employed more complex reasons to justify deviations from allocation principles.

Imagination, distributed responsibility and vulnerable technological systems: the case of Snorre A.

PubMed

Coeckelbergh, Mark; Wackers, Ger

2007-06-01

An influential approach to engineering ethics is based on codes of ethics and the application of moral principles by individual practitioners. However, to better understand the ethical problems of complex technological systems and the moral reasoning involved in such contexts, we need other tools as well. In this article, we consider the role of imagination and develop a concept of distributed responsibility in order to capture a broader range of human abilities and dimensions of moral responsibility. We show that in the case of Snorre A, a near-disaster with an oil and gas production installation, imagination played a crucial and morally relevant role in how the crew coped with the crisis. For example, we discuss the role of scenarios and images in the moral reasoning and discussion of the platform crew in coping with the crisis. Moreover, we argue that responsibility for increased system vulnerability, turning an undesired event into a near-disaster, should not be ascribed exclusively, for example to individual engineers alone, but should be understood as distributed between various actors, levels and times. We conclude that both managers and engineers need imagination to transcend their disciplinary perspectives in order to improve the robustness of their organisations and to be better prepared for crisis situations. We recommend that education and training programmes should be transformed accordingly.

Are Psychopaths Morally Sensitive?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maxwell, Bruce; Le Sage, Leonie

2009-01-01

Philosophical and psychological opinion is divided over whether moral sensitivity, understood as the ability to pick out a situation's morally salient features, necessarily involves emotional engagement. This paper seeks to offer insight into this question. It reasons that if moral sensitivity does draw significantly on affective capacities of…

Children's Moral Motivation, Sympathy, and Prosocial Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malti, Tina; Gummerum, Michaela; Keller, Monika; Buchmann, Marlis

2009-01-01

Two studies investigated the role of children's moral motivation and sympathy in prosocial behavior. Study 1 measured other-reported prosocial behavior and self- and other-reported sympathy. Moral motivation was assessed by emotion attributions and moral reasoning following hypothetical transgressions in a representative longitudinal sample of…

Moral reasoning about great apes in research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okamoto, Carol Midori

2006-04-01

This study explored how individuals (biomedical scientists, Great Ape Project activists, lay adults, undergraduate biology and environmental studies students, and Grade 12 and 9 biology students) morally judge and reason about using great apes in biomedical and language research. How these groups perceived great apes' mental capacities (e.g., pain, logical thinking) and how these perceptions related to their judgments were investigated through two scenarios. In addition, the kinds of informational statements (e.g., biology, economics) that may affect individuals' scenario judgments were investigated. A negative correlation was found between mental attributions and scenario judgments while no clear pattern occurred for the informational statements. For the biomedical scenario, all groups significantly differed in mean judgment ratings except for the biomedical scientists, GAP activists and Grade 9 students. For the language scenario, all groups differed except for the GAP activists, and undergraduate environmental studies and Grade 9 students. An in-depth qualitative analysis showed that although the biomedical scientists, GAP activists and Grade 9 students had similar judgments, they produced different mean percentages of justifications under four moral frameworks (virtue, utilitarianism, deontology, and welfare). The GAP activists used more virtue reasoning while the biomedical scientists and Grade 9 students used more utilitarian and welfare reasoning, respectively. The results are discussed in terms of developing environmental/humane education curricula.

Promoting Social Inclusion in the Early Years of Elementary School: A Focus on Children's Epistemic Beliefs for Moral Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scholes, Laura; Lunn Brownlee, Jo; Walker, Susan; Johansson, Eva; Lawson, Veronica; Mascadri, Julia

2017-01-01

As classrooms continue to diversify, there is an increasing need to understand children's inclusive behaviours and moral reasoning. Research shows that epistemic beliefs (beliefs about knowing and knowledge) can influence reasoning for adults, but we know little about this relationship in younger children or how classroom contexts relate to…

The Moral University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berube, Maurice R.; Berube, Clair T.

2010-01-01

The Moral University examines the ways that universities act morally toward students, faculty, their communities and the nation. It considers the effectiveness of moral reasoning courses in the curriculum and the growth of leadership courses. The book deals with the myriad ways in which universities act positively toward their communities. It also…

Adolescents' emotions and reasoning in contexts of moral conflict and social exclusion.

PubMed

Malti, Tina; Ongley, Sophia F; Dys, Sebastian P; Colasante, Tyler

2012-01-01

This article explores how adolescents feel and think about contexts of moral conflict and social exclusion. We asked twelve-year-old adolescents how they would feel about intentionally harming another peer, omitting a prosocial duty, and excluding another peer. We then asked them to explain the reasoning behind their feelings and report on levels of sympathy. In all contexts, adolescents anticipated a variety of negative emotions for reasons of fairness and empathy. However, more feelings of guilt were reported in contexts of intentional harm than in other contexts. Adolescents with high levels of sympathy reported more guilt, for reasons of fairness and empathy, than adolescents with low levels of sympathy. These findings provide a window into adolescents' emotions and reasoning regarding moral and social issues. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company.

Moral judgement by the disconnected left and right cerebral hemispheres: a split-brain investigation.

PubMed

Steckler, Conor M; Hamlin, J Kiley; Miller, Michael B; King, Danielle; Kingstone, Alan

2017-07-01

Owing to the hemispheric isolation resulting from a severed corpus callosum, research on split-brain patients can help elucidate the brain regions necessary and sufficient for moral judgement. Notably, typically developing adults heavily weight the intentions underlying others' moral actions, placing greater importance on valenced intentions versus outcomes when assigning praise and blame. Prioritization of intent in moral judgements may depend on neural activity in the right hemisphere's temporoparietal junction, an area implicated in reasoning about mental states. To date, split-brain research has found that the right hemisphere is necessary for intent-based moral judgement. When testing the left hemisphere using linguistically based moral vignettes, split-brain patients evaluate actions based on outcomes, not intentions. Because the right hemisphere has limited language ability relative to the left, and morality paradigms to date have involved significant linguistic demands, it is currently unknown whether the right hemisphere alone generates intent-based judgements. Here we use nonlinguistic morality plays with split-brain patient J.W. to examine the moral judgements of the disconnected right hemisphere, demonstrating a clear focus on intent. This finding indicates that the right hemisphere is not only necessary but also sufficient for intent-based moral judgement, advancing research into the neural systems supporting the moral sense.

Is Judgement of Biotechnological Ethical Aspects Related to High School Students' Knowledge?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Črne-Hladnik, Helena; Hladnik, Aleš; Javornik, Branka; Košmelj, Katarina; Peklaj, Cirila

2012-05-01

Quantitative and qualitative studies of various aspects of the perception of biotechnology were conducted among 469 Slovenian high school students of average age 17 years. Our research aimed to explore relationships among students' pre-knowledge of molecular and human genetics, and their attitudes to four specific biotechnological applications. These applications-Bt corn, genetically modified (GM) salmon, somatic and germ line gene therapy (GT)-were investigated from the viewpoints of usefulness, moral acceptance and risk perception. In addition, patterns and quality of moral reasoning related to the biotechnological applications from the aspect of moral acceptability were examined. Clear gender differences were found regarding the relationship between our students' pre-knowledge of genetics and their attitudes to biotechnological applications. While females with a better genetics background expressed a higher risk perception in the case of GM salmon, their similarly well-educated male colleagues emphasized the risk associated with the use of germ line GT. With all four biotechnological applications, patterns of both rationalistic-deontological and teleological-and intuitive moral reasoning were identified. Students with poorer genetics pre-knowledge applied an intuitive pattern of moral reasoning more frequently than their peers with better pre-knowledge. A pattern of emotive reasoning was detected only in the case of GM salmon. A relatively low quality of students' moral reasoning, as demonstrated by their brief and small number of supporting justifications (explanations), show that there is a strong need for practising skills of argumentation about socio-scientific issues in Slovenian high schools on a much larger scale. The implications for future research and classroom applications are discussed.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Shifts Preference of Moral Judgments

PubMed Central

Kuehne, Maria; Heimrath, Kai; Heinze, Hans-Jochen; Zaehle, Tino

2015-01-01

Attitude to morality, reflecting cultural norms and values, is considered unique to human social behavior. Resulting moral behavior in a social environment is controlled by a widespread neural network including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which plays an important role in decision making. In the present study we investigate the influence of neurophysiological modulation of DLPFC reactivity by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on moral reasoning. For that purpose we administered anodal, cathodal, and sham stimulation of the left DLPFC while subjects judged the appropriateness of hard moral personal dilemmas. In contrast to sham and cathodal stimulation, anodal stimulation induced a shift in judgment of personal moral dilemmas towards more non-utilitarian actions. Our results demonstrate that alterations of left DLPFC activity can change moral judgments and, in consequence, provide a causal link between left DLPFC activity and moral reasoning. Most important, the observed shift towards non-utilitarian actions suggests that moral decision making is not a permanent individual trait but can be manipulated; consequently individuals with boundless, uncontrollable, and maladaptive moral behavior, such as found in psychopathy, might benefit from neuromodulation-based approaches. PMID:25985442

Working toward Transformational Leadership in Higher Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, Kathleen E.

1996-01-01

Argues that, before colleges and universities can develop leaders, they must develop a coherent vision of what leadership is. Uses a historian's concept of transformational leadership to explore the various dimensions of leadership, such as its moral dimension. Outlines reasons for instituting and transforming leadership development programs. (RJM)

Styles of Parent-Child Interaction and Moral Reasoning in Adolescence.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyes, Michael C.; Allen, Sandra G.

1993-01-01

Examined whether adolescents of authoritative parents exhibit a greater preference for postconventional moral reasoning than do adolescents of permissive or authoritarian parents. Subjects (75 high school and 67 undergraduate students) completed Rest's Defining Issues Test and Schaefer's Child Report of Parental Behavior Inventory. Results…

A Moral (Normative) Framework for the Judgment of Actions and Decisions in the Construction Industry and Engineering: Part II.

PubMed

Alkhatib, Omar J

2017-12-01

The construction industry is typically characterized as a fragmented, multi-organizational setting in which members from different technical backgrounds and moral values join together to develop a particular business or project. The most challenging obstacle in the construction process is to achieve a successful practice and to identify and apply an ethical framework to manage the behavior of involved specialists and contractors and to ensure the quality of all completed construction activities. The framework should reflect a common moral ground for myriad people involved in this process to survive and compete ethically in today's turbulent construction market. This study establishes a framework for moral judgment of behavior and actions conducted in the construction process. The moral framework provides the basis of judging actions as "moral" or "immoral" based on three levels of moral accountability: personal, professional, and social. The social aspect of the proposed framework is developed primarily from the essential attributes of normative business decision-making models identified in the literature review and subsequently incorporates additional attributes related to professional and personal moral values. The normative decision-making models reviewed are based primarily on social attributes as related to moral theories (e.g., utilitarianism, duty, rights, virtue, etc.). The professional and moral attributes are established by identifying a set of common moral values recognized by professionals in the construction industry and required to prevent common construction breaches. The moral framework presented here is the complementary part of the ethical framework developed in Part I of this article and is based primarily on the personal behavior or the moral aspect of professional responsibility. The framework can be implemented as a form of preventive personal ethics, which would help avoid ethical dilemmas and moral implications in the first place. Furthermore, the moral framework can be considered as a decision-making model to guide actions and improve the moral reasoning process, which would help individuals think through possible implications and the consequences of ethical and moral issues in the construction industry.

Bioethics education in clinical settings: theory and practice of the dilemma method of moral case deliberation.

PubMed

Stolper, Margreet; Molewijk, Bert; Widdershoven, Guy

2016-07-22

Moral Case Deliberation is a specific form of bioethics education fostering professionals' moral competence in order to deal with their moral questions. So far, few studies focus in detail on Moral Case Deliberation methodologies and their didactic principles. The dilemma method is a structured and frequently used method in Moral Case Deliberation that stimulates methodological reflection and reasoning through a systematic dialogue on an ethical issue experienced in practice. In this paper we present a case-study of a Moral Case Deliberation with the dilemma method in a health care institution for people with an intellectual disability, describing the theoretical background and the practical application of the dilemma method. The dilemma method focuses on moral experiences of participants concerning a concrete dilemma in practice. By an in-depth description of each of the steps of the deliberation process, we elucidate the educational value and didactics of this specific method. The didactics and methodical steps of the dilemma method both supported and structured the dialogical reflection process of the participants. The process shows that the participants learned to recognize the moral dimension of the issue at stake and were able to distinguish various perspectives and reasons in a systematic manner. The facilitator played an important role in the learning process of the participants, by assisting them in focusing on and exploring moral aspects of the case. The reflection and learning process, experienced by the participants, shows competency-based characteristics. The role of the facilitator is that of a Socratic teacher with specific knowledge and skills, fostering reflection, inquiry and dialogue. The specific didactics of the dilemma method is well suited for teaching bioethics in clinical settings. The dilemma method follows an inductive learning approach through a dialogical moral inquiry in which participants develop not only knowledge but also skills, attitude and character. The role of a trained facilitator and a specific view on teaching and practicing ethics are essential when using the dilemma method in teaching health care professionals how to reflect on their own moral issues in practice.

Young Humeans: the role of emotions in children's evaluation of moral reasoning abilities.

PubMed

Danovitch, Judith H; Keil, Frank C

2008-01-01

Three experiments investigated whether children in grades K, 2, and 4 (n = 144) view emotional comprehension as important in solving moral dilemmas. The experiments asked whether a human or an artificially intelligent machine would be best at solving different types of problems, ranging from moral and emotional to nonmoral and pragmatic. In Experiment 1, children in all age groups indicated that a human would be superior to a computer not only at comprehending emotions, but also at solving moral dilemmas. In Experiment 2, older children also indicated that a human could solve moral dilemmas better than a 'robot' with human-like perceptual and physical abilities. Experiment 3 further demonstrated that these effects were not solely due to a bias towards humans. Thus, children as young as age 5 view emotional understanding as an important element for moral, but not for nonmoral, reasoning, suggesting that the basis for Humean intuitions emerges early in life.

Nihilism, relativism, and Engelhardt.

PubMed

Wreen, M

1998-01-01

This paper is a critical analysis of Tristram Engelhardt's attempts to avoid unrestricted nihilism and relativism. The focus of attention is his recent book, The Foundations of Bioethics (Oxford University Press, 1996). No substantive or "content-full" bioethics (e.g., that of Roman Catholicism or the Samurai) has an intersubjectively verifiable and universally binding foundation, Engelhardt thinks, for unaided secular reason cannot show that any particular substantive morality (or moral code) is correct. He thus seems to be committed to either nihilism or relativism. The first is the view that there is not even one true or valid moral code, and the second is the view that there is a plurality of true or valid moral codes. However, Engelhardt rejects both nihilism and relativism, at least in unrestricted form. Strictly speaking, he himself is a universalist, someone who believes that there is a single true moral code. Two argumentative strategies are employed by him to fend off unconstrained nihilism and relativism. The first argues that although all attempts to establish a content-full morality on the basis of secular reason fail, secular reason can still establish a content-less, purely procedural morality. Although not content-full and incapable of providing positive direction in life, much less a meaning of life, such a morality does limit the range of relativism and nihilism. The second argues that there is a single true, content-full morality. Grace and revelation, however, are needed to make it available to us; secular reason alone is not up to the task. This second line of argument is not pursued in The Foundations at any length, but it does crop up at times, and if it is sound, nihilism and relativism can be much more thoroughly routed than the first line of argument has it. Engelhardt's position and argumentative strategies are exposed at length and accorded a detailed critical examination. In the end, it is concluded that neither strategy will do, and that Engelhardt is probably committed to some form of relativism.

Cognitive Underpinnings of Moral Reasoning in Adolescence: The Contribution of Executive Functions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vera-Estay, E.; Dooley, J. J.; Beauchamp, M. H.

2015-01-01

Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by intense changes, which impact the interaction between individuals and their environments. Moral reasoning (MR) is an important skill during adolescence because it guides social decisions between right and wrong. Identifying the cognitive underpinnings of MR is essential to understanding the…

Children's Judgments of Parental Fairness: An Indian Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laddu, Nandini; Kapadia, Shagufa

2007-01-01

The study examined children's moral reasoning with specific reference to adult interventions, across age and gender. Seventy-two children from the age groups 6-8 years and 10-12 years respectively were presented with two hypothetical vignettes pertaining to Piaget's justice framework of moral reasoning. Chi-square analysis and descriptive analysis…

Changes in Young Adults After Peace Corps Experiences: Political-Social Views, Moral Reasoning, and Perceptions of Self and Parents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haan, Norma

1974-01-01

Evidence of various but unitary shifts to political liberalization, greater intraceptiveness and self-determination, greater detachment from parents, and increased incidence of principled moral reason suggests that Peace Corps volunteers had undergone substantial self-redefinition. (Author/RC)

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…

Promoting Teachers' Moral Reasoning and Collaborative Inquiry Performance: A Developmental Role-Taking and Guided Inquiry Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reiman, Alan J.; Peace, Sandra DeAngelis

2002-01-01

Discusses a study involving experienced teachers that illustrates a developmental methodology for promoting technical performance dimensions and moral and conceptual reasoning. Argues this learning-teaching framework (LTF) uses role taking, guided inquiry, balance, support and challenge, continuity and instructional coaching in educational…

Contractualist reasoning, HIV cure clinical trials, and the moral (ir)relevance of the risk/benefit ratio

PubMed Central

Kumar, Rahul

2017-01-01

Institutional review boards (IRB) normally require of a morally defensible clinical trial that any trial participant will benefit from the inquiry, or at least not be exposed to a significant risk of having their prospects worsened by participating. Stage 1 HIV cure trials tend not to meet this requirement. Does that show them to be morally indefensible? Utilitarian thinking about this question supports a negative answer. But one might reasonably expect a Kantian moral theory to support the conclusion that exposing trial participants to a significant risk of their prospects being worsened by their participation to be morally indefensible, on grounds that this would be a clear case of using a person as a mere means. In this paper, I argue, drawing on Kantian contractualist thinking, that requiring the risk/benefit ratio for participants be positive if a trial is to be morally defensible does not in fact gain any support from Kantian thinking about morality. PMID:27590492

The Moral Impotence of Contemporary Experts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Filion, Yves R.

2004-01-01

Technological growth in developed and developing countries in the 20th century has lent a great deal of importance to scientific reasoning in the management of human affairs. An important outgrowth has been the development of systems thinking to organize the workplace. The business reengineering process and the enterprise resource planning system…

Morality, Culture and the Dialogic Self: Taking Cultural Pluralism Seriously

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haste, Helen; Abrahams, Salie

2008-01-01

This paper explores moral reasoning within the framework of contemporary cultural theory, in which moral functioning is action mediated by tools (such as socially available discourses) within a social and cultural context. This cultural model of a "dialogic moral self" challenges many of the assumptions inherent in the individualistic Kantian…

From Prejudice to Reasonable Judgement: Integrating (Moral) Value Discussions in University Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aalberts, Joyce; Koster, Edwin; Boschhuizen, Robert

2012-01-01

The central question addressed in this article is how (moral) values discussions in university courses can be integrated in a systematic way. Discussion of (moral) values is fundamental to the Dublin descriptor about judgement formation in use in European universities. To integrate this descriptor and its (moral) values aspects in university…

Chinese Children's Justifications for Sharing Resources: Why Do We Have to Share?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Mun

2011-01-01

Gilligan argued that Kohlberg's justice-based stage theory of morality reflects only one type of morality and does not consider people's tendency to use care-based moral judgements. This study examines Chinese children's tendency to use justice-based and care-based justifications for moral reasoning. Children's attitudes to conforming to the…

Putting Emotion into the Self: A Response to the 2008 "Journal of Moral Education" Special Issue on Moral Functioning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kristjansson, Kristjan

2009-01-01

This paper takes as its starting point the Journal of Moral Education Special Issue (September, 2008, 37[3]) "Towards an integrated model of moral reasoning". Although explicitly post-Kohlbergian, the authors in this Special Issue do not, I argue, depart far enough from Kohlberg's impoverished notion of the role of the affective in moral life--or…

Infusing Personal Responsibility into the Curriculum and Cocurriculum: Campus Examples

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Neill, Nancy

2013-01-01

This chapter highlights good practices and lessons learned for infusing personal responsibility--striving for excellence, cultivating academic integrity, and developing competence in ethical and moral reasoning and action--as outcomes of college.

The value of metaphorical reasoning in bioethics: An empirical-ethical study.

PubMed

Olsman, Erik; Veneberg, Bert; van Alfen, Claudia; Touwen, Dorothea

2017-01-01

Metaphors are often used within the context of ethics and healthcare but have hardly been explored in relation to moral reasoning. To describe a central set of metaphors in one case and to explore their contribution to moral reasoning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 parents of a child suffering from the neurodegenerative disease CLN3. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and metaphors were analyzed. The researchers wrote memos and discussed about their analyses until they reached consensus. Ethical considerations: Participants gave oral and written consent and their confidentiality and anonymity were respected. A central set of metaphors referred to the semantic field of the hands and arms and consisted of two central metaphors that existed in a dialectical relationship: grasping versus letting go. Participants used these metaphors to describe their child's experiences, who had to "let go" of abilities, while "clinging" to structures and the relationship with their parent(s). They also used it to describe their own experiences: participants tried to "grab" the good moments with their child and had to "let go" of their child when (s)he approached death. Participants, in addition, "held" onto caring for their child while being confronted with the necessity to "let go" of this care, leaving it to professional caregivers. The ethical analysis of the findings shows that thinking in terms of the dialectical relationship between "grasping" and "letting go" helps professional caregivers to critically think about images of good care for children with CLN3. It also helps them to bear witness to the vulnerable, dependent, and embodied nature of the moral self of children with CLN3 and their parents. Metaphorical reasoning may support the inclusion of marginalized perspectives in moral reasoning. Future studies should further explore the contribution of metaphorical reasoning to moral reasoning in other cases.

Turkish Preservice Science Teachers' Informal Reasoning Regarding Socioscientific Issues and the Factors Influencing Their Informal Reasoning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Topçu, Mustafa Sami; Yılmaz-Tüzün, Özgül; Sadler, Troy D.

2011-06-01

The purpose of the study is to explore Turkish preservice science teachers' informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues and the factors influencing their informal reasoning. The researchers engaged 39 preservice science teachers in informal reasoning interview and moral decision-making interview protocols. Of the seven socioscientific issues, three issues were related to gene therapy, another three were related to human cloning, and one was related to global warming. The data were analyzed using an interpretive qualitative research approach. The characteristic of informal reasoning was determined as multidimensional, and the patterns of informal reasoning emerged as rationalistic, emotive, and intuitive reasoning. The factors influencing informal reasoning were: personal experiences, social considerations, moral-ethical considerations, and technological concerns.

The salience network causally influences default mode network activity during moral reasoning

PubMed Central

Wilson, Stephen M.; D’Esposito, Mark; Kayser, Andrew S.; Grossman, Scott N.; Poorzand, Pardis; Seeley, William W.; Miller, Bruce L.; Rankin, Katherine P.

2013-01-01

Large-scale brain networks are integral to the coordination of human behaviour, and their anatomy provides insights into the clinical presentation and progression of neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease, which targets the default mode network, and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, which targets a more anterior salience network. Although the default mode network is recruited when healthy subjects deliberate about ‘personal’ moral dilemmas, patients with Alzheimer’s disease give normal responses to these dilemmas whereas patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia give abnormal responses to these dilemmas. We hypothesized that this apparent discrepancy between activation- and patient-based studies of moral reasoning might reflect a modulatory role for the salience network in regulating default mode network activation. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to characterize network activity of patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia and healthy control subjects, we present four converging lines of evidence supporting a causal influence from the salience network to the default mode network during moral reasoning. First, as previously reported, the default mode network is recruited when healthy subjects deliberate about ‘personal’ moral dilemmas, but patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia producing atrophy in the salience network give abnormally utilitarian responses to these dilemmas. Second, patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia have reduced recruitment of the default mode network compared with healthy control subjects when deliberating about these dilemmas. Third, a Granger causality analysis of functional neuroimaging data from healthy control subjects demonstrates directed functional connectivity from nodes of the salience network to nodes of the default mode network during moral reasoning. Fourth, this Granger causal influence is diminished in patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia. These findings are consistent with a broader model in which the salience network modulates the activity of other large-scale networks, and suggest a revision to a previously proposed ‘dual-process’ account of moral reasoning. These findings also characterize network interactions underlying abnormal moral reasoning in frontotemporal dementia, which may serve as a model for the aberrant judgement and interpersonal behaviour observed in this disease and in other disorders of social function. More broadly, these findings link recent work on the dynamic interrelationships between large-scale brain networks to observable impairments in dementia syndromes, which may shed light on how diseases that target one network also alter the function of interrelated networks. PMID:23576128

The Relationship between Environmental Moral Reasoning and Environmental Attitudes of Pre-Service Science Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tuncay, Busra; Yilmaz-Tuzun, Ozgul; Tuncer-Teksoz, Gaye

2011-01-01

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between environmental moral reasoning patterns and environmental attitudes of 120 pre-service science teachers. Content analysis was carried out on participants' written statements regarding their concerns about the presented environmental problems and the statements were labeled as…

Children's Conceptions of Bullying and Repeated Conventional Transgressions: Moral, Conventional, Structuring and Personal-Choice Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thornberg, Robert; Thornberg, Ulrika Birberg; Alamaa, Rebecca; Daud, Noor

2016-01-01

This study examined 307 elementary school children's judgements and reasoning about bullying and other repeated transgressions when school rules regulating these transgressions have been removed in hypothetical school situations. As expected, children judged bullying (repeated moral transgressions) as wrong independently of rules and as more wrong…

Children's Moral Reasoning about Family and Peer Violence: The Role of Provocation and Retribution.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Astor, Ron A.

1994-01-01

Examined violent and nonviolent inner-city children's moral reasoning about violence in family and peer situations. All of the children condemned unprovoked violence. With provoked situations, the violent group focused more on the immorality of the provocation and perceived force akin to reciprocal justice, whereas the nonviolent group perceived…

Substance Abuse Counselors and Moral Reasoning: Hypothetical and Authentic Dilemmas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sias, Shari M.

2009-01-01

This exploratory study examined the assumption that the level of moral reasoning (Defining Issues Test; J. R. Rest, 1986) used in solving hypothetical and authentic dilemmas is similar for substance abuse counselors (N = 188). The statistical analyses used were paired-sample t tests, Pearson product-moment correlation, and simultaneous multiple…

Social Information Processing, Moral Reasoning, and Emotion Attributions: Relations with Adolescents' Reactive and Proactive Aggression

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arsenio, William F.; Adams, Erin; Gold, Jason

2009-01-01

Connections between adolescents' social information processing (SIP), moral reasoning, and emotion attributions and their reactive and proactive aggressive tendencies were assessed. One hundred mostly African American and Latino 13- to 18-year-olds from a low-socioeconomic-status (SES) urban community and their high school teachers participated.…

The Socio-Scientific Reasoning Model: Instruments for Evaluation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheu, Janey; And Others

The Environmental Issues Test (EIT) is an instrument designed to assess moral and ethical reasoning within a scientific or technological context. It is comprised of five dilemma stories each of which highlights an environmental issue and the moral conflicts inherent in that issue. Following each dilemma story is a series of 12 issues statements,…

Improving Moral Reasoning among College Students: A Game-Based Learning Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Wenyeh; Ho, Jonathan C.

2018-01-01

Considering a company's limited time and resources, an effective training method that improves employees' ability to make ethical decision is needed. Based on social cognitive theory, this study proposes that employing games in an ethics training program can help improve moral reasoning through actively engaging learners. The experimental design…

Mental Models: Understanding the Impact of Fantasy Violence on Children's Moral Reasoning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krcmar, Marina; Curtis, Stephen

2003-01-01

Tests the efficacy of mental models in understanding the effect of exposure to fantasy violence on children's responses to and reasoning about moral dilemmas involving aggression. Offers a possible extension to mental models that is consistent with current theory in cognitive science. Suggests that the activation of mental models regarding…

The Importance of Teaching Methodology in Moral Education of Sport Populations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stoll, Sharon Kay; And Others

Three approaches to teaching moral reasoning were implemented by expert teachers in classes at three small colleges and outcomes were compared. Teaching models included the following: Model A, a "good reasoned" approach in which students discussed scenarios and determined the best course of action; Model B, a teacher-centered lecture,…

Children's Moral and Ecological Reasoning about the Prince William Sound Oil Spill.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kahn, Peter H., Jr.; Friedman, Batya

This study investigated children's moral and ecological conceptions and values about an actual, environmentally destructive accident, the large oil spill that occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1989. Sixty children from second, fifth, and eighth grades were interviewed on children's reasoning and understandings about the oil spill which…

The Emotional Foundations of High Moral Intelligence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Narvaez, Darcia

2010-01-01

Moral intelligence is grounded in emotion and reason. Neuroscientific and clinical research illustrate how early life co-regulation with caregivers influences emotion, cognition, and moral character. Triune ethics theory (Narvaez, 2008) integrates neuroscientific, evolutionary, and developmental findings to explain differences in moral…

Motivation in Moral Education: The Case for Virtue

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Attfield, D. G.

1978-01-01

Argues that virtues be taught in moral education as motivational concepts of a distinctively moral kind. Believes that this process will link mind, heart and will thereby bind together reason, emotion and action in concrete compartments of behavior. (Author/R K)

Devotion, Diversity, and Reasoning: Religion and Medical Ethics.

PubMed

Dahnke, Michael D

2015-12-01

Most modern ethicists and ethics textbooks assert that religion holds little or no place in ethics, including fields of professional ethics like medical ethics. This assertion, of course, implicitly refers to ethical reasoning, but there is much more to the ethical life and the practice of ethics-especially professional ethics-than reasoning. It is no surprise that teachers of practical ethics, myself included, often focus on reasoning to the exclusion of other aspects of the ethical life. Especially for those with a philosophical background, reasoning is the most patent and pedagogically controllable aspect of the ethical life-and the most easily testable. And whereas there may be powerful reasons for the limitation of religion in this aspect of ethics, there are other aspects of the ethical life in which recognition of religious belief may arguably be more relevant and possibly even necessary. I divide the ethical life into three areas-personal morality, interpersonal morality, and rational morality-each of which I explore in terms of its relationship to religion, normatively characterized by the qualities of devotion, diversity, and reasoning, respectively.

Deontological coherence: A framework for commonsense moral reasoning.

PubMed

Holyoak, Keith J; Powell, Derek

2016-11-01

We review a broad range of work, primarily in cognitive and social psychology, that provides insight into the processes of moral judgment. In particular, we consider research on pragmatic reasoning about regulations and on coherence in decision making, both areas in which psychological theories have been guided by work in legal philosophy. Armed with these essential prerequisites, we sketch a psychological framework for how ordinary people make judgments about moral issues. Based on a literature review, we show how the framework of deontological coherence unifies findings in moral psychology that have often been explained in terms of a grab-bag of heuristics and biases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Promoting postconventional morality: the adequacy of Kohlberg's aim.

PubMed

Wonderly, D M; Kupfersmid, J H

1980-01-01

Lawrence Kohlberg has advocated the implementation of programs in the public schools designed to raise the general level of moral reasoning. His contention is that the attainment of Postconventional moral reasoning is associated with optimal personal and social adjustment. Growing concern about the violence and disintegration of American society has led to public and private support for such programs. Because intervention into the moral education of children in a democratic society raises serious social/political questions, it seems appropriate to consider the relevance of the Kohlberg hypothesis. In this paper, the twin issues of philosophic adequacy and empirical evidence are examined. In neither respect does the cognitive-developmentalist position find the support essential to a recommendation for its use.

Moral judgments, emotions and the utilitarian brain.

PubMed

Moll, Jorge; de Oliveira-Souza, Ricardo

2007-08-01

The investigation of the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying the moral mind is of paramount importance for understanding complex human behaviors, from altruism to antisocial acts. A new study on patients with prefrontal damage provides key insights on the neurobiology of moral judgment and raises new questions on the mechanisms by which reason and emotion contribute to moral cognition.

Can Kant Have an Account of Moral Education?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moran, Kate A.

2009-01-01

There is an apparent tension between Immanuel Kant's model of moral agency and his often-neglected philosophy of moral education. On the one hand, Kant's account of moral knowledge and decision-making seems to be one that can be self-taught. Kant's famous categorical imperative and related "fact of reason" argument suggest that we learn the…

The morality of human gene patents.

PubMed

Resnik, David B

1997-03-01

This paper discusses the morality of patenting human genes and genetic technologies. After examining arguments on different sides of the issue, the paper concludes that there are, at present, no compelling reasons to prohibit the extension of current patent laws to the realm of human genetics. However, since advances in genetics are likely to have profound social implications, the most prudent course of action demands a continual reexamination of genetics laws and policies in light of ongoing developments in science and technology.

The specificity and the development of social-emotional competence in a multi-ethnic-classroom.

PubMed

Petrowski, Katja; Herold, Ulf; Joraschky, Peter; von Wyl, Agnes; Cierpka, Manfred

2009-05-28

Ethnic diversity in schools increases due to globalization. Thus, the children's social-emotional competence development must be considered in the context of a multi-ethnic classroom. In this study, the social-emotional competence of 65 Asian-American and Latin-American children was observed at the beginning and the end of their kindergarten year. Initially, significant differences existed among these ethnic groups in respect to moral reasoning. Furthermore, the male children showed more dysregulated aggression but the female children implemented more moral reasoning than their male counterparts. These ethnic specificities did not disappear over the course of the year. In addition, a significant change in avoidance strategies as well as expressed emotions in the narrative took place over the course of one year. Ethnic specificity in social-emotional competence does exist independent of gender at the beginning as well as at the end of the kindergarten year in a multi-ethnic kindergarten classroom.

Organ sales and moral distress.

PubMed

Rivera-Lopez, Eduardo

2006-01-01

The possibility that organ sales by living adults might be made legal is morally distressing to many of us. However, powerful arguments have been provided recently supporting legalisation (I consider two of those arguments: the Consequentialist Argument and the Autonomy Argument). Is our instinctive reaction against a market of organs irrational then? The aim of this paper is not to prove that legalization would be immoral, all things considered, but rather to show, first, that there are some kinds of arguments, offered in favour of legalisation, that are, in an important sense, illegitimate, and second, that even if legalisation might not be wrong all things considered, there are good reasons for our negative moral intuitions. Moreover, identifying these reasons will help highlight some features of moral decisions in non-ideal situations, which in turn might be relevant to some other moral or policy choices.

Functional and clinical neuroanatomy of morality.

PubMed

Fumagalli, Manuela; Priori, Alberto

2012-07-01

Morality is among the most sophisticated features of human judgement, behaviour and, ultimately, mind. An individual who behaves immorally may violate ethical rules and civil rights, and may threaten others' individual liberty, sometimes becoming violent and aggressive. In recent years, neuroscience has shown a growing interest in human morality, and has advanced our understanding of the cognitive and emotional processes involved in moral decisions, their anatomical substrates and the neurology of abnormal moral behaviour. In this article, we review research findings that have provided a key insight into the functional and clinical neuroanatomy of the brain areas involved in normal and abnormal moral behaviour. The 'moral brain' consists of a large functional network including both cortical and subcortical anatomical structures. Because morality is a complex process, some of these brain structures share their neural circuits with those controlling other behavioural processes, such as emotions and theory of mind. Among the anatomical structures implicated in morality are the frontal, temporal and cingulate cortices. The prefrontal cortex regulates activity in subcortical emotional centres, planning and supervising moral decisions, and when its functionality is altered may lead to impulsive aggression. The temporal lobe is involved in theory of mind and its dysfunction is often implicated in violent psychopathy. The cingulate cortex mediates the conflict between the emotional and the rational components of moral reasoning. Other important structures contributing to moral behaviour include the subcortical nuclei such as the amygdala, hippocampus and basal ganglia. Brain areas participating in moral processing can be influenced also by genetic, endocrine and environmental factors. Hormones can modulate moral behaviour through their effects on the brain. Finally, genetic polymorphisms can predispose to aggressivity and violence, arguing for a genetic-based predisposition to morality. Because abnormal moral behaviour can arise from both functional and structural brain abnormalities that should be diagnosed and treated, the neurology of moral behaviour has potential implications for clinical practice and raises ethical concerns. Last, since research has developed several neuromodulation techniques to improve brain dysfunction (deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation), knowing more about the 'moral brain' might help to develop novel therapeutic strategies for neurologically based abnormal moral behaviour.

Moral sensitivity and moral distress in Iranian critical care nurses.

PubMed

Borhani, Fariba; Abbaszadeh, Abbas; Mohamadi, Elham; Ghasemi, Erfan; Hoseinabad-Farahani, Mohammad Javad

2017-06-01

Moral sensitivity is the foremost prerequisite to ethical performance; a review of literature shows that nurses are sometimes not sensitive enough for a variety of reasons. Moral distress is a frequent phenomenon in nursing, which may result in paradoxes in care, dealing with patients and rendering high-quality care. This may, in turn, hinder the meeting of care objectives, thus affecting social healthcare standards. The present research was conducted to determine the relationship between moral sensitivity and moral distress of nurses in intensive care units. This study is a descriptive-correlation research. Lutzen's moral sensitivity questionnaire and Corley Moral Distress Questionnaire were used to gather data. Participants and research context: A total of 153 qualified nurses working in the hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences were selected for this study. Subjects were selected by census method. Ethical considerations: After explaining the objectives of the study, all the participants completed and signed the written consent form. To conduct the study, permission was obtained from the selected hospitals. Nurses' average moral sensitivity grade was 68.6 ± 7.8, which shows a moderate level of moral sensitivity. On the other hand, nurses also experienced a moderate level of moral distress (44.8 ± 16.6). Moreover, there was no meaningful statistical relationship between moral sensitivity and moral distress (p = 0.26). Although the nurses' moral sensitivity and moral distress were expected to be high in the intensive care units, it was moderate. This finding is consistent with the results of some studies and contradicts with others. As moral sensitivity is a crucial factor in care, it is suggested that necessary training be provided to develop moral sensitivity in nurses in education and practical environments. Furthermore, removing factors that contribute to moral distress may help decrease it in nurses.

Seeking perfection: a Kantian look at human genetic engineering.

PubMed

Gunderson, Martin

2007-01-01

It is tempting to argue that Kantian moral philosophy justifies prohibiting both human germ-line genetic engineering and non-therapeutic genetic engineering because they fail to respect human dignity. There are, however, good reasons for resisting this temptation. In fact, Kant's moral philosophy provides reasons that support genetic engineering-even germ-line and non-therapeutic. This is true of Kant's imperfect duties to seek one's own perfection and the happiness of others. It is also true of the categorical imperative. Kant's moral philosophy does, however, provide limits to justifiable genetic engineering.

The dawn of science-based moral reasoning.

PubMed

Baschetti, Riccardo

2007-01-01

In 1998, Edward O. Wilson discussed the biological basis of morality, pointed out that the analysis of its material origins should enable us to fashion a wise ethical consensus, and predicted the dawn of science-based moral reasoning. This article testifies that his prediction was right. Morality, being based on altruism and collaboration, evolved as a socially advantageous biological phenomenon aimed at ensuring the survival of our species, which was structured in small groups at high risk of extinction for the 99.5% of its existence. In the last 0.5%, the advent of agriculture resulted in a demographic explosion that impaired human beings' moral discernment, because the socially detrimental consequences of immoral actions, which had been recognised and condemned promptly in small groups consisting of a few tens of members, were diluted among millions of untouched individuals, thereby becoming less easily recognisable. Nowadays, to test the supposed morality of individual actions and government policies, we should use reason or, in doubtful cases, mathematical modelling to determine their predictable effects on the survival of small theoretical communities. Unless we untenably claim that the unlikelihood of extinction of today's immense societies entitles us to overturn the meaning of morality, all actions and policies that would cause the extinction of small communities should be regarded as indisputably immoral. This article also presents some examples of science-based moral arguments showing the immorality of restrictions and bans on research with human embryonic stem cells and demonstrates that the old concept of the "naturalistic fallacy", which philosophers frequently invoke to dismiss any scientific approach to morality, is no longer tenable, because it increasingly emerges to be a proof of what may well be defined the "philosophical fallacy".

Altered moral decision-making in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Rosen, Jan B; Rott, Elisa; Ebersbach, Georg; Kalbe, Elke

2015-10-01

Moral decision-making essentially contributes to social conduct. Although patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) show deficits in (non-moral) decision making and related neuropsychological functions, i.e. executive functions, theory of mind (ToM), and empathy, moral decision-making has rarely been examined in PD patients. We examined possible alterations of moral decision-making and associated functions in PD. Twenty non-demented PD patients and 23 age- and education-matched healthy control participants were examined with tests that assess reasoning, executive functions (set-shifting and planning), ToM and empathy, decision-making under risk, and moral intuitions. Moral decision-making was assessed with a close-to-everyday moral dilemma paradigm that opposes socially oriented "altruistic" choices to self-beneficial "egoistic" choices in 20 moral dilemma short stories (10 high and 10 low emotional). Concurrently, electrodermal activity was recorded. PD patients made more egoistic moral decisions than healthy controls. Remarkably, while reasoning, planning and empathy correlated with moral decision-making in the control group, in the PD group neuropsychological functions and dopaminergic medication did not correlate with moral decisions. No evidence for reduced skin conductance responses in PD patients and no relationships between skin conductance responses and moral decisions were observed. This study provides evidence for moral decision-making dysfunctions in PD patients who made more egoistic moral decisions. As a possible underlying mechanism, reduced exercise of attentional control due to a dysfunctional interplay between the prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia is discussed. Future research will have to determine the impact of PD patients' moral decision-making dysfunctions on everyday life and further determine correlates of the deficits. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The ethical desirability of moral bioenhancement: a review of reasons

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background The debate on the ethical aspects of moral bioenhancement focuses on the desirability of using biomedical as opposed to traditional means to achieve moral betterment. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the ethical reasons presented in the literature for and against moral bioenhancement. Discussion A review was performed and resulted in the inclusion of 85 articles. We classified the arguments used in those articles in the following six clusters: (1) why we (don’t) need moral bioenhancement, (2) it will (not) be possible to reach consensus on what moral bioenhancement should involve, (3) the feasibility of moral bioenhancement and the status of current scientific research, (4) means and processes of arriving at moral improvement matter ethically, (5) arguments related to the freedom, identity and autonomy of the individual, and (6) arguments related to social/group effects and dynamics. We discuss each argument separately, and assess the debate as a whole. First, there is little discussion on what distinguishes moral bioenhancement from treatment of pathological deficiencies in morality. Furthermore, remarkably little attention has been paid so far to the safety, risks and side-effects of moral enhancement, including the risk of identity changes. Finally, many authors overestimate the scientific as well as the practical feasibility of the interventions they discuss, rendering the debate too speculative. Summary Based on our discussion of the arguments used in the debate on moral enhancement, and our assessment of this debate, we advocate a shift in focus. Instead of speculating about non-realistic hypothetical scenarios such as the genetic engineering of morality, or morally enhancing ‘the whole of humanity’, we call for a more focused debate on realistic options of biomedical treatment of moral pathologies and the concrete moral questions these treatments raise. PMID:25227512

The ethical desirability of moral bioenhancement: a review of reasons.

PubMed

Specker, Jona; Focquaert, Farah; Raus, Kasper; Sterckx, Sigrid; Schermer, Maartje

2014-09-16

The debate on the ethical aspects of moral bioenhancement focuses on the desirability of using biomedical as opposed to traditional means to achieve moral betterment. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the ethical reasons presented in the literature for and against moral bioenhancement. A review was performed and resulted in the inclusion of 85 articles. We classified the arguments used in those articles in the following six clusters: (1) why we (don't) need moral bioenhancement, (2) it will (not) be possible to reach consensus on what moral bioenhancement should involve, (3) the feasibility of moral bioenhancement and the status of current scientific research, (4) means and processes of arriving at moral improvement matter ethically, (5) arguments related to the freedom, identity and autonomy of the individual, and (6) arguments related to social/group effects and dynamics. We discuss each argument separately, and assess the debate as a whole. First, there is little discussion on what distinguishes moral bioenhancement from treatment of pathological deficiencies in morality. Furthermore, remarkably little attention has been paid so far to the safety, risks and side-effects of moral enhancement, including the risk of identity changes. Finally, many authors overestimate the scientific as well as the practical feasibility of the interventions they discuss, rendering the debate too speculative. Based on our discussion of the arguments used in the debate on moral enhancement, and our assessment of this debate, we advocate a shift in focus. Instead of speculating about non-realistic hypothetical scenarios such as the genetic engineering of morality, or morally enhancing 'the whole of humanity', we call for a more focused debate on realistic options of biomedical treatment of moral pathologies and the concrete moral questions these treatments raise.

The role of emotions in moral case deliberation: theory, practice, and methodology.

PubMed

Molewijk, Bert; Kleinlugtenbelt, Dick; Widdershoven, Guy

2011-09-01

In clinical moral decision making, emotions often play an important role. However, many clinical ethicists are ignorant, suspicious or even critical of the role of emotions in making moral decisions and in reflecting on them. This raises practical and theoretical questions about the understanding and use of emotions in clinical ethics support services. This paper presents an Aristotelian view on emotions and describes its application in the practice of moral case deliberation. According to Aristotle, emotions are an original and integral part of (virtue) ethics. Emotions are an inherent part of our moral reasoning and being, and therefore they should be an inherent part of any moral deliberation. Based on Aristotle's view, we examine five specific aspects of emotions: the description of emotions, the attitude towards emotions, the thoughts present in emotions, the reliability of emotions, and the reasonable principle that guides an emotion. We then discuss three ways of dealing with emotions in the process of moral case deliberation. Finally, we present an Aristotelian conversation method, and present practical experiences using this method. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

A Cross-national Study on the Relations among Prosocial Moral Reasoning, Gender Role Orientations, and Prosocial Behaviors.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carlo, Gustavo; And Others

1996-01-01

Examined correlates of prosocial moral reasoning (PMR) in two studies. Study one investigated differences in PMR in Brazilian children and adolescents and U.S. adolescents. Study two examined relations between PMR and prosocial behaviors and gender role orientations of Brazilian adolescents. Age and gender differences in PMR were similar for…

Moral Reasoning and Aggressive Behavior: Concurrent and Longitudinal Relations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manning, Maureen A.; Bear, George G.

2011-01-01

The purposes of this study were to determine whether two forms of moral reasoning commonly found in early elementary school, self-oriented and psychological needs-oriented, are related to both current and future aggression. A total of 132 students participated in a study that began when they were in first or second grade and concluded two years…

Bayous and Jungle Rivers: Cross Cultural Perspectives on Children's Moral and Ecological Reasoning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kahn, Peter H., Jr.

Two studies evaluated cross cultural perspectives of children's moral and ecological reasoning as well as values about nature. The first study was conducted in Houston, Texas, with an inner city black community. Subjects were 72 children from impoverished families. The results suggested that the serious constraints of living in an inner-city…

Violent Video Gaming and Moral Reasoning in Adolescents: Is There an Association?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bajovic, Mirjana

2013-01-01

In this study of 109 adolescents from the eighth grade of seven public elementary schools in Canada, the relationship between adolescents' violent video game playing patterns, habits and attitudes, and their levels of moral reasoning was investigated. The results suggested that playing violent video games in general was a very popular activity…

Care Reasoning in Real-Life Moral Conflicts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Juujarvi, Soile

2006-01-01

This article examines real-life moral conflicts from the perspective of the ethic of care. Fifty-six (Time 1) and 57 (Time 2) real-life dilemmas provided by students representing different fields of study were analysed in terms of level of care reasoning according to Skoe's Ethic of Care Interview. The results showed that antisocial temptation and…

Adolescents' Emotions and Reasoning in Contexts of Moral Conflict and Social Exclusion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malti, Tina; Ongley, Sophia F.; Dys, Sebastian P.; Colasante, Tyler

2012-01-01

This article explores how adolescents feel and think about contexts of moral conflict and social exclusion. We asked twelve-year-old adolescents how they would feel about intentionally harming another peer, omitting a prosocial duty, and excluding another peer. We then asked them to explain the reasoning behind their feelings and report on levels…

Influence of Ethics Education on Moral Reasoning among Pre-Service Teacher Preparation and Social Work Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salopek, Michelle M.

2013-01-01

This comparative case study examines the influence of ethics education on moral reasoning among pre-service teacher preparation and social work students. This study specifically investigates the ethical values of students enrolled in a teacher preparation and social work education program by their fourth year of study; the degree of ethical…

Facing History and Ourselves: An Instructional Tool for Constructivist Theory.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Presseisen, Barbara Z.; Beyer, Francine S.

This paper presents a study using "Facing History and Ourselves," an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge development that focuses on the period of Nazi totalitarianism as a powerful case study through which teachers can stimulate moral reasoning and develop critical thinking skills in their students. The program encourages teenage…

Education without Moral Worth? Kantian Moral Theory and the Obligation to Educate Others

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Christopher

2011-01-01

This article examines the possibility of a Kantian justification of the intrinsic moral worth of education. The author critiques a recent attempt to secure such justification via Kant's notion of the Kingdom of Ends. He gives four reasons why such an account would deny any intrinsic moral worth to education. He concludes with a tentative…

Young Humeans: the role of emotions in children's evaluation of moral reasoning abilities

PubMed Central

Danovitch, Judith H.; Keil, Frank C.

2009-01-01

Three experiments investigated whether children in grades K, 2, and 4 (n = 144) view emotional comprehension as important in solving moral dilemmas. The experiments asked whether a human or an artificially intelligent machine would be best at solving different types of problems, ranging from moral and emotional to nonmoral and pragmatic. In Experiment 1, children in all age groups indicated that a human would be superior to a computer not only at comprehending emotions, but also at solving moral dilemmas. In Experiment 2, older children also indicated that a human could solve moral dilemmas better than a ‘robot’ with human-like perceptual and physical abilities. Experiment 3 further demonstrated that these effects were not solely due to a bias towards humans. Thus, children as young as age 5 view emotional understanding as an important element for moral, but not for nonmoral, reasoning, suggesting that the basis for Humean intuitions emerges early in life. PMID:18171364

Patenting humans: clones, chimeras, and biological artifacts.

PubMed

Hurlbut, William B

2005-01-01

The momentum of advances in biology is evident in the history of patents on life forms. As we proceed forward with greater understanding and technological control of developmental biology there will be many new and challenging dilemmas related to patenting of human parts and partial trajectories of human development. These dilemmas are already evident in the current conflict over the moral status of the early human embryo. In this essay, recent evidence from embryological studies is considered and the unbroken continuity of organismal development initiated at fertilization is asserted as clear and reasonable grounds for moral standing. Within this frame of analysis, it is proposed that through a technique of Altered Nuclear Transfer, non-organismal entities might be created from which embryonic stem cells could be morally procured. Criteria for patenting of such non-organismal entities are considered.

Tolerance of practices by Muslim actors: an integrative social-developmental perspective.

PubMed

Gieling, Maike; Thijs, Jochem; Verkuyten, Maykel

2010-01-01

Using social-cognitive domain theory and social identity theory, tolerance judgments of practices by Muslim actors among Dutch adolescents (12-17) were investigated. The findings for Study 1 (N=180) demonstrated that participants evaluated 4 practices using different types of reasons: personal, social-conventional, and moral. In Study 2 (N=970), participants were more tolerant of acts considered to be a personal issue than of acts that pertained to moral issues (social-conventional acts were in the middle). Furthermore, participants were more tolerant of the particular practices than of campaigns for public support of co-Muslims for these practices. Level of education, in-group identification, and multiculturalism had much weaker effects in the moral than in the other domains. Age was negatively related to tolerance. © 2010 The Authors. Child Development © 2010 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Neural foundations to moral reasoning and antisocial behavior

PubMed Central

Yang, Yaling

2006-01-01

A common feature of the antisocial, rule-breaking behavior that is central to criminal, violent and psychopathic individuals is the failure to follow moral guidelines. This review summarizes key findings from brain imaging research on both antisocial behavior and moral reasoning, and integrates these findings into a neural moral model of antisocial behavior. Key areas found to be functionally or structurally impaired in antisocial populations include dorsal and ventral regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), amygdala, hippocampus, angular gyrus, anterior cingulate and temporal cortex. Regions most commonly activated in moral judgment tasks consist of the polar/medial and ventral PFC, amygdala, angular gyrus and posterior cingulate. It is hypothesized that the rule-breaking behavior common to antisocial, violent and psychopathic individuals is in part due to impairments in some of the structures (dorsal and ventral PFC, amygdala and angular gyrus) subserving moral cognition and emotion. Impairments to the emotional component that comprises the feeling of what is moral is viewed as the primary deficit in antisocials, although some disruption to the cognitive and cognitive-emotional components of morality (particularly self-referential thinking and emotion regulation) cannot be ruled out. While this neurobiological predisposition is likely only one of several biosocial processes involved in the etiology of antisocial behavior, it raises significant moral issues for the legal system and neuroethics. PMID:18985107

Sex differences in moral reasoning: response to Walker's (1984) conclusion that there are none.

PubMed

Baumrind, D

1986-04-01

Data from the Family Socialization and Developmental Competence Project are used to probe Walker's conclusion that there are no sex differences in moral reasoning. Ordinal and nominal nonparametric statistics result in a complex but theoretically meaningful network of relationships among sex, educational level, and Kohlberg stage score level, with the presence and direction of sex differences in stage score level dependent on educational level. The effects on stage score level of educational level and working status are also shown to differ for men and women. Reasons are considered for not accepting Walker's dismissal of studies that use (a) a pre-1983 scoring manual, or (b) fail to control for education. The problems presented to Kohlberg's theory by the significant relationship between educational and stage score levels in the general population are discussed, particularly as these apply to the postconventional level of moral reasoning.

Socioscientific Argumentation: The effects of content knowledge and morality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadler, Troy D.; Donnelly, Lisa A.

2006-10-01

Broad support exists within the science education community for the incorporation of socioscientific issues (SSI) and argumentation in the science curriculum. This study investigates how content knowledge and morality contribute to the quality of SSI argumentation among high school students. We employed a mixed-methods approach: 56 participants completed tests of content knowledge and moral reasoning as well as interviews, related to SSI topics, which were scored based on a rubric for argumentation quality. Multiple regression analyses revealed no statistically significant relationships among content knowledge, moral reasoning, and argumentation quality. Qualitative analyses of the interview transcripts supported the quantitative results in that participants very infrequently revealed patterns of content knowledge application. However, most of the participants did perceive the SSI as moral problems. We propose a “Threshold Model of Knowledge Transfer” to account for the relationship between content knowledge and argumentation quality. Implications for science education are discussed.

The Three R's of Moral Education: Emile Durkheim Revisited.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bouas, M. Jean

1993-01-01

The 3 Rs approach to moral education translates Durkheim's elements of morality (discipline, group attachment, autonomy) into a framework for schools. School rules, reason, and role models should be implemented in an atmosphere of participatory democracy, respect, reflective thinking, cooperative learning, and parental support. (SK)

Teaching Moral Reasoning through Gesture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beaudoin-Ryan, Leanne; Goldin-Meadow, Susan

2014-01-01

Stem-cell research. Euthanasia. Personhood. Marriage equality. School shootings. Gun control. Death penalty. Ethical dilemmas regularly spark fierce debate about the underlying moral fabric of societies. How do we prepare today's children to be fully informed and thoughtful citizens, capable of moral and ethical decisions? Current approaches…

Have they done what they should? Moral reasoning in the context of translating older persons' everyday problems into eligible needs for home modification services.

PubMed

Johansson, Karin

2013-09-01

This study explores how moral reasoning is expressed in matching health care with the problems older persons experience in their everyday life. Narrative data were collected from older persons who had applied for home modification services and from professionals involved in these services in Sweden. A theoretical framework, based on theories on the anthropology of morals, was applied to explore how the participants made conclusions about "what should be done." Moral reasoning was found to be guided by ideologies related to the historical and cultural context of the Swedish welfare state. Different interpretations of how these values should be expressed in specific situations led to different conclusions about what should be done. The study highlights the importance of understanding how values are enacted rather than what values different social agents have in order to understand how health care services can be designed and provided to support older persons' everyday life. © 2013 by the American Anthropological Association.

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.

Neural correlates of moral reasoning in autism spectrum disorder

PubMed Central

Schneider, Karla; Pauly, Katharina D.; Gossen, Anna; Mevissen, Lea; Michel, Tanja M.; Gur, Ruben C.; Schneider, Frank

2013-01-01

In our study, we tried to clarify whether patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reveal different moral decision patterns as compared to healthy subjects and whether common social interaction difficulties in ASD are reflected in altered brain activation during different aspects of moral reasoning. 28 patients with high-functioning ASD and 28 healthy subjects matched for gender, age and education took part in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Participants were confronted with textual dilemma situations followed by proposed solutions to which they could agree or disagree. On a neural level, moral decision making was associated with activation in anterior medial prefrontal regions, the temporo-parietal junction and the precuneus for both groups. However, while patients and healthy controls did not exhibit significant behavioral differences, ASD patients showed decreased activation in limbic regions, particularly the amygdala, as well as increased activation in the anterior and the posterior cingulate gyrus during moral reasoning. Alterations of brain activation in patients might thus indicate specific impairments in empathy. However, activation increases in brain regions associated with the ‘default mode network’ and self-referential cognition also provide evidence for an altered way of patients’ cerebral processing with regard to decision making based on social information. PMID:22569187

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.

Teaching Business Ethics--A Conceptual Approach.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nappi, Andrew T.

1990-01-01

The study of ethics has much to offer secondary school students. As students search to define their moral values and responsibilities, business educators can help them to develop their ability to reason carefully about complicated issues and problems. (Includes learning activities.) (Author)

The Role of Adolescents' Morality and Identity in Volunteering. Age and Gender Differences in a Process Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Goethem, Anne A. J.; van Hoof, Anne; van Aken, Marcel A. G.; Raaijmakers, Quinten A. W.; Boom, Jan; de Castro, Bram Orobio

2012-01-01

The aim of this study was to explain adolescents' volunteering in terms of their morality and identity and to examine the moderation effect of gender and age in this process. Data were collected among 698 Dutch adolescents aged 12 to 20 (M = 15.19; SD = 1.43). Adolescents' moral reasoning was positively associated with understanding moral issues…

The Reasons Young Children Give to Peers When Explaining Their Judgments of Moral and Conventional Rules

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mammen, Maria; Köymen, Bahar; Tomasello, Michael

2018-01-01

Moral justifications work, when they do, by invoking values that are shared in the common ground of the interlocutors. We asked 3- and 5-year-old peer dyads (N = 144) to identify and punish norm transgressors. In the moral condition, the transgressor violated a moral norm (e.g., by stealing); in the social rules condition, she/he violated a…

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…

Does Marketing Attract Less Ethical Students? An Assessment of the Moral Reasoning Ability of Undergraduate Marketing Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herington, Carmel; Weaven, Scott

2007-01-01

This article assesses the level of moral reasoning ability (MRA) of undergraduate marketing students and compares the results with the MRA of students in a range of other business disciplines. The aim was to determine if marketing attracts individuals who have a greater predisposition to unethical behaviors given that marketing is often reported…

Children's Sympathy, Guilt, and Moral Reasoning in Helping, Cooperation, and Sharing: A 6-Year Longitudinal Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malti, Tina; Ongley, Sophia F.; Peplak, Joanna; Chaparro, Maria P.; Buchmann, Marlis; Zuffianò, Antonio; Cui, Lixian

2016-01-01

This study examined the role of sympathy, guilt, and moral reasoning in helping, cooperation, and sharing in a 6-year, three-wave longitudinal study involving 175 children (M[subscript age] 6.10, 9.18, and 12.18 years). Primary caregivers reported on children's helping and cooperation; sharing was assessed behaviorally. Child sympathy was assessed…

How Oxytocin Receptor (OXTR) Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Act on Prosociality: The Mediation Role of Moral Evaluation.

PubMed

Shang, Siyuan; Wu, Nan; Su, Yanjie

2017-01-01

Prosociality is related to numerous positive outcomes, and mechanisms underlying individual differences in prosociality have been widely discussed. Recently, research has found converging evidence on the influence of the oxytocin receptor ( OXTR ) gene on prosociality. Meanwhile, moral reasoning, a key precursor for social behavior, has also been associated with variability in OXTR gene, thus the relationship between OXTR and prosociality is assumed to be mediated by moral evaluation. The current study examines the relationship in question, and includes gender as a potential moderator. Self-reported prosociality on Prosocial Tendencies Measure and evaluation on the moral acceptability of behaviors in stories from 790 Chinese adolescents (32.4% boys) were analyzed for the influence of their OXTR single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Results showed that SNP at site rs2254298 was indirectly associated with prosocial behaviors via moral evaluation of behaviors, and this effect was moderated by gender. Our findings suggest an indirect association between genetic variations in OXTR and prosociality through moral evaluation, indicating the potential pathway from genetic variability to prosociality through level of moral development. We also provide some evidence that the role of oxytocin system may to some extent depend on gender. These findings may promote our understanding of the genetic and biological roots of prosociality and morality.

Informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues: The influence of morality and content knowledge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadler, Troy Dow

This study focused on informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues. It explored how morality and content knowledge influenced the negotiation and resolution of contentious and complex scenarios based on genetic engineering. Two hundred and sixty-nine undergraduate students completed a quantitative test of genetics concepts. A sub-set of the students (n = 30) who completed this instrument and represented divergent levels of content knowledge participated in two individual interviews, during which they discussed their ideas, reactions, and solutions to three gene therapy scenarios and three cloning scenarios. A mixed-methods approach was used to examine patterns of informal reasoning and the influence of morality, the effects of content knowledge on the use of informal reasoning patterns, and the effects of content knowledge on the quality of informal reasoning. Students demonstrated evidence of rationalistic, emotive, and intuitive forms of informal reasoning. Rationalistic informal reasoning described reason-based considerations; emotive informal reasoning described care-based considerations; and intuitive reasoning described considerations based on immediate reactions to the context of a scenario. Participants frequently relied on combinations of these reasoning patterns as they worked to resolve individual socioscientific scenarios. Most of the participants appreciated at least some of the moral implications of their decisions, and these considerations were typically interwoven within an overall pattern of informal reasoning. Although differences in content knowledge were not found to be related to modes of informal reasoning (rationalistic, emotive, and informal), data did indicate that differences in content knowledge were related to variations in informal reasoning quality. Participants, with more advanced understandings of genetics, demonstrated fewer instances of reasoning flaws, as defined by a priori criteria (intra-scenario coherence, inter-scenario non-contradiction, counter position construction, and rebuttal construction) and were more likely to incorporate content knowledge in their reasoning patterns than participants with more naive understandings of genetics. These results highlight the need to ensure that science classrooms are environments in which intuition and emotion in addition to reason are valued. In addition, the findings underscore the need for teachers to consider students' content knowledge when determining the appropriateness of socioscientific curricula. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

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.

Relationship between ethical ideology and moral judgment: Academic nurse educators' perception.

PubMed

Abou Hashish, Ebtsam Aly; Ali Awad, Nadia Hassan

2017-01-01

Ascertaining the relationship between ethical ideology, moral judgment, and ethical decision among academic nurse educators at work appears to be a challenge particularly in situations when they are faced with a need to solve an ethical problem and make a moral decision. This study aims to investigate the relationship between ethical ideology, moral judgment, and ethical decision as perceived by academic nurse educators. A descriptive correlational research design was conducted at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. All academic nurse educators were included in the study (N = 220). Ethical Position Questionnaire and Questionnaire of Moral Judgment and Ethical Decisions were proved reliable to measure study variables. Ethical considerations: Approval was obtained from Ethics Committee at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. Privacy and confidentiality of data were maintained and assured by obtaining subjects' informed consent. This study reveals a significant positive moderate correlation between idealism construct of ethical ideology and moral judgment in terms of recognition of the behavior as an ethical issue and the magnitude of emotional consequences of the ethical situation (p < 0.001; p = 0.031) respectively. Also, there is a positive significant moderate correlation between relativism construct of ethical ideology and overall moral judgment (p = 0.010). Approximately 3.5% of the explained variance of overall moral judgment is predicted by idealism together with relativism. The findings suggest that variations in ethical position and ideology are associated with moral judgment and ethical decision. Organizations of academic nursing education should provide a supportive work environment to help their academic staff to develop their self-awareness and knowledge of their ethical position and promoting their ethical ideologies and, in turn, enhance their moral judgment as well as develop ethical reasoning and decision-making capability of nursing students. More emphasis in nursing curricula is needed on ethical concepts for developing nursing competencies.

Jealousy and Moral Maturity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mathes, Eugene W.; Deuger, Donna J.

Jealousy may be perceived as either good or bad depending upon the moral maturity of the individual. To investigate this conclusion, a study was conducted testing two hypothesis: a positive relationship exists between conventional moral reasoning (reference to norms and laws) and the endorsement and level of jealousy; and a negative relationship…

Looking for the Inviting and Just School Environment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bennett, A. C.; Novak, J. M.

This paper explores the relationship between invitational and moral education. Invitational education is defined as a system which intentionally invites students to perceive themselves as valuable, able, and responsible and to behave accordingly. Moral education is a process based on Lawrence Kohlberg's levels of moral reasoning which advocates…

Personal and Impersonal Stimuli Differentially Engage Brain Networks during Moral Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xue, Shao-Wei; Wang, Yan; Tang, Yi-Yuan

2013-01-01

Moral decision making has recently attracted considerable attention as a core feature of all human endeavors. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging studies about moral judgment have identified brain areas associated with cognitive or emotional engagement. Here, we applied graph theory-based network analysis of event-related potentials…

Bible Knowledge and Moral Judgment: Knowing Scripture and Using Ethical Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Daniel

2004-01-01

The relationship between moral judgment and religious knowledge was investigated, with an analysis of the impact of academic skill on both domains. Fifty-six Bible college seniors completed measures of moral judgment (Defining Issues Test), Bible knowledge (Standardized Bible Content Test), and academic skill (Academic Profile). Results indicate…

Moral Judgments of In-Group and Out-Group Harm in Post-conflict Urban and Rural Croatian Communities

PubMed Central

Moncrieff, Michael A.; Lienard, Pierre

2018-01-01

Our research brings to light features of the social world that impact moral judgments and how they do so. The moral vignette data presented were collected in rural and urban Croatian communities that were involved to varying degrees in the Croatian Homeland War. We argue that rapid shifts in moral accommodations during periods of violent social strife can be explained by considering the role that coordination and social agents' ability to reconfigure their social network (i.e., relational mobility) play in moral reasoning. Social agents coordinate on (moral) norms, a general attitude which broadly facilitates cooperation, and makes possible the collective enforcement of compliance. During social strife interested parties recalibrate their determination of others' moral standing and recast their established moral circle, in accordance with their new or prevailing social investments. To that extent, social coordination—and its particular promoters, inhibitors, and determinants—effects significant changes in individuals' ranking of moral priorities. Results indicate that rural participants evaluate the harmful actions of third parties more harshly than urban participants. Coordination mediates that relationship between social environment and moral judgment. Coordination also matters more for the moral evaluation of the harmful actions of moral scenarios involving characters belonging to different social units than for scenarios involving characters belonging to the same group. Participants high in relational mobility—that ability to recompose one's social network—moralize similarly wrongdoings perpetrated by both in- and out-group members. Those low in relational mobility differentiate when an out-group member causes the harm. Additionally, perceptions of third-party guilt are also affected by specifics of the social environment. Overall, we find that social coordination and relational mobility affect moral reasoning more so than ethnic commitment. PMID:29527183

[Care between ethics, work and political].

PubMed

Svandra, Philippe

2015-09-01

Down to the roots, the ethics of care have stood up a "different voice". Building on Carol Gilligan's works, the concept was developed widely in opposition with the rational and universalist aspect of Kant's moral philosophy. However, it also appears that this vision of care runs counter sets the three other main dominant moral theories, ie, utilitarism, John Rawls' procedural ethics and the Aristotelian virtue ethics. We may assert that the care theory presents itself as a contextualized moral theory aiming at taking into account others' vulnerability, in a practical way. Hence, the general term of "care" may encompass the notions of "help", "support" and "healing process", which, in France, for have often been opposed for varied reasons--historical, economical, psychological, professional etc... Switching from a moral position to a professional and practical activity, the concept of care has now undeniably taken on now a social and political dimension.

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.

Cognitive Development of Social Justice through Re-Designed Courses and Community-Based Partnerships: An Initial Investigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Robert E.; Creasey, Gary; Showalter, Brent D.; D'Santiago, Verenice

2010-01-01

Identifying (and assessing) the mechanisms responsible for promoting social justice awareness represent a process that could be illuminated via theory building. To illustrate, integrated theories of moral reasoning and prosocial development stipulate that ultimate altruistic/benevolent intentions and behaviors are preceded by cognitive and…

A Proposal for Studying the Values/Reasoning Distinction in Moral Development and Training.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaplan, Martin F.

Application of a common framework in studies of the development of social cognition can reduce conceptual and methodological ambiguities and enable clearer study of core issues. This paper describes the core issues and their attendant problems, outlines a model of information integration that addresses the issues, and describes some illustrative…

Stress alters personal moral decision making.

PubMed

Youssef, Farid F; Dookeeram, Karine; Basdeo, Vasant; Francis, Emmanuel; Doman, Mekaeel; Mamed, Danielle; Maloo, Stefan; Degannes, Joel; Dobo, Linda; Ditshotlo, Phatsimo; Legall, George

2012-04-01

While early studies of moral decision making highlighted the role of rational, conscious executive processes involving frontal lobe activation more recent work has suggested that emotions and gut reactions have a key part to play in moral reasoning. Given that stress can activate many of the same brain regions that are important for and connected to brain centres involved in emotional processing we sought to evaluate if stress could influence moral decision making. Sixty-five undergraduate volunteers were randomly assigned to control (n=33) and experimental groups (n=32). The latter underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and induction of stress was assessed by measurement of salivary cortisol levels. Subjects were then required to provide a response to thirty moral dilemmas via a computer interface that recorded both their decision and reaction time. Three types of dilemmas were used: non-moral, impersonal moral and personal moral. Using a binary logistic model there were no significant predicators of utilitarian response in non-moral and impersonal moral dilemmas. However the stressed group and females were found to predict utilitarian responses to personal moral dilemmas. When comparing percentage utilitarian responses there were no significant differences noted for the non-moral and impersonal moral dilemmas but the stressed group showed significantly less utilitarian responses compared to control subjects. The stress response was significantly negatively correlated with utilitarian responses. Females also showed significantly less utilitarian responses than males. We conclude that activation of the stress response predisposed participants to less utilitarian responses when faced with high conflict personal moral dilemmas and suggest that this offers further support for dual process theory of moral judgment. We also conclude that females tend to make less utilitarian personal moral decisions compared to males, providing further evidence that there are gender differences in moral reasoning. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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.

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 moral status of the embryo: an attempt at an analysis with the aid of David Hume's ethics.

PubMed

Engel, J B; Hönig, A; Segerer, S; Häusler, S F M; Dietl, J; Djakovic, A

2010-12-01

This article applies the moral sentimentalism founded by David Hume to the moral status of the embryo. It will attempt to explain the paradoxical fact that in Germany abortion is common and socially accepted while preimplantation genetic diagnosis is banned with the aid of an approach based on moral sentimentalism. David Hume established the thesis that the human being is guided by the emotions and not by reason when making moral decisions. Scientific innovations often create a feeling of anxiety. Consequently, the initial moral judgment about it is negative. Due to this habit, the innovation is often accepted after a phase of indifference. This phenomenon has been observed in the case of heart transplantation, as well as for IVF. Consequently, the apparent contradiction in the varying degrees of the embryo's worthiness of protection in the womb and in the Petri dish is due to the simple fact that these are different stages of habituation. Therefore, the ethics of Hume cannot stipulate the embryo's moral status for once and for all; however, they can paradoxically raise the ongoing current debate to a more rational level through the insight that the underlying moral concepts are not based on reason alone. Copyright © 2010 Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Good for God? Religious motivation reduces perceived responsibility for and morality of good deeds.

PubMed

Gervais, Will M

2014-08-01

Many people view religion as a crucial source of morality. However, 6 experiments (total N = 1,078) revealed that good deeds are perceived as less moral if they are performed for religious reasons. Religiously motivated acts were seen as less moral than the exact same acts performed for other reasons (Experiments 1-2 and 6). Religious motivations also reduced attributions of intention and responsibility (Experiments 3-6), an effect that fully mediated the effect of religious motivations on perceived morality (Experiment 6). The effects were not explained by different perceptions of motivation orientation (i.e., intrinsic vs. extrinsic) across conditions (Experiment 4) and also were evident when religious upbringing led to an intuitive moral response (Experiment 5). Effects generalized across religious and nonreligious participants. When viewing a religiously motivated good deed, people infer that actually helping others is, in part, a side effect of other motivations rather than an end in itself. Thus, religiously motivated actors are seen as less responsible than secular actors for their good deeds, and their helping behavior is viewed as less moral than identical good deeds performed for either unclear or secular motivations. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Contractualist reasoning, HIV cure clinical trials, and the moral (ir)relevance of the risk/benefit ratio.

PubMed

Kumar, Rahul

2017-02-01

Institutional review boards (IRB) normally require of a morally defensible clinical trial that any trial participant will benefit from the inquiry, or at least not be exposed to a significant risk of having their prospects worsened by participating. Stage 1 HIV cure trials tend not to meet this requirement. Does that show them to be morally indefensible? Utilitarian thinking about this question supports a negative answer. But one might reasonably expect a Kantian moral theory to support the conclusion that exposing trial participants to a significant risk of their prospects being worsened by their participation to be morally indefensible, on grounds that this would be a clear case of using a person as a mere means. In this paper, I argue, drawing on Kantian contractualist thinking, that requiring the risk/benefit ratio for participants be positive if a trial is to be morally defensible does not in fact gain any support from Kantian thinking about morality. 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/.

How Many Principles for Public Health Ethics?

PubMed Central

Coughlin, Steven S.

2009-01-01

General moral (ethical) principles play a prominent role in certain methods of moral reasoning and ethical decision-making in bioethics and public health. Examples include the principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Some accounts of ethics in public health have pointed to additional principles related to social and environmental concerns, such as the precautionary principle and principles of solidarity or social cohesion. This article provides an overview of principle-based methods of moral reasoning as they apply to public health ethics including a summary of advantages and disadvantages of methods of moral reasoning that rely upon general principles of moral reasoning. Drawing upon the literature on public health ethics, examples are provided of additional principles, obligations, and rules that may be useful for analyzing complex ethical issues in public health. A framework is outlined that takes into consideration the interplay of ethical principles and rules at individual, community, national, and global levels. Concepts such as the precautionary principle and solidarity are shown to be useful to public health ethics to the extent that they can be shown to provide worthwhile guidance and information above and beyond principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice, and the clusters of rules and maxims that are linked to these moral principles. Future directions likely to be productive include further work on areas of public health ethics such as public trust, community empowerment, the rights of individuals who are targeted (or not targeted) by public health interventions, individual and community resilience and wellbeing, and further clarification of principles, obligations, and rules in public health disciplines such as environmental science, prevention and control of chronic and infectious diseases, genomics, and global health. PMID:20072707

Prosocial norms as a positive youth development construct: conceptual bases and implications for curriculum development.

PubMed

Siu, Andrew M H; Cheng, Howard C H; Leung, Mana C M

2006-01-01

Prosocial norms are clear, healthy, ethical standards, beliefs, and behavior guidelines that promote prosocial behavior and minimize health risks. The promotion of prosocial norms like altruism, solidarity, and volunteerism is an important aspect of positive youth development programs. From the literature, it is evident that a prosocial orientation is encouraged in traditional Chinese philosophy. Longitudinal studies have shown that prosocial behavior increases gradually over adolescence, and that the development of prosocial behavior is closely linked to the development of moral reasoning, perspective taking, and regulation of personal distress. It is noteworthy that females have a higher prosocial orientation than males, and peer influence could be a major mediating factor of interventions to foster prosocial norms and behavior during adolescence. This review also analyzes the mechanism underlying prosocial behavior using the cost-reward model, social cognitive theory, and stages of moral development. Role modeling, social reinforcements and evaluations, discussion of moral dilemmas, empathy skills training, and foot-in-the-door procedures are identified as useful strategies for fostering prosocial norms and behavior.

[The structure of meta-ethical reasoning and "paradigmatic instability" of medicine].

PubMed

Maroszyńska-Jezowska, B

1998-01-01

Meta-ethics is such a philosophical discipline that it analyses meaning and logical status of moral conceptions and arguments. Its scope of interest is focused on such problems, among others, as to what extent are moral values the intrinsic part of our reality and, on the other hand, to what extent are they merely the expression or certain conventions, emotions or directives. Codes of medical ethics and other legal acts concerning ethical commitments, both domestic and international (as, for example, Declaration of Helsinki), are based on a certain hidden meta-ethical presumption that morality is a human creation, and thus it belongs to a certain so-called "social realm". As such, medical ethics undergoes continuous transformations with regard to technological progress, which creates new moral challenges. This frequently leads to conflicts between moral, legal and praxiological norms under the absence of consensual conformity of utilitarian and deontological ways of moral reasoning. It may be useful for medical ethics to differentiate between axiological and thetic norms that are present in codes of medical ethics and in various international bioethical declarations and conventions.

Everyday moral reasoning in the governmentality of HIV risk.

PubMed

Cristian Rangel, J; Adam, Barry D

2014-01-01

Drawing on the sociology of morality, this article analyses the social contexts, discourses and ethno-methods of everyday life that shape real-world decisions of gay men around HIV prevention. Through an analysis of the predominant narratives in an online public forum created for an HIV prevention campaign, this article explores the ways in which homosexually active men engage in everyday moral reasoning and challenge a neoliberal moral order of risk and responsibility. The article concludes that gay and bisexual men engage in forms of practical morality with their sexual partners and imagine larger communities of interest, love, companionship and pleasure. At the same time, they draw heavily from discourses on individual and rational responsibility, as well as narratives of romance and community, that shape forms of moral selfhood. Risk management techniques that are grounded in notions of rational choice and that are insensitive to the emotional worlds that these men inhabit create situations of risk avoidance but also inadvertently open them to new forms of vulnerability. © 2013 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2013 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Emotion and the moral lives of adolescents: vagaries and complexities in the emotional experience of doing harm.

PubMed

Wainryb, Cecilia; Recchia, Holly E

2012-01-01

Far from being unthinking energies or irrational impulses that control or push people around, emotions are intricately connected to the way people perceive, understand, and think about the world. As such, emotions are also an inextricable part of people's moral lives. As people go about making moral judgments and decisions, they do not merely apply abstract principles in a detached manner. Their emotions--their loves and sympathies, angers and fears, grief and sadness, guilt and shame--are inseparable from how they make sense of and evaluate their own and others' actions, the way things are, and the ways things ought to be. While this is not to say that emotions have a privileged role in morality, it does mean that emotions cannot be reasonably sidelined from the study of people's moral lives. Thus, an important part of formulating a theory of moral development is to articulate a framework for capturing children's relevant emotional experiences in the context of morally laden events. Such a framework should also help us understand how these sometimes turbulent or bewildering experiences inform, enrich, and change children's thinking about what is right and wrong and about themselves as moral agents. This article considers the research on the relation between emotion and moral thinking, offers a perspective that aims to broaden and elaborate our understanding of the connections between emotion and morality in adolescence, and sets a new agenda for research on this topic. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company.

An investigation of final year pharmacy students' moral reasoning ability, and their views on professionalism and fitness to practice panel determinations: A questionnaire study.

PubMed

Hanna, Lezley-Anne; Gillen, John; Hall, Maurice

2017-07-01

The aim was to establish pharmacy students' moral reasoning ability and obtain their views on professionalism and fitness to practice (FtP) determinations involving pharmacists. Following ethical approval and piloting, final year pharmacy students at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) (n=119) were invited to participate in a questionnaire study. Section A was a validated moral reasoning assessment tool [Defining Issues Test (DIT2); five moral dilemmas], Section B was FtP cases and professionalism. Distribution occurred at a compulsory class. DIT2 data were scored by the University of Alabama. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were used with significance level set at 0.05 a priori. The response rate was 94.1% (112/119) and the 'DIT2 P score mean' (postconventional schema) was 25.21±14.10. Almost all [(98.2% (110/112)] fully understood the term "professionalism" and 83.9% (94/112) considered it reasonable for a professional code to apply always (within university and out socializing). Differences in opinions existed depending on what the FtP case related to. Students were significantly more likely to consider a 12-month suspension 'very lenient' or 'lenient' for a pharmacist's personal use of illicit drugs compared with theft of money/cosmetics (42.0% versus 64.3%; p=0.031). There were no significant differences between male and female responses/scores and no strong correlations between DIT2 scores and FtP/professionalism responses. Pharmacy students appeared to understand professionalism and accepted being bound by a code. A level of discrimination between the FtP cases was evident. Moral reasoning ability was lower than expected for future healthcare professionals (see manuscript) requiring attention. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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.

Authority and the Development of Political Orientations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parks, Robert

The legitimate use of authority in political and moral education is examined from a cognitive-developmental perspective. However, legitimate authoritative communications by a teacher must have the potential for reasoned elaboration. These communications then mark off the boundaries of rational and authoritative communication from non- and…

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…

The personal calculus of moral reasoning and identity in global health professions work.

PubMed

Razack, Saleem

2017-04-01

In this personal essay, the author reflects on experiences in global health professions education projects, and the moral reasoning that might be required to define explicitly what constitutes ethical participation. Three interrelated notions are explored: The decision to engage or not through a discussion of the concepts of safety, understanding power dynamics, and analysis of personal and institutional motivations for the projectThe ultimate goals to promote human flourishing and improve equity, through attention to local inequities potentially experienced by either participants or colleagues from home.Attention to the personal transformative potential of participation in global health professions projects. A framework for exploring moral reasoning in global health professions education work using these three concepts is presented as one that the author has found helpful in his own work in global health professions education.

Nurse leaders as stewards: the beginning of change.

PubMed

Murphy, Norma Sinnott

2009-08-20

In understanding fully persons' moral predicaments, a core component of forming perceptual judgments, nurses may need to shift the epistemology of their practice from instrumental reasoning, or means-ends thinking, integrating a virtue-based practical reasoning. A bearing witness that achieves understanding of clients' moral qualities is attained through the articulation of nurses' self-identities within matrices, such as MacIntyre's theory of virtue ethics and standards and codes of ethics. Moreover, nurse leaders who exercise stewardship could apply the concept of communities of inquiry to structure learning conditions by which nurses may engage in experiential learning. This leadership enhanced by the nurse steward's phronetic knowledge, or practical wisdom, which guides understanding of how the clockwork of practical reasoning may evolve within such communities, is critical to nurses' shift in reasoning. Nonetheless, nurse leaders need empirical evidence to comprehend how stewards' accumulated moral insights may shape their character qualities, hence selection of values upon which to act in facilitating nurses' self-expression.

Nurse Leaders as Stewards: The Beginning of Change

PubMed Central

Murphy, Norma Sinnott

2009-01-01

In understanding fully persons’ moral predicaments, a core component of forming perceptual judgments, nurses may need to shift the epistemology of their practice from instrumental reasoning, or means-ends thinking, integrating a virtue-based practical reasoning. A bearing witness that achieves understanding of clients’ moral qualities is attained through the articulation of nurses’ self-identities within matrices, such as MacIntyre’s theory of virtue ethics and standards and codes of ethics. Moreover, nurse leaders who exercise stewardship could apply the concept of communities of inquiry to structure learning conditions by which nurses may engage in experiential learning. This leadership enhanced by the nurse steward’s phronetic knowledge, or practical wisdom, which guides understanding of how the clockwork of practical reasoning may evolve within such communities, is critical to nurses’ shift in reasoning. Nonetheless, nurse leaders need empirical evidence to comprehend how stewards’ accumulated moral insights may shape their character qualities, hence selection of values upon which to act in facilitating nurses’ self-expression. PMID:19738914

Children's moral motivation, sympathy, and prosocial behavior.

PubMed

Malti, Tina; Gummerum, Michaela; Keller, Monika; Buchmann, Marlis

2009-01-01

Two studies investigated the role of children's moral motivation and sympathy in prosocial behavior. Study 1 measured other-reported prosocial behavior and self- and other-reported sympathy. Moral motivation was assessed by emotion attributions and moral reasoning following hypothetical transgressions in a representative longitudinal sample of Swiss 6-year-old children (N = 1,273). Prosocial behavior increased with increasing sympathy, especially if children displayed low moral motivation. Moral motivation and sympathy were also independently related to prosocial behavior. Study 2 extended the findings of Study 1 with a second longitudinal sample of Swiss 6-year-old children (N = 175) using supplementary measures of prosocial behavior, sympathy, and moral motivation. The results are discussed in regard to the precursors of the moral self in childhood.

The effect of teaching medical ethics on medical students' moral reasoning.

PubMed

Self, D J; Wolinsky, F D; Baldwin, D C

1989-12-01

A study assessed the effect of incorporating medical ethics into the medical curriculum and the relative effects of two methods of implementing that curriculum, namely, lecture and case-study discussions. Results indicate a statistically significant increase (p less than or equal to .0001) in the level of moral reasoning of students exposed to the medical ethics course, regardless of format. Moreover, the unadjusted posttest scores indicated that the case-study method was significantly (p less than or equal to .03) more effective than the lecture method in increasing students' level of moral reasoning. When adjustment were made for the pretest scores, however, this difference was not statistically significant (p less than or equal to .18). Regression analysis by linear panel techniques revealed that age, gender, undergraduate grade-point average, and scores on the Medical College Admission Test were not related to the changes in moral-reasoning scores. All of the variance that could be explained was due to the students' being in one of the two experimental groups. In comparison with the control group, the change associated with each experimental format was statistically significant (lecture, p less than or equal to .004; case study, p less than or equal to .0001). Various explanations for these findings and their implications are given.

Charitable giving and lay morality: understanding sympathy, moral evaluations and social positions

PubMed Central

Sanghera, Balihar

2015-01-01

Abstract This paper examines how charitable giving offers an example of lay morality, reflecting people's capacity for fellow‐feeling, moral sentiments, personal reflexivity, ethical dispositions, moral norms and moral discourses. Lay morality refers to how people should treat others and be treated by them, matters that are important for their subjective and objective well‐being. It is a first person evaluative relation to the world (about things that matter to people). While the paper is sympathetic to the ‘moral boundaries’ approach, which seeks to address the neglect of moral evaluations in sociology, it reveals this approach to have some shortcomings. The paper argues that although morality is always mediated by cultural discourses and shaped by structural factors, it also has a universalizing character because people have fellow‐feelings, shared human conditions, and have reason to value. PMID:27546914

Selection of medical students according to their moral orientation.

PubMed

Bore, Miles; Munro, Don; Kerridge, Ian; Powis, David

2005-03-01

Consideration has been given to the use of tests of moral reasoning in the selection procedure for medical students. We argue that moral orientation, rather than moral reasoning, might be more efficacious in minimising the likelihood of inappropriate ethical behaviour in medicine. A conceptualisation and measure of moral orientation are presented, together with findings from 11 samples of medical school applicants and students. To provide empirical evidence for the reliability and validity of a measure of moral orientation and to explore gender, age, cultural and educational influences on moral orientation. A questionnaire designed to measure a libertarian-dual-communitarian dimension of moral orientation was completed by 7864 medical school applicants and students in Australia, Israel, Fiji, New Zealand, Scotland and England and by 84 Australian psychology students between 1997 and 2001. Older respondents produced marginally higher (more communitarian) moral orientation scores, as did women compared to men. Minor but significant (P <0.05) cultural differences were found. The Israeli samples produced higher mean moral orientation scores, while the Australian psychology student sample produced a lower (more libertarian) mean score relative to all other samples. No significant change in moral orientation score was observed after 1 year in a sample of Australian medical school students (n=59), although some differences observed between 5 cohorts of Australian medical students (Years 1-5; n=234) did reach significance. Moral orientation scores were found to be significantly correlated with a number of personality measures, providing evidence of construct validity. In all samples moral orientation significantly predicted the moral decisions made in response to the hypothetical dilemmas embedded in the measurement instrument. Discussion The results provide support for the conceptualisation of a libertarian-dual-communitarian dimension of moral orientation and demonstrate the psychometric properties of the measurement instrument. A number of questions concerning the use of such tests in selection procedures are considered.

Casuist BDI-Agent: A New Extended BDI Architecture with the Capability of Ethical Reasoning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Honarvar, Ali Reza; Ghasem-Aghaee, Nasser

Since the intelligent agent is developed to be cleverer, more complex, and yet uncontrollable, a number of problems have been recognized. The capability of agents to make moral decisions has become an important question, when intelligent agents have developed more autonomous and human-like. We propose Casuist BDI-Agent architecture which extends the power of BDI architecture. Casuist BDI-Agent architecture combines CBR method in AI and bottom up casuist approach in ethics in order to add capability of ethical reasoning to BDI-Agent.

Teaching moral reasoning to student nurses.

PubMed

Weber, J R

1992-09-01

Teaching moral reasoning to students is a challenge for all nursing educators. The National League for Nursing and American Nurses' Association emphasize the importance of ethical content within the curriculum. Review of the literature indicates that ethics has been part of the nursing curriculum since the early 1900s. However, the focus of nursing ethics has changed to more critical reflective thinking versus duties and etiquette. Educators have used a variety of methods for teaching ethics and integrating it into the curriculum. Yet nursing graduates still lack adequate skills to be morally accountable practitioners. This creates a dilemma for the educator to find ways to integrate more ethics content into an already crowded curriculum. The code of ethics of holistic nurses may serve as a basis to guide nurse educators in resolving some of the problems encountered in promoting moral education.

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.

Story Content as a Factor in Children's Moral Judgments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moran, James D., III

This study investigates effects of perceived rule-breaking on the moral reasoning of young children. Thirty first-grade children (15 males and 15 females) were read 10 randomly ordered moral judgment stories by one of three experimenters. Each story was accompanied by a two-frame cartoon-like drawing depicting the action. Two stories of each of…

Young Humeans: The Role of Emotions in Children's Evaluation of Moral Reasoning Abilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Danovitch, Judith H.; Keil, Frank C.

2008-01-01

Three experiments investigated whether children in grades K, 2, and 4 (n = 144) view emotional comprehension as important in solving moral dilemmas. The experiments asked whether a human or an artificially intelligent machine would be best at solving different types of problems, ranging from moral and emotional to nonmoral and pragmatic. In…

Anthropological Methods of Formation of University Students' Spiritual and Moral Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kurbanov, Rashad A.; Nikonova, Elina I.; Gurbanov, Ramin A.; Svechnikova, Natalia V.; Tumarov, Konstantin B.; Marin, Evgeniy M.

2016-01-01

The relevance of the study is reasoned by the increasing complexity of life activity in modern society, which results in distortion of the moral and value criteria and norms. The purpose of the article is to reveal anthropological methods of formation of university students' spiritual and moral culture. The leading approach to the study is the…

How Should "Self-Regard" Be Treated in Moral Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hu, Zhongping

2007-01-01

One of the main reasons of the fact that Chinese moral education could hardly get out of its predicament is that "self-regard" has been simply and unilaterally interpreted as the absolute opposite to morality, where "self-regard" is merely regarded as the source of "everything evil", and the fact that it is also the…

Developing a basis for moral thinking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cowell, Barbara

1995-01-01

Writing from the standpoint of mother and teacher, the author asks from where we can start to find a basis of moral education. She rejects simply exchanging one basis for another. We need to agree upon principles which would enable us to judge what constitutes a right basis, rather than concentrating on the content of particular beliefs. She identifies four qualities that children need to be equipped with in order to act reasonably in situations where moral choice is required: recognition of the validity of others as equals; requisite emotional insight; factual knowledge; and a capacity to make, and act upon, principles formulated by using the above equipment. These "high-level" principles should take precedence over any creed — sacred or secular; to make this shift has become crucial on a national and international level. The general preconditions and practical possibilities for the implementation of moral education are then specified. Finally, the author questions why so few researchers and teachers are working on this basis — concluding that what hinders us is our tendency to see morality as derived from authority, instead of being "a form of thought in its own right'.

"After birth" abortion: a biomedical and conceptual nonsense.

PubMed

Benagiano, Giuseppe; Landeweerd, Laurens; Brosens, Ivo

2013-07-01

Recently, two authors suggested that killing a healthy newborn might be morally permissible, subsuming it under the heading of 'after birth abortion'. Their proposed new definition implies that infanticide should be permitted whenever II trimester abortion for social reasons is. The suggestion stirred public outcry; nonetheless it needs to be analyzed since some 20% of countries allow II trimester abortion for social reasons and 5% do this on demand. A proper delimitation of the definition of "abortion" is thus very important to ensure careful application; for this reason we have attempted a critical analysis of their arguments. In the area of pregnancy termination different moral standards are apparently applied in different countries, but many reasons exist why the equation between II trimester abortion for social reasons and the killing of healthy neonates is to be morally rejected in all cases. The "inversed reification" of the concept of infanticide as a more abstract, euphemistic 'after birth abortion' blurs the fundamental difference between a non-viable fetus and a viable neonate. The best-known and most widely utilized (although illegal) "social reason" for "late abortion" and "infanticide" is a pregnancy with a female fetus or neonate. If infanticide for neonates were to be considered morally permissible, specifically it is this practice that would be applied. And this should be rejected on two levels: conceptual, through a critique of the exclusive use of one specific notion of personhood, and pragmatic through refusal of gender-discriminatory forms of infanticide (the killing of female neonates). In conclusion, having investigated the new concept we have concluded that the term "after birth abortion" is biologically and conceptually nonsensical.

A Cognitive Developmental Approach to Social Problem Management.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watts, Walter J.

The paper reviews L. Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning and its relationship to cognitive development of children. R. Feuerstein's theories of mediated learning experience (MLE) are reviewed, and remediation for individuals deficient in cognitive functions is addressed. The paper notes the existence of deficient cognitive functions, specifically…

Moral Intuition and the Professional Military Ethic

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-03-14

civilization. Emotion is primary in human culture and it‟s in influence is unquestionable – it absolutely dominates the human sense of morality . The...person that are made with respect to a set of virtues [and behaviors] held to be obligatory by members of a culture or sub- culture . Moral reasoning...formula for postmodern relativism . When it comes to morality and ethics, the “how to” decision-making process is never as important as what our Soldier

Relational autonomy in the care of the vulnerable: health care professionals' reasoning in Moral Case Deliberation (MCD).

PubMed

Heidenreich, Kaja; Bremer, Anders; Materstvedt, Lars Johan; Tidefelt, Ulf; Svantesson, Mia

2017-12-14

In Moral Case Deliberation (MCD), healthcare professionals discuss ethically difficult patient situations in their daily practice. There is a lack of knowledge regarding the content of MCD and there is a need to shed light on this ethical reflection in the midst of clinical practice. Thus, the aim of the study was to describe the content of healthcare professionals' moral reasoning during MCD. The design was qualitative and descriptive, and data consisted of 22 audio-recorded inter-professional MCDs, analysed with content analysis. The moral reasoning centred on how to strike the balance between personal convictions about what constitutes good care, and the perceived dissonant care preferences held by the patient. The healthcare professionals deliberated about good care in relation to demands considered to be unrealistic, justifications for influencing the patient, the incapacitated patient's nebulous interests, and coping with the conflict between using coercion to achieve good while protecting human dignity. Furthermore, as a basis for the reasoning, the healthcare professionals reflected on how to establish a responsible relationship with the vulnerable person. This comprised acknowledging the patient as a susceptible human being, protecting dignity and integrity, defining their own moral responsibility, and having patience to give the patient and family time to come to terms with illness and declining health. The profound struggle to respect the patient's autonomy in clinical practice can be understood through the concept of relational autonomy, to try to secure both patients' influence and at the same time take responsibility for their needs as vulnerable humans.

Can Ethics Be Taught? A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Impact of Class Size on the Cognitive Moral Reasoning of Freshmen Business Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sullivan, Ethan A.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a business ethics course on the cognitive moral reasoning of freshmen business students. The sample consisted of 268 college students enrolled in a required business ethics course. The students took Rest's Defining Issues Test--Version 2 (DIT2) as a pre-test and then post-test (upon…

Testimony and Interrogation of Minors: Assumptions about Maturity and Morality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Owen-Kostelnik, Jessica; Reppucci, N. Dickon; Meyer, Jessica R.

2006-01-01

This article examines the legal histories and social contexts of testimony and interrogation involving minors, developmental research on suggestibility and judgment, interactions between development and legal/sociological contexts, and the reasoning behind how minors are treated in different legal contexts. The authors argue (a) that young…

Brain damage and the moral significance of consciousness.

PubMed

Kahane, Guy; Savulescu, Julian

2009-02-01

Neuroimaging studies of brain-damaged patients diagnosed as in the vegetative state suggest that the patients might be conscious. This might seem to raise no new ethical questions given that in related disputes both sides agree that evidence for consciousness gives strong reason to preserve life. We question this assumption. We clarify the widely held but obscure principle that consciousness is morally significant. It is hard to apply this principle to difficult cases given that philosophers of mind distinguish between a range of notions of consciousness and that is unclear which of these is assumed by the principle. We suggest that the morally relevant notion is that of phenomenal consciousness and then use our analysis to interpret cases of brain damage. We argue that enjoyment of consciousness might actually give stronger moral reasons not to preserve a patient's life and, indeed, that these might be stronger when patients retain significant cognitive function.

The Moral Insignificance of Self‐consciousness

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Abstract In this paper, I examine the claim that self‐consciousness is highly morally significant, such that the fact that an entity is self‐conscious generates strong moral reasons against harming or killing that entity. This claim is apparently very intuitive, but I argue it is false. I consider two ways to defend this claim: one indirect, the other direct. The best‐known arguments relevant to self‐consciousness's significance take the indirect route. I examine them and argue that (a) in various ways they depend on unwarranted assumptions about self‐consciousness's functional significance, and (b) once these assumptions are undermined, motivation for these arguments dissipates. I then consider the direct route to self‐consciousness's significance, which depends on claims that self‐consciousness has intrinsic value or final value. I argue what intrinsic or final value self‐consciousness possesses is not enough to generate strong moral reasons against harming or killing. PMID:28919670

Exploring the reliability and validity of the social-moral awareness test.

PubMed

Livesey, Alexandra; Dodd, Karen; Pote, Helen; Marlow, Elizabeth

2012-11-01

The aim of the study was to explore the validity of the social-moral awareness test (SMAT) a measure designed for assessing socio-moral rule knowledge and reasoning in people with learning disabilities. Comparisons between Theory of Mind and socio-moral reasoning allowed the exploration of construct validity of the tool. Factor structure, reliability and discriminant validity were also assessed. Seventy-one participants with mild-moderate learning disabilities completed the two scales of the SMAT and two False Belief Tasks for Theory of Mind. Reliability of the SMAT was very good, and the scales were shown to be uni-dimensional in factor structure. There was a significant positive relationship between Theory of Mind and both SMAT scales. There is early evidence of the construct validity and reliability of the SMAT. Further assessment of the validity of the SMAT will be required. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Conscientious refusal and health professionals: does religion make a difference?

PubMed

Weinstock, Daniel

2014-01-01

Freedom of Conscience and Freedom of Religion should be taken to protect two distinct sets of moral considerations. The former protects the ability of the agent to reflect critically upon the moral and political issues that arise in her society generally, and in her professional life more specifically. The latter protects the individual's ability to achieve secure membership in a set of practices and rituals that have as a moral function to inscribe her life in a temporally extended narrative. Once these grounds are distinguished, it becomes more difficult to grant healthcare professionals' claims to religious exemptions on the basis of the latter than it is on the basis of the former. While both sets of considerations generate 'internal reasons' for rights to accommodation, the relevant 'external' reasons present in the case of claims of moral conscience do not possess analogues in the case of claims of religious conscience. However, the argument applies only to 'irreducibly religious' claims, that is to claims that cannot be translated into moral vocabulary. What's more, there may be reasons to grant the claims of religious persons to exemptions that have to do not with the nature of the claims, but with the beneficial effects that the presence of religious persons may have in the context of the healthcare institutions of multi-faith societies. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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.

Developing Abilities to Navigate Through the Grey Zones in Complex Environments: Nurses' Reasons for Applying to a Clinical Ethics Residency for Nurses.

PubMed

Jurchak, Martha; Grace, Pamela J; Lee, Susan M; Willis, Danny G; Zollfrank, Angelika A; Robinson, Ellen M

2017-07-01

Nurses face complex ethical issues in practice and have to determine appropriate actions. An inability to conceptualize or follow a preferred course of action can give rise to moral uncertainty or moral distress. Both moral uncertainty and moral distress are problematic for nurses and their patients. A program designed to increase nurse confidence in moral decision making, the clinical ethics residency for nurses (CERN), was offered selectively to nurses affiliated with two academic medical centers. This is a report of the analysis of their application essays. Over a 3-year period, 67 application essays were analyzed using conventional content analysis. Applicants comprised one third advanced practice nurses (APNs) and two thirds staff nurses. They were asked to describe their reasons for interest in the CERN and how they would apply the knowledge gained. For conventional content analyses, no theoretical presumptions are used; rather, codes are identified from the data in an iterative manner and eventually collapsed into themes. Initially, broad themes were identified by the CERN team. Subsequently, in-depth and recursive readings were completed by a subset of three members, resulting in refinement of themes and subthemes. The overarching theme identified was "developing abilities to navigate through the 'grey zones' in complex environments." Three subthemes were: (a) nurses encountering patients who are chronically critically ill, culturally diverse, and presenting with complex circumstances; (b) nurses desiring enhanced ethics knowledge and skills to improve quality of care, understand different perspectives, and act as a resource for others; and (c) nurses supporting and facilitating patient-centered ethical decision making. Findings are consistent with those appearing in the international literature but provide a more cohesive and comprehensive account than previously, and hold promise for the development of educational and policy strategies to address moral distress and uncertainty. This study is relevant to clinical practice in its verification of the need nurses have for ethics knowledge, skill refinement, and application through communication. These findings affirmed the challenge that nurses feel in communicating their ethical concerns in an effective and engaging way and their commitment to advocacy and improvement in the quality of care for patients. © 2017 Sigma Theta Tau International.

Specificity of meta-emotion effects on moral decision-making.

PubMed

Koven, Nancy S

2011-10-01

A recently proposed dual process theory of moral decision-making posits that utilitarian reasoning (approving of harmful actions that maximize good consequences) is the result of cognitive control of emotion. This suggests that deficits in emotional awareness will contribute to increased utilitarianism. The present study explored the relative contributions of the different facets of alexithymia and the closely related constructs of emotional intelligence and mood awareness to utilitarian decision making. Participants (N = 86) completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Trait Meta Mood Scale, the Mood Awareness Scale, and a series of high-conflict, personal moral dilemmas validated by Greene et al. (2008). A brief neuropsychological battery was also administered to assess the possible confounds of verbal reasoning and abstract thinking ability. Principal components analysis revealed two latent factors-clarity of emotion and attention to emotion-which cut across all three meta-emotion instruments. Of these, low clarity of emotion-reflecting difficulty in reasoning thoughtfully about one's emotions-predicted utilitarian outcomes and provided unique variance beyond that of verbal and abstract reasoning abilities. Results are discussed in the context of individual differences in emotion regulation.

The cost of callousness: regulating compassion influences the moral self-concept.

PubMed

Cameron, C Daryl; Payne, B Keith

2012-03-01

It has often been argued that compassion is fundamental to morality. Yet people often suppress compassion for self-interested reasons. We provide evidence that suppressing compassion is not cost free, as it creates dissonance between a person's moral identity and his or her moral principles. We instructed separate groups of participants to regulate their compassion, regulate their feelings of distress, or freely experience emotions toward compassion--inducing images. Participants then reported how central morality was to their identities and how much they believed that moral rules should always be followed. Participants who regulated compassion-but not those who regulated distress or experienced emotions--showed a dissonance-based trade-off. If they reported higher levels of moral identity, they had a greater belief that moral rules could be broken. If they maintained their belief that moral rules should always be followed, they sacrificed their moral identity. Regulating compassion thus has a cost of its own: It forces trade-offs within a person's moral self-concept.

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

Ethics needs principles--four can encompass the rest--and respect for autonomy should be "first among equals".

PubMed

Gillon, R

2003-10-01

It is hypothesised and argued that "the four principles of medical ethics" can explain and justify, alone or in combination, all the substantive and universalisable claims of medical ethics and probably of ethics more generally. A request is renewed for falsification of this hypothesis showing reason to reject any one of the principles or to require any additional principle(s) that can't be explained by one or some combination of the four principles. This approach is argued to be compatible with a wide variety of moral theories that are often themselves mutually incompatible. It affords a way forward in the context of intercultural ethics, that treads the delicate path between moral relativism and moral imperialism. Reasons are given for regarding the principle of respect for autonomy as "first among equals", not least because it is a necessary component of aspects of the other three. A plea is made for bioethicists to celebrate the approach as a basis for global moral ecumenism rather than mistakenly perceiving and denigrating it as an attempt at global moral imperialism.

Ethics needs principles—four can encompass the rest—and respect for autonomy should be "first among equals"

PubMed Central

Gillon, R

2003-01-01

It is hypothesised and argued that "the four principles of medical ethics" can explain and justify, alone or in combination, all the substantive and universalisable claims of medical ethics and probably of ethics more generally. A request is renewed for falsification of this hypothesis showing reason to reject any one of the principles or to require any additional principle(s) that can't be explained by one or some combination of the four principles. This approach is argued to be compatible with a wide variety of moral theories that are often themselves mutually incompatible. It affords a way forward in the context of intercultural ethics, that treads the delicate path between moral relativism and moral imperialism. Reasons are given for regarding the principle of respect for autonomy as "first among equals", not least because it is a necessary component of aspects of the other three. A plea is made for bioethicists to celebrate the approach as a basis for global moral ecumenism rather than mistakenly perceiving and denigrating it as an attempt at global moral imperialism. PMID:14519842

Human altruism, evolution and moral philosophy

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

This paper has two central aims. The first is to explore philosophical complications that arise when we move from (i) explaining the evolutionary origins of genetically influenced traits associated with human cooperation and altruism, to (ii) explaining present manifestations of human thought, feeling and behaviour involving cooperation and altruism. While the former need only appeal to causal factors accessible to scientific inquiry, the latter must engage also with a distinctive form of explanation, i.e. reason-giving explanation, which in turn raises important philosophical questions, the answers to which will affect the nature of the ultimate explanations of our moral beliefs and related actions. On one possibility I will explore, this explanatory project cannot avoid engaging with first-order ethical theory. The second aim is to apply lessons from these explanatory complications to the critique of ‘evolutionary debunking arguments’, which seek to debunk morality, or at least objective construals of it (i.e. moral realism), by appeal to allegedly scientific debunking explanations of our moral beliefs that would defeat our justification for them. The explanatory complications brought out in the first half raise difficulties for such debunking arguments. If we avoid begging central philosophical questions then such debunking arguments pose little threat of saddling us with moral scepticism or subjectivism, though they do pose an important challenge for those developing a moral realist view. PMID:28878990

All for One: Contributions of Age, Socioeconomic Factors, Executive Functioning, and Social Cognition to Moral Reasoning in Childhood

PubMed Central

Vera-Estay, Evelyn; Seni, Anne G.; Champagne, Caroline; Beauchamp, Miriam H.

2016-01-01

Moral reasoning (MR) is a socio-cognitive skill essential to appropriate social functioning in childhood, and evolves in quality and complexity during ontogenetic development. Past research suggests that MR is related to age, socioeconomic factors, as well as some social and cognitive skills, such as executive functioning (EF), theory of mind (ToM), empathy, and affect recognition. However, their contributions have been studied in silos rather than comprehensively, with little integration of the relative and combined contribution of these skills to MR. Furthermore, few studies have addressed the putative links between these factors in childhood, a period during which these skills are in maturation. The aim of this study was to explore what factors predict moral maturity in typically developing children (n = 76, 47.4% males, M = 9.2, SD = 1.67 years), explore the potential moderating and mediating role of executive functions and social cognition in the relationship between age and MR maturity, and identify the specific contributions of age, socioeconomic factors, EF, and social cognition, using an innovative visual MR assessment tool (So-Moral). The results indicate that MR maturity was correlated with age, EF (inhibition, verbal fluency, and attentional control), and social cognition (ToM and affect recognition). Neither EF nor social cognition moderated the effect of age on MR maturity. However, verbal fluency and third-order false beliefs had a moderating role in this link. MR maturity in children was predicted by three variables from each of the three domains: age, verbal fluency, and third-order ToM. These results contribute to a better understanding of the underpinnings of MR during childhood, suggesting that MR is not reducible to general developmental factors such as age, but that higher order skills, such EF and social cognition also contribute to moral maturity. The findings have relevance for both typically developing and clinical populations in which social skills may be reduced, as well as for the identification of potential loci for intervention in children at-risk for socially maladaptive behaviors. PMID:27014110

The Roles of Parental Inductions, Moral Emotions, and Moral Cognitions in Prosocial Tendencies among Mexican American and European American Early Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carlo, Gustavo; Knight, George P.; McGinley, Meredith; Hayes, Rachel

2011-01-01

This study examined the relationships between parental inductions, sympathy, prosocial moral reasoning, and prosocial behaviors. A total of 207 early adolescents who self-identified as Mexican American (girls, n = 105; mean age = 10.91 years) and 108 who identified as European American (girls, n = 54; mean age = 11.07 years) completed measures of…

A Comparison of Four-Year Longitudinal Studies of Postconventional Moral Judgment Reasoning in Teacher Education and Other Selected Undergraduate Samples.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reiman, Alan J.

This paper identifies moral judgment as a needed aim in higher education and teacher education, suggesting that moral issues are a central part of the content of various disciplines in higher education and noting that there are calls to integrate ethics across the curriculum. A cognitive-developmental theory that includes new social role-taking…

Children's interpretive understanding, moral judgments, and emotion attributions: relations to social behaviour.

PubMed

Malti, Tina; Gasser, Luciano; Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, Eveline

2010-06-01

The study investigated interpretive understanding, moral judgments, and emotion attributions in relation to social behaviour in a sample of 59 5-year-old, 123 7-year-old, and 130 9-year-old children. Interpretive understanding was assessed by two tasks measuring children's understanding of ambiguous situations. Moral judgments and emotion attributions were measured using two moral rule transgressions. Social behaviour was assessed using teachers' ratings of aggressive and prosocial behaviour. Aggressive behaviour was positively related to interpretive understanding and negatively related to moral reasoning. Prosocial behaviour was positively associated with attribution of fear. Moral judgments and emotion attributions were related, depending on age. Interpretive understanding was unrelated to moral judgments and emotion attributions. The findings are discussed in regard to the role of interpretive understanding and moral and affective knowledge in understanding children's social behaviour.

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

Relevance of Piagetian cross-cultural psychology to the humanities and social sciences.

PubMed

Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W

2013-01-01

Jean Piaget held views according to which there are parallels between ontogeny and the historical development of culture, sciences, and reason. His books are full of remarks and considerations about these parallels, with reference to many logical, physical, social, and moral phenomena.This article explains that Piagetian cross-cultural psychology has delivered the decisive data needed to extend the research interests of Piaget. These data provide a basis for reconstructing not only the history of sciences but also the history of religion, politics, morals, culture, philosophy, and social change and the emergence of industrial society. Thus, it is possible to develop Piagetian theory as a historical anthropology in order to provide a basis for the humanities and social sciences.

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.

Autonomy, nudging and post-truth politics.

PubMed

Keeling, Geoff

2017-11-16

In his excellent essay, 'Nudges in a post-truth world', Neil Levy argues that 'nudges to reason', or nudges which aim to make us more receptive to evidence, are morally permissible. A strong argument against the moral permissibility of nudging is that nudges fail to respect the autonomy of the individuals affected by them. Levy argues that nudges to reason do respect individual autonomy, such that the standard autonomy objection fails against nudges to reason. In this paper, I argue that Levy fails to show that nudges to reason respect individual autonomy. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Morality constrains the default representation of what is possible.

PubMed

Phillips, Jonathan; Cushman, Fiery

2017-05-02

The capacity for representing and reasoning over sets of possibilities, or modal cognition, supports diverse kinds of high-level judgments: causal reasoning, moral judgment, language comprehension, and more. Prior research on modal cognition asks how humans explicitly and deliberatively reason about what is possible but has not investigated whether or how people have a default, implicit representation of which events are possible. We present three studies that characterize the role of implicit representations of possibility in cognition. Collectively, these studies differentiate explicit reasoning about possibilities from default implicit representations, demonstrate that human adults often default to treating immoral and irrational events as impossible, and provide a case study of high-level cognitive judgments relying on default implicit representations of possibility rather than explicit deliberation.

Contemporaneous and 1-year longitudinal prediction of children's prosocial behavior from sympathy and moral motivation.

PubMed

Malti, Tina; Gummerum, Michaela; Buchmann, Marlis

2007-09-01

The authors investigated the contemporaneous and longitudinal relations of children's (M age = 6.4 years) prosocial behavior to sympathy and moral motivation. Mothers and kindergarten teachers rated children's prosocial behavior. The authors measured sympathy via self- and adult reports. Moral motivation was assessed by children's attribution of emotions to hypothetical victimizers and self-as-victimizers and by moral reasoning after rule violations. Mother-rated prosocial behavior was contemporaneously and longitudinally related to sympathy. Moral motivation moderated the relation of sympathy to mother-rated prosocial behavior. Furthermore, boys' level of mother-rated prosocial behavior increased with level of moral motivation, whereas girls were high in mother-rated prosocial behavior, regardless of their level of moral motivation. Sympathy contemporaneously predicted kindergarten teacher-rated prosocial behavior.

Moral Relativism on the Ropes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gabler, Mel; Gabler, Norma

1987-01-01

Finds that most current public school sex education programs and all values clarification programs are based on moral relativism and are intellectually indefensible because they are (1) methodologically defective, (2) present tautologies instead of values, (3) depend on circular reasoning, and (4) undemocratic. (NKA)

Moral Particularism and Deontic Logic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parent, Xavier

The aim of this paper is to strengthen the point made by Horty about the relationship between reason holism and moral particularism. In the literature prima facie obligations have been considered as the only source of reason holism. I strengthen Horty's point in two ways. First, I show that contrary-to-duties provide another independent support for reason holism. Next I outline a formal theory that is able to capture these two sources of holism. While in simple settings the proposed account coincides with Horty's one, this is not true in more complicated or "realistic" settings in which more than two norms collide. My chosen formalism is so-called input/output logic.

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.

The Morality of University Decision-Makers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hatier, Cécile

2014-01-01

Ethical failures in UK higher education have recently made the news but are not a recent development. University decision-makers can, in order to adopt an ethical way of reasoning, resort to several ethical traditions. This article focuses, through the use of concrete examples, on three which have had a significant impact in recent higher…

Perceptions of Campus Climates for Civic Learning as Predictors of College Students' Mental Health

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mitchell, Joshua J.; Reason, Robert D.; Hemer, Kevin M.; Finley, Ashley

2016-01-01

This study explored whether three broad areas promoted students' mental health: perceptions of the climate related to civic learning, experiences on campus, and civic engagement. Campus climates for civic learning including the development of ethical and moral reasoning and the importance of contributing to community were the strongest predictors…

What We Talk About When We Talk About Morality: Deontological, Consequentialist, and Emotive Language Use in Justifications Across Foundation-Specific Moral Violations.

PubMed

Wheeler, Melissa A; Laham, Simon M

2016-09-01

Morality is inherently social, yet much extant work in moral psychology ignores the central role of social processes in moral phenomena. To partly address this, this article examined the content of persuasive moral communication-the way people justify their moral attitudes in persuasive contexts. Across two studies, we explored variation in justification content (deontological, consequentialist, or emotive) as a function of moral foundations. Using justification selection techniques (Study 1) and open-ended justification production (Study 2), results demonstrate a preference (a) for deontological appeals in justifications for the sanctity foundation, (b) for consequentialist appeals for the individualizing foundations (care and fairness), and (c) for emotive appeals in justifications for the binding foundations (loyalty, authority and sanctity). The present research questions the generality of inferences about the primacy of emotions/intuition in moral psychology research and highlights the important role of reasons in persuasive moral communication. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

The amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in morality and psychopathy.

PubMed

Blair, R J R

2007-09-01

Recent work has implicated the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in morality and, when dysfunctional, psychopathy. This model proposes that the amygdala, through stimulus-reinforcement learning, enables the association of actions that harm others with the aversive reinforcement of the victims' distress. Consequent information on reinforcement expectancy, fed forward to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, can guide the healthy individual away from moral transgressions. In psychopathy, dysfunction in these structures means that care-based moral reasoning is compromised and the risk that antisocial behavior is used instrumentally to achieve goals is increased.

Turkish Preservice Science Teachers' Informal Reasoning regarding Socioscientific Issues and the Factors Influencing Their Informal Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Topcu, Mustafa Sami; Yilmaz-Tuzun, Ozgul; Sadler, Troy D.

2011-01-01

The purpose of the study is to explore Turkish preservice science teachers' informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues and the factors influencing their informal reasoning. The researchers engaged 39 preservice science teachers in informal reasoning interview and moral decision-making interview protocols. Of the seven socioscientific…

Should Bioethics Be Taught?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kieffer, George H.

1980-01-01

Examined is the issue concerning teaching bioethics. Differing points of view are discussed. The author concludes that moral and ethical reasoning should be incorporated into the public school curriculum, using morally laden issues that have grown out of advances in biological knowledge and biomedical technology. (CS)

The Moral Education of Emile.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

John, G.

1981-01-01

Analyzes the educational philosophy in Rousseau's "Emile" and its influence on the secularization of French moral education during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This critical analysis of Rousseau's naturalistic ethics covers the importance of home-life, habit-training, discipline, reason, physical needs, and historical…

Punishing hypocrisy: the roles of hypocrisy and moral emotions in deciding culpability and punishment of criminal and civil moral transgressors.

PubMed

Laurent, Sean M; Clark, Brian A M; Walker, Stephannie; Wiseman, Kimberly D

2014-01-01

Three experiments explored how hypocrisy affects attributions of criminal guilt and the desire to punish hypocritical criminals. Study 1 established that via perceived hypocrisy, a hypocritical criminal was seen as more culpable and was punished more than a non-hypocritical criminal who committed an identical crime. Study 2 expanded on this, showing that negative moral emotions (anger and disgust) mediated the relationships between perceived hypocrisy, criminal guilt, and punishment. Study 3 replicated the emotion finding from Study 2 using new scenarios where group agents were clearly aware of the hypocrisy of their actions, yet acted anyway. Again, perceived hypocrisy worked through moral emotions to affect criminal guilt and punishment. The current studies provide empirical support for theories relating hypocrisy and moral transgressions to moral emotions, also informing the literature on the role of moral emotions in moral reasoning and legal decision making.

The use of supernatural entities in moral conversations as a cultural-psychological attractor.

PubMed

Tófalvy, Tamás; Viciana, Hugo

2009-06-01

Social behavior in most human societies is characterized by the following of moral rules explicitly justified by religious belief systems. These systems constitute the diverse domain of human sacred values. Supernatural entities as founders or warranty of moral principles may be seen as a form of "conversation stoppers," considerations that can be dropped into a moral decision process in order to prevent endlessly reconsidering and endlessly asking for further justification. In this article we offer a general naturalistic framework toward answering the question of why supernatural entities are so attractive in moral argumentation. We present an explanatory model based on the phenomena of multiple channels of moral reasoning, the suspension of epistemic vigilance, and relevance assumptions through the attractiveness of the sacred, moral dumbfounding, and the expression of social coalitionary commitment. Thus, in light of much of current cognitive theory, sacred values make sense as basins in the evolutionary landscape of human morality.

Moral distress in emergency nurses.

PubMed

Fernandez-Parsons, Robin; Rodriguez, Lori; Goyal, Deepika

2013-11-01

For nurses, moral distress leads to burnout, attrition, compassion fatigue, and patient avoidance. Using a quantitative, cross-sectional, and descriptive design, we assessed the frequency, intensity, and type of moral distress in 51 emergency nurses in 1 community hospital using a 21-item, self-report, Likert-type questionnaire. Results showed a total mean moral distress level of 3.18, indicative of overall low moral distress. Situations with the highest levels of moral distress were related to the competency of health care providers and following family wishes to continue life support, also known as futile care. Moral distress was the reason given by 6.6% of registered nurses for leaving a previous position, 20% said that they had considered leaving a position but did not, and 13.3% stated that they are currently considering leaving their position because of moral distress. Copyright © 2013 Emergency Nurses Association. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Abortion and regret.

PubMed

Greasley, Kate

2012-12-01

The article considers three theses about postabortion regret which seek to illustrate its pertinence to reasoning about abortion, and which are often deployed, either explicitly or implicitly, to dissuade women out of that reproductive choice. The first is that postabortion regret renders an abortion morally unjustified. The second is that that a relatively high incidence of postabortion regret-compared with a lower incidence of postnatal regret in the relevant comparator field-is good evidence for the moral impermissibility of abortion choice. The third is that high rates of postabortion regret suggest that abortion is not the most prudent or welfare-maximising choice for the woman concerned. All three theses argue for the compellingness of knowledge about postabortion regret in moral and practical reasoning about abortion, especially from the pregnant woman's point of view. This article argues that all three theses are flawed. In particular, it seeks to remind readers that feelings of regret directed at past decisions are often decoupled from the fact of the matter about their moral or rational justification. Moreover, certain features of reproductive decisions in particular make regret an especially unsuitable yardstick for actual justification in this context, and even less epistemically reliable as evidence for a lack of justification than it may be in other fields of decision-making. The implication is that rates of postabortion regret, even if they can be presumed to be higher than rates of postnatal regret, are not as pertinent to moral and practical reasoning about abortion as is sometimes suggested.

An integrated, ethically driven environmental model of clinical decision making in emergency settings.

PubMed

Wolf, Lisa

2013-02-01

To explore the relationship between multiple variables within a model of critical thinking and moral reasoning. A quantitative descriptive correlational design using a purposive sample of 200 emergency nurses. Measured variables were accuracy in clinical decision-making, moral reasoning, perceived care environment, and demographics. Analysis was by bivariate correlation using Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficients, chi square and multiple linear regression analysis. The elements as identified in the integrated ethically-driven environmental model of clinical decision-making (IEDEM-CD) corrected depict moral reasoning and environment of care as factors significantly affecting accuracy in decision-making. The integrated, ethically driven environmental model of clinical decision making is a framework useful for predicting clinical decision making accuracy for emergency nurses in practice, with further implications in education, research and policy. A diagnostic and therapeutic framework for identifying and remediating individual and environmental challenges to accurate clinical decision making. © 2012, The Author. International Journal of Nursing Knowledge © 2012, NANDA International.

Empathy Mediates the Effects of Age and Sex on Altruistic Moral Decision Making.

PubMed

Rosen, Jan B; Brand, Matthias; Kalbe, Elke

2016-01-01

Moral decision making involves affective and cognitive functions like emotional empathy, reasoning and cognitive empathy/theory of mind (ToM), which are discussed to be subject to age-related alterations. Additionally, sex differences in moral decision making have been reported. However, age-related changes in moral decision making from early to late adulthood and their relation to sex and neuropsychological functions have not been studied yet. One hundred ninety seven participants (122 female), aged 19-86 years, were tested with a moral decision making task comprising forced choice "everyday life" situations in which an altruistic option that favors a socially accepted alternative had to be considered against an egoistic option that favors personal benefit over social interests. The percentage of altruistic decisions was analyzed. A structural equation model (SEM) was calculated to test the hypothesis whether age and sex predict altruistic moral decision, and whether relevant neuropsychological domains mediate these hypothesized relationships. A significant relationship between age and moral decision making was found indicating more frequent altruistic decisions with increasing age. Furthermore, women decided more altruistically than men. The SEM showed that both age and sex are significant predictors of altruistic moral decision making, mediated by emotional empathy but not by reasoning. No cognitive empathy and ToM scores were correlated to age and moral decision making at the same time and thus were not included in the SEM. Our data suggest that increasing age and female sex have an effect on altruistic moral decisions, but that this effect is fully mediated by emotional empathy. The fact that changes of moral decision making with age are mediated by emotional empathy can be interpreted in the light of the so-called "positivity effect" and increasing avoidance of negative affect in aging. The mediated sex effect might represent both biological aspects and socialized sex roles for higher emotional empathy leading to more altruistic decisions.

Empathy Mediates the Effects of Age and Sex on Altruistic Moral Decision Making

PubMed Central

Rosen, Jan B.; Brand, Matthias; Kalbe, Elke

2016-01-01

Moral decision making involves affective and cognitive functions like emotional empathy, reasoning and cognitive empathy/theory of mind (ToM), which are discussed to be subject to age-related alterations. Additionally, sex differences in moral decision making have been reported. However, age-related changes in moral decision making from early to late adulthood and their relation to sex and neuropsychological functions have not been studied yet. One hundred ninety seven participants (122 female), aged 19–86 years, were tested with a moral decision making task comprising forced choice “everyday life” situations in which an altruistic option that favors a socially accepted alternative had to be considered against an egoistic option that favors personal benefit over social interests. The percentage of altruistic decisions was analyzed. A structural equation model (SEM) was calculated to test the hypothesis whether age and sex predict altruistic moral decision, and whether relevant neuropsychological domains mediate these hypothesized relationships. A significant relationship between age and moral decision making was found indicating more frequent altruistic decisions with increasing age. Furthermore, women decided more altruistically than men. The SEM showed that both age and sex are significant predictors of altruistic moral decision making, mediated by emotional empathy but not by reasoning. No cognitive empathy and ToM scores were correlated to age and moral decision making at the same time and thus were not included in the SEM. Our data suggest that increasing age and female sex have an effect on altruistic moral decisions, but that this effect is fully mediated by emotional empathy. The fact that changes of moral decision making with age are mediated by emotional empathy can be interpreted in the light of the so-called “positivity effect” and increasing avoidance of negative affect in aging. The mediated sex effect might represent both biological aspects and socialized sex roles for higher emotional empathy leading to more altruistic decisions. PMID:27147990

Attributions of Responsibility and Blame for Procrastination Behavior.

PubMed

Rahimi, Sonia; Hall, Nathan C; Pychyl, Timothy A

2016-01-01

The present study examined the relationship between procrastination, delay, blameworthiness, and moral responsibility. Undergraduate students (N = 240) were provided two scenarios in which the reason for inaction (procrastination, delay), the target (self, other), and the outcome (positive, negative) were manipulated, and students were asked to rate the moral responsibility and blameworthiness of the agent. Results indicated that individuals who procrastinated were seen as more morally responsible and blameworthy than those who experienced delay. More specifically, after a negative outcome, procrastination was associated with more moral responsibility, whereas delay was associated with less moral responsibility. After a positive outcome, individuals perceived procrastination as deserving of less moral responsibility, and delays as associated with more moral responsibility. Finally, a three-way interaction showed that participants rated procrastination that resulted in failure as deserving of responsibility when engaged in by others as opposed to oneself.

Will cognitive enhancement create post-persons? The use(lessness) of induction in determining the likelihood of moral status enhancement.

PubMed

Mihailov, Emilian; Dragomir, Alexandru

2018-06-01

The prospect of cognitive enhancement well beyond current human capacities raises worries that the fundamental equality in moral status of human beings could be undermined. Cognitive enhancement might create beings with moral status higher than persons. Yet, there is an expressibility problem of spelling out what the higher threshold in cognitive capacity would be like. Nicholas Agar has put forward the bold claim that we can show by means of inductive reasoning that indefinite cognitive enhancement will probably mark a difference in moral status. The hope is that induction can determine the plausibility of post-personhood existence in the absence of an account of what the higher status would be like. In this article, we argue that Agar's argument fails and, more generally, that inductive reasoning has little bearing on assessing the likelihood of post-personhood in the absence of an account of higher status. We conclude that induction cannot bypass the expressibility problem about post-persons. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

[Considering body ethics in the healthcare profession].

PubMed

Wang, Shin-Yun

2014-10-01

This article uses the theory of body phenomenology and Watson's caring theory to develop and apply body ethics to the clinical healthcare profession. This attempt is meant to facilitate deep, humanistic experiences for healthcare personnel. The analysis of body phenomenology reveals that the soul is banished from her familiar and comfortable "at-home" status when illness and pain invade the body. In such situations, the body becomes an external object that is self-alienated. This experience induces experiences such as solitude and violence. However, it also holds the potential to expose the original morality of the body. Additionally, this article discusses popular tools used in clinical ethics such as principalism and virtual-based ethics, which are based on moral reasoning and moral feeling. In contrast to these, body ethics seek a more profound and humble level of sensibility that is able to implant authenticity into the ethics. Finally, we offer some suggestions related to Watson's caring theory.

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.

The Stakes Are High: Ethics Education at U.S. War Colleges

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-02-13

keeping with the long-held belief among 3 American military leaders that “ ethics , the study of reasoning about moral right and wrong, nurtures the... moral consciousness and establishes the basis for right actions by military leaders.”6 Military ethics , as a subset of professional ethics , serves...It shares similarities with other professions, but is uniquely focused on those inherent moral issues of military service, namely the authority to

Amenable to reason: Aristotle's rhetoric and the moral psychology of practical ethics.

PubMed

London, A J

2000-12-01

An Aristotelian conception of practical ethics can be derived from the account of practical reasoning that Aristotle articulates in is Rhetoric and this has important implications for the way we understand the nature and limits of practical ethics. an important feature of this conception of practical ethics is its responsiveness to the complex ways in which agents form and maintain moral commitments, and this has important implications for the debate concerning methods of ethics in applied ethics. In particular, this feature enables us to understand casuistry, narrative, and principlism as mutually supportive modes of moral inquiry, rather than divergent and mutually exclusive methods of ethics. As a result, an Aristotelian conception of practical ethics clears the conceptual common ground upon which practical ethicists can forge a stable and realistic self-understanding.

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.

Queen Christina's moral claim on the living: justification of a tenacious moral intuition.

PubMed

Masterton, Malin; Helgesson, Gert; Höglund, Anna T; Hansson, Mats G

2007-09-01

In the long-running debate on the interest of the dead, Joan C. Callahan argues against such interests and although Søren Holm for practical reasons is prepared to consider posthumous interests, he does not see any moral basis to support such interests. He argues that the whole question is irresolvable, yet finds privacy interests where Tutankhamen is concerned. Callahan argues that there can be reasons to hold on to the fiction that there are posthumous interests, namely if it is comforting for the living and instrumental for society. Thus, despite arguing against the position that the dead have any interests or for any moral basis for such interests, these "interests" are still taken into consideration in the end. This shows the unsatisfactory basis of their positions and indicates the tenacity of the moral intuition that the dead can have moral claims on the living. One example of a posthumous interest is the interest in one's good name. Here we argue that it is an interest of moral significance. This implies that if individuals restrict use of their sample when they are still alive, those restrictions apply after their death. Further, it implies that one should be concerned with the reputation of historic persons. Research that defeats these interests calls for justification. We have suggested two lines of thinking along which such a discussion could go: investigating the truth-value of the good name and the relevance of bringing it into possible disrepute.

Women, Education and the Material Body Politic in Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindications"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bernath, Elizabeth

2016-01-01

This paper discusses Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects" and "A Vindication of the Rights of Men" as books of philosophy about rational materialism. Based on an analysis of Lockean thought, as applied to the possibility of women's development of reason,…

Alasdair Macintyre's Idea of an Educated Public and "Informal" Adult Education in Scotland

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hammond, Keith

2006-01-01

Scotland has a particular history, that moves around the unique public experiences of the Enlightenment and the Act of Union as defining moments that could have developed differently. For complex reasons, public thinking moved more and more towards the fractured moral and political conditions that we know now. But, following the work of Alasdair…

Transcending the Nature of Refinement: The Policy Development on Liberal Arts Education in China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jiang, You Guo; Guo, Hong

2017-01-01

Liberal arts education is based on a philosophy that uses an interdisciplinary curriculum to cultivate critical thinking, creativity, moral reasoning, analytical skills, and a sense of social responsibility. As China continues to invest in higher education, faculty, administrators and policy makers are aware that a narrow focus on professional and…

Patterns of informal reasoning in the context of socioscientific decision making

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadler, Troy D.; Zeidler, Dana L.

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study is to contribute to a theoretical knowledge base through research by examining factors salient to science education reform and practice in the context of socioscientific issues. The study explores how individuals negotiate and resolve genetic engineering dilemmas. A qualitative approach was used to examine patterns of informal reasoning and the role of morality in these processes. Thirty college students participated individually in two semistructured interviews designed to explore their informal reasoning in response to six genetic engineering scenarios. Students demonstrated evidence of rationalistic, emotive, and intuitive forms of informal reasoning. Rationalistic informal reasoning described reason-based considerations; emotive informal reasoning described care-based considerations; and intuitive reasoning described considerations based on immediate reactions to the context of a scenario. Participants frequently relied on combinations of these reasoning patterns as they worked to resolve individual socioscientific scenarios. Most of the participants appreciated at least some of the moral implications of their decisions, and these considerations were typically interwoven within an overall pattern of informal reasoning. These results highlight the need to ensure that science classrooms are environments in which intuition and emotion in addition to reason are valued. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Dissolving the Puzzle of Resultant Moral Luck.

PubMed

Levy, Neil

The puzzle of resultant moral luck arises when we are disposed to think that an agent who caused a harm deserves to be blamed more than an otherwise identical agent who did not. One popular (but controversial) perspective on resultant moral luck explains our dispositions to produce different judgments with regard to the agents who feature in these cases as a product not of what they genuinely deserve but of our epistemic situation. On this account, there is no genuine resultant moral luck; there is only luck in what evidence becomes available to observers. In this paper, I develop an evolutionary account of our inclination to take the results of actions as evidence for the mental states of agents, thereby explaining why the resulting intuitions are recalcitrant to correction. The account explains why the puzzle of resultant moral luck arises: because our disposition to take the harms agents cause as evidence of their mental states can produce intuitions which conflict with those that arise when we examine agents' mental states without reference to the results of their actions. The account also helps to solve the puzzle of resultant moral luck, by providing a strong reason to ignore the intuitions caused by our disposition to regard actual harms as evidence of mental states. Since these intuitions arise using an unreliable proxy for agents' mental states, they ought to be trumped by more reliable evidence.

How should I decide? The neural correlates of everyday moral reasoning.

PubMed

Sommer, Monika; Rothmayr, Christoph; Döhnel, Katrin; Meinhardt, Jörg; Schwerdtner, Johannes; Sodian, Beate; Hajak, Göran

2010-06-01

The present fMRI study is the first that investigates everyday moral conflict situations in which a moral standard clashes with a personal desire. In such situations people have to decide between a morally guided and a hedonistic behaviour. Twelve healthy subjects were presented with verbal stories describing conflicts with either moral or neutral content. The moral stories described conflicts requiring a decision between a personal desire and a conflicting moral standard, whereas the neutral conflicts required a decision between two conflicting personal desires. When compared to neutral conflicts, moral conflicts elicited higher activity in a wide spread neural network including the medial frontal cortex, the temporal cortex and the temporo-parietal junction and the posterior cingulate cortex. Further analyses of the moral conflicts revealed that hedonistic decisions in contrast to morally guided decisions were associated with significantly higher rankings of uncertainty and unpleasant emotions and induced significant more activation in the amygdala/parahippocampal region. The present results generalise findings on the neuroscience of moral understanding by extending it to everyday moral decisions. Furthermore, the results show that the amydala region plays a central role in the processing of negative emotional consequences associated with immoral decisions. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dogs and Monsters: Moral Status Claims in the Fiction of Dean Koontz.

PubMed

Smith, Stephen W

2016-03-01

This article explores conceptions of moral status in the work of American thriller author Dean Koontz. It begins by examining some of the general theories of moral status used by philosophers to determine whether particular entities have moral status. This includes both uni-criterial theories and multi-criterial theories of moral status. After this examination, the article argues for exploring bioethics conceptions in popular fiction. Popular fiction is considered a rich source for analysis because it provides not only a good approximation of the beliefs of ordinary members of the moral community, but also explores important issues in a context where ordinary individuals are likely to encounter them. Following on from this, the article then explores theories of moral status in the context of Koontz's novels. In particular, the article focuses on the novel Watchers and Koontz's Frankenstein series. Through these works, Koontz indicates that entities have moral status for a variety of reasons and thus presumably, he is a proponent of multi-criterial theories of moral status. The article concludes with an examination of what this might mean for our understanding of moral status claims generally.

[Dispositional mindfulness modulates automatic transference of disgust into moral judgment].

PubMed

Sato, Atsushi; Sugiura, Yoshinori

2014-02-01

Previous studies showed that incidental feelings of disgust could make moral judgments more severe. In the present study, we investigated whether individual differences in mindfulness modulated automatic transference of disgust into moral judgment. Undergraduates were divided into high- and low-mindfulness groups based on the mean score on each subscale of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). Participants were asked to write about a disgusting experience or an emotionally neutral experience, and then to evaluate moral (impersonal vs. high-conflict personal) and non-moral scenarios. The results showed that the disgust induction made moral judgments more severe for the low "acting with awareness" participants, whereas it did not influence the moral judgments of the high "acting with awareness" participants irrespective of type of moral dilemma. The other facets of the FFMQ did not modulate the effect of disgust on moral judgment. These findings suggest that being present prevents automatic transference of disgust into moral judgment even when prepotent emotions elicited by the thought of killing one person to save several others and utilitarian reasoning conflict.

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.

Moral Expertise in the Clinic: Lessons Learned from Medicine and Science

PubMed Central

McClimans, Leah; Slowther, Anne

2016-01-01

Philosophers and others have questioned whether or not expertise in morality is possible. This debate is not only theoretical, but also affects the perceived legitimacy of clinical ethicists. One argument against moral expertise is that in a pluralistic society with competing moral theories no one can claim expertise regarding what another ought morally to do. There are simply too many reasonable moral values and intuitions that affect theory choice and its application; expertise is epistemically uniform. In this article, we discuss how similar concerns have recently threatened to undermine expertise in medicine and science. In contrast, we argue that the application of values is needed to exercise medical, scientific, and moral expertise. As long as these values are made explicit, worries about a pretense to authority in the context of a liberal democracy are ill-conceived. In conclusion, we argue for an expertise that is epistemically diverse. PMID:27302969

Attributions of Responsibility and Blame for Procrastination Behavior

PubMed Central

Rahimi, Sonia; Hall, Nathan C.; Pychyl, Timothy A.

2016-01-01

The present study examined the relationship between procrastination, delay, blameworthiness, and moral responsibility. Undergraduate students (N = 240) were provided two scenarios in which the reason for inaction (procrastination, delay), the target (self, other), and the outcome (positive, negative) were manipulated, and students were asked to rate the moral responsibility and blameworthiness of the agent. Results indicated that individuals who procrastinated were seen as more morally responsible and blameworthy than those who experienced delay. More specifically, after a negative outcome, procrastination was associated with more moral responsibility, whereas delay was associated with less moral responsibility. After a positive outcome, individuals perceived procrastination as deserving of less moral responsibility, and delays as associated with more moral responsibility. Finally, a three-way interaction showed that participants rated procrastination that resulted in failure as deserving of responsibility when engaged in by others as opposed to oneself. PMID:27547197

A Note on Helga's Dilemma: The Dark Side of Kohlberg.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kirman, Joseph M.

1991-01-01

Argues that exposing children to some of Lawrence Kohlberg's moral dilemmas, such as Helga's dilemma, may be pedagogically unsound at the elementary-school level. States sample responses provided are inappropriate, rigid, and self-righteous. Provides 10 reasons why this dilemma and its designated responses are of questionable morality. Claims…

Predictors of Children's Prosocial Lie-Telling: Motivation, Socialization Variables, and Moral Understanding

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Popliger, Mina; Talwar, Victoria; Crossman, Angela

2011-01-01

Children tell prosocial lies for self- and other-oriented reasons. However, it is unclear how motivational and socialization factors affect their lying. Furthermore, it is unclear whether children's moral understanding and evaluations of prosocial lie scenarios (including perceptions of vignette characters' feelings) predict their actual prosocial…

Harming kin to save strangers: further evidence for abnormally utilitarian moral judgments after ventromedial prefrontal damage.

PubMed

Thomas, Bradley C; Croft, Katie E; Tranel, Daniel

2011-09-01

The ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) has been implicated as a critical neural substrate mediating the influence of emotion on moral reasoning. It has been shown that the vmPFC is especially important for making moral judgments about "high-conflict" moral dilemmas involving direct personal actions, that is, scenarios that pit compelling utilitarian considerations of aggregate welfare against the highly emotionally aversive act of directly causing harm to others [Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., Hauser, M., et al. Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature, 446, 908-911, 2007]. The current study was designed to elucidate further the role of the vmPFC in high-conflict moral judgments, including those that involve indirect personal actions, such as indirectly causing harm to one's kin to save a group of strangers. We found that patients with vmPFC lesions were more likely than brain-damaged and healthy comparison participants to endorse utilitarian outcomes on high-conflict dilemmas regardless of whether the dilemmas (1) entailed direct versus indirect personal harms and (2) were presented from the Self versus Other perspective. In addition, all groups were more likely to endorse utilitarian outcomes in the Other perspective as compared with the Self perspective. These results provide important extensions of previous work, and the findings align with the proposal that the vmPFC is critical for reasoning about moral dilemmas in which anticipating the social-emotional consequences of an action (e.g., guilt or remorse) is crucial for normal moral judgments [Greene, J. D. Why are VMPFC patients more utilitarian?: A dual-process theory of moral judgment explains. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 322-323, 2007; Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., Hauser, M., et al. Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature, 446, 908-911, 2007].

Better Minds, Better Morals: A Procedural Guide to Better Judgment.

PubMed

Schaefer, G Owen; Savulescu, Julian

2017-01-01

Making more moral decisions - an uncontroversial goal, if ever there was one. But how to go about it? In this article, we offer a practical guide on ways to promote good judgment in our personal and professional lives. We will do this not by outlining what the good life consists in or which values we should accept.Rather, we offer a theory of procedural reliability : a set of dimensions of thought that are generally conducive to good moral reasoning. At the end of the day, we all have to decide for ourselves what is good and bad, right and wrong. The best way to ensure we make the right choices is to ensure the procedures we're employing are sound and reliable. We identify four broad categories of judgment to be targeted - cognitive, self-management, motivational and interpersonal. Specific factors within each category are further delineated, with a total of 14 factors to be discussed. For each, we will go through the reasons it generally leads to more morally reliable decision-making, how various thinkers have historically addressed the topic, and the insights of recent research that can offer new ways to promote good reasoning. The result is a wide-ranging survey that contains practical advice on how to make better choices. Finally, we relate this to the project of transhumanism and prudential decision-making. We argue that transhumans will employ better moral procedures like these. We also argue that the same virtues will enable us to take better control of our own lives, enhancing our responsibility and enabling us to lead better lives from the prudential perspective.

The moral relevance of personal characteristics in setting health care priorities.

PubMed

Olsen, Jan Abel; Richardson, Jeff; Dolan, Paul; Menzel, Paul

2003-10-01

This paper discusses the moral relevance of accounting for various personal characteristics when prioritising between groups of patients. After a review of the results from empirical studies, we discuss the ethical reasons which might explain-and justify-the views expressed in these studies. The paper develops a general framework based upon the causes of ill health and the consequences of treatment. It then turns to the question of the extent to which a personal characteristic-and the eventual underlying ethical justification of its relevance-could have any relationships to these causes and consequences. We attempt to disentangle those characteristics that may reflect a potentially relevant justification from those which violate widely accepted principles of social justice.

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

The moral development of baccalaureate nursing students: understanding unethical behavior in classroom and clinical settings.

PubMed

Baxter, Pamela E; Boblin, Sheryl L

2007-01-01

Unethical behavior in both classroom and clinical settings is a concern for nurse educators and has the potential to greatly influence the quality of patient care. A review of the literature suggests that students may view unethical clinical behaviors as different from unethical classroom behaviors because they recognize that clinical behaviors may have a direct effect on patient care. An overview of three moral theories, proposed by Kohlberg, Gilligan, and Rest, provides insight into the reasons for unethical behavior. These theories provide the foundation for strategies nurse educators can use to help reduce unethical behavior in both classroom and clinical settings in an attempt to ensure quality patient care.

The rise of moral cognition.

PubMed

Greene, Joshua D

2015-02-01

The field of moral cognition has grown rapidly in recent years thanks in no small part to Cognition. Consistent with its interdisciplinary tradition, Cognition encouraged the growth of this field by supporting empirical research conducted by philosophers as well as research native to neighboring fields such as social psychology, evolutionary game theory, and behavioral economics. This research has been exceptionally diverse both in its content and methodology. I argue that this is because morality is unified at the functional level, but not at the cognitive level, much as vehicles are unified by shared function rather than shared mechanics. Research in moral cognition, then, has progressed by explaining the phenomena that we identify as "moral" (for high-level functional reasons) in terms of diverse cognitive components that are not specific to morality. In light of this, research on moral cognition may continue to flourish, not as the identification and characterization of distinctive moral processes, but as a testing ground for theories of high-level, integrative cognitive function. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Moral enhancement, freedom, and what we (should) value in moral behaviour.

PubMed

DeGrazia, David

2014-06-01

The enhancement of human traits has received academic attention for decades, but only recently has moral enhancement using biomedical means--moral bioenhancement (MB)--entered the discussion. After explaining why we ought to take the possibility of MB seriously, the paper considers the shape and content of moral improvement, addressing at some length a challenge presented by reasonable moral pluralism. The discussion then proceeds to this question: Assuming MB were safe, effective, and universally available, would it be morally desirable? In particular, would it pose an unacceptable threat to human freedom? After defending a negative answer to the latter question--which requires an investigation into the nature and value of human freedom--and arguing that there is nothing inherently wrong with MB, the paper closes with reflections on what we should value in moral behaviour. 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.

Disrupting the right prefrontal cortex alters moral judgement.

PubMed

Tassy, Sébastien; Oullier, Olivier; Duclos, Yann; Coulon, Olivier; Mancini, Julien; Deruelle, Christine; Attarian, Sharam; Felician, Olivier; Wicker, Bruno

2012-03-01

Humans daily face social situations involving conflicts between competing moral decision. Despite a substantial amount of studies published over the past 10 years, the respective role of emotions and reason, their possible interaction, and their behavioural expression during moral evaluation remains an unresolved issue. A dualistic approach to moral evaluation proposes that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFc) controls emotional impulses. However, recent findings raise the possibility that the right DLPFc processes emotional information during moral decision making. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently disrupt rDLPFc activity before measuring decision making in the context of moral dilemmas. Results reveal an increase of the probability of utilitarian responses during objective evaluation of moral dilemmas in the rTMS group (compared to a SHAM one). This suggests that the right DLPFc function not only participates to a rational cognitive control process, but also integrates emotions generated by contextual information appraisal, which are decisive for response selection in moral judgements. © The Author (2011). Published by Oxford University Press.

The Misfortunes of Moral Enhancement.

PubMed

Azevedo, Marco Antonio

2016-10-01

In Unfit for the Future, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu present a sophisticated argument in defense of the imperative of moral enhancement. They claim that without moral enhancement, the future of humanity is seriously compromised. The possibility of ultimate harm, caused by a dreadful terrorist attack or by a final unpreventable escalation of the present environmental crisis aggravated by the availability of cognitive enhancement, makes moral enhancement a top priority. It may be considered optimistic to think that our present moral capabilities can be successfully improved by means of moral education, moral persuasion, and fear of punishment. So, without moral enhancement, drastic restrictions on human freedom would become the only alternative to prevent those dramatic potential outcomes. In this article, I will try to show that we still have reason to be less pessimistic and that Persson & Savulescu's arguments are fortunately unconvincing. © The Author 2016. 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.

Practical implications of empirically studying moral decision-making.

PubMed

Heinzelmann, Nora; Ugazio, Giuseppe; Tobler, Philippe N

2012-01-01

This paper considers the practical question of why people do not behave in the way they ought to behave. This question is a practical one, reaching both into the normative and descriptive domains of morality. That is, it concerns moral norms as well as empirical facts. We argue that two main problems usually keep us form acting and judging in a morally decent way: firstly, we make mistakes in moral reasoning. Secondly, even when we know how to act and judge, we still fail to meet the requirements due to personal weaknesses. This discussion naturally leads us to another question: can we narrow the gap between what people are morally required to do and what they actually do? We discuss findings from neuroscience, economics, and psychology, considering how we might bring our moral behavior better in line with moral theory. Potentially fruitful means include nudging, training, pharmacological enhancement, and brain stimulation. We conclude by raising the question of whether such methods could and should be implemented.

Disrupting the right prefrontal cortex alters moral judgement

PubMed Central

Tassy, Sébastien; Oullier, Olivier; Duclos, Yann; Coulon, Olivier; Mancini, Julien; Deruelle, Christine; Attarian, Sharam; Felician, Olivier

2012-01-01

Humans daily face social situations involving conflicts between competing moral decision. Despite a substantial amount of studies published over the past 10 years, the respective role of emotions and reason, their possible interaction, and their behavioural expression during moral evaluation remains an unresolved issue. A dualistic approach to moral evaluation proposes that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFc) controls emotional impulses. However, recent findings raise the possibility that the right DLPFc processes emotional information during moral decision making. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently disrupt rDLPFc activity before measuring decision making in the context of moral dilemmas. Results reveal an increase of the probability of utilitarian responses during objective evaluation of moral dilemmas in the rTMS group (compared to a SHAM one). This suggests that the right DLPFc function not only participates to a rational cognitive control process, but also integrates emotions generated by contextual information appraisal, which are decisive for response selection in moral judgements. PMID:21515641

Practical Implications of Empirically Studying Moral Decision-Making

PubMed Central

Heinzelmann, Nora; Ugazio, Giuseppe; Tobler, Philippe N.

2012-01-01

This paper considers the practical question of why people do not behave in the way they ought to behave. This question is a practical one, reaching both into the normative and descriptive domains of morality. That is, it concerns moral norms as well as empirical facts. We argue that two main problems usually keep us form acting and judging in a morally decent way: firstly, we make mistakes in moral reasoning. Secondly, even when we know how to act and judge, we still fail to meet the requirements due to personal weaknesses. This discussion naturally leads us to another question: can we narrow the gap between what people are morally required to do and what they actually do? We discuss findings from neuroscience, economics, and psychology, considering how we might bring our moral behavior better in line with moral theory. Potentially fruitful means include nudging, training, pharmacological enhancement, and brain stimulation. We conclude by raising the question of whether such methods could and should be implemented. PMID:22783157

Bracketed morality revisited: how do athletes behave in two contexts?

PubMed

Kavussanu, Maria; Boardley, Ian D; Sagar, Sam S; Ring, Christopher

2013-10-01

The concept of bracketed morality has received empirical support in several sport studies (e.g., Bredemeier & Shields, 1986a, 1986b). However, these studies have focused on moral reasoning. In this research, we examined bracketed morality with respect to moral behavior in sport and university contexts, in two studies. Male and female participants (Study 1: N = 331; Study 2: N = 372) completed questionnaires assessing prosocial and antisocial behavior toward teammates and opponents in sport and toward other students at university. Study 2 participants also completed measures of moral disengagement and goal orientation in both contexts. In most cases, behavior in sport was highly correlated with behavior at university. In addition, participants reported higher prosocial behavior toward teammates and higher antisocial behavior toward opponents in sport than toward other students at university. The effects of context on antisocial behavior were partially mediated by moral disengagement and ego orientation. Our findings extend the bracketed morality concept to prosocial and antisocial behavior.

Why Bioethics Needs a Disability Moral Psychology.

PubMed

Stramondo, Joseph A

2016-05-01

The deeply entrenched, sometimes heated conflict between the disability movement and the profession of bioethics is well known and well documented. Critiques of prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion are probably the most salient and most sophisticated of disability studies scholars' engagements with bioethics, but there are many other topics over which disability activists and scholars have encountered the field of bioethics in an adversarial way, including health care rationing, growth-attenuation interventions, assisted reproduction technology, and physician-assisted suicide. The tension between the analyses of the disabilities studies scholars and mainstream bioethics is not merely a conflict between two insular political groups, however; it is, rather, also an encounter between those who have experienced disability and those who have not. This paper explores that idea. I maintain that it is a mistake to think of this conflict as arising just from a difference in ideology or political commitments because it represents a much deeper difference-one rooted in variations in how human beings perceive and reason about moral problems. These are what I will refer to as variations of moral psychology. The lived experiences of disability produce variations in moral psychology that are at the heart of the moral conflict between the disability movement and mainstream bioethics. I will illustrate this point by exploring how the disability movement and mainstream bioethics come into conflict when perceiving and analyzing the moral problem of physician-assisted suicide via the lens of the principle of respect for autonomy. To reconcile its contemporary and historical conflict with the disability movement, the field of bioethics must engage with and fully consider the two groups' differences in moral perception and reasoning, not just the explicit moral and political arguments of the disability movement. © 2016 The Hastings Center.