Neurocomputational mechanisms engaged in moral choices and moral learning

How can we better learn about and teach moral thinking and skills? How can we solve moral problems? One possible way is to create and use moral learning games, or games that enable players to work on moral scenarios, make moral choices, and gain relevant skills. One possible subcategory of these games is moral knowledge games, or games that aim to solve real-world moral problems and create new knowledge about morality. This article systematically analyzes relevant literature and related games and media to uncover a preliminary set of design principles for creating moral learning games and moral knowledge games. Frameworks such as the Elemental Tetrad, Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics (MDA), and Ethics Practice and Implementation Categorization Framework (EPIC) were used to analyze individual games and media. Ten different categories of principles emerged, along with 95 possible subprinciples. Implications, next steps, and limitations of this analysis were also discussed.

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Vygotsky, Heidegger, and Gadamer on Moral Development

Contemporary Approaches to Activity Theory - Advances in Human and Social Aspects of Technology ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-6603-0.ch019 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 323-336

Author(s):

Leena Kakkori ◽

Rauno Huttunen

Keyword(s):

Moral Development ◽

Moral Imagination ◽

Zone Of Proximal Development ◽

Point Of View ◽

The Self ◽

Proximal Development ◽

Self Reflection ◽

Moral Voice ◽

Moral Learning ◽

Moral Choices

The authors present a Heideggerian-Gadamerian interpretation of Vygotsky from the point of view of moral learning. In doing so, they introduce a new concept called Hermeneutic Zone of Proximal Development (HZPD). They also connect HZPD to the self-education of one's moral voice and lifelong moral learning. Adult self-education includes activities like reappraisal of moral choices, improving moral imagination, especially concerning fellow feeling, and dissimulating unproductive moral feelings in order to convert them into productive moral feelings. The purpose of critical self-reflection of one's moral voice is to transform “everyday morality” into “deliberative morality.”

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Make Love at War? Representing Gender and Memory in the Soviet Estonian Film Dark Windows (Pimedad aknad, Tõnis Kask, 1968)

Baltic Screen Media Review ◽

10.2478/bsmr-2018-0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 20-37

Author(s):

Liis Jõhvik

Keyword(s):

Everyday Life ◽

Young Women ◽

Interpersonal Relations ◽

Nazi Germany ◽

National Narrative ◽

Moral Choices ◽

The One ◽

Falling In Love ◽

The Way

Abstract Initially produced in 1968 as a three-part TV miniseries, and restored and re-edited in 2008 as a feature-length film, Dark Windows (Pimedad aknad, Tõnis Kask, Estonia) explores interpersonal relations and everyday life in September 1944, during the last days of Estonia’s occupation by Nazi Germany. The story focuses on two young women and the struggles they face in making moral choices and falling in love with righteous men. The one who slips up and falls in love with a Nazi is condemned and made to feel responsible for the national decay. This article explores how the category of gender becomes a marker in the way the film reconstructs and reconstitutes the images of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The article also discusses the re-appropriation process and analyses how re-editing relates to remembering of not only the filmmaking process and the wartime occupation, but also the Estonian women and how the ones who ‘slipped up’ are later reintegrated into the national narrative. Ultimately, the article seeks to understand how this film from the Soviet era is remembered as it becomes a part of Estonian national filmography.

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It’s Raining in Iraq

Public Voices ◽

10.22140/pv.165 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 77

Author(s):

Alexander Dawoody

Keyword(s):

State Building ◽

Self Determination ◽

Moral Choices ◽

The Right

Using the medium of a play, the author of the last piece of the symposium reflects on the issues of personal freedoms, moral choices, the right of a nascent nation to self-determination, national liberty, as well as the mentality of violence and culture of nonviolence. The play spans only three years but lasts for two political eras: one of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny and another – the era of state building, rebirth and hope in a land ravaged by war.

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Friendship and solidarity

European Journal of Social Theory ◽

10.1177/1368431020982499 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 136843102098249

Author(s):

Harry Blatterer

Keyword(s):

Personal Relationships ◽

Social Solidarity ◽

Comprehensive Understanding ◽

Moral Learning

This article explores a particular connection between friendship and social solidarity and seeks to contribute to understanding the societal significance of non-institutionalised relationships. Commonly the benefits of friendship are assumed to accrue to friends only. But this is only part of the story. Friendship, as instantiation of intimacy and site of moral learning, is conducive to solidarity understood as felt concern for unknown others. That potentiality rests on a specific characteristic: friendship’s loose institutional anchorage. Beginning with an explanation of friendship’s institutional deficit, the article elaborates Durkheim’s ‘positive solidarity’ juxtaposed with Honneth’s recent take on solidarity. It then discusses the contribution (partial) personal relationships make to (impartial) morality, before turning to the specifics of moral learning in friendship. Finally, the article argues that although undesirable as social organising principle, friendship’s institutional deficit renders it conducive to the relational acquisition of a comprehensive understanding of solidarity.

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Brain Damage for Easier Moral Choices

Scientific American ◽

10.1038/scientificamerican0607-36b ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 296 (6) ◽

pp. 36-36 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Nikhil Swaminathan

Keyword(s):

Brain Damage ◽

Moral Choices

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The Importance of the University in the 21st Century: Ethical Conflicts and Moral Choices

Journal of Academic Ethics ◽

10.1007/s10805-012-9152-9 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Samuel M. Natale ◽

Sebastian A. Sora ◽

Matthew Drumheller

Keyword(s):

21St Century ◽

Ethical Conflicts ◽

Moral Choices ◽

The University

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Effect of professional expertise and exposure to everyday life decision-making on moral choices

Neuroscience Letters ◽

10.1016/j.neulet.2017.06.036 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 654 ◽

pp. 80-85 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Maddalena Boccia ◽

Paola Verde ◽

Gregorio Angelino ◽

Paolo Carrozzo ◽

Diego Vecchi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Everyday Life ◽

Professional Expertise ◽

Moral Choices ◽

Life Decision

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Moral judgement development during medical student clinical training

BMC Medical Education ◽

10.1186/s12909-021-02572-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Jenny McDonald ◽

Jane Graves ◽

Neeshaan Abrahams ◽

Ryan Thorneycroft ◽

Iman Hegazi

Keyword(s):

Medical Students ◽

Moral Development ◽

Clinical Training ◽

Moral Judgement ◽

Clinical Experiences ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Moral Decisions ◽

Moral Choices ◽

Cognitive Maturity ◽

Self Authorship

Abstract Background Whereas experience and cognitive maturity drives moral judgement development in most young adults, medical students show slowing, regression, or segmentation in moral development during their clinical years of training. The aim of this study was to explore the moral development of medical students during clinical training. Methods A cross-sectional sample of medical students from three clinical years of training were interviewed in groups or individually at an Australian medical school in 2018. Thematic analysis identified three themes which were then mapped against the stages and dimensions of Self-authorship Theory. Results Thirty five medical students from years 3–5 participated in 11 interviews and 6 focus groups. Students shared the impacts of their clinical experiences as they identified with their seniors and increasingly understood the clinical context. Their accounts revealed themes of early confusion followed by defensiveness characterised by desensitization and justification. As students approached graduation, some were planning how they would make moral choices in their future practice. These themes were mapped to the stages of self-authorship: External Formulas, Crossroads and Self-authorship. Conclusions Medical students recognise, reconcile and understand moral decisions within clinical settings to successfully reach or approach self-authorship. Curriculum and support during clinical training should match and support this progress.

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Wise Agents & Organisational Moral Learning

10.53105/jig.4-7 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

Author(s):

Iznan Tarip

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Strategic Change ◽

Human Agency ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Critical Factors ◽

Moral Learning ◽

Decision Making Processes ◽

Functional Relevance ◽

Learning Forward

The processes of strategic change, undertaken from time to time by organisations so as to maintain its functional relevance and effectiveness, are often conflict-ridden. This is in large part due to the nature of the human agency. Humans bring not only rationality into the decision-making processes, but also their inherent dispositions: intuitions, biases, emotions, and so on. In order to understand the factors that cause conflict in the processes of strategic change, this paper employs al-Ghazali’s concept of the ‘purification of the heart’, and ‘organisational moral learning’. An analytical framework is constructed using these two concepts to illustrate the interplay between contextual organisational configurations, the wider socio-environmental forces, and the human agents’ potentials and powers. This paper proposes some strategies that may help to drive ‘organisational moral learning’ forward, and conversely, hinder ‘organisational immoral learning’ from taking root. Ultimately, it is human agents – or rather, wise human agents – who are the critical factors for maintaining and/or transforming themselves and their surroundings.

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