scholarly journals The Limits of Emotion in Moral Judgment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Components

This chapter argues that our best science supports the rationalist idea that, independent of reasoning, emotions are not integral to moral judgment. There is ample evidence that ordinary moral cognition often involves conscious and unconscious reasoning about an action’s outcomes and the agent’s role in bringing them about. Emotions can aid in moral reasoning by, for example, drawing one’s attention to such information. However, there is no compelling evidence for the decidedly sentimentalist claim that mere feelings are causally necessary or sufficient for making a moral judgment or for treating norms as distinctively moral. The chapter concludes that, even if moral cognition is largely driven by automatic intuitions, these should not be mistaken for emotions or their non-cognitive components. Non-cognitive elements in our psychology may be required for normal moral development and motivation but not necessarily for mature moral judgment.

Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
In Virtue Of

The burgeoning science of ethics has produced a trend toward pessimism. Ordinary moral judgment and motivation, we’re told, are profoundly influenced by arbitrary factors and ultimately driven by unreasoned feelings or emotions—fertile ground for sweeping debunking arguments. This book counters the current orthodoxy on its own terms by carefully engaging with the empirical literature. The resulting view, optimistic rationalism, maintains that reason plays a pervasive role in our moral minds and that ordinary moral reasoning is not particularly flawed or in need of serious repair. The science does suggest that moral knowledge and virtue don’t come easily, as we are susceptible to some unsavory influences that lead to rationalizing bad behavior. Reason can be corrupted in ethics just as in other domains, but the science warrants cautious optimism, not a special skepticism about morality in particular. Rationality in ethics is possible not just despite, but in virtue of, the psychological and evolutionary mechanisms that shape moral cognition.

Does It Matter How One Assesses Moral Reasoning? Differences (Biases) in the Recognition Versus Formulation Tasks

2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (7) ◽  
pp. 1440-1464
Author(s):  
James Weber
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Defining Issues Test ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Different Levels

Most business ethics scholars interested in understanding individual moral cognition or reasoning rely on the Defining Issues Test (DIT). They typically report that managers and business students exhibit a relatively high percentage of principled moral reasoning when resolving ethical dilemmas. This article applies neurocognitive processes and Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, and its more recent revision, as theoretical foundations to explore whether differences emerge when using a recognition of learning task, such as the DIT or similar instruments, versus a formulation of knowledge task, such as the Moral Judgment Interview or similar instruments, to assess individual moral reasoning. The data show that significantly different levels of moral reasoning are detected when using a recognition-based versus formulation-based moral reasoning instrument. As expected, the recognition-based approach (using a DIT-like instrument) reports an inflated, higher moral reasoning score for subjects compared with using a formulation-based instrument. Implications of these results for understanding an individual’s moral reasoning are discussed.

scholarly journals False Belief Understanding and Moral Judgment in Young Children

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karlena Ochoa ◽  
Joseph Rodini ◽  
Louis J Moses
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Moral Development ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Study Design ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Age Group ◽  
False Belief Understanding

Although the influence of intent understanding on children’s moral development has been long studied, little research has examined the influence of belief understanding on that development. In two studies we presented children with morally-relevant belief vignettes to examine the extent to which they incorporate both intent and belief information in their moral judgments. In Study 1 (N = 64), 5-year-old false belief (FB) passers rated agents with false beliefs as more positively intentioned in good intent trials (even though the outcome was bad) than in bad intent trials (even though the outcome was good). In contrast, 4-year-old FB passers were generally unable to integrate their belief understanding with their moral evaluations, performing no better on intention questions than FB failers. Neither age group significantly differentiated rewards and punishments as a function of intent when a false belief was involved. In Study 2 (N = 109 children, N = 42 adults), we found that by simplifying our study design and reducing the task demands, 4-year-old FB passers’ were able to make appropriate intent judgments. Yet, as in Study 1, all children had difficulty assigning punishment/rewards based on intent. For both moral intentions and moral consequences, 4- and 5-year-old false belief passers’ moral judgments differed from those of adults in several respects, indicating that moral reasoning develops substantially beyond the preschool years.

Parenting and Moral Development

2019 ◽  
pp. 2-18
Author(s):  
Deborah J. Laible ◽  
Gustavo Carlo ◽  
Laura M. Padilla-Walker
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Relational Quality ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Parent Child

This chapter provides an overview of the volume and lays out the ways in which both parenting and moral development are multidimensional constructs. Parenting, for example, includes both broad indices of dyadic relational quality (such as security and warmth) and more specific practices (including discipline/control, rewards, and parent-child conversations). Moral development is equally complex and involves a wide range of moral affects (e.g., empathy, guilt, forgiveness), moral cognition (e.g., moral reasoning, perspective-taking), and values/identity-related processes. Thus, we highlight the complex nature of both constructs and argue that researchers need to take a nuanced approach to understanding the interplay between parenting and moral development. Finally, we also explain how the interplay between parenting and moral development is further complicated by the transactional processes between the two constructs and by cultural influences. We then provide an overview of each of the sections of the volume.

neurobiology supports virtue theory on the role of heuristics in moral cognition

2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
william d. casebeer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Virtue Theory ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Wide Reflective Equilibrium

sunstein is right that poorly informed heuristics can influence moral judgment. his case could be strengthened by tightening neurobiologically plausible working definitions regarding what a heuristic is, considering a background moral theory that has more strength in wide reflective equilibrium than “weak consequentialism,” and systematically examining what naturalized virtue theory has to say about the role of heuristics in moral reasoning.

Moral Judgment and the Others-Concept

1978 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 283-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry L. Whiteman ◽  
Karl B. Zucker ◽  
Liam K. Grimley
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
Analysis Of Variance ◽  
Defining Issues Test ◽  
Developmental Model ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Lower Stage ◽  
Correlation Statistics

198 students in Grades 7 through 12 were assessed for their level of moral reasoning and their perceptions of others. The respective instruments were James Rest's Defining Issues Test and the Paired Hands Test-Secondary developed by Karl Zucker and others. A one-way analysis of variance and correlation statistics showed a consistent relationship between students' level of moral development and their others-concept. Those students who had reached the higher (principled) stages of moral development perceived and/or felt more positively about other people than students who were at a lower stage of moral development. Students who were at the antiestablishment stage had an especially low others-concept. Since it is thought that a person's others-concept indicates how he feels about other people as well as how he perceives others, the results of this study suggest that the complex relationship between thoughts and feelings, and their respective roles in moral education should be reexamined. Perhaps a cognitive-affective-developmental model would be more helpful for developing approaches to moral education than the cognitive-developmental model currently supported by many authorities.

What sentimentalists should say about emotion

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Kurth
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Multilevel Structure

Abstract Recent work by emotion researchers indicates that emotions have a multilevel structure. Sophisticated sentimentalists should take note of this work – for it better enables them to defend a substantive role for emotion in moral cognition. Contra May's rationalist criticisms, emotions are not only able to carry morally relevant information, but can also substantially influence moral judgment and reasoning.

Commentaries and Rejoinder on

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han Gong ◽  
Douglas L. Medin ◽  
Tal Eyal ◽  
Nira Liberman ◽  
Yaacov Trope ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Temporal Distance ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Moral Condemnation ◽  
Construal Levels

In the hope to resolve the two sets of opposing results concerning the effects of psychological distance and construal levels on moral judgment, Žeželj and Jokić (2014) conducted a series of four direct replications, which yielded divergent patterns of results. In our commentary, we first revisit the consistent findings that lower-level construals induced by How/Why manipulation lead to harsher moral condemnation than higher-level construals. We then speculate on the puzzling patterns of results regarding the role of temporal distance in shaping moral judgment. And we conclude by discussing the complexity of morality and propose that it may be important to incorporate cultural systems into the study of moral cognition.

Actions Speak Louder than Outcomes in Judgments of Prosocial Behavior

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Yudkin ◽  
Annayah Miranda Beatrice Prosser ◽  
Molly Crockett
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Action Value ◽  
Good Deeds

Recently proposed models of moral cognition suggest that people’s judgments of harmful acts are influenced by their consideration both of those acts’ consequences (“outcome value”), and of the feeling associated with their enactment (“action value”). Here we apply this framework to judgments of prosocial behavior, suggesting that people’s judgments of the praiseworthiness of good deeds are determined both by the benefit those deeds confer to others and by how good they would feel to perform. Three experiments confirm this prediction. After developing a new measure to assess the extent to which praiseworthiness is influenced by action and outcome values, we show how these factors make significant and independent contributions to praiseworthiness. We also find that people are consistently more sensitive to action than to outcome value in judging the praiseworthiness of good deeds, but not harmful deeds. This observation echoes the finding that people are often insensitive to outcomes in their giving behavior. Overall, this research tests and validates a novel framework for understanding moral judgment, with implications for the motivations that underlie human altruism.

The Limits of Emotion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Frontotemporal Dementia ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Integral Role ◽  
The Brain

Empirical research apparently suggests that emotions play an integral role in moral judgment. The evidence for sentimentalism is diverse, but it is rather weak and has generally been overblown. There is no evidence that our moral concepts themselves are partly composed of or necessarily dependent on emotions. While the moral/conventional distinction may partly characterize the essence of moral judgment, moral norms needn’t be backed by affect in order to transcend convention. Priming people with incidental emotions like disgust doesn’t make them moralize actions. Finally, moral judgment can only be somewhat impaired by damage to areas of the brain that are generally associated with emotional processing (as in acquired sociopathy and frontotemporal dementia). While psychopaths exhibit both emotional and rational deficits, the latter alone can explain any minor defects in moral cognition.

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