Demanding the Demanding

2019 ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Ben Sachs
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Act Consequentialism ◽  
Moral Requirements

Several authors have worried, or anyway assumed, that confronting people with highly demanding moral requirements would be counterproductive, in the sense of causing people to turn away from morality, and thus actually decreasing (for instance) amounts donated. In this chapter, Ben Sachs notes that whether or not such behaviour would be counterproductive is a non-obvious empirical matter. After reviewing the available evidence, Sachs concludes that we should not be at all confident that “demanding the demanding” would be counterproductive. Sachs argues that more empirical studies are needed, but tentatively defends a theory of moral psychology according to which, when people are confronted with a demanding ethical theory (like act-consequentialism) they will, if they accept the theory, respond by coming close to conforming to it.

Moral psychology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Slote
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Psychological Issues ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Weakness ◽  
Moral Requirements ◽  
Wrong Action

Moral psychology as a discipline is centrally concerned with psychological issues that arise in connection with the moral evaluation of actions. It deals with the psychological presuppositions of valid morality, that is, with assumptions it seems necessary for us to make in order for there to be such a thing as objective or binding moral requirements: for example, if we lack free will or are all incapable of unselfishness, then it is not clear how morality can really apply to human beings. Moral psychology also deals with what one might call the psychological accompaniments of actual right, or wrong, action, for example, with questions about the nature and possibility of moral weakness or self-deception, and with questions about the kinds of motives that ought to motivate moral agents. Moreover, in the approach to ethics known as ‘virtue ethics’ questions about right and wrong action merge with questions about the motives, dispositions, and abilities of moral agents, and moral psychology plays a more central role than it does in other forms of ethical theory.

Recognition and Resentment in the Confucian Analects

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-306
Author(s):  
Eric S. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Basic Element ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Confucian Ethics ◽  
Negative Affects ◽  
Confucian Moral

Early Confucian “moral psychology” developed in the context of undoing reactive emotions in order to promote relationships of reciprocal recognition. Early Confucian texts diagnose the pervasiveness of reactive emotions under specific social conditions and respond with the ethical-psychological mandate to counter them in self-cultivation. Undoing negative affects is a basic element of becoming ethically noble, while the ignoble person is fixated on limited self-interested concerns and feelings of being unrecognized. Western ethical theory typically accepts equality and symmetry as conditions of disentangling resentment; yet this task requires the asymmetrical recognition of others. Confucian ethics integrates a nuanced and realistic moral psychology with the normatively oriented project of self-cultivation necessary for dismantling complex negative emotions in promoting a condition of humane benevolence that is oriented toward others and achieved through self-cultivation.

Honesty in projects

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 590-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Øyvind Kvalnes
Keyword(s):  
Project Management ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Practical Challenge ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Moral Neutralization ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how the concept of honesty can shed light on misreporting issues in projects. Research on honesty can be useful for practitioners and researchers in project management, in order to understand and counter the withholding and distortion of relevant information from projects. In moral psychology, dishonesty is often explained as a result of moral neutralization. The paper provides an account of how neutralization can lead to dishonesty in projects. Design/methodology/approach – The current study is based on a literature review of research on misreporting and dishonesty in projects, and of relevant generic studies of honesty. Findings – The author concludes that the phenomenon of moral neutralization can explain dishonesty and misreporting in projects. Honesty can be encouraged by identifying attempts at moral neutralization, and rendering them unacceptable. At the core of this position is the view that the level of honesty amongst project members is most adequately understood and explained from a circumstance rather than a character approach. Research limitations/implications – The paper is based on a literature review, and needs to be supported by further empirical studies within project management. Practical implications – The suggested primacy of a circumstance approach to honesty implies that project practitioners should be aware of the phenomenon of moral neutralization. Even people of good moral character can become involved in neutralization, in order to render misreporting acceptable. The central practical challenge can thus be to recognize tendencies of neutralization in one's own and other people's moral reasoning. Originality/value – The main contribution of this paper is to introduce the concept of honesty in general, and the concept of moral neutralization in particular, to project management research and practice. The paper also suggests concrete ways to redirect attention from character to circumstances, based on more general research findings in social and moral psychology.

Probability in Ethics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Utility Theory ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Expected Utility Theory ◽  
Nonexpected Utility ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Rule Consequentialism ◽  
Opposite View ◽  
Act Consequentialism ◽  
Priority View

It is natural to think that the most basic questions in ethical theory do not have much to do with probability. Given answers to these questions, we can try to extend them to cases involving probability, though this job might best be handled by more technical disciplines. This chapter is an argument for the opposite view. The major ethical problems to do with probability involve very little mathematics; many topics which seem to have nothing to do with probability are arguably all about probability; and thinking about various problems to do with probability can help solve analogous problems which do not involve probability, sometimes even revealing that popular positions about such problems are incoherent. Among the topics discussed are: interpretations of probability; expected utility theory; utilitarianism; egalitarianism; fairness; the priority view; population size; incommensurability; continuity; nonexpected utility theory; evaluative measurement; decision theory; act consequentialism; rule consequentialism; contractualism; and deontology.

Playing with Intoxication: On the Cultivation of Shame and Virtue in Plato’s Laws

Apeiron ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. Baima
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Sense Of Shame

Abstract This paper examines Plato’s conception of shame and the role intoxication plays in cultivating it in the Laws. Ultimately, this paper argues that there are two accounts of shame in the Laws. There is a public sense of shame that is more closely tied to the rational faculties and a private sense of shame that is more closely tied to the non-rational faculties. Understanding this division between public and private shame not only informs our understanding of Plato’s moral psychology, but his political and ethical theory as well.

scholarly journals Virtue, Vice, and Situationism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Bates ◽  
Pauline Kleingeld
Keyword(s):  
Large Class ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Character Traits ◽  
Global Character

On the basis of psychological research, a group of philosophers known as “situationists” argue that the evidence belies the existence of broad (“global”) character traits. They argue that this condemns as psychologically unrealistic those traditions in moral theory in which global virtues are upheld as ideals. After a survey of the debate to date, this chapter argues that the thesis of situationism is ill-supported by the available evidence. Situationists overlook the explanatory potential of a large class of global vices, namely, vices that do not involve other-directed malevolence, such as laziness, cowardice, and selfishness. A detailed discussion of the relevant empirical studies bearing on moral psychology shows that once one takes seriously the possibility that such vices are widespread, global character traits may well turn out to be abundant.

The Social Turn in Moral Psychology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Fedyk
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Philosophical Ethics ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
The Relationship

In this book, Mark Fedyk offers a novel analysis of the relationship between moral psychology and allied fields in the social sciences. Fedyk shows how the social sciences can be integrated with moral philosophy, argues for the benefits of such an integration, and offers a new ethical theory that can be used to bridge research between the two. Fedyk argues that moral psychology should take a social turn, investigating the psychological processes that motivate patterns of social behavior defined as ethical using normative information extracted from the social sciences. He points out methodological problems in conventional moral psychology, particularly the increasing methodological and conceptual inconsilience with both philosophical ethics and evolutionary biology. Fedyk's "causal theory of ethics" is designed to provide moral psychology with an ethical theory that can be used without creating tension between its scientific practice and the conceptual vocabulary of philosophical ethics. His account aims both to redirect moral psychology toward more socially realistic questions about human life and to introduce philosophers to a new form of ethical naturalism—a way of thinking about how to use different fields of scientific research to answer some of the traditional questions that are at the heart of ethics.

scholarly journals Support for the Death Penalty in Taiwan?: a Study of Value Conflict and Ambivalence

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susyan Jou ◽  
Bill Hebenton
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Value Conflict ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

AbstractWhile a substantial number of studies have examined public opinion on the death penalty in the USA, and more recently parts of Asia, including China, very few empirical studies have considered support for the death penalty in Taiwan. This paper examines public attitudes in Taiwan and the role of ‘value conflict’ in attitudes to both death penalty abolition and in the context of alternatives. Using the results of 1016 respondents drawn from a national face-to-face sample (n = 2039) survey conducted by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) in 2014, we demonstrate that public attitudes in Taiwan are simultaneously committed to many underlying values in conflict. The results also indicate that value conflict exists among the majority of the sample (more than 60 per cent) who are prepared to accept alternatives to abolition, and whom we can describe as ambivalent. Recognition of value conflict, ambivalence and the moral psychology underpinning public attitudes to the death penalty is essential, not only conceptually but to allow for a more appropriate and nuanced understanding of the abolitionist/retentionist debate.

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