scholarly journals Disruption of Moral Reasoning and Moral Judgment: Moral Injury and Healing Through Forgiveness

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard La Fleur
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Moral Belief ◽  
Moral Injury ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Moral Structure

Although morality (systemic judgment of determining right or wrong), has been taught, researched and written about over the decades, society has been faced with the challenges of a questionable moral structure and a plethora of moral injuries. This paper reviews current literature and research about moral injury as well as the structure on which morality is founded. Current research shows that one of the consequences of an irreconcilable moral belief is moral injury or a soul injury, (coined by Dr. Marvin Westwood in a recent lecture at St. Thomas University), with symptoms that are similar to PTSD and other mental illnesses or disorders. By focusing on moral injury as a deep psychological and spiritual wound, forgiveness as a theological and spiritual approach, is the most effective framework to address the wound of moral injury.

Moral Perception: Causal, Phenomenological, and Epistemological Elements

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Belief ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Do So

This chapter analyzes how perception is a kind of experiential information-bearing relation between the perceiver and the object perceived. It argues that even if moral properties are not themselves causal, they can be perceptible. But the dependence of moral perception on non-moral perception does not imply an inferential dependence of all moral belief or moral judgment on non-moral belief or judgment. This kind of grounding explains how a moral belief arising in perception can constitute perceptual knowledge and can do so on grounds that are publicly accessible and, though not a guarantee of it, a basis for ethical agreement. The chapter also shows how perceptual moral knowledge is connected not only with other moral knowledge but also with intuition and emotion.

Losing your footing, losing your morality

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 497-510
Author(s):  
Heng Li ◽  
Yu Cao
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Visual Experience ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Tilt Table ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Bodily Experience ◽  
Downstream Effects ◽  
Normal Text ◽  
Sample Experiment

Abstract What influences how people render their moral judgment? Focusing specifically on the conceptual metaphors “moral is upright” and “immoral is tilted”, we sought to investigate whether physical slant can influence people’s harsh moral judgment. Experiment 1 induced physical slant by having participants complete the questionnaire at a tilt table. We observed a significant effect with participants who experienced physical slant rendering a less severe moral judgment than did those who wrote their responses at a level table. Using a new manipulation of physical slant and a larger, more diverse sample, Experiment 2 asked participants to complete the questionnaires with rotated text or normal text. We observed a difference between the two groups: compared to participants who read the normal text, those with a visual experience of slant lessened the severity of their moral judgments. Taken together, the results showed that the consequence of tilted experience exerts downstream effects on moral reasoning, which suggests that incidental bodily experience affects how people render their decisions.

scholarly journals Unraveling Moral Reasoning in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: How Emotional Detachment Modifies Moral Judgment

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Crespi ◽  
Gaia Chiara Santi ◽  
Alessandra Dodich ◽  
Federica Lupo ◽  
Lucia Catherine Greco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Emotional Detachment ◽  
Lateral Sclerosis

The Role of Strategic Ambiguity in Moral Injury: A Case Study of Dutch Border Guards Facing Moral Challenges

2019 ◽  
pp. 105649261989269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jori Pascal Kalkman ◽  
Tine Molendijk
Keyword(s):  
Belief System ◽  
Moral Belief ◽  
Moral Injury ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
High Stake ◽  
Strategic Ambiguity ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Widespread Agreement ◽  
Migration Crisis

There is widespread agreement that lower level organizational members face moral challenges because their personal values conflict with organizational directions. Yet we argue that intentional strategic ambiguity, too, may lead to moral challenges, particularly among organizational members operating in high-stake situations. Drawing on interviews with border guards deployed during the European migration crisis, we use vignettes to present two coping strategies. First, members may disengage from moral challenges and redefine their work as a clear-cut duty. Second, they may embrace moral disorientation and conflicts, and follow felt moral obligations. Both may lead to “moral injury.” Moral injury refers to psychological suffering that is engendered by performing, failing to prevent, or falling victim to actions that conflict with one’s moral belief system. We make three theoretical contributions by (a) identifying the roots of moral challenges in strategic decision-making, (b) signaling different coping mechanisms, and (c) challenging pragmatic perspectives on strategic ambiguity.

From Substages to Moral Types and Beyond: An Analysis of Core Criteria for Morally Autonomous Judgements

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 899-920 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Krettenauer ◽  
Wolfgang Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Construct Validity ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Type A ◽  
Longitudinal Change ◽  
Typological Approach ◽  
Moral Stage

Based on Kohlberg’s typological distinction between heteronomous versus autonomous moral types (Type A vs. B), the study proposes a refined strategy for the assessment of autonomous morality that aims at overcoming methodological ‘aws of Kohlberg’s typological approach. Theoretically, two conceptually crucial criteria of autonomous morality were distinguished: (1) prescriptiveness; and (2) universality of moral reasoning. Empirically, measures of prescriptiveness and universality of moral reasoning were examined to determine whether or not they yield important empirical findings that were associated with the concept of moral types. In a study of 348 German adolescents from grades 9 and 12, both prescriptive and universalised moral reasoning were assessed by two standard probe questions of the Moral Judgment Interview. Both aspects of moral reasoning predicted readiness to take moral responsibility in the context of sociopolitical action. In addition, both measures were moderately correlated with moral stage, largely independent of SES, and unrelated to gender. There was significant longitudinal change towards prescriptive and universalised moral reasoning over a three-year interval. The findings demonstrate that the construct validity of Kohlberg’s approach to the assessment of autonomous morality can be significantly improved by using measures of the prescriptiveness and universality of moral reasoning.

scholarly journals The Cognitive Processes Underlying Moral Judgment Across Development

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Chalik ◽  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel ◽  
Marjorie Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Moral Belief ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Made In

Some moral philosophers have suggested that a basic prohibition against intentional harm ought to be at the core of moral belief systems across human societies. Yet, experimental work suggests that not all harm is created equal—people often respond more negatively to harm that occurs among fellow social group members, rather than between members of different groups. The present two studies investigated how concerns about social group membership factor into the moral judgment system. Adults (N = 111, Study 1) and children (N = 110, Study 2) evaluated instances of inter- and intra-group harm under varying levels of cognitive load. Both children and adults responded more slowly to intergroup harm than to intragroup harm. Furthermore, adults under cognitive load rated intergroup harm more leniently than intragroup harm, but adults who were not under load rated the two types of behaviors similarly. These findings suggest that across development, evaluations of intergroup harm rely more heavily on conscious deliberation than evaluations of intragroup harm. Thus, people's evaluations of harmful behaviors are made in light of information about the social category membership of the people involved.

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.

Defending Moral Judgment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Framing Effects ◽  
Moral Belief ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Substantial Influence ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Moral Skepticism ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Main Basis

Wide-ranging debunking arguments aim to support moral skepticism based on empirical evidence (particularly of evolutionary pressures, framing effects, automatic emotional heuristics, and incidental emotions). But such arguments are subject to a debunker’s dilemma: they can identify an influence on moral belief that is either substantial or defective, but not both. When one identifies a genuinely defective influence on a large class of moral beliefs (e.g. framing effects), this influence is insubstantial, failing to render the beliefs unjustified. When one identifies a main basis for belief (e.g. automatic heuristics), the influence is not roundly defective. There is ultimately a trade-off for sweeping debunking arguments in ethics: identifying a substantial influence on moral belief implicates a process that is not genuinely defective. We thus lack empirical reason to believe that moral judgment is fundamentally flawed. Our dual process minds can yield justified moral beliefs despite automatically valuing more than an action’s consequences.

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.

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