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Shadowlord Nier
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Moral agency has dual aspects manifested in both the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely and the proactive power to behave humanely. Moral agency is embedded in a broader socio-cognitive self-theory encompassing affective self-regulatory mechanisms rooted in personal standards linked to self-sanctions. Moral functioning is thus governed by self-reactive selfhood rather than by dispassionate abstract reasoning. The self-regulatory mechanisms governing moral conduct do not come into play unless they are activated and there are many psychosocial mechanisms by which moral self-sanctions are selectively disengaged from inhumane conduct. The moral disengagement may centre on the cognitive restructuring of inhumane conduct into a benign or worthy one by moral justification, sanitising language and exonerative social comparison; disavowal of personal agency in the harm one causes by diffusion or displacement of responsibility; disregarding or minimising the injurious effects of one's actions; and attribution of blame to, and dehumanisation of, those who are victimised. Social cognitive theory adopts an interactionist perspective to morality in which moral actions are the products of the reciprocal interplay of personal and social influences. Given the many mechanisms for disengaging moral control at both the individual and collective level, civilised life requires, in addition to humane personal standards, safeguards built into social systems that uphold compassionate behaviour and renounce cruelty.
It is our contribution's primary goal to promote the (re)gaining of the (possibly already almost lost) concept of purification, and to use it in modeling media entertainment. This, however, implies that entertainment be understood not only as the experience of enjoyment, suspense or melancholy, but also to include more complex processes in which emotional, cognitive, and motivational dimensions (can) connect in creative tension (cf. Klimmt & Vorderer, 2004; Maill & Kuiken, 2002; Vorderer, 2004). This (more) inclusive conception of entertainment is not only to be preferred for methodological reasons (as regards to what extent the subject matter is included in the concept). It is, above all, preferable for anthropological reasons, because it corresponds to the model of human being as a reflective, ethically sensitive subject, which is what is required to combine the aesthetic and the moral. Just this combination is contained in the concept of purification, which, therefore, presents a value that should be striven for--including the anthropological guiding idea of the reflective, moral subject. It is the task of this article to work out, both theoretically and empirically, this guiding idea with regard to the main focus of catharsis, purification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
playing,9902.html Keywords sacrifice, selflessness, self-reflection, moral disengagement, moral elevation Similar characters
- Wolfgang Walk
Walk, Wolfgang. "Ethics as a game mechanism: Who's playing?," Ethics as a game
mechanism (blog), making games, January 9, 2016,
http://www.makinggames.biz/features/ethics-as-a-game-mechanism-whosplaying,9902.html
Keywords
sacrifice, selflessness, self-reflection, moral disengagement, moral elevation
Similar characters