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Cognition in moral space: A minimal model
Abstract
We describe moral cognition as a process occurring in a distinctive cognitive space, wherein moral relationships are defined along several morally relevant dimensions. After identifying candidate dimensions, we show how moral judgments can emerge in this space directly from object perception, without any appeal to moral rules or abstract values. Our reductive “minimal model” (Batterman & Rice, 2014) elaborates Beal’s (2020) claim that moral cognition is determined, at the most basic level, by “ontological frames” defining subjects, objects, and the proper relation between them. We expand this claim into a set of formal hypotheses that predict moral judgments based on how objects are “framed” in the relevant dimensions of “moral space.”
... First, there is the ultimate goal of modeling the complex dynamics of moral cognition. Elsewhere (Beal, 2020;Beal & Gogia, 2021), I describe some of the problems that emerge from the field's lack of understanding of the deeper structure of moral cognition in contemporary models such as Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) (e.g., Graham et al., 2013Graham et al., , 2018Haidt, 2012) and the Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM) (e.g., Gray et al., 2012;Schein & Gray, 2015, while also analyzing the literature on moral dilemmas (e.g., Foot, 1967;Greene, 2013;Kohlberg, 1981;Mikhail, 2007;Thomson, 1985), dehumanization (e.g., e.g., Harris & Fiske, 2006Haslam, 2006;Haslam & Loughnan, 2014; J.P. Leyens et al., 2007;J-P. Leyens et al., 2003), and moral expansiveness (Crimston et al., 2016(Crimston et al., , 2018. ...
... There are people who do not feel moral obligations toward little bugs, but there are also people who do feel moral obligations toward little bugs. Moreover, the same person might feel no moral obligations toward little bugs in one context, but then feel moral obligations toward little bugs in another context (see Beal & Gogia, 2021). ...
... The cited data do not prove my claim, but they are strikingly consistent with it. It should be possible to empirically investigate precisely what contributes to an object's moral visibility, and I propose ways of exploring such hypotheses elsewhere (Beal & Gogia, 2021). For now, I would like to make a more basic point: The generic proposition that a simple moral judgment relies upon some conditional moral visibility is more than a mere conjecture. ...
Theorists seeking evidence of moral cognition – whether in human infants, nonhuman animals, or any other population – would benefit from a minimalistic description of what moral cognition is. However, such a definition has proven elusive. Some argue that debates over the existence (or not) of moral cognition in various populations turn on unresolvable semantic disagreement over how to characterize the moral domain. I acknowledge a semantic dimension to some disputes and identify another problem: Often, while sidestepping semantics, researchers rely on logically circular operationalizations, defining moral cognition in terms of elements that are already implicitly understood to be features of moral cognition, while failing to answer the question of what makes these features, or their combination, uniquely moral. The present article proposes a single solution to both problems. The issue of semantics is addressed by the identification of a naturally emerging and distinctive cognitive modality that is necessary to all definitions of moral cognition. The problem of circularity is overcome by a reduction of moral cognition to elements that are, in themselves, nonmoral. I call this distinctive combination of nonmoral elements the “molecular” structure of moral cognition.
... The answer is what Shweder (1992) called the reality principle: Sufficient information is often implicitly encoded into mere descriptive statements such that normative prescriptions can "in a straightforward way, be derived" from theman argument sustained both empirically and anecdotally (e.g., Much & Shweder, 1978). Elsewhere, I've added that we do not even need explicit description, but spontaneously derive a normative sense of what is appropriate from certain perceived details (Beal, 2021;Beal & Gogia, 2021). Without rehashing the finer points of these related arguments, I'll point out that neither involves an illogical conflation of "is" with "ought." ...
Bermúdez persuasively argues that framing effects are not as irrational as commonly supposed. In focusing on the reasoning of individual decision-makers in complex situations, however, he neglects the crucial role of the social-communicative context for eliciting certain framing effects. We contend that many framing effects are best explained in terms of basic, rational principles of discourse processing and pragmatic reasoning.
... The answer is what Shweder (1992) called the reality principle: Sufficient information is often implicitly encoded into mere descriptive statements such that normative prescriptions can "in a straightforward way, be derived" from theman argument sustained both empirically and anecdotally (e.g., Much & Shweder, 1978). Elsewhere, I've added that we do not even need explicit description, but spontaneously derive a normative sense of what is appropriate from certain perceived details (Beal, 2021;Beal & Gogia, 2021). Without rehashing the finer points of these related arguments, I'll point out that neither involves an illogical conflation of "is" with "ought." ...
Bermúdez argues that a framing effect is rational, which will be true if one accepts that the biased editing phase is rational. This type of rationality was called procedural by Simon. Despite being procedurally rational in the evaluation phase framing effect stems from biased way we set a reference point against which outcomes are compared.
... Ontological framing refers to certain basic categories or frames of "what is" that have far-reaching ramifications for behavior, motivation, and moral judgments, as predicted by Shweder's (1992) one-boxed analysis. As an illustration of two foundational ontological framings-ST and WT-we appropriate for our purposes a parable from Beal and Gogia (2021): ...
We developed the Strong Ties Weak Ties Rationality Scale (STWTRS) to demonstrate the heuristic value of the ontological turn which attempts to do justice to the cultural insider’s picture of what is real. To test empirically the hypothesis of the existence of two distinct ontological universes that fall along the divide between strong ties and weak ties ontological framings, we used STWTRS to conduct a cross-cultural study (n = 961) using four samples (i.e., Taiwanese, Yi Chinese, Asian American, and non-Asian American). The results support our claim that the ontological universe of the cultural insider is not a list of fragmentary, ever expanding list of attributes that proliferate in cross-cultural psychology, so much as a coherent wholeness. We argue that this concept is best articulated by Maturana and Varela’s (1980) theory of autopoietic living systems. Potential contributions to the literature and future research directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
... Ontological framing refers to certain basic categories or frames of "what is" that have far-reaching ramifications for behavior, motivation, and moral judgments, as predicted by Shweder's (1992) one-boxed analysis. As an illustration of two foundational ontological framings-ST and WT-we appropriate for our purposes a parable AQ: 16 from Beal and Gogia (2021): ...
© 2022, American Psychological Association. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the final, authoritative version of the article. Please do not copy or cite without authors' permission. The final article will be available, upon publication, via its DOI: 10.1037/hum0000284
Bermúdez's “rational framing effects” are consequences of a counterintuitive phenomenon that I call “normative polyphony”: the reality that a single action may, with logical consistency, sustain diverse positive and negative judgments. I show that normative polyphony emerges from “ontological polyphony” – that is, diverse possible framings of relevant details – and illustrate this “polyphony principle” through a reading of Dostoevsky's (1993) Crime and Punishment .
Theorists have long noted that people’s moral circles have expanded over the course of history, with modern people extending moral concern to entities—both human and nonhuman—that our ancestors would never have considered including within their moral boundaries. In recent decades, researchers have sought a comprehensive understanding of the psychology of moral expansiveness. We first review the history of conceptual and methodological approaches in understanding our moral boundaries, with a particular focus on the recently developed Moral Expansiveness Scale. We then explore individual differences in moral expansiveness, attributes of entities that predict their inclusion in moral circles, and cognitive and motivational factors that help explain what we include within our moral boundaries and why they may shrink or expand. Throughout, we highlight the consequences of these psychological effects for real-world ethical decision making.
Mature moral judgments rely both on a perpetrator’s intent to cause harm, and also on the actual harm caused—even when unintended. Much prior research asks how intent information is represented neurally, but little asks how even unintended harms influence judgment. We interrogate the psychological and neural basis of this process, focusing especially on the role of empathy for the victim of a harmful act. Using fMRI, we found that the ‘empathy for pain’ network was involved in encoding harmful outcomes and integrating harmfulness information for different types of moral judgments, and individual differences in the extent to which this network was active during encoding and integration of harmfulness information determined severity of moral judgments. Additionally, activity in the network was down-regulated for acceptability, but not blame, judgments for accidental harm condition, suggesting that these two types of moral evaluations are neurobiologically dissociable. These results support a model of “empathic blame”, whereby the perceived suffering of a victim colors moral judgment of an accidental harmdoer.
The nature of harm—and therefore moral judgment—may be misunderstood. Rather than an objective matter of reason, we argue that harm should be redefined as an intuitively perceived continuum. This redefinition provides a new understanding of moral content and mechanism—the constructionist Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM). TDM suggests that acts are condemned proportional to three elements: norm violations, negative affect, and—importantly—perceived harm. This harm is dyadic, involving an intentional agent causing damage to a vulnerable patient (A→P). TDM predicts causal links both from harm to immorality (dyadic comparison) and from immorality to harm (dyadic completion). Together, these two processes make the “dyadic loop,” explaining moral acquisition and polarization. TDM argues against intuitive harmless wrongs and modular “foundations,” but embraces moral pluralism through varieties of values and the flexibility of perceived harm. Dyadic morality impacts understandings of moral character, moral emotion, and political/cultural differences, and provides research guidelines for moral psychology.
Black men tend to be stereotyped as threatening and, as a result, may be disproportionately targeted by police even when unarmed. Here, we found evidence that biased perceptions of young Black men’s physical size may play a role in this process. The results of 7 studies showed that people have a bias to perceive young Black men as bigger (taller, heavier, more muscular) and more physically threatening (stronger, more capable of harm) than young White men. Both bottom-up cues of racial prototypicality and top-down information about race supported these misperceptions. Furthermore, this racial bias persisted even among a target sample from whom upper-body strength was controlled (suggesting that racial differences in formidability judgments are a product of bias rather than accuracy). Biased formidability judgments in turn promoted participants’ justifications of hypothetical use of force against Black suspects of crime. Thus, perceivers appear to integrate multiple pieces of information to ultimately conclude that young Black men are more physically threatening than young White men, believing that they must therefore be controlled using more aggressive measures.
The nature of our moral judgments-and the extent to which we treat others with care-depend in part on the distinctions we make between entities deemed worthy or unworthy of moral consideration-our moral boundaries. Philosophers, historians, and social scientists have noted that people's moral boundaries have expanded over the last few centuries, but the notion of moral expansiveness has received limited empirical attention in psychology. This research explores variations in the size of individuals' moral boundaries using the psychological construct of moral expansiveness and introduces the Moral Expansiveness Scale (MES), designed to capture this variation. Across 6 studies, we established the reliability, convergent validity, and predictive validity of the MES. Moral expansiveness was related (but not reducible) to existing moral constructs (moral foundations, moral identity, "moral" universalism values), predictors of moral standing (moral patiency and warmth), and other constructs associated with concern for others (empathy, identification with humanity, connectedness to nature, and social responsibility). Importantly, the MES uniquely predicted willingness to engage in prosocial intentions and behaviors at personal cost independently of these established constructs. Specifically, the MES uniquely predicted willingness to prioritize humanitarian and environmental concerns over personal and national self-interest, willingness to sacrifice one's life to save others (ranging from human out-groups to animals and plants), and volunteering behavior. Results demonstrate that moral expansiveness is a distinct and important factor in understanding moral judgments and their consequences. (PsycINFO Database Record
Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement.
© 2015 The Authors.
Do moral disagreements regarding specific issues (e.g., patriotism, chastity) reflect deep cognitive differences (i.e., distinct cognitive mechanisms) between liberals and conservatives? Dyadic morality suggests that the answer is "no." Despite moral diversity, we reveal that moral cognition-in both liberals and conservatives-is rooted in a harm-based template. A dyadic template suggests that harm should be central within moral cognition, an idea tested-and confirmed-through six specific hypotheses. Studies suggest that moral judgment occurs via dyadic comparison, in which counter-normative acts are compared with a prototype of harm. Dyadic comparison explains why harm is the most accessible and important of moral content, why harm organizes-and overlaps with-diverse moral content, and why harm best translates across moral content. Dyadic morality suggests that various moral content (e.g., loyalty, purity) are varieties of perceived harm and that past research has substantially exaggerated moral differences between liberals and conservatives.
© 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
The present research provides the first systematic empirical investigation into superhumanization, the attribution of supernatural, extrasensory, and magical mental and physical qualities to humans. Five studies test and support the hypothesis that White Americans superhumanize Black people relative to White people. Studies 1-2b demonstrate this phenomenon at an implicit level, showing that Whites preferentially associate Blacks versus Whites with superhuman versus human words on an implicit association test and on a categorization task. Studies 3-4 demonstrate this phenomenon at an explicit level, showing that Whites preferentially attribute superhuman capacities to Blacks versus Whites, and Study 4 specifically shows that superhumanization of Blacks predicts denial of pain to Black versus White targets. Together, these studies demonstrate a novel and potentially detrimental process through which Whites perceive Blacks.
Inclusiveness of the moral universe refers to the breadth of the community to which people apply moral values and rules of fairness. A preliminary study establishes the values typically viewed as moral. The author indexes moral inclusiveness at the societal level by the number of value items focused on the welfare of non-in-group members that form a distinct region in a multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS), rather than intermixing with moral values that usually relate to the in-group. Three societal characteristics predict inclusiveness of the moral universe across 66 societies: cultural egalitarianism, cultural embeddedness, and level of democratization. Using representative national samples from 21 countries, the author assesses how the societal level of moral inclusiveness influences relations between individuals' universalism values and their perceptions of immigration, opposition to immigrants from different racial or ethnic groups, and participation in activities that benefit the wider society. Findings suggest that, where moral inclusiveness is high, people understand universalism (but not benevolence) values as applying to all members of society.
The moral/conventional task has been widely used to study the emergence of moral understanding in children and to explore the defi cits in moral understanding in clinical populations. Previous studies have indicated that moral transgressions, particularly those in which a victim is harmed, evoke a signature pattern of responses in the moral/conventional task: they are judged to be serious, generalizable and not authority dependent. Moreover, this signature pattern is held to be pan-cultural and to emerge early in development. However, almost all the evidence for these claims comes from studies using harmful transgressions of the sort that primary school children might commit in the schoolyard. In a study conducted on the Internet, we used a much wider range of harm transgressions, and found that they do not evoke the signature pattern of responses found in studies using only schoolyard transgressions. Paralleling other recent work, our study provides preliminary grounds for skepticism regarding many conclusions drawn from earlier research using the moral/conventional task.
Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds-a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering-that is, interpersonal harm-even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions.
Infra-humanizing outgroups involves considering outgroups less human and more animal-like than the ingroup, which is perceived, in essence, as fully human. In this article, the first section presents the theoretical background of infra-humanization and distinguishes it from related concepts, such as dehumanization. The three basic hypotheses of the theory are then presented with a summary of empirical evidence. Social implications follow. Reasons for the pervasiveness of the phenomenon are examined as well as conditions that lead a specific outgroup to be infra-humanized. We also explore the consequences of infra-humanization, such as a lack of forgiveness for the outgroup and the ingroup's justification for past misdeeds against the outgroup, rather than guilt. Policy issues center on ways to combat essentialism, walls of difference between groups, and irrational symbols of superiority. The roles of egalitarian values and of deprovincialized intergroup contact are emphasized.
In explaining differences between groups, people ascribe the human essence to their ingroup and consider outgroups as less human. This phenomenon, called infra-humanization, occurs outside people's awareness. Because secondary emotions (e.g. love, hope, contempt, resentment) are considered uniquely human emotions, people not only attribute more secondary emotions to their ingroup than to outgroups, but are reluctant to associate these emotions with outgroups. Moreover, people behave less cooperatively (in terms of altruism, imitation, and approach) with an outgroup member who expresses himself through secondary emotions. Infra-humanization occurs for high and low status groups, even in the absence of conflict between groups. It does not occur when the outgroup target is adequately individualized, by a complete name or through perspective taking, for instance. The differential familiarity with the ingroup and the outgroup cannot explain infra-humanization. Yet, preliminary results show that subjective essentialism and ingroup identification may mediate the effects of infra-humanization. A connection is made between nationalism and infra-humanization. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Are disgusting or disrespectful actions judged to be moral violations, even when they are harmless? Stories about victimless yet offensive actions (such as cleaning one's toilet with a flag) were presented to Brazilian and U.S. adults and children of high and low socioeconomic status (N = 360). Results show that college students at elite universities judged these stories to be matters of social convention or of personal preference. Most other Ss, especially in Brazil, took a moralizing stance toward these actions. For these latter Ss, moral judgments were better predicted by affective reactions than by appraisals of harmfulness. Results support the claims of cultural psychology (R.A. Shweder, 1991a) and suggest that cultural norms and culturally shaped emotions have a substantial impact on the domain of morality and the process of moral judgment. Suggestions are made for building cross-culturally valid models of moral judgment.
The concept of dehumanization lacks a systematic theoretical basis, and research that addresses it has yet to be integrated. Manifestations and theories of dehumanization are reviewed, and a new model is developed. Two forms of dehumanization are proposed, involving the denial to others of 2 distinct senses of humanness: characteristics that are uniquely human and those that constitute human nature. Denying uniquely human attributes to others represents them as animal-like, and denying human nature to others represents them as objects or automata. Cognitive underpinnings of the "animalistic" and "mechanistic" forms of dehumanization are proposed. An expanded sense of dehumanization emerges, in which the phenomenon is not unitary, is not restricted to the intergroup context, and does not occur only under conditions of conflict or extreme negative evaluation. Instead, dehumanization becomes an everyday social phenomenon, rooted in ordinary social-cognitive processes.
Theorists seeking evidence of moral cognition – whether in human infants, nonhuman animals, or any other population – would benefit from a minimalistic description of what moral cognition is. However, such a definition has proven elusive. Some argue that debates over the existence (or not) of moral cognition in various populations turn on unresolvable semantic disagreement over how to characterize the moral domain. I acknowledge a semantic dimension to some disputes and identify another problem: Often, while sidestepping semantics, researchers rely on logically circular operationalizations, defining moral cognition in terms of elements that are already implicitly understood to be features of moral cognition, while failing to answer the question of what makes these features, or their combination, uniquely moral. The present article proposes a single solution to both problems. The issue of semantics is addressed by the identification of a naturally emerging and distinctive cognitive modality that is necessary to all definitions of moral cognition. The problem of circularity is overcome by a reduction of moral cognition to elements that are, in themselves, nonmoral. I call this distinctive combination of nonmoral elements the “molecular” structure of moral cognition.
Is altruism always morally good, or is the morality of altruism fundamentally shaped by the social opportunity costs that often accompany helping decisions? Across four studies, we reveal that in cases of realistic tradeoffs in social distance for gains in welfare where helping socially distant others necessitates not helping socially closer others with the same resources, helping is deemed as less morally acceptable. Making helping decisions at a cost to socially closer others also negatively affects judgments of relationship quality (Study 2) and in turn, decreases cooperative behavior with the helper (Study 3). Ruling out an alternative explanation of physical distance accounting for the effects in Studies 1 to 3, social distance continued to impact moral acceptability when physical distance across social targets was matched (Study 4). These findings reveal that attempts to decrease biases in helping may have previously unconsidered consequences for moral judgments, relationships, and cooperation.
Can social communication alter children's preexisting inclinations toward equality-based or merit-based forms of resource distribution? Six- to eight-year-old children's (N = 248) fairness preferences were evaluated with third-party distribution tasks before and after an intervention. Study 1 indicated that stories about beavers dividing wood had no impact on children's fairness preferences, while Study 2 indicated that brief, direct testimony was highly influential. Study 3 matched storybooks and testimony in content, with each discussing a situation resembling the distribution task, and both formats exerted a significant impact on children's fairness preferences that persisted across several weeks. There were some indications that interventions preaching the superiority of equality-based fairness were particularly effective, but there were no differences between reason-based and emotion-based interventions. Overall, storybooks and testimony can powerfully and enduringly change children's existing distributive justice preferences, as long as the moral lessons that are conveyed are easily transferable to children's real-world contexts.
There is a gap between morality as experienced and morality as studied. In our personal and professional lives, moral judgments are embedded within a specific context. We know the who, what, where, and when and often can infer the why; we know the broader context of actions; and we may have a specific relationship with the actors. However, scholarly theorizing is often built on inferences from participants’ responses to decontextualized, impoverished stimuli. In our quest for uncovering general psychological truths, moral psychologists have examined evaluations of poorly guarded trolleys, strangers with odd sexual proclivities, and endorsement of abstract principles. The four articles included in this section demonstrate the power of contextualizing morality. In the current article, I place these papers within a broader framework for how scholars can contextualize morality research. I then argue why contextualizing morality matters: not only do contextualized questions better reflect the nuances of reality but also contextualized judgments might be key for improving predictions of moral behavior and understanding moral change.
The debate between monists and pluralists in moral psychology has been framed as an argument over the number of “irreducible basic elements” that can be used to describe the extent of the moral domain: Do all moral values ultimately reduce to one principle (i.e., monism), or are there multiple irreducibly distinct moral values (i.e., pluralism)? I critique the premise of this debate, arguing that the breadth of the moral domain cannot be adequately represented, understood, or explained in terms of moral values. Instead, an adequate account of moral psychology must explain moral phenomena in terms of more basic elements: ontological frames.
Among anthropologists and sociologists, it is widely believed that moral rules are best understood as a type of social norm. Moral philosophers, however, have largely been hostile to this suggestion. In recent years, the impulse to distinguish moral rules from others types of social norm has received what many take to be empirical support from the work of Elliot Turiel and his collaborators, who have argued that there are two distinct “domains” of social cognition, the “moral” and the “conventional.” Many philosophers have taken this as proof that moral rules are fundamentally different from “conventional” social norms. I argue that moral philosophers should not be relying upon Turiel’s view to defend the moral/conventional distinction. First, I show that Turiel is claiming much less than many have taken him to be claiming, because he puts a lot of what philosophers have traditionally thought of as “morality” on the side of convention, or else in the broad region between the two that he refers to as “multidimensional contexts.” Second, I argue that his concept of the “conventional” is so narrow that the overwhelming majority of social norms – such as the standard rules of etiquette – wind up falling into the “multidimensional” category. This stems from his failure to distinguish between genuine conventions and what I refer to as “norms with conventional elements.”
Volitional control matters greatly for moral judgment: Coerced agents receive less condemnation for outcomes they cause. Less well understood is the psychological basis of this effect. Control may influence perceptions of intent for the outcome that occurs or perceptions of causal role in that outcome. Here, we show that an agent who chooses to do the right thing but accidentally causes a bad outcome receives relatively more punishment than an agent who is forced to do the "right" thing but causes a bad outcome. Thus, having good intentions ironically leads to greater condemnation. This surprising effect does not depend upon perceptions of increased intent for harm to occur, but rather upon perceptions of causal role in the obtained outcome. Further, this effect is specific to punishment: An agent who chooses to do the right thing is rated as having better moral character than a forced agent, even though they cause the same bad outcome. These results clarify how, when and why control influences moral judgment.
This article discusses minimal model explanations, which we argue are distinct from various causal, mechanical, difference-making, and so on, strategies prominent in the philosophical literature. We contend that what accounts for the explanatory power of these models is not that they have certain features in common with real systems. Rather, the models are explanatory because of a story about why a class of systems will all display the same large-scale behavior because the details that distinguish them are irrelevant. This story explains patterns across extremely diverse systems and shows how minimal models can be used to understand real systems.
Part I. The Nature of Morality and the Development of Social Values: 1. Morality and domains of social knowledge 2. Morality and religious rules 3. Morality and the personal domain 4. Morality in context: issues of development 5. Morality in context: issues of culture 6. Morality and emotion 7. Reconceptualizing moral character Part II. Classroom Applications: 8. Creating a moral atmosphere 9. Integrating values education into the curriculum: a domain approach 10. Fostering the moral self Conclusion: keeping things in perspective Additional resources.
The field of moral cognition has grown rapidly in recent years thanks in no small part to Cognition. Consistent with its interdisciplinary tradition, Cognition encouraged the growth of this field by supporting empirical research conducted by philosophers as well as research native to neighboring fields such as social psychology, evolutionary game theory, and behavioral economics. This research has been exceptionally diverse both in its content and methodology. I argue that this is because morality is unified at the functional level, but not at the cognitive level, much as vehicles are unified by shared function rather than shared mechanics. Research in moral cognition, then, has progressed by explaining the phenomena that we identify as "moral" (for high-level functional reasons) in terms of diverse cognitive components that are not specific to morality. In light of this, research on moral cognition may continue to flourish, not as the identification and characterization of distinctive moral processes, but as a testing ground for theories of high-level, integrative cognitive function.
Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A thought-provoking examination of how explanations of social and moral development inform our understandings of morality and culture. A common theme in the latter part of the twentieth century has been to lament the moral state of American society and the decline of morality among youth. A sharp turn toward an extreme form of individualism and a lack of concern for community involvement and civic participation are often blamed for the moral crisis. Turiel challenges these views, drawing on a large body of research from developmental psychology, anthropology, sociology as well as social events, political movements, and journalistic accounts of social and political struggles. Turiel shows that generation after generation has lamented the decline of society and blamed young people. Using historical accounts, he persuasively argues that such characterizations of moral decline entail stereotyping, nostalgia for times past, and a failure to recognize the moral viewpoint of those who challenge traditions.
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We review early and recent psychological theories of dehumanization and survey the burgeoning empirical literature, focusing on six fundamental questions. First, we examine how people are dehumanized, exploring the range of ways in which perceptions of lesser humanness have been conceptualized and demonstrated. Second, we review who is dehumanized, examining the social targets that have been shown to be denied humanness and commonalities among them. Third, we investigate who dehumanizes, notably the personality, ideological, and other individual differences that increase the propensity to see others as less than human. Fourth, we explore when people dehumanize, focusing on transient situational and motivational factors that promote dehumanizing perceptions. Fifth, we examine the consequences of dehumanization, emphasizing its implications for prosocial and antisocial behavior and for moral judgment. Finally, we ask what can be done to reduce dehumanization. We conclude with a discussion of limitations of current scholarship and directions for future research. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology Volume 65 is January 03, 2014. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.
Where does morality come from? Why are moral judgments often so similar across cultures, yet sometimes so variable? Is morality one thing, or many? Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) was created to answer these questions. In this chapter we describe the origins, assumptions, and current conceptualization of the theory, and detail the empirical findings that MFT has made possible, both within social psychology and beyond. Looking toward the future, we embrace several critiques of the theory, and specify five criteria for determining what should be considered a foundation of human morality. Finally, we suggest a variety of future directions for MFT and for moral psychology.
Dehumanized perception, a failure to spontaneously consider the mind of another person, may be a psychological mechanism facilitating inhumane acts like torture. Social cognition–considering someone’s mind–recognizes the other as a human being subject to moral treatment. Social neuroscience has reliably shown that participants normally activate a social-cognition neural network to pictures and thoughts of other people; our previous work shows that parts of this network uniquely fail to engage for traditionally dehumanized targets (homeless persons or drug addicts; see Harris & Fiske, 2009, for review). This suggests participants may not consider these dehumanized groups’ minds. Study 1 demonstrates that participants do fail to spontaneously think about the contents of these targets’ minds when imagining a day in their life, and rate them differently on a number of human-perception dimensions. Study 2 shows that these human-perception dimension ratings correlate with activation in brain regions beyond the social-cognition network, including areas implicated in disgust, attention, and cognitive control. These results suggest that disengaging social cognition affects a number of other brain processes and hints at some of the complex psychological mechanisms potentially involved in atrocities against humanity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
60 boys and 60 girls in the 1st and 4th grades in Israel were interviewed to examine the distinction between moral and conventional norms. Ss were equally divided between 3 groups: secular urban Jews, secular kibbutz Jews, and traditional Arab villagers. Ss were presented with 8 behaviors, all breaches of moral or conventional norms. Two of them dealt with norms strongly observed by the traditional but not by the other groups and 2 with norms central to the kibbutz. Ss were asked the extent to which the behavior was bad (or good) in a country where (a) it was prohibited and (b) it was permitted. They were also asked whether it should be forbidden by law, and why. City and kibbutz Ss did not differ in their judgments, even in regard to behaviors emphasized in the kibbutz. Compared with these groups, the traditional group judged all behaviors as bad even when permitted; they thought all should be prohibited by law and their justifications tended to be in normative terms. Results are interpreted in terms of 2 distinct orientations to social norms: one where the criteria for social judgment of behaviors and norms are consequences to others and law, and the other where social norms are considered to have absolute validity and constitute the dominant criterion for moral judgment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
There is a large tradition of work in moral psychology that explores the capacity for moral judgment by focusing on the basic capacity to distinguish moral violations (e.g. hitting another person) from conventional violations (e.g. playing with your food). However, only recently have there been attempts to characterize the cognitive mechanisms underlying moral judgment (e.g. Cognition 57 (1995) 1; Ethics 103 (1993) 337). Recent evidence indicates that affect plays a crucial role in mediating the capacity to draw the moral/conventional distinction. However, the prevailing account of the role of affect in moral judgment is problematic. This paper argues that the capacity to draw the moral/conventional distinction depends on both a body of information about which actions are prohibited (a Normative Theory) and an affective mechanism. This account leads to the prediction that other normative prohibitions that are connected to an affective mechanism might be treated as non-conventional. An experiment is presented that indicates that "disgust" violations (e.g. spitting at the table), are distinguished from conventional violations along the same dimensions as moral violations.
Traditionally, prejudice has been conceptualized as simple animosity. The stereotype content model (SCM) shows that some prejudice is worse. The SCM previously demonstrated separate stereotype dimensions of warmth (low-high) and competence (low-high), identifying four distinct out-group clusters. The SCM predicts that only extreme out-groups, groups that are both stereotypically hostile and stereotypically incompetent (low warmth, low competence), such as addicts and the homeless, will be dehumanized. Prior studies show that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is necessary for social cognition. Functional magnetic resonance imaging provided data for examining brain activations in 10 participants viewing 48 photographs of social groups and 12 participants viewing objects; each picture dependably represented one SCM quadrant. Analyses revealed mPFC activation to all social groups except extreme (low-low) out-groups, who especially activated insula and amygdala, a pattern consistent with disgust, the emotion predicted by the SCM. No objects, though rated with the same emotions, activated the mPFC. This neural evidence supports the prediction that extreme out-groups may be perceived as less than human, or dehumanized.
Scientists from various disciplines have begun to focus attention on the psychology and biology of human morality. One research program that has recently gained attention is universal moral grammar (UMG). UMG seeks to describe the nature and origin of moral knowledge by using concepts and models similar to those used in Chomsky's program in linguistics. This approach is thought to provide a fruitful perspective from which to investigate moral competence from computational, ontogenetic, behavioral, physiological and phylogenetic perspectives. In this article, I outline a framework for UMG and describe some of the evidence that supports it. I also propose a novel computational analysis of moral intuitions and argue that future research on this topic should draw more directly on legal theory.
Intentions and moral judgment across societies
- Barrett
Barrett, H., Bolyanatz, A., Crittenden, A., Fessler, D., Fitzpatrick, S., Gurven, M., … Laurence, S. (2016). Intentions and moral judgment across societies. Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, 113(17), 4688-4693. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1522070113.
Moral foundations theory: On the advantages of moral pluralism over moral monism
- Graham
Two distinctions in goodness
- Korsgaard
Korsgaard, C. M. (1983). Two distinctions in goodness. Philosophical Review, 92(2), 169. https://doi.org/10.2307/2184924.
Thought, emotions, and social interactional processes in moral development
- Turiel
Turiel, E. (2006). Thought, emotions, and social interactional processes in moral development. In M. Killen, & J. G. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of moral development
(pp. 7-35). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
The Nicomachean ethics
Aristotle. The Nicomachean ethics. (1934). E. Capps, T.E. Page, & W.H.D. Rouse (Eds.) (H. Rackham, Trans.). London: William Heineman.
Moral foundations theory: On the advantages of moral pluralism over moral monism
- J Graham
- J Haidt
- M Motyl
- P Meindl
- C Iskiwitch
- M Mooijman
Graham, J., Haidt, J., Motyl, M., Meindl, P., Iskiwitch, C., & Mooijman, M. (2018). Moral foundations theory: On the advantages of moral pluralism over moral
monism. In K. Gray, & J. Graham (Eds.), The atlas of moral psychology: Mapping good and evil in the mind (pp. 211-222). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Moral tribes: Emotion, Reason and the gap between us and them
- J Greene
Greene, J. (2013). Moral tribes: Emotion, Reason and the gap between us and them. New York, NY: Penguin Press.