This book provides a rich, systematic, and accessible introduction to moral psychology, aimed at undergraduate philosophy and psychology majors. There are eight chapters, in addition to a short introduction, prospective conclusion, and extensive bibliography. The recipe for each chapter will be: a) to introduce a philosophical topic (e.g., altruism, virtue, preferences, rules) and some prominent positions on it, without assuming prior acquaintance on the part of the reader b) to canvass and explain the relevance of a particular (...) domain of empirical inquiry (e.g., evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, neuroscience) to the topic c) to argue for some tentative conclusions about the topic d) to suggest further avenues for conceptual and empirical research The guiding theme of the book is that moral philosophy without psychological content is empty, whereas psychological investigation without philosophical insight is blind. Thus, I advocate a holistic approach that pictures moral psychology as a project of collaborative inquiry into the descriptive and normative aspects of the human condition. Ideally, students will come away from (a course built around) the book with the sense that, though philosophy may not be the queen of the sciences, its role is not merely to interpret scientific results. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive study of major issues of moral psychology throughout history, from ancient to early modern philosophy. The volume focuses primarily on the Western history of philosophy but also deals with Jewish and Islamic heritage. The Introduction chapter lays out the historical background in broad strokes, giving the reader the “lay of the land” when it comes to the terms of analysis and their overall development within the Western tradition of moral psychology. The (...) book continues by studying and analyzing moral anthropology, moral agency and motivation, virtues and social and political commitments, taking a thematic approach in a specific time-period and focus on the most unique and/or fruitful discussions about a particular historically situated discussion when it comes to thinking about questions and/or ‘problems’ in the field of moral psychology. Aimed at both a layman and academic audience, this book is of great interest to a broad readership. (shrink)

Moral psychology studies the features of cognition, judgement, perception and emotion that make human beings capable of moral action. Perspectives from feminist and race theory immensely enrich moral psychology. Writers who take these perspectives ask questions about mind, feeling, and action in contexts of social difference and unequal power and opportunity. These essays by a distinguished international cast of philosophers explore moral psychology as it connects to social life, scientific studies, and literature.

Moral psychology investigates the connections between our thoughts and emotions, both of which are action guiding. Philosophical questions about moral psychology differ from scientific questions in that the latter are empirical, that is, they are questions about the way we actually express emotions. The rare possession of a healthy moral psychology might be an important qualification for being that one‐in‐a‐million person, a starship captain. Plato's student Aristotle considered magnanimity or generosity out of pride, a (...) virtue. Good education, training, and experience can provide the basis for a sound moral psychology. Some philosophers argue that our emotions are deeply connected to our beliefs, termed propositional attitudes. The emotional makeup of a starship captain is demanding; in addition to the required skills, most people simply don't have the ego required to be under such pressure and hold that level of responsibility. (shrink)

Observations of animals engaging in apparently moral behavior have led academics and the public alike to ask whether morality is shared between humans and other animals. Some philosophers explicitly argue that morality is unique to humans, because moral agency requires capacities that are only demonstrated in our species. Other philosophers argue that some animals can participate in morality because they possess these capacities in a rudimentary form. Scientists have also joined the discussion, and their views are just as (...) varied as the philosophers’. Some research programs examine whether animals countenance specific human norms, such as fairness. Other research programs investigate the cognitive and affective capacities thought to be necessary for morality. There are two sets of concerns that can be raised by these debates. They sometimes suffer from there being no agreed upon theory of morality and no clear account of whether there is a demarcation between moral and social behavior; that is, they lack a proper philosophical foundation. They also sometimes suffer from there being disagreement about the psychological capacities evident in animals. Of these two sets of concerns—the nature of the moral and the scope of psychological capacities—we aim to take on only the second. In this chapter we defend the claim that animals have three sets of capacities that, on some views, are taken as necessary and foundational for moral judgment and action. These are capacities of care, capacities of autonomy, and normative capacities. Care, we argue, is widely found among social animals. Autonomy and normativity are more recent topics of empirical investigation, so while there is less evidence of these capacities at this point in our developing scientific knowledge, the current data is strongly suggestive. (shrink)

This part of the philosophy of psychology I refer to as 'moral psychology'; and, therefore, this book is offered as a contribution to moral psychology. ...

This is the first philosophy textbook in moral psychology, introducing students to a range of philosophical topics and debates such as: What is moral motivation? Do reasons for action always depend on desires? Is emotion or reason at the heart of moral judgment? Under what conditions are people morally responsible? Are there self-interested reasons for people to be moral? Moral Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction presents research by philosophers and psychologists on these topics, and (...) addresses the overarching question of how empirical research is relevant to philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Socrates' moral psychology is widely thought to be 'intellectualist' in the sense that, for Socrates, every ethical failure to do what is best is exclusively the result of some cognitive failure to apprehend what is best. Until publication of this book, the view that, for Socrates, emotions and desires have no role to play in causing such failure went unchallenged. This book argues against the orthodox view of Socratic intellectualism and offers in its place a comprehensive alternative account (...) that explains why Socrates believed that emotions, desires and appetites can influence human motivation and lead to error. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith defend the study of Socrates' philosophy and offer an alternative interpretation of Socratic moral psychology. Their novel account of Socrates' conception of virtue and how it is acquired shows that Socratic moral psychology is considerably more sophisticated than scholars have supposed. (shrink)

The ancient Greeks subscribed to the thesis of the Unity of Virtue, according to which the possession of one virtue is closely related to the possession of all the others. Yet empirical observation seems to contradict this thesis at every turn. What could the Greeks have been thinking of? The paper offers an interpretation and a tentative defence of a qualified version of the thesis. It argues that, as the Greeks recognized, virtue essentially involves knowledge ? specifically, evaluative knowledge of (...) what matters. Furthermore, such knowledge is essentially holistic. Perfect and complete possession of one virtue thus requires the knowledge that is needed for the possession of every other virtue. The enterprise of trying to reconcile the normative view embodied in this conception of virtue with empirical observation also serves as a case study for the field of moral psychology in which empirical and normative claims are often deeply and confusingly intertwined.1. (shrink)

Embodied Moral Psychology and Confucian Philosophy is a comprehensive and insightful book that shows how some central tenets of Confucian philosophy are supported by contemporary research in psychology. More specifically, Bongrae Seok shows “that Confucian moral philosophy is a philosophical tradition of the embodied moral mind with the potential to develop a viable theory of embodied moral psychology”. He begins part one of his book with a chapter on “What is Embodied Cognition?” saying (...) that it generally refers to “the physical mechanism of a cognitive system, in the processes of gathering, processing, storing, and accessing information”. He.. (shrink)

Through a radical reinterpretation of classical philosophy as an organizational psychology, The Moral Psychology of St. Thomas: An Introduction to Ragamuffin Ethics just as radically reinterprets St. Thomas Aquinas's moral teaching to be a behavioristic psychology chiefly designed to synthesize right reason and right pleasure to help a person excel at living life as a whole. In the process of so doing, this work demonstrates how the skill of prudential living is a necessary condition for (...) becoming a grand master of leadership in any and every profession. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch offers a distinctive conception of moral psychology. She suggests that to develop a moral psychology is to develop what she calls a soul-picture; different philosophical moral psychologies are, as she puts it, “rival soul-pictures.” In this paper I clarify Murdoch’s generic notion of “soul-picture,” the genus of which, for example, Aristotle’s, Kant’s, Nietzsche’s, and Murdoch’s constitute rival species. Are all philosophical moral psychologies soul-pictures? If not, what are the criteria that a (...) class='Hi'>moral psychology must meet in order to qualify as a soul-picture? I propose five key dimensions. A soul-picture provides a picture of the soul or self that is 1) holistic, 2) value-rich and psychologically realistic (for Murdoch these are intertwined), 3) reflexive, 4) therapeutic and 5) the articulation of which makes use of imaginative language. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Recent work in various branches of philosophy has reinvigorated debate over the psychology behind moral judgment. Using Marc Hauser's categorization of theories as “Kantian,” “Humean,” or “Rawlsian” to frame the discussion, I argue that the existing evidence weighs against the Kantian model and partly in favor of both the Humean and the Rawlsian models. Emotions do play a causal role in the formation of our moral judgments, as the Humean model claims, but there are also unconscious principles (...) shaping our moral judgments, as the Rawlsian model predicts. Thus, Hauser's tripartite division of possible models of moral psychology is inadequate. Drawing on research in cognitive neuroscience, clinical and behavioral psychology, and psychopathology, I sketch a new, developmental sentimentalist model of moral psychology. I call it a “Mencian” model, after the Confucian philosopher Mencius. On this model, moral judgments are caused by emotions, but because of the way emotions are mapped onto particular actions, moral judgments unconsciously reflect certain principled distinctions. (shrink)

The Moral Psychology Handbook offers a survey of contemporary moral psychology, integrating evidence and argument from philosophy and the human sciences.

This volume is the first to bring together original work by leading philosophers and psychologists in an examination of the moral psychology of contempt.

The virtue of moral psychology is that it emphasizes what is most human in business, as opposed to the more bloodless conceptsof “obligation,” “duty,” “responsibility” and rights.” The heart of moral psychology is to be found in such concrete phenomena as fear, love, affection, antipathy, loyalty, jealousy, anger, resentment, avarice, ambition, pride, and cowardice. In this essay, I want to explore two of the core virtues of the corporation, conceived of as a community, the “sentiments” of (...) care and compassion. These were taken to be the very core of ethics by Adam Smith. I want to distinguish care and compassion from each other and both from the more principled and rule-bound conceptions of ethics that still dominate philosophy. (shrink)

This volume aims to bring the two streams of research together, offering a fresh infusion of Aristotelian insights into moral psychology and philosophy of ...

Recent work in moral philosophy has emphasized the foundational role played by interpersonal accountability in the analysis of moral concepts such as moral right and wrong, moral obligation and duty, blameworthiness, and moral responsibility (Darwall 2006; 2013a; 2013b). Extending this framework to the field of moral psychology, we hypothesize that our moral attitudes, emotions, and motives are also best understood as based in accountability. Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, we (...) argue that the implicit aim of the central moral motives and emotions is to hold people - whether oneself or others - accountable for compliance with the demands of morality. Moral condemnation is based in a motive to get perpetrators to hold themselves accountable for their wrongdoing, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere retributive motive to make perpetrators suffer (�2). And moral conscience is based in a genuine motive to hold oneself accountable for behaving in accordance with moral demands, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere egoistic motive to appear moral to others (�3). The accountability-based theory of the moral motives and emotions we offer provides better explanations of the extant empirical data than any of the major alternative theories of moral motivation. Moreover, conceiving of moral psychology in this way gives us a new and illuminating perspective on what makes morality distinctive: its essential connection to our practice of holding one another accountable (�4). (shrink)

An introduction to the volume bearing the same name, tracing the recent history of experimental moral psychology and summarizing the contributions to the volume.

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2022 | The Moral Psychology of Hate provides the first systematic introduction to the moral psychology of hate, compiling specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars with a wide range of disciplinary orientations. In light of the recent revival of interest in emotions in academic philosophy and the current social and political interest in hate, this volume provides arguments for and against the value of hate through a combination of (...) empirical and philosophical methods. The authors examine hate not merely as a destructive feeling but as an emotion of great moral significance that illuminates how we understand each other and ourselves. The book will be of major interest to anyone concerned with the dynamics and the moral and political implications of this most powerful of human emotions. (shrink)

An introduction to the volume bearing the same name, tracing the recent history of experimental moral psychology and summarizing the contributions to the volume.

Abstract Though issues concerning moral philosophy in the classic or pre-Qin period have been the central issues in the contemporary literature on pre-Qin philosophy, the issues concerning the concept of reason, the role of reason, and the relation between reason and emotion in moral psychology have not been given an extensive discussion. In Western tradition, moral psychology centers on the contrast between reason and desire/emotion, and no one disputes that the concept of reason and the (...) contrast between reason and emotion/desire play a central role in moral psychology. However, it is not clear and controversial as well whether moral psychology in classic Chinese philosophy also employs the concept of reason and operates on the contrast between reason and emotion/desire. In this paper, the author explores the issue of whether pre-Qin moral psychology employs the concept of reason that resembles the Western concept of reason and operates on the contrast between rea­son and emotion/desire. Chad Hansen is one of a few philosophers who have given an extensive discussion of the issue concerning the concept of reason in the Chinese context. Hansen has argued that classic Chinese philosophy lacks a theory of reason , and thus a concept of reason and the contrast between reason and desire or emotion in its model of human psychology. Hansen's works emphasize the differences between the Western philosophical discourse and the classic Chinese philosophical discourse. The purpose of the author in this paper is to explore similari­ties between two discourses with respect to moral psychology. There may be significant differences between the Western and the Chinese philosophical discourse, but where we locate the differences is not dic­tated by the fact that there are differences and should not render the Chinese philosophical discourse less plausible. (shrink)

This introduction by the editor to the essays in Moral Psychology Today describes what philosophy of action is about, followed by brief synopses of each essay in the volume.

This book brings together in one volume some of the very latest developments in moral psychology that were presented at a major American conference in 2004. Moral psychology is a broad area at the intersection of moral philosophy and philosophy of mind and action. Essays in this collection deal with most of the central issues in moral psychology that are of interest to a large number of philosophers today, including important questions in normative (...) ethical theory, meta-ethics, and applied ethics. (shrink)

Moral psychology studies the features of cognition, judgement, perception and emotion that make human beings capable of moral action. Perspectives from feminist and race theory immensely enrich moral psychology. Writers who take these perspectives ask questions about mind, feeling, and action in contexts of social difference and unequal power and opportunity. These essays by a distinguished international cast of philosophers explore moral psychology as it connects to social life, scientific studies, and literature.

Physicians vary in their moral judgments about health care costs. Social intuitionism posits that moral judgments arise from gut instincts, called “moral foundations.” The objective of this study was to determine if “harm” and “fairness” intuitions can explain physicians’ judgments about cost-containment in U.S. health care and using cost-effectiveness data in practice, as well as the relative importance of those intuitions compared to “purity”, “authority” and “ingroup” in cost-related judgments.

Immanuel Kant’s notion of weakness or frailty warrants more attention, for it reveals much about his theory of motivation and general metaphysics of mind. As the first and least severe of the three grades of evil, frailty captures those cases where an agent fails to act on their avowed recognition that the moral law is the only legitimate determining ground of the will. The possibility of such cases raises many important questions that have yet to be settled by interpreters. (...) Most importantly, should we account for the failures of weakness by appealing to the activity of reason or sensibility? I will discuss this question in light of a tendency to adopt an overly dualistic reading of Kant’s moral psychology. Focusing on Kant’s remarks on weakness from the Religion and the Metaphysics of Morals, I argue that we should understand weakness as arising from the unique difficulties of sense-dependent judgment, rather than from self-deception, flagging commitment, or overwhelming desire. The resulting account offers a unified moral psychology capable of accommodating the many features of weakness that are difficult to reconcile on other readings. (shrink)

RESUMEN El trabajo presenta un modelo de psicología moral a partir del análisis del libro primero de las Leyes de Platón y, en particular, de la imagen de la marioneta. Entre los intérpretes contemporáneos se debate sobre si esta imagen compromete una comprensión de la templanza como "victoria" sobre los placeres o si más bien respalda una comprensión de esta virtud como "acuerdo" entre estos y la razón. Para responder a esta cuestión, se recurrirá a la psicología bipartita del (...) Filebo. Esto permitirá reconocer, en la educación de la virtud, el conflicto entre afectos y, en el resultado de este proceso educativo, el acuerdo entre razón y afectividad. ABSTRACT The article presents a moral psychology model on the basis of the analysis of the first book of Plato's Laws, particularly of the image of the puppet. Contemporary interpreters have been debating whether that image entails an understanding of temperance as a "victory" over pleasures, or whether it supports an understanding of that virtue as an "agreement" between pleasures and reason. In order to answer that question, the article resorts to the twofold psychology of the Philebus. This makes it possible to recognize the conflict among affects, in education in virtue, and the agreement between reason and affectivity, in the result of that educational process. (shrink)

An overview of Zhu Xi's moral psychology, with a special focus on the metaphysical underpinnings and the relations between heartmind (xin), emotions (qing), and nature (xing). The authors explain how Zhu uses his account to balance the demand for independent standards of assessment with his commitment to ethical norms that virtuous agents can embrace wholeheartedly.

Critical psychologists repeatedly lament the fact that we spend most of our time criticizing, unmasking and deconstructing prevailing psychological models, and rather less time rebuilding and reinventing them. Of course, important contributions have been made by theorists who present concrete alternatives to the theories and practices we challenge. Yet there have been relatively few attempts to articulate a guiding vision or visions of what we should be doing. This article discusses a symposium that was organized as an attempt to press (...) beyond the "debunking" phase. All of the papers embody attempts to move into the less-travelled territory of moral conversation. They are predicated upon certain fundamental assumptions about the moral and political situatedness of psychology. The five papers that follow are offered with the recognition that they are neither the first nor the last word on the normative dimensions of psychological discourse. In addition to the specific contribution made by each author, the collective aim of the panel is both to highlight the ongoing moral situations in which we are all caught, and, perhaps most importantly, to invite further conversation. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Empirical moral psychology is sometimes dismissed as normatively insignificant because it plays no decisive role in settling ethical disputes. But that conclusion, even if it is valid for normative ethics, does not extend to bioethics. First, in contrast to normative ethics, bioethics can legitimately proceed from a presupposed moral framework. Within that framework, moral psychology can be shown to play four significant roles: it can improve bioethicists’ understanding of the decision situation, the origin and legitimacy (...) of their moral concepts, efficient options for implementing decisions, and how to change and improve some parts of their moral framework. Second, metaethical considerations suggest that moral psychology may lead to the radical revision of entire moral frameworks and thus prompt the radical revision of entire moral frameworks in bioethics. However, I show that bioethics must either relinquish these radical implications of moral psychology and accept that there are limits to progress in bioethics based on moral psychology or establish an epistemic framework that guides radical revision. (shrink)

Peter Singer has argued for a radical anti-intuitionism on the basis of recent empirical research into the psychological and evolutionary origins of moral intuition. There is, however, a gap between the putative genealogy of moral intuition that Singer offers and his desired methodological claim. I explore three ways to bridge the gap, and argue that the promising way is to construe the genealogy as a debunking genealogy. I sketch an account of how debunking arguments work, and then show (...) that this causes problems for Singer, since utilitarianism itself is liable to be debunked. Finally, I suggest how we can take lessons for ethics from the empirical work, but that the result is a far more restricted kind of anti-intuitionism than Singer was hoping for. (shrink)

This fascinating and timely volume explores current thinking on vital topics in moral psychology, spanning the diverse disciplines that contribute to the field. Academics from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, anthropology, philosophy, and political science address ongoing and emerging questions aimed at understanding the thought processes and behaviors that underlie our moral codes-and our transgressions. Cross-cutting themes speak to individual, interpersonal, and collective morality in such areas as the development of ethical behavior, responses to violations of rules, (...) class='Hi'>moral judgments in the larger discourse, and universal versus specific norms. This wide-angle perspective also highlights the implications of moral psychology research for policy and justice, with cogent viewpoints from: Philosophy: empiricism and normative questions, moral relativism. Evolutionary biology: theories of how altruism and moral behavior evolved. Anthropology: common moral values seen in ethnographies from different countries. Cognitive and neural sciences: computational models of moral systems and decision-making. Political science: politics, governance, and moral values in the public sphere. Advice on moral psychology research-and thoughts about its future-from prominent scholars. With the goal of providing a truly multidisciplinary forum for moral psychology, this volume is sure to spark conversations across disciplines and advance the field as a whole. Sampling the breadth and depth of an equally expansive and transformative field, Moral Psychology: A Multidisciplinary Guide will find an engaged audience among psychologists, philosophers, evolutionary biologists, anthropologists, political scientists, neuroscientists, lawyers, and policymakers, as well as a more general audience interested better understanding the complexity of moral psychology research. (shrink)

Moral functioning is a defining feature of human personhood and human social life. Moral Psychology provides an integrative and evaluative overview of the theoretical and empirical traditions that have attempted to make sense of moral cognition, prosocial behavior, and the development of virtuous character.This is the first book to integrate a comprehensive review of the psychological literatures with allied traditions in ethics. Moral rationality and decisionmaking; the development of the sense of fairness and justice, and (...) of prosocial dispositions; as well as the notion of moral self and moral identity and their relation to issues of character and virtue are fully discussed in the rich contexts provided by psychological and philosophical paradigms. Lapsley emphasizes parenting and educational strategies for influencing moral behavior, reasoning, and character development, and charts a line of research for the “post-Kohlbergian era” in moral psychology.This book will be an invaluable text for advanced courses in moral psychology, as taught in departments of psychology, education, and philosophy. It will also prove to be a standard reference work for researchers and ethicists alike. (shrink)

Contemporary moral psychology has been dominated by two broad traditions, one usually associated with Aristotle, the other with Kant. The broadly Aristotelian approach emphasizes the role of childhood upbringing in the development of good moral character, and the role of such character in ethical behavior. The broadly Kantian approach emphasizes the role of freely chosen conscious moral principles in ethical behavior. We review a growing body of experimental evidence that suggests that both of these approaches are (...) predicated on an implausible view of human psychology. This evidence suggests that both childhood upbringing and conscious moral principles have extraordinarily little impact on people's moral behavior. This paper argues that moral psychology needs to take seriously a third approach, derived from Nietzsche. This approach emphasizes the role of heritable psychological and physiological traits in explaining behavior. In particular, it claims that differences in the degree to which different individuals behave morally can often be traced back to heritable differences between those individuals. We show that this third approach enjoys considerable empirical support - indeed that it is far better supported by the empirical data than are either the Aristotelian or Kantian traditions in moral psychology. (shrink)

Brian Leiter’s second book on Nietzsche brings together ideas and arguments that have already had a significant influence on the field through their earlier formulations in his articles from the past two decades. It is thus indispensable reading for anyone interested in Leiter’s evolving project of showing that Nietzsche has the correct naturalistic approach to issues in moral philosophy and moral psychology. As usual with Leiter’s scholarship, this monograph is extremely clear, densely argued, and philosophically sophisticated.Leiter nicely (...) frames this book with an introduction in which he offers his latest thoughts on Nietzsche’s naturalistic approach and with a concluding chapter in which he joins Joshua Knobe... (shrink)

Moral psychology investigates human functioning in moral contexts, and asks how these results may impact debate in ethical theory. This work is necessarily interdisciplinary, drawing on both the empirical resources of the human sciences and the conceptual resources of philosophical ethics. The present article discusses several topics that illustrate this type of inquiry: thought experiments, responsibility, character, egoism v . altruism, and moral disagreement.

Maimonides’ moral psychology undergoes development, which this essay attempts to detail. In the early Shemonah Peraqim (Eight Chapters) Maimonides charts out a seemingly anti-Aristotelian view that underscores the specificity of each part of the human soul and the utter distinctiveness of the human species. Human beings share nothing with non-human animals, prima facie not even the most “animalistic” features. Over time, however, a change in Maimonides’ position is to be noted. In his philosophical magnum opus, the Guide of (...) the Perplexed, Maimonides adopts a more Aristotelian position, understanding human beings as sharing with nonhumananimals certain sub-rational faculties, but differing from them in their ratiocinative capacities. As in Aristotle, human beings turn out to be essentially rational animals. (shrink)

Rebound effects on the consumer level occur when consumers’ realized greenhouse gas emission savings caused by behaviors that might be beneficial to the environment are lower than their potential greenhouse gas emission savings because the savings are offset by behavioral adjustments. While previous literature mainly studied the economic mechanisms of such rebound effects, research has largely neglected the moral-psychological mechanisms. A comprehensive conceptualization of rebound effects on the consumer level can help fill this void and stimulate more empirical research (...) in this relevant area. To this end, the paper introduces three focal dimensions of rebound effects on the consumer level: mechanism of rebound effects, product category, and consumption context. Based on this conceptualization, and integrating assumptions from the theory of moral licensing, the theory of categorization, and the construal level theory, this paper further refines the conceptualization of the moral component as an explanatory factor for rebound effects and highlights that the moral-psychological mechanisms of indirect rebound effects are more complex and diverse than the economic mechanisms. The paper outlines promising directions for future studies considering the different quantification and characteristics of economic and moral currencies that explain rebound effects on the consumer level and the strategic categorization of products and consumption contexts. (shrink)

This book will explore the moral dimensions of love from the standpoint of political philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience.

How can we make moral progress on factory farming? Part of the answer lies in human moral psychology. Meat consumption remains high, despite increased awareness of its negative impact on animal welfare. Weakness of will is part of the explanation: acceptance of the ethical arguments doesn’t always motivate changes in dietary habits. However, we draw on scientific evidence to argue that many consumers aren’t fully convinced that they morally ought to reduce their meat consumption. We then identify (...) two key psychological mechanisms—motivated reasoning and social proof—that lead people to resist the ethical reasons. Finally, we show how to harness these psychological mechanisms to encourage reductions in meat consumption. A central lesson for moral progress generally is that durable social change requires socially-embedded reasoning. (shrink)

These essays by a distinguished international cast of philosophers explore moral psychology as it connects to social life, scientific studies, and literature.

abstract This paper is an investigation of the moral psychology of decisions that involve a conflict of interest. It draws on the burgeoning field of affective neuroscience, which is the study of the neurobiology of emotional systems in the brain. I show that a recent neurocomputational model of how the brain integrates cognitive and affective information in decision‐making can help to answer some important descriptive and normative questions about the moral psychology of conflicts of interest. These (...) questions include: Why are decisions that involve conflicts of interest so common? Why are people so often unaware that they are acting immorally as the result of conflicts of interest? What is the relation of conflicts of interest to other kinds of irrationality, especially self‐deception and weakness of will? What psychological, social, and logical steps can be taken to reduce the occurrence of immoral decisions resulting from conflicts of interest? I discuss five strategies for dealing with conflicts of interest: avoidance, optimal reasoning patterns, disclosure, social oversight, and understanding of neuropsychological processes. (shrink)

Thought experimental methods play a central role in empirical moral psychology. Against the increasingly common interpretation of recent experimental data, I argue that such methods cannot demonstrate that moral intuitions are produced by reflexive computations that are implicit, fast, and largely automatic. I demonstrate, in contrast, that evaluating thought experiments occurs at a near-glacial pace relative to the speed at which reflexive information processing occurs in a human brain. So, these methods allow for more reflective and deliberative (...) processing than has commonly been assumed. However, these methods may still provide insight into some human strategies for navigating unfamiliar moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings is a much-needed collection of essays on issues of moral psychology. The aim of the book is to present the reader with a comprehensive view of both the history and foundations of moral psychology as well as the discipline's position in academia and its relationship with other disciplines, such as psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, all of which involve empirical investigation of human capabilities and behavior. This collection (...) is well organized into five distinct parts. Each part has a helpful editorial introduction that not only summarizes the main themes of the debate assigned to that part, but also provides brief summaries of each of the subsequent essays in that section. The selected papers are presented in chronological order, thus illustrating the development of the debate. First, an historical piece of philosophy is presented to demonstrate the original questions of the section's theme. The historical pieces are followed by more-recent articles or selections written by scientists concerning similar topics. Finally, each part concludes with articles written by contemporary moral psychologists. These final articles often make mention of the historical texts or the scientific articles preceding those papers. This dialectic style of presentation successfully gives the reader the context and progression of the debate while still highlighting the "live" questions that are, in a sense, left as an exercise for the reader as well as future academics. (shrink)

What can we learn from fiction? I argue that we can learn about the consequences of a certain course of action by projecting ourselves, in imagination, into the situation of the fiction's characters.

This Element provides an overview of some of the central issues in contemporary moral psychology. It explores what moral psychology is, whether we are always motivated by self-interest, what good character looks like and whether anyone has it, whether moral judgments always motivate us to act, whether what motivates action is always a desire of some kind, and what the role is of reasoning and deliberation in moral judgment and action. This Element is aimed (...) at a general audience including undergraduate students without an extensive background in philosophy. (shrink)

Vast and pervasive environmental problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss call every individual to active stewardship. Their magnitude and causal and strategic structures, however, pose powerful challenges to our moral psychology. Stewardship may feel overburdening, and appear hopeless. This may lead to widespread moral and political disengagement. This article proposes a resolve to garden practices as a way out of that danger, and describes the ways in which it will motivate individuals to so act as (...) to coordinate on behavioural patterns that will significantly alleviate grave, but seemingly distant and intractable environmental quandaries. (shrink)