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The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Aug 2022Prompted by recent comments on the moral authority of dialogic consensus, we argue that consensus, specifically dialogic consensus, possesses a unique form of moral...
Prompted by recent comments on the moral authority of dialogic consensus, we argue that consensus, specifically dialogic consensus, possesses a unique form of moral authority. Given our multicultural era and its plurality of values, we contend that traditional ethical frameworks or principles derived from them cannot be viewed substantively. Both philosophers and clinicians prioritize the need for a decision to be morally justifiable, and also for the decision to be action-guiding. We argue that, especially against the background of our pluralistic society, it is only via unforced dialogue and properly founded argumentation, aiming for consensus, that we can ascribe rightness or wrongness in a normative fashion to dilemmatic situations. We argue that both the process of dialogue, properly constituted, and the consensual outcome itself have moral authority vested within them. Finally, we argue that the consensual decision made is able to withstand moral scrutiny and is action-guiding, without claiming absolute moral authority in other contexts.
Topics: Consensus; Cultural Diversity; Humans; Morals
PubMed: 35751628
DOI: 10.1093/jmp/jhac007 -
Psychiatria Danubina 2021In this paper we see the personality of man through his comprehension as a moral entity. An entity that emerges, thinks morally and/or behaves morally, inseparable from...
In this paper we see the personality of man through his comprehension as a moral entity. An entity that emerges, thinks morally and/or behaves morally, inseparable from the society in which he lives as a moral being, and by its moral thinking and/or behaviour further defines the morals of the whole society. Accordingly, we present (post)modern society as a society of tolerance of value ambiguity. In that kind of society we perceive medical situation as moral situation and define the role of medical ethics in the field of biomedicine. In that kind of society politics is perceived as one of the social spheres where different varieties of systems of values of individuals or groups are publicly embraced, touched, or terribly unhappily pursued... all in the name of understanding man and his world. In order to prevent the victory of Thanatos, who prevails in the contemporary concept of politics and in postmodern global society, we suggest implementing applied bioethics as a form of metapolitics as an answer. We explain the idea of bioethics and suggest bioethical education as the operationalisation of metapolitics through bioethics as orientation knowledge, in both medicine and politics.
Topics: Bioethics; Ethics; Ethics, Medical; Humans; Morals; Politics; Psychiatry
PubMed: 35026832
DOI: No ID Found -
Perspectives on Psychological Science :... Jan 2022Observed variability and complexity of judgments of "right" and "wrong" cannot be readily accounted for within extant approaches to understanding moral judgment. In...
Observed variability and complexity of judgments of "right" and "wrong" cannot be readily accounted for within extant approaches to understanding moral judgment. In response to this challenge, we present a novel perspective on categorization in moral judgment. Moral judgment as categorization (MJAC) incorporates principles of category formation research while addressing key challenges of existing approaches to moral judgment. People develop skills in making context-relevant categorizations. They learn that various objects (events, behaviors, people, etc.) can be categorized as morally right or wrong. Repetition and rehearsal result in reliable, habitualized categorizations. According to this skill-formation account of moral categorization, the learning and the habitualization of the forming of moral categories occur within goal-directed activity that is sensitive to various contextual influences. By allowing for the complexity of moral judgments, MJAC offers greater explanatory power than existing approaches while also providing opportunities for a diverse range of new research questions.
Topics: Humans; Judgment; Learning; Morals
PubMed: 34264152
DOI: 10.1177/1745691621990636 -
PloS One 2023A powerful avenue through which to promote the preservation of the natural and cultural environment is to afford cultural and environmental objects moral significance....
A powerful avenue through which to promote the preservation of the natural and cultural environment is to afford cultural and environmental objects moral significance. In this research, we examine a range of factors that may give rise to moral concern regarding the protection of culturel and environmental objects as ends in themselves. In this way, we also extend theorizing and evidence beyond a focus on sentience as a focal determinant of moral significance Across five studies we show that non-sentient objects can sometimes be viewed as possessing intrinsically valuable properties that afford them moral standing (independent of their extrinsic/means-end value or any perception of their capacity to think and feel). People judge it morally wrong to harm things that are beautiful, sacred, rare, or old, and this cannot be explained merely by their usefulness or economic value. Our findings provide new insight into ways to elevate the protection of natural and cultural objects to an issue of moral significance, and suggest avenues through which to motivate the preservation of a natural and cultural environments.
Topics: Humans; Morals; Emotions
PubMed: 36758054
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280393 -
Bioethics Sep 2019In The Evolution of Moral Progress Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell advance an evolutionary explanation of moral progress by morality becoming more 'inclusivist'. We...
In The Evolution of Moral Progress Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell advance an evolutionary explanation of moral progress by morality becoming more 'inclusivist'. We are prepared to accept this explanation as far as it goes, but argue that it fails to explain how morality can become inclusivist in the fuller sense they intend. In fact, it even rules out inclusivism in their intended sense of moral progress, since they believe that human altruism and prosocial attitudes are essentially parochial. We also respond to their charge that the possibility of moral enhancement by biomedical means that we have defended in numerous publications assumes that moral attitudes are biologically hard-wired to an extent that implies that they are resilient to the influence of cognitive or cultural factors. Quite the contrary, we think they are more open to such influence than they seem to do.
Topics: Altruism; Bioethics; Biomedical Enhancement; Guidelines as Topic; Humans; Morals; Social Values
PubMed: 31107561
DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12592 -
Annual Review of Psychology 2007Moral emotions represent a key element of our human moral apparatus, influencing the link between moral standards and moral behavior. This chapter reviews current theory...
Moral emotions represent a key element of our human moral apparatus, influencing the link between moral standards and moral behavior. This chapter reviews current theory and research on moral emotions. We first focus on a triad of negatively valenced "self-conscious" emotions-shame, guilt, and embarrassment. As in previous decades, much research remains focused on shame and guilt. We review current thinking on the distinction between shame and guilt, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of these two moral emotions. Several new areas of research are highlighted: research on the domain-specific phenomenon of body shame, styles of coping with shame, psychobiological aspects of shame, the link between childhood abuse and later proneness to shame, and the phenomena of vicarious or "collective" experiences of shame and guilt. In recent years, the concept of moral emotions has been expanded to include several positive emotions-elevation, gratitude, and the sometimes morally relevant experience of pride. Finally, we discuss briefly a morally relevant emotional process-other-oriented empathy.
Topics: Adult; Anger; Body Image; Child; Child Abuse; Conscience; Defense Mechanisms; Emotions; Empathy; Guilt; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Morals; Personal Construct Theory; Shame; Social Behavior; Social Conformity; Virtues
PubMed: 16953797
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145 -
International Journal of Environmental... Sep 2022Environmental protection issues are closely related to moral factors, but little research has explored the factors affecting green purchase intention from the aspect of...
Environmental protection issues are closely related to moral factors, but little research has explored the factors affecting green purchase intention from the aspect of morality. Based on a perspective of ethical decision making, this study investigates the impacts of perceived quality and perceived price on moral intensity and moral judgment, through the moderation of products' green degree, as well as the impacts of moral intensity and moral judgment on green purchase intention. Research data was collected through a questionnaire survey of 368 consumers in China, and analyzed using a hierarchical linear model. The empirical results reveal that moral intensity and moral judgment significantly promoted green purchase intention. Perceived quality and perceived price both positively affected moral intensity and moral judgment. Products' green degree positively moderated the relationship between perceived price and moral judgment as well as the relationship between perceived quality and moral judgment. This study provides a new insight into promoting green purchase intention, and the findings may also assist marketers in developing future tactics to increase consumers' green purchase intention.
Topics: China; Consumer Behavior; Decision Making; Intention; Morals
PubMed: 36141424
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph191811151 -
PloS One 2023Music is a fundamental element in every culture, serving as a universal means of expressing our emotions, feelings, and beliefs. This work investigates the link between...
Music is a fundamental element in every culture, serving as a universal means of expressing our emotions, feelings, and beliefs. This work investigates the link between our moral values and musical choices through lyrics and audio analyses. We align the psychometric scores of 1,480 participants to acoustics and lyrics features obtained from the top 5 songs of their preferred music artists from Facebook Page Likes. We employ a variety of lyric text processing techniques, including lexicon-based approaches and BERT-based embeddings, to identify each song's narrative, moral valence, attitude, and emotions. In addition, we extract both low- and high-level audio features to comprehend the encoded information in participants' musical choices and improve the moral inferences. We propose a Machine Learning approach and assess the predictive power of lyrical and acoustic features separately and in a multimodal framework for predicting moral values. Results indicate that lyrics and audio features from the artists people like inform us about their morality. Though the most predictive features vary per moral value, the models that utilised a combination of lyrics and audio characteristics were the most successful in predicting moral values, outperforming the models that only used basic features such as user demographics, the popularity of the artists, and the number of likes per user. Audio features boosted the accuracy in the prediction of empathy and equality compared to textual features, while the opposite happened for hierarchy and tradition, where higher prediction scores were driven by lyrical features. This demonstrates the importance of both lyrics and audio features in capturing moral values. The insights gained from our study have a broad range of potential uses, including customising the music experience to meet individual needs, music rehabilitation, or even effective communication campaign crafting.
Topics: Humans; Music; Emotions; Empathy; Morals
PubMed: 38019770
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294402 -
Bioethics Feb 2022Moral bioenhancement (MBE) is often associated with a consequentialist, especially utilitarian, framework, owing to its capacity to prevent great harm and motivate acts...
Moral bioenhancement (MBE) is often associated with a consequentialist, especially utilitarian, framework, owing to its capacity to prevent great harm and motivate acts in accordance with basic moral principles such us universal impartial altruism or benevolence. However, it remains unclear whether we could de facto justify MBE on utilitarian grounds. This article examines whether there is a plausible utilitarian case for MBE and what the obstacles for justifying MBE on utilitarian grounds could be. More specifically, it explores the relationship between MBE and basic utilitarian principles, as well as its effects on utilitarian moral judgment. It seems that MBE could modify moral agents in ways that would accord with the main utilitarian demands and facilitate the adoption and realization of utilitarian prescriptions. Although MBE would, in principle, create preconditions for achieving utilitarian ends, I argue that there are certain limits to this claim. I identify and elaborate several ways in which MBE could undermine utilitarian moral judgment.
Topics: Altruism; Beneficence; Ethical Theory; Humans; Judgment; Moral Obligations; Morals
PubMed: 34798678
DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12974 -
Science and Engineering Ethics Feb 2020Moral bioenhancement, nudge-designed environments, and ambient persuasive technologies may help people behave more consistently with their deeply held moral convictions....
Moral bioenhancement, nudge-designed environments, and ambient persuasive technologies may help people behave more consistently with their deeply held moral convictions. Alternatively, they may aid people in overcoming cognitive and affective limitations that prevent them from appreciating a situation's moral dimensions. Or they may simply make it easier for them to make the morally right choice by helping them to overcome sources of weakness of will. This paper makes two assumptions. First, technologies to improve people's moral capacities are realizable. Second, such technologies will actually help people get morality right and behave more consistently with whatever the 'real' right thing to do turns out to be. The paper then considers whether or not humanity loses anything valuable, particularly opportunities for moral progress, when being moral is made much easier by eliminating difficult moral deliberation and internal moral struggle. Ultimately, the worry that moral struggle has value as a catalyst for moral progress is rejected. Moral progress is understood here as the discovery and application of new values or sensitization to new sources of harm.
Topics: Biomedical Technology; Conflict, Psychological; Ethical Analysis; Humans; Morals; Persuasive Communication; Social Values
PubMed: 30900160
DOI: 10.1007/s11948-019-00099-y