Perhaps the most contentious part of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been the decision by governments to mandate—or effectively mandate—the shutdown of certain businesses. The justification for doing so is broadly consequentialist. The public health costs of not shutting down are so great that potential benefits from allowing businesses to open are dwarfed. Operating within this consequentialist framework, this paper identifies an underappreciated set of social costs that are a product of the present public policy that pairs mandated (...) shutdowns with government subsidies. Such policy is prone to being an instance of what Robert Higgs calls the ratchet effect. Given that ratchets tend to be both costly and sticky, it is best to avoid allowing them to come into existence. This paper identifies a way of circumventing this particular ratchet; namely, by replacing governmental subsidies with support from private charitable funds like The Barstool Fund. (shrink)

I argue for the existence of a ‘ratcheting-up effect’: the behavior of moral saints serves to increase the level of moral obligation the rest of us face. What we are morally obligated to do is constrained by what it would be reasonable for us to believe we are morally obligated to do. Moral saints provide us with a special kind of evidence that bears on what we can reasonably believe about our obligations. They do this by modeling the level (...) of sacrifice a person can realistically bear. Exposure to moral saints thus ‘ratchets-up’ our obligations by combating a type of ignorance that would otherwise defeat those obligations. (shrink)

We hypothesize that as one of the most consequential events in evolution, primary endosymbiosis accelerates lineage divergence, a process we refer to as the endosymbiotic ratchet. Our proposal is supported by recent work on the photosynthetic amoeba, Paulinella, that underwent primary plastid endosymbiosis about 124 Mya. This amoeba model allows us to explore the early impacts of photosynthetic organelle (plastid) origin on the host lineage. The current data point to a central role for effective population size (Ne) in accelerating (...) divergence post‐endosymbiosis due to limits to dispersal and reproductive isolation that reduce Ne, leading to local adaptation. We posit that isolated populations exploit different strategies and behaviors and assort themselves in non‐overlapping niches to minimize competition during the early, rapid evolutionary phase of organelle integration. The endosymbiotic ratchet provides a general framework for interpreting post‐endosymbiosis lineage evolution that is driven by disruptive selection and demographic and population shifts. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/gYXrFM6Zz6Q. (shrink)

Ambitious and elegant, this book builds a bridge between evolutionary theory and cultural psychology. Michael Tomasello is one of the very few people to have done systematic research on the cognitive capacities of both nonhuman primates and human children. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition identifies what the differences are, and suggests where they might have come from. -/- Tomasello argues that the roots of the human capacity for symbol-based culture, and the kind of psychological development that takes place within (...) it, are based in a cluster of uniquely human cognitive capacities that emerge early in human ontogeny. These include capacities for sharing attention with other persons; for understanding that others have intentions of their own; and for imitating, not just what someone else does, but what someone else has intended to do. In his discussions of language, symbolic representation, and cognitive development, Tomasello describes with authority and ingenuity the "ratchet effect" of these capacities working over evolutionary and historical time to create the kind of cultural artifacts and settings within which each new generation of children develops. He also proposes a novel hypothesis, based on processes of social cognition and cultural evolution, about what makes the cognitive representations of humans different from those of other primates. -/- Lucid, erudite, and passionate, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition will be essential reading for developmental psychology, animal behavior, and cultural psychology. (from the HUP website). (shrink)

Punishment misunderstood -- The ratchet effect in theory -- The mixed signs in suffering -- The legal punishers -- The legally punished -- The punitive impulse in American society -- The law against itself -- Coda : the psychology of punishment.

Several theories, which attempt to give an account of cumulative culture, emphasize the importance of high‐fidelity transmission mechanisms as central to human learning. These high‐fidelity transmission mechanisms are thought to account for the ratchet effect, that is, the capacity to inherit modified or improved knowledge and skills rather than having to develop one's skills from the ground up via individual learning. In this capacity, imitation and teaching have been thought to occupy a special place in the explanation of (...) cumulative culture because they are both thought to function as high‐fidelity transmission mechanisms. In contrast to this standard view, I will argue that imitation and teaching are not both best construed as primarily high‐fidelity transmission mechanisms. Rather, I will argue that though both can contribute to the high‐fidelity transmission of information, imitation and teaching make two distinct contributions to cumulative culture. I will claim that imitation functions primarily as a high‐fidelity transmission mechanism while teaching is primarily responsible for the innovation and creativity characteristic of cumulative culture. (shrink)

Culture can be defined as “group typical behaviour patterns shared by members of a community that rely on socially learned and transmitted information”. Once thought to be a distinguishing characteristic of humans relative to other animals it is now generally accepted to exist more widely, with especially abundant evidence in non-human primates, cetaceans, and birds. More recently, cumulative cultural evolution has taken on this distinguishing role. CCE, it is argued, allows humans, uniquely, to ratchet up the complexity or efficiency (...) of cultural traits over time. This “ratchet effect” gives the capacity to accumulate beneficial modifications over time beyond the capacities of a single individual. Mesoudi and Thornton define a core set of criteria for identifying CCE in humans and non-human animals that places emphasis on some performance measure of traits increasing over time. They suggest this emphasis is also pertinent to cultural products in the aesthetic domain, but is this the case? Music, art and dance evolve over time, but can we say they gain beneficial modifications that increase their aesthetic value? Here we bring together perspectives from philosophy, musicology and biology to build a conceptual analysis of this question. We summarise current thinking on cumulative culture and aesthetics across fields to determine how aesthetic culture fits into the concept of CCE. We argue that this concept is problematic to reconcile with dominant views of aesthetics in philosophical analysis and struggles to characterise aesthetic cultures that evolve over time. We suggest that a tension arises from fundamental differences between cultural evolution in aesthetic and technological domains. Furthermore, this tension contributes to current debates between reconstructive and preservative theories of cultural evolution. (shrink)

Cushman argues that the function of rationalization is to attribute mental representations to ourselves, thereby making these representations available for future planning. I argue that such attribution is often not necessary and sometimes maladaptive. I suggest a different explanation of rationalization: making representations available to other agents, to facilitate cooperation, transmission, and the ratchet effect that underlies cumulative cultural evolution.

Robert Higgs's Crisis and Leviathan argues that there is a ratchet effect both after major wars and other serious crises, such as depressions: attitudinal or ideological changes lead not only to greater government spending but greater intrusion of government into economic command and control. Higgs's explanation of the growth of government, however, is embedded in and driven by a particular ideological view of the legal‐economic world, one that misapprehends certain legal‐economic fundamentals, including the scope of economic command and (...) control, and that fails to deal with certain interpretive complexities, including alternative explanations. (shrink)

This contribution, by a mathematician, to the Common Knowledge symposium “Fuzzy Studies” examines some mechanisms that seem essential for the “ratchet effect” that, in Michael Tomasello's use of the term, refers to the ability of human cultures to preserve their achievements even through serious crises and even where preservation entails substantial loss. By taking the word culture to refer to any group of individuals who closely cooperate over an extended period, this article evaluates mathematicians and mathematics as its (...) main example. The assessment of the enterprise of mathematics as a culture corresponds to the author's personal experience — and mathematics, he argues, is both historically old and simply structured, despite the formidable complexity of mathematical knowledge as it has been compiled over the centuries. The preserving, restructuring, and enlarging of this knowledge may be regarded as the main cultural goals of mathematics and are the objects of study here. This article concentrates first on the techniques used in pursuing the tasks of preservation, enlargement, and restructuring — techniques such as counting methods and geometric diagrams — and it emphasizes their use in communication, when they function as media. The cultural techniques of mathematics, known to and used by all members of that culture, are media that, through intensity of communication, add symbolic functions to mere procedures. (The prototypical example of a cultural technique, in this sense, is language.) Knowledge, as the additional symbolic value, is distributed and at the same time preserved in the process of permanent communication. (shrink)

Truth is a contested concept, yet the current contest takes place within an idealistic picture that accords all conceptions of truth three features: truth is singular, atemporal and independent. Because of these features, conceptions of truth within the idealist picture are ‘sovereign’ conceptions of truth that lead to serious obstacles in different parts of philosophy, e.g. regarding the concept of normativity or the relationship between truth and politics. The article makes a case for changing the underlying philosophical picture in which (...) truth is conceptualised. To that end, it sketches a materialist picture that can account for the contextuality, historicity and plurality of truth, leading to ‘non-sovereign’ conceptions of truth. Thinking of truth as a force that emerges from social practices but is not reducible to them, that is weak in comparison to other forces (like affects or social power), that exclusively targets subjectivities and that has a ‘ratchet effect’ on these subjectivities provides enough details of the materialist picture to overcome the obstacles mentioned. (shrink)

RESUMEN:Michael Tomasello considera que, aunque todos los animales son el resultado (no acabado) de la evolución biológica y aunque en muchos animales no humanos la utilización de herramientas es latente (uno de los principales signos de rasgos culturales), solo en los humanos se produce la evolución cultural acumulativa y el efecto trinquete, esto es, la acumulación progresiva (e innovadora) de mejoras a lo largo de la historia sobre los artefactos creados. Contrario a esto, se sugiere em este artículo que algunos (...) estudios recientes pueden utilizarse para, también en este aspecto, reafirmar el continuum animal-humano y extender la cultura acumulativa a otros animales. PALABRAS CLAVE: EVOLUCIÓN CULTURAL ACUMULATIVA, EFECTO TRINQUETE, IMITACIÓN, INNOVACIÓN.ABSTRACTMichael Tomasello believes that although all animals are the result (not finished) of biological evolution, and in many nonhuman animals using tools is latent (one of the main signs of culturaltraits), the cumulative cultural evolution and ratchet effect, i.e., progressive (and innovative) accumulation of improvements over history about the artifacts created, occur only in humans. Contrary to this, I believe that some recent studies can be used with the purpose of, also in this regard, reaffirming the animal-human continuum and extend the cumulative culture to other animals.KEYWORDS: CUMULATIVE CULTURAL EVOLUTION, RATCHET EFFECT, IMITATION, INNOVATION. (shrink)

The paper studies equilibrium contracts under adverse selection when there is repeated interaction between a principal and an agent over an infinite horizon, without commitment across periods. We show the second-best contract is offered in a perfect Bayesian equilibrium of the infinite horizon model. Unlike the equilibrium contracts in the finite-horizon, the equilibrium contracts in the infinite horizon are not subject to either the ratchet effect or take-the-money-and-run strategy, but rely on a carrot and stick strategy. We study (...) two important applications, one of which is about the optimal regulation of a publicly-held firm. This application has a mixture of both moral hazard and adverse selection. The other application is to the problem of optimal nonlinear pricing when the valuation of the buyers are drawn from a continuum. (shrink)

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS. -/- The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: (...) there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into an unpalatable moral relativism on which there is no non-arbitrary basis between a justice that underwrites forms of domination such as slavery and a justice that condemns such forms of domination is equally powerful and compelling. I show that there is a way to harmonize both views that is subject to empirical test. -/- First I show that the most widely accepted and influential formulation of liberal justice, John Rawls' Justice as Fairness, in. e.g, A Theory of Justice, cannot avoid the relativistic challenge because it would not be accepted, as a matter of sociological fact, by real people in a divided society once the "veil of Ignorance" is removed and real people step out from the Original Position. To put it differently, different reflective equilibria are inevitable in a divided society. Given the weight that Rawls properly puts on the realizability of a conception of justice and its stability in practice, this is a fatal objection. There can be no divided society that is "well ordered" in Rawls' sense, governed by a shared conception of justice and known to be so governed. -/- I then turn to the most powerful statement of the CLS view, Milton's Fisk's relativistic account in The State and Justice. For Fisk, justice is a compromise between what the dominant groups can compel and what the the subordinate groups will acquiesce to., There is no one such compromise in any given situation, so the account is in that sense relativistic, but more deeply, it is relativistic in that it offers no non-arbitrary, non-question begging way to choose between the official justice of, e.g., a slaveholding society and and the radical justice of the slaves, which has no place for slaveholders as a group or slavery as an institution.All that Fisk can offer is an arbitrary existential choice: I'm with the slaves. (Or the slaveowners.) Most of us would find this disconcerting or even unacceptable. -/- I show that Fisk's general sort of account can be modified to allow for an non-arbitrary choice. Given general facts about human nature, societies based on domination will produce resistance that over the long run will diminish or eliminate various forms of domination. Through a sort of ratchet effect, rights won will be hard if not impossible to reverse. Societies embodying forms of domination can therefore be compared on dimensions of stability: the more domination, the more resistance, and the less stability. Such societies are inferior on the dimension of justice to more emancipatory society on the terms of both kinds of justice, official and radical. -/- This is not question begging because regimes of domination incorporate stability no less than more emancipatory social orders. The choice between official justice embodying domination and radical justice that does not is not arbitrary because it is based on a shared commitment to long term stability. This offers an empirical test of which social orders are more justice, and a prediction that over time, domination will tend to decrease. (shrink)

Why the DNA‐containing organelles, chloroplasts, and mitochondria, are inherited maternally is a long standing and unsolved question. However, recent years have seen a paradigm shift, in that the absoluteness of uniparental inheritance is increasingly questioned. Here, we review the field and propose a unifying model for organelle inheritance. We argue that the predominance of the maternal mode is a result of higher mutational load in the paternal gamete. Uniparental inheritance evolved from relaxed organelle inheritance patterns because it avoids the spread (...) of selfish cytoplasmic elements. However, on evolutionary timescales, uniparentally inherited organelles are susceptible to mutational meltdown (Muller's ratchet). To prevent this, fall‐back to relaxed inheritance patterns occurs, allowing low levels of sexual organelle recombination. Since sexual organelle recombination is insufficient to mitigate the effects of selfish cytoplasmic elements, various mechanisms for uniparental inheritance then evolve again independently. Organelle inheritance must therefore be seen as an evolutionary unstable trait, with a strong general bias to the uniparental, maternal, mode. (shrink)

Culture drives cognitive evolution by supporting the transmission and intergenerational accumulation of skills and knowledge, based on social learning and teaching: Later generations benefit from what their predecessors acquired. Taking a metaperspective on those experimental studies that explore the mechanisms underlying cultural transmission, Caldwell discusses their potential for generating valuable insights, their possible limitations, and their generalizability to other species.

The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether humans are unique in using tools and artifacts. Non-human animals exhibit some impressive instances of tool and artifact-use. Chimpanzees use sticks to get termites out of a mound, beavers build dams, birds make nests, spiders create webs, bowerbirds make bowers to impress potential mates, etc. There is no doubt that some animals modify and use objects in clever and sophisticated ways. But how does this relate to the way in which (...) humans make and use objects to achieve their goals? To answer this question, this paper first presents a taxonomy of artifacts, identifying four overlapping categories, namely embodied, perceptual, cognitive, and affective artifacts. It then discusses definitions of animal tool-use, arguing that we need a more liberal approach, one that goes beyond the use of tools that are embedded in occurrent perception-action cycles. This paper ends by analysing how instances of animal tool and artifact-use can be classified according to the four identified categories, concluding that some animals use embodied, perceptual, cognitive, and affective artifacts. In this sense, humans are thus not unique in the kinds of tools and artifacts we use. What is unique, however, is our unprecedented flexibility and openness to deeply incorporate a large variety of complex tools and artifacts into our embodied, perceptual, cognitive, and affective systems. (shrink)

An international legal agreement governing the global antimicrobial commons would represent the strongest commitment mechanism for achieving collective action on antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Since AMR has important similarities to climate change—both are common pool resource challenges that require massive, long-term political commitments—the first article in this special issue draws lessons from various climate agreements that could be applicable for developing a grand bargain on AMR. We consider the similarities and differences between the Paris Climate Agreement and current governance structures for (...) AMR, and identify the merits and challenges associated with different international forums for developing a long-term international agreement on AMR. To be effective, fair, and feasible, an enduring legal agreement on AMR will require a combination of universal, differentiated, and individualized requirements, nationally determined contributions that are regularly reviewed and ratcheted up in level of ambition, a regular independent scientific stocktake to support evidence informed policymaking, and a concrete global goal to rally support. (shrink)

Despite society’s increasing sensitivity toward green production, companies often struggle to find effective communication strategies that induce consumers to buy green products or engage in other environmentally friendly behaviors. To add clarity to this situation, we investigated the effectiveness of negative versus positive message framing in promoting green products, whereby companies highlight the detrimental versus beneficial environmental consequences of choosing less versus more green options, respectively. Across four experiments, we show that negatively framed messages are more effective than positively framed (...) ones in prompting consumers to engage in pro-environmental behaviors. More importantly, we find that anticipated shame is the emotion responsible for this effect. Furthermore, both environmental concern and the type of product promoted serve as moderators; thus, the mediating role of anticipated shame is attenuated when environmental concern is low and the product is a luxury one. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our work, along with its limitations and some directions for future research. (shrink)

Studies on testing effect have showed that a practice test on study materials leads to better performance in a final test than restudying the materials for the same amount of time. Two experiments were conducted to test how distraction, as triggered by divided attention or experimentally induced anxious mood in the practice phase, could modulate the benefit of testing (vs. restudying) on the learning of interesting and boring general knowledge facts. Two individual difference factors (trait test anxiety and working (...) memory (WM) capacity) were measured. Under divided attention, participants restudied or recalled the missing information in visually presented general knowledge facts, while judging whether auditorily presented items were from a pre-specified category. To experimentally induce anxious mood, we instructed participants to view and interpret negative pictures with anxious music background before and during the practice phase. Immediate and two-day delayed tests were given. Regardless of item type (interesting or boring) or retention interval, the testing effect was not significantly affected by divided (vs. full) attention or anxious (vs. neutral) mood. These results remained unchanged after taking into account the influences of participants’ trait test anxiety and WM capacity. However, when analyses were restricted to the study materials that had been learnt in the divided attention condition while participants accurately responded to the concurrent distracting task, the testing effect was stronger in the divided attention condition than in the full attention condition. Contrary to previous studies (e.g., Tse and Pu, 2012 ), there was no WM capacity × trait test anxiety interaction in the overall testing effect. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between organizational ethical culture in two large international CPA firms, auditors'' personal values and the ethical orientation that those values dictate, and judgments in ethical dilemmas typical of those that accountants face. Using an experimental task consisting of multiple judgments designed to vary in "moral intensity" (Jones, 1991), and unique as well as tried-and-true approaches to variable measurements, this study examined the judgments of more than three hundred participants in our study. ANCOVA and path analysis (...) results indicate that: (1) Ethical judgments in situations of high moral intensity are affected by personal values and by environmental variables, such as the professional code of conduct (direct and indirect effects) and previous ethics instruction (direct effect only). (2) Corporate ethical culture, and a relatively strong firm rules-orientation, affect auditors'' idealism but not relativism, and therefore indirectly affect ethical judgments. Jones'' (1991) moral intensity argument is supported: differences in the characteristics of specific judgment tasks apparently result in different decision processes. (shrink)

The study reported in this paper sought to examine the extent to which organisational leadership support and organisational culture explain the effect of regulation on sustainable procurement practice, as insights into this relationship is lacking in the extant literature. Useable survey data from 322 Ghanaian organisations were analysed using descriptive statistics, and structural equation modelling techniques. The analysis examined the nature of sustainable procurement practice in an African context, and the potential mediating effects of organisational leadership support and organisational (...) culture on regulation’s relationship with sustainable procurement. The findings reveal a moderate sustainable procurement practice in Ghanaian organisations, a significantly positive effect of regulation on related practices, and a mediation effect of organisational leadership support on regulation’s relationship with sustainable procurement. There was, however, no mediation effect relative to organisational culture. Potential relevance and implications of the study for theory and practice are explored in the discussion and conclusion sections. (shrink)

Green housing is a new type of building that advocates energy saving and environmental protection. How to stimulate buyers to buy green housing under the background of high cost is the key problem to guide green consumption. First of all, based on the existing literature, the comment of homebuyers was divided into comment quantity, comment quality, comment titer and evaluator credibility. The psychological distance mediation variable was introduced, and three dimensions of time distance, social distance, and space distance were selected (...) to construct the influence model of homebuyer comment on green housing purchase intention. Meanwhile, the concept model was built, and questionnaires were adopted for empirical analysis. On this basis, considering the long-term purchase behavior of buyers, the influence model of homebuyers' second comment on green housing purchase intention with the Hotelling model was established. The results show that comment quality, comment titer, and the credit rating of the evaluator have a positive effect on green housing purchase intention while comment quantity has no significant effect. Psychological distance plays a mediation role between comment quality, comment titer, the credit rating of the evaluator, and green housing purchase intention while having a mediation effect between comment quantity and green housing purchase intention. In the long-term purchase behavior of green housing, psychological distance plays a greater role than price. At last, some suggestions were proposed. (shrink)

This article intends to synthesise the results of various studies related to the influence of religiosity on life satisfaction, with the aim of mapping how religiosity variables influence people’s life satisfaction in multiple countries. Additionally, this study seeks to identify the development of research issues regarding religiosity and life satisfaction. For this reason, a meta-analysis approach was applied to synthesise 21 articles quantitatively, and the systematic literature review (SLR) approach was used to narrate the development of issues concerning religiosity and (...) life satisfaction in 40 articles. In general, this study succeeds in demonstrating that the influence of the religiosity variable on life satisfaction in various study samples is linear and has a positive effect.Contribution: The dimensions of religiosity and life satisfaction are still very limited to the characteristics of disciplines attached to researchers. This resulted in the dimension being repeatedly used (redundancy) in various studies, resulting in the second dimension of the issue (i.e., religiosity and life satisfaction) being less developed. Therefore, it contributes to the issues as a foundation of new directions, i.e., emic perspectives, in understanding the relationship between religiosity and life satisfaction. (shrink)

Recognizing the growing interdependence of the European Union and the importance of codes of conduct in companies’ operations, this research examines the effect of a country’s culture on the implementation of a code of conduct in a European context. We examine whether the perceptions of an activity’s ethicality relates to elements found in company codes of conduct vary by country or according to Hofstede’s (1980, Culture’s Consequences (Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA)) cultural constructs of: Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity/Femininity, Individualism, and (...) Power Distance. The 294 individuals, who participated in our study, were from 8 Western European countries. Their responses to our 13 scenarios indicate that differences in the perceptions of ethicality associate primarily with the participants’ country as opposed to their employer (i.e., accounting firm), employment level, or gender. The evidence also indicates that these country differences associate with Hofstede constructs of Individualism and Masculinity. (shrink)

The so-called “Baldwin Effect” has been studied for years in the fields of Artificial Life, Cognitive Science, and Evolutionary Theory across disciplines. This idea is often conflated with genetic assimilation, and has raised controversy in trans-disciplinary scientific discourse due to the many interpretations it has. This paper revisits the “Baldwin Effect” in Baldwin’s original spirit from a joint historical, theoretical and experimental approach. Social Heredity – the inheritance of cultural knowledge via non-genetic means in Baldwin’s term – is (...) also taken into consideration. I shall argue that the Baldwin Effect can occur via social heredity without necessity for genetic assimilation. Computational experiments are carried out to show that when social heredity is permitted with high fidelity, there is no need for the assimilation of acquired characteristics; instead the Baldwin Effect occurs as promoting more plasticity to facilitate future intelligence. The role of mind and intelligence in evolution and its implications in an extended synthesis of evolution are briefly discussed. (shrink)

Background: Moral sensitivity is a life-long cognitive ability. It is expected that nurses who work in a professional purpose at “curing human beings” should have a highly developed moral sensitivity. The general opinion is that ethics education plays a significant role in this sense to enhance the moral sensitivity in terms of nurses’ professional behaviors and distinguish ethical violations. Aim: This study was conducted as intervention research for the purpose of determining the effect of the ethics training on fourth-year (...) students of the nursing department recognizing ethical violations experienced in the hospital and developing ethical sensitivity. Methods: The study was conducted with 50 students, with 25 students each in the experiment and control groups. Students in the experiment group were provided ethics training and consultancy services. The data were collected through the data collection form, which consists of questions on the socio-demographic characteristics and ethical sensitivity of the students, Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire, and the observation form on ethical principle violations/protection in the clinic environment. The data were digitized on the computer with the SPSS for Windows 13.0 program. The data were evaluated utilizing number, percentile calculation, paired samples t-test, Wilcoxon test, and the McNemar test. Results: The total Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire pre-test score averages of students in the experiment group were determined to be 93.88 ± 13.57, and their total post-test score averages were determined to be 89.24 ± 15.90. The total pre-test score averages of students in the control group were determined to be 91.48 ± 17.59, and their total post-test score averages were determined to be 97.72 ± 19.91. In the study, it was determined that the post-training ethical sensitivity of students in the experiment group increased; however, this was statistically not significant. Furthermore, it was determined that the number of ethical principle protection/violation observations and correct examples provided by students in the experiment group were higher than the control group and the difference was statistically significant. Ethical considerations: Written permission and ethical approval were obtained from the university where the study was conducted. Written consent was received from students accepting to participate in the study. Conclusion: As a result, ethics education given to students enables them to distinguish ethical violations in a hospital and make a proper observation in this issue. (shrink)