ABSTRACTWhat is the relation between ethical reflection and moral behavior? Does professional reflection on ethical issues positively impact moral behaviors? To address these questions, Schwitzgebel and Rust empirically investigated if philosophy professors engaged with ethics on a professional basis behave any morally better or, at least, more consistently with their expressed values than do non-ethicist professors. Findings from their original US-based sample indicated that neither is the case, suggesting that there is no positive influence of ethical reflection (...) on moral action. In the study at hand, we attempted to cross-validate this pattern of results in the German-speaking countries and surveyed 417 professors using a replication-extension research design. Our results indicate a successful replication of the original effect that ethicists do not behave any morally better compared to other academics across the vast majority of normative issues. Yet, unlike the original study, we found mixed results o... (shrink)

Do philosophy professors specializing in ethics behave, on average, any morally better than do other professors? If not, do they at least behave more consistently with their expressed values? These questions have never been systematically studied. We examine the self-reported moral attitudes and moral behavior of 198 ethics professors, 208 non-ethicist philosophers, and 167 professors in departments other than philosophy on eight moral issues: academic society membership, voting, staying in touch with one's mother, vegetarianism, organ and (...) blood donation, responsiveness to student emails, charitable giving, and honesty in responding to survey questionnaires. On some issues, we also had direct behavioral measures that we could compare with the self-reports. Ethicists expressed somewhat more stringent normative attitudes on some issues, such as vegetarianism and charitable donation. However, on no issue did ethicists show unequivocally better behavior than the two comparison groups. Our findings on attitude-behavior consistency were mixed: ethicists showed the strongest relationship between behavior and expressed moral attitude regarding voting but the weakest regarding charitable donation. We discuss implications for several models of the relationship between philosophical reflection and real-world moral behavior. (shrink)

The relationship between professional ethical reflection and corresponding moral behavior is an important theme of moral psychology in recent years. Following Schönegger and Wagner’s research in German-speaking countries, through a replication-extension of the original US-based research carried out by Schwitzgebel and Rust, we aim at examining their results in the Chinese context. The previous researchers have shown that ethical reflection generally has no positive effect on moral behavior. A cross validation of this result was conducted (...) in Chinese mainland, and three issues concerning Confucian virtues were added. Through reaching out to 4482 professors and collecting 368 responses altogether, we attempted to explore whether professional ethical reflection can influence normative attitude and the moral attitude-behavior consistency. Unfortunately, the results failed to show a statistically significant difference between ethicists and other professors on most of the moral issues, with the exception of paying academic membership fees and vegetarianism, wherein ethicists do express more stringent normative attitudes, and their moral attitude and self-reported behavior are statistically consistent. Notably, Chinese professors mainly expressed morally neutral attitudes toward the issue of eating meat, and they tended to believe that ethical reflection contributes to more and better moral behaviors. (shrink)

We posit that the weight a person assigns a moral principle is not stable between ideal, or un-contextual assessments and the weight the same moral principle is allocated when applied in a contextual dilemma. Second, we postulate that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior or judgment. Results indicate that the importance of moral principles is dynamic and that patterned moral behavior is a significant predictor of moral judgments.

What is the nature of moral behavior? According to the study of bounded rationality, it results not from character traits or rational deliberation alone, but from the interplay between mind and environment. In this view, moral behavior is based on pragmatic social heuristics rather than moral rules or maximization principles. These social heuristics are not good or bad per se, but solely in relation to the environments in which they are used. This has methodological implications (...) for the study of morality: Behavior needs to be studied in social groups as well as in isolation, in natural environments as well as in labs. It also has implications for moral policy: Only by accepting the fact that behavior is a function of both mind and environmental structures can realistic prescriptive means of achieving moral goals be developed. (shrink)

The 21st century has seen a much-increased focus on the importance of ethical behaviour in business, driven by major scandals, calls for stricter regulation and increased demands for improved governance and reporting. In parallel, there are calls for the incorporation of moral and ethical elements in business education and university accreditation bodies and schools are responding. In particular, the explosion of technology change, particularly Internet, social media and beyond have raised many challenges for individuals, organizations and legislators. However, educational (...) responses are varied and little has been done to determine the effectiveness of what has been done. Most responses to this need to provide ethical education follow a cognitive, rule-based approach, often using case-based techniques. This can improve knowledge and understanding of ethical issues, but it may have limited influence on actual behaviour. A relatively new field – Positive Psychology -- provides an alternate perspective, focusing on what is good rather than what is poor behaviour. One Positive Psychology approach, that of Appreciative Inquiry, which has not previously been used in ICT ethics education, offers a promising technique to develop improved moral attitudes and behaviour. This paper reports on a large-scale pedagogical research project that: examines ethical perspectives from philosophy, psychology and pedagogy in the context of ICT professional education; describes the development and multistage implementation of an ethics course in an undergraduate business ICT program delivered to more than 1,200 students; discusses the formal evaluation of changes in moral attitude following a Positive Psychology intervention in the education of some 300 Business ICT students using the Defining Issues Test, Version 2 and the IMIS Survey developed at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility. The project results demonstrate that a well-designed applied ICT ethics course produces measureable positive changes in the ethical stances of participants and that the use of Appreciative Inquiry increases the impact of these changes. In addition to the relevance of the findings for educators they can provide guidance to those in organisations responsible for the ethical behaviour of their ICT employees. (shrink)

If philosophical moral reflection tends to improve moral behaviour, one might expect that professional ethicists will, on average, behave morally better than non-ethicists. One potential source of insight into the moral behaviour of ethicists is philosophers' opinions about ethicists' behaviour. At the 2007 Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, we used chocolate to entice 277 passers-by to complete anonymous questionnaires without their knowing the topic of those questionnaires in advance. Version I of the questionnaire asked (...) respondents to compare, in general, the moral behaviour of ethicists to that of philosophers not specializing in ethics and to non-academics of similar social background. Version II asked respondents similar questions about the moral behaviour of the ethics specialist in their department whose name comes next in alphabetical order after their own. Both versions asked control questions about specialists in metaphysics and epistemology. The majority of respondents expressed the view that ethicists do not, on average, behave better than non-ethicists. Whereas ethicists tended to avoid saying that ethicists behave worse than non-ethicists, non-ethicists expressed that pessimistic view about as often as they expressed the view that ethicists behave better. (shrink)

UTONOMY IS VERY HIGHLY PRAISED as something that it is always good to have, and always good to have more of rather than less of.1 The idea seems to be that persons should be autonomous whatever else they might be, and that should act autonomously whatever else it is that they might do. Kantians are fond of saying that a person is autonomous if she or he chooses to live in accordance with the dictates of reason. This, in turn, directly (...) links autonomy to morality, which for Kantians is an ineliminable aspect of reason. I shall discuss this view in Section II. Of course, it is also the case that autonomy is widely heralded as a good by those who do not accept Kant’s philosophical moorings. For instance, to say that women should be more autonomous is not thereby to say that they should be more embracing of this or that moral set of principles. In fact, it is not clear that this assertion pertains to acting morally at all. Autonomy, like liberty, seems to be regarded as a good whatever the philosophical leanings of people might be. In either case, the more the better. (shrink)

This article addresses major arguments in the controversy about the “rationality” of moral behavior: can moral behavior be explained by rational choice theory (RCT)? The two positions discussed are the incentives thesis (norms are incentives as any other costs and benefits) and the autonomy thesis claiming that moral behavior has nothing to do with utility. The article analyses arguments for the autonomy thesis by J. Elster, A. Etzioni, and J. G. March and J. P. (...) Olsen. Finally, the general claim is discussed whether norm following and norm emergence are utility maximizing. The conclusion is that the autonomy thesis is not tenable if one applies a wide subjectivist, social psychological version of RCT that includes the assumption of “bounded rationality.” The autonomy thesis is only compatible with a narrow version of RCT that excludes internal outcomes and that refers to norms that do not have external outcomes. It is argued that such a narrow version is not capable of explaining many forms of behavior social scientists are interested in. (shrink)

This article aims to examine the possibility to explain the basis of moral behaviour in natural terms consistent with evolutionary theory. The defense position begins with the clarification of the concept of empathy, as done by Hume and Darwin, plus contemporary research in the areas of neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and ethology. My argument points in favor of the hypothesis that socially relevant emotions are regulators of social behaviour, being a criterion for distinguishing between moral and purely social relations. (...) What should be understood is in that bases psychobiological mechanisms of sociability, particularly empathy and social instincts, operate as regulators of normative behaviour in small groups and how this relates to the way moral distinctions are made in everyday life. The focus of this investigation will be to identify the elements that are at the root of such behaviour and explain it without resorting to metaphysical concepts. I will present empathy as the candidate to answer the question of how these mechanisms developed within the evolutionary process and how to add an intersubjective element to social relevant emotions, so that they have the strength to inhibit socially relevant behaviours. Key-Words: Empathy. Social Instincts. Moral Behaviour. (shrink)

Current frameworks on ethical decision-making process have some limitations. This paper argues that the consideration of moral competencies, understood as moral virtues in the workplace, can enhance our understanding of why moral character contributes to ethical decision-making. After discussing the universal nature of four moral competencies (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance), we analyse their influence on the various stages of the ethical decision-making process. We conclude by considering the managerial implications of our findings and proposing further (...) research. (shrink)

To the faithful it is proper to draw the conclusion that in religion the appropriate way comes from the cultivation of virtue to the possibility of his endowment with grace; he should realize that the opposite way, from his endowment with grace with the view to make his way to virtue easier is not but an illusory way with a limited moral and religious meaning. From here follows that to God we cannot address but desires which passed the test (...) of virtue. This is the rational Kantian position on grace, with regard to the rational finite being that is man. The existence, as an exception, of the unconditional grace to some human beings thatrepresents the direct relation with the infinite being, do not entitle us to imagine that being unconditioned by the morality necessary to common beings, this kind of beings could ask for God any gift; since the grace as a divine gift becomes useless out of his relation with the divinity and his holiness, that represents for the finite being a moral model. (shrink)

Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral- and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decision-making. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decision-making exists primarily when the latter is assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task. These findings are (...) consistent with neuroimaging studies of brain function during moral and risky decision-making. This research also constitutes the first replication of a novel experimental measure of distributive justice decision-making, for which individual variation in performance was found. Further examination of decision-making processes across different contexts may lead to an improved understanding of the factors affecting moral behaviour. (shrink)

The publication of this unique three-volume set represents the culmination of years of work by a large number of scholars, researchers, and professionals in the field of moral development. The literature on moral behavior and development has grown to the point where it is no longer possible to capture the “state of the art” in a single volume. This comprehensive multi-volume Handbook marks an important transition because it provides evidence that the field has emerged as an area (...) of scholarly activity in its own right. Spanning many professional domains, there is a striking variety of issues and topics surveyed: anthropology, biology, economics, education, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, social work, and more. By bringing together work on diverse topics, the editors have fostered a mutually-beneficial exchange not only between alternative approaches and perspectives, but also between “applied” and “pure” research interests. The Theory volume presents current and ongoing theoretical advances focusing on new developments or substantive refinements and revisions to existing theoretical frameworks. The Research volume summarizes and interprets the findings of specific, theory-driven, research programs; reviews research in areas that have generated substantial empirical findings; describes recent developments in research methodology/techniques; and reports research on new and emerging issues. The Application volume describes a diverse array of intervention projects — educational, clinical, organizational, and the like. Each chapter includes a summary report of results and findings, conceptual developments, and emerging issues or topics. Since the contributors to this publication are active theorists, researchers, and practitioners, it may serve to define directions that will shape the emerging literature in the field. (shrink)

To the extent that acting fairly is in an individual's long-term interest, short-term impulses to cheat present a self-control problem. The only effective solution is to interpret the problem as a variant of repeated prisoner's dilemma, with each choice as a test case predicting future choices. Moral choice appears to be the product of a contract because it comes from self-enforcing intertemporal cooperation.

The dissertation abstract and reflection commentary present the work of Dr. Maryam Kouchaki. The abstract provides an overview of research examining the role of professional identities on ethical behavior. Across a number of studies, this work demonstrates that professionalism, either measured or manipulated, can increase individuals’ unethical behaviors. This dissertation extends prior work on professionalism by examining its psychology and shedding new light on importance of its meanings in driving individuals’ behaviors. Below, the author discusses the reasons for why (...) professionals may engage in unethical behaviors. Finally, the reflection commentary provides insights about the author’s journey as a PhD student. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Ethical leaders can influence followers’ ethical behaviors by establishing an ethical climate. However, followers’ responses to an ethical climate may also differ according to the amount of attention they devote to moral questions. This study analyzes whether moral attentiveness augments the positive effect of an ethical climate on employees’ ethical behaviors, as well as the indirect effect of ethical leadership on employee ethical behavior through an ethical climate. Data from 270 employees in the Malaysian manufacturing industry (...) indicate that the positive impact of an ethical climate on ethical behavior is greater among employees who exhibit high rather than low moral attentiveness; this moderating role also applies to the relationship between ethical leadership and employee ethical behavior through the ethical climate. This study thus sheds new light on the notable role of moral attentiveness in ensuring that ethical leadership and ethical climate enhance ethical behavior in the workplace. (shrink)

Within the perception-action framework, the underlying mechanisms of empathy and its related processes of moral behavior need to be investigated. fMRI studies have shown different frontal cortex activation patterns during automatic processing and judgment tasks when stimuli have moral content. Clinical neuropsychological studies reveal different patterns of empathic alterations after dorsolateral versus orbital frontal cortex damage, related to deficient cognitive and emotional processing. These processing streams represent different neural levels and mechanisms underlying empathy.

Research in neurocriminology has explored the link between neural functions and structures and the psychopathic disposition. This online experiment aimed to assess the effect of communicating the neuroscience of psychopathy on the degree to which lay people exhibited attitudes characteristic of psychopathy in particular in terms of moral behaviour. If psychopathy is blamed on the brain, people may feel less morally responsible for their own psychopathic tendencies. In the study, participants read false feedback about their own psychopathic traits supposedly (...) inferred from their Facebook likes, described either in neurobiological or cognitive terms. Participants were randomly allocated to read that they either had above-average or below-average psychopathic traits. We found no support for the hypothesis that the neuroscientific explanation of psychopathy influences moral behaviour. This casts doubt on the fear that communicating the neuroscience of psychopathy will promote psychopathic attitudes. (shrink)

Within moral psychology, theories focusing on the conceptualization and empirical measurement of people’s morality in terms of general moral values –such as Moral Foundation Theory- (implicitly) assume general moral values to be relevant concepts for the explanation and prediction of behavior in everyday life. However, a solid theoretical and empirical foundation for this idea remains work in progress. In this study we explore this relationship between general moral values and daily life behavior through (...) a conceptual analysis and an empirical study. Our conceptual analysis of the moral value-moral behavior relationship suggests that the effect of a generally endorsed moral value on moral behavior is highly context dependent. It requires the manifestation of several phases of moral decision-making, each influenced by many contextual factors. We expect that this renders the empirical relationship between generic moral values and people’s concrete moral behavior indeterminate. Subsequently, we empirically investigate this relationship in three different studies. We relate two different measures of general moral values -the Moral Foundation Questionnaire and the Morality As Cooperation Questionnaire- to a broad set of self-reported morally relevant daily life behaviors (including adherence to COVID-19 measures and participation in voluntary work). Our empirical results are in line with the expectations derived from our conceptual analysis: the considered general moral values are poor predictors of the selected daily life behaviors. Furthermore, moral values that were tailored to the specific context of the behavior showed to be somewhat stronger predictors. Together with the insights derived from our conceptual analysis, this indicates the relevance of the contextual nature of moral decision-making as a possible explanation for the poor predictive value of general moral values. Our findings suggest that the investigation of morality’s influence on behavior by expressing and measuring it in terms of general moral values may need revision. (shrink)

Virtual reality is a useful tool to study consumer behavior while they are immersed in a realistic scenario. Among several other factors, personality traits have been shown to have a substantial influence on purchasing behavior. The primary objective of this study was to classify consumers based on the Big Five personality domains using their behavior while performing different tasks in a virtual shop. The personality recognition was ascertained using behavioral measures received from VR hardware, including eye-tracking, navigation, (...) posture and interaction. Responses from 60 participants were collected while performing free and directed search tasks in a virtual hypermarket. A set of behavioral features was processed, and the personality domains were recognized using a statistical supervised machine learning classifier algorithm via a support vector machine. The results suggest that the open-mindedness personality type can be classified using eye gaze patterns, while extraversion is related to posture and interactions. However, a combination of signals must be exhibited to detect conscientiousness and negative emotionality. The combination of all measures and tasks provides better classification accuracy for all personality domains. The study indicates that a consumer’s personality can be recognized using the behavioral sensors included in commercial VR devices during a purchase in a virtual retail store. (shrink)

Recent research on moral dynamics shows that an individual's ethical mind-set moderates the impact of an initial ethical or unethical act on the likelihood of behaving ethically on a subsequent occasion. More specifically, an outcome-based mind-set facilitates Moral Balancing, whereas a rule-based mind-set facilitates Moral Consistency. The objective was to look at the evolution of moral choice across a series of scenarios, that is, to explore if these moral patterns are maintained over time. The results (...) of three studies showed that Moral Balancing is not.. (shrink)

The focus of the present study was the rationality of moral behaviour and moral conviction. Assumptions like "morality pays" or "good ethics is good business" are not a priori right. Whether morality as personal conviction is also economically rational or not depends in large part on the institutional setting of a society and the likelihood that immoral behaviour will be sanctioned. The systematic approach to morality thus appears to be political economy and the institutional setting: rules and laws. (...) However, the conditions for morality depend not only on the formal structures but also on the informal structures of rules and sanctions. Hence, the systematic approach to morality is most closely linked with the culture of a society; the efficiency of individual morality depends on social conditions. It is costly for individuals and societies to establish and entertain conditions that set clear incentives for moral behaviour. In this context, moral competencies, learning, and education play a crucial role. (shrink)

The moral nature of humanity has been debated and discussed by philosophers, theologians, and others for centuries. Only recently have neuroscientists and neuropsychologists joined the conversation by publishing a number of studies using newer brain scanning techniques directed at regions of the brain related to social behavior. Is it possible to relate particular brain structures and functions to the behavior of people, deemed evil, who violate all the tenets of proper behavior laid down by ancient and (...) holy texts, prohibiting lying, cheating, stealing, and murder? Is it possible that the recently discovered “mirror neurons” in the brain are the basis for empathy and that deficits in these brain cells lead to severe difficulty in relating socially to other people, including parents and siblings? What do we make of reports that the fusiform face area in the temporal lobe of the brain is specialized for the perception of faces and that defects in this region are seen regularly in individuals who are psychopathic. (shrink)

This short paper deals with the difficult articulation of a diverse cultural heritage within a society and the democratic forms of assuring its social cohesion. Special attention is paid to the links between immaterial culture and the environment that transforms it into a structural element of social cohesion. Culture is seen as a 'mould' which shapes a shared behaviour, and democracy can be conceived as a system made up of elements of a cultural nature that go as far as implying (...) safeguarding pluralism, respect and tolerance of all kinds of difference. This is the case with those countries where the structures of the modern state are in the process of disappearing and being redefined in new forms, whose essential feature is acceptance of cultural diversity. If we conceive democracy in terms of heritage and in terms of non-exclusion of cultures dominated by a dominant culture, then it results that Mexico has not experienced true democracy - either in the past or nowadays. (shrink)

In this paper, I start by suggesting a new definition of empathy. I go on by answering the question of “Who feels empathy?”. I list some examples of people, illustrating how the level of feeling empathy differs from one category of people to another. It’s actually almost everybody who feels empathy: the baby, the good Samaritan and the other two priests, the tax evader, the psychopath, the judges, juries, lawyers, the politician, the bully adolescent, the therapist, etc.… Then I explain, (...) “Why empathy is experienced/felt differently?”, by drawing on some neuroscience data, and some literature in psychology or philosophy along with some personal suggestions or assumptions. Just to mention one plausible data: we know that the human brain is half developed at birth. It takes twelve to fourteen years for the brain to fully develop. And the frontal lobe continues to develop until the third decade of life! I suggest we must attend to these phases of brain development to learn empathy since that is when the plasticity of the brain and the learning kick-in. Hence, the third section of the paper demonstrates “How can we develop an empathic mind/behaviour given the nature of our empathic brain?”: with some supportive research and studies, I justify the statement that “ideally from early age, and all the way up to adulthood, empathy can be learned through nurturing, education, imitation…, through alternative realities such as mindfulness and awareness, and through therapy, memory improvement, training programs, etc.…” In the conclusion, I assert, using some philosophical thoughts and analogies, that a fully developed empathic behaviour, that embraces all three aspects cognitive, affective and compassionate empathy, being the opposite of indifference, is the vehicle to a peaceful, harmonious and just society. (shrink)

Religion can have an important influence in moral decision-making, and religious reminders may deter people from unethical behavior. Previous research indicated that religious contexts may increase prosocial behavior and reduce cheating. However, the perceptual-behavioral link between religious contexts and decision-making lacks thorough scientific understanding. This study adds to the current literature by testing the effects of purely audial religious symbols (instrumental music) on moral behavior across three different sites: Mauritius, the Czech Republic, and the USA. (...) Participants were exposed to one of three kinds of auditory stimuli (religious, secular, or white noise), and subsequently were given a chance to dishonestly report on solved mathematical equations in order to increase their monetary reward. The results showed cross-cultural differences in the effects of religious music on moral behavior, as well as a significant interaction between condition and religiosity across all sites, suggesting that religious participants were more influenced by the auditory religious stimuli than non-religious participants. We propose that religious music can function as a subtle cue associated with moral standards via cultural socialization and ritual participation. Such associative learning can charge music with specific meanings and create sacred cues that influence normative behavior. Our findings provide preliminary support for this view, which we hope further research will investigate more closely. (shrink)

before i begin, i would like to express my considerable gratitude to Heldke, Orosco, and Stehn for their stimulating reading of my work and their considered critiques, and to the SAAP Coss Committee for taking pains to represent a community, identifying members in the spirit of the SAAP. Indeed I must parallel and reflect the words Heldke used: "It was just fun to read... about a place... [described] by a theoretical tradition I value" or Orosco locating my scholarship in ancient (...) debates between forms of reasoning about human behavior, or Stehn making me think how to better achieve the aspirations of my applied scholarship. Again, let me say, thanks to you all.Readers made... (shrink)

The enhancement of human traits has received academic attention for decades, but only recently has moral enhancement using biomedical means – moral bioenhancement (MB) – entered the discussion. After explaining why we ought to take the possibility of MB seriously, the paper considers the shape and content of moral improvement, addressing at some length a challenge presented by reasonable moral pluralism. The discussion then proceeds to this question: Assuming MB were safe, effective, and universally available, would (...) it be morally desirable? In particular, would it pose an unacceptable threat to human freedom? After defending a negative answer to the latter question – which requires an investigation into the nature and value of human freedom – and arguing that there is nothing inherently wrong with MB, the paper closes with reflections on what we should value in moral behaviour. (shrink)

This book is a provocative contribution to contemporary ethical theory challenging foundational conceptions of character that date back to Aristotle. John Doris draws on behavioral science, especially social psychology, to argue that we misattribute the causes of behavior to personality traits and other fixed aspects of character rather than to the situational context. More often than not it is the situation not the nature of the personality that really counts. The author elaborates the philosophical consequences of this research for (...) a whole array of ethical theories and shows that, once rid of the misleading conception of motivation, moral psychology can support more robust ethical theories and more humane ethical practices. (shrink)

Deontology and utilitarianism are two competing principles that guide our moral judgment. Recently, deontology is thought to be intuitive and is based on an error-prone and biased approach, whereas utilitarianism is relatively reflective and a suitable framework for making decision. In this research, the authors explored the relationship among moral identity, moral decision, and moral behavior to see how a preference for the deontological solution can lead to moral behavior. In study 1, a (...) Web-based survey demonstrated that when making decisions, individuals who viewed themselves as moral people preferred deontological ideals to the utilitarian framework. In study 2, the authors investigated the effect of moral identity and moral decision on moral behavior in an experimental study. The results showed that when deontology was coupled with the motivational power of moral identity, individuals were most likely to behave morally. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe present research tested the notion that emotion expression and context perception are bidirectionally related. Specifically, in two studies focusing on moral violations and positive moral deviations respectively, we presented participants with short vignettes describing behaviours that were either moral, polite or unusual together with a picture of the emotional reaction of a person who supposedly had been a witness to the event. Participants rated both the emotional reactions observed and their own moral appraisal of the (...) situation described. In both studies, we found that situational context influenced how emotional reactions to this context were rated and in turn, the emotional expression shown in reaction to a situation influenced the appraisal of the situation. That is, neither the moral events nor the emotion expressions were judged in an absolute fashion. Rather, the perception of one also depended on the other. (shrink)

Studies demonstrating the benefits of ethical behavior at an individual level are scarce. The business ethics literature centers its analysis on unethical behaviors and their consequences, rather than ethical behaviors and their benefits. There is now considerable debate on the role of auditors in society and the function of accounting firms in the free market capitalist system. Specifically, the eminently ethical nature of the auditor’s work has been highlighted. Therefore, the aim of our paper is to show the impact (...) of auditors’ sustained ethical behavior: the trust it generates. This trust results in considerable benefits for the firm due to a reduction in the costs of the partner’s supervision of the auditor. The methodology chosen to validate these claims is a survey of partner of the audit firm in auditing companies. The results of this research confirm the hypotheses raised in the theoretical model. (shrink)

Organisations are increasingly involved in what they call ‘ethical dilemmas’, that is, the conditions under which wrongdoing and righteous deeds must be defined once again because the line between right and wrong has blurred more than ever. In general, human beings have special moral characteristics in the individual and personality dimension that shape their thoughts, speech and behaviour. It is possible that the same people in the same position and organisation could be affected differently, and their ideas, speech and (...) behaviour affect the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation. Ethics can have positive or negative consequences at each organisational level. One of the effective factors on the occurrence of employees’ ethical behaviours is the role of spirituality in the work environment and humility of leaders. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of humility of Muslim leaders on the moral behaviours of followers and spirituality at work in Islamic society. The statistical population of the study was 370 Muslim employees of International Islamic University Malaysia. After distributing the questionnaires among the statistical population, 352 questionnaires were returned. The validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by the content validity method, and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach’s alpha. In this research, the structural equation modeling approach and Amos software were used to analyse the data. All hypotheses were confirmed at a 95% significance level. The results showed that the humility of leaders has a positive and significant effect on spirituality in the workplace and work ethic of followers. Spirituality in the workplace has also a positive effect on employees’ work ethic.Contribution: It is recommended that the officials of organisations should pay attention to spirituality in the workplace and the humility of managers and supervisors towards employees in order to promote work ethics. Further, it can be concluded that organisations can increase the ethical behaviours of employees by promoting the components of organisational spirituality. (shrink)

Within this paper, I examine Godless normative realism, a naturalistic explanation of morality given by Erik Wielenberg and determine whether the theory poses a threat to abductive moral arguments for the existence of God. In particular, I argue that Wielenberg’s theory is a possible explanation for the existence of moral facts and that it offers a motivation for one to act morally, but that theism, as a whole, remains a better explanation for the moral aspects of the (...) world. To do so, I defend the legitimacy of weak forms of DCT, identify a few areas in which Godless normative realism fails to explain moral aspects of the world, and conclude with a few reasons for thinking that the explanatory scope of theism is superior to that of Wielenberg’s theory. I conclude that abductive moral arguments for the existence of God remain largely unscathed by Godless normative realism. (shrink)

Much recent research on moral judgment making has focused on quick one-shot judgments. Explicit reasoning has been shown to play a minor role in these cases. However, these results do not generalize to real moral conduct that often includes the iterative adaptation of long-term behavioral strategies. I suggest using school bullying as an ecologically valid model for moral conduct and refer to studies that show that moral reasoning competence is negatively correlated to immoral aggressive behavior. (...) Taken together, these results suggest a rather strict division of labor between reasoning on the one hand and automatic processes on the other hand. I suggest that moral reasoning is part of a long-term learning process, which sets the parameters for quick intuitive deci- sion making. Philosophical ethics can play an important role by systematizing and reflecting this learning process. (shrink)

Edward Erwin's clear analysis addresses some of the fundamental questions on behavior therapy that remained in 1978, when this book was first published.