도덕적 신경과학의 목적은 인간 도덕성의 원인과 기제에 대한 심층적이고 포괄적인 이해를 제공하는 것이다. 도덕성에 대한 신경과학 접근의 주된 강점은 인간 정신의 숨은 과정(hidden process)을 밝혀낼 수 있다는 것이다. 도덕교육 연구자들은 신경과학의 연구 및 실천이 제기하는 윤리적 문제가 무엇인지를 밝혀냄과 동시에 신경과학의 연구 성과들이 기존의 도덕성 및 도덕교육 이론에 함의하는 바가 무엇인지를 밝혀내야 하는 이중적인 학문적 도전에 직면해 있다. 이에 이 글에서는 신경윤리학과 도덕적 신경과학에 관한 문헌 분석에 근거하여 신경윤리학의 개념과 연구 주제에 대해 살펴보고, 최근의 신경과학 연구 결과 및 실천이 제기하는 (...) 윤리적 문제와 신경과학의 연구 결과들이 우리의 도덕교육에 시사해 주는 바가 무엇인지를 탐색해 봄으로써 신경과학 시대에서 우리가 지향해야 할 도덕교육의 새로운 패러다임을 제안하고자 한다. 신경과학 시대에서 도덕교육은 이성과 감정, 추론과 직관, 명시적 지식과 암묵적 지식, 숙고적 정신과 직관적 정신의 균형을 추구하는 가운데, 신경윤리학을 도덕교육의 내용으로 도입해야 한다. 그리고 도덕 교사는 학생들의 추론과 숙고를 촉진시키는 환경을 조성하고, 그들의 직관 발달에 도움이 되는 환경을 선택하도록 도울 수 있는 멘토로서의 역할을 충실하게 수행해야 할 것이다. (shrink)

Over the last decade, scholars across the wide spectrum of the discipline of sociology have started to reengage with questions on morality and moral phenomena. The continued wave of research in this field, which has come to be known as the new sociology of morality, is a lively research program that has several common grounds with scholarship in the field of business ethics. The aim of this thematic symposium is to open constructive dialogues between these two areas of study. In (...) this introductory essay, we briefly present the project of the new sociology of morality and discuss its relevance for business ethics. We also review the contributions to this thematic symposium and identify four specific domains where future research can contribute to fruitful dialogues between the two fields. (shrink)

In this article, we contribute to sociological literatures on morality, professional and institutional contexts, and morally stigmatized ‘dirty work’ by emphasizing and exploring how they mutually inform one another in lawyers’ work activities. Drawing on interview data with 58 practitioners in the commercial legal industry in Singapore, we analyze how they experience professional and institutional constraints on the expressions of morality in their work. Our findings illustrate how a dominant managerial and economic focus maintains and reproduces a constrained form of (...) morality, limited to instrumental, utilitarian and commercial ends, and subordinated to lucrative client and firm interests. We discuss our findings in terms of the need to research and reform professions in ways that support more rounded and unconstrained moral reflexivity and autonomy in how work is undertaken and valued. This in turn has implications for how organizations and professions might achieve alternative moral institutional orders, and for legal work to avoid the moral and social taints of dirty work. (shrink)

Animal models are used in experiments in the behavioural neurosciences that aim to contribute to the prevention and treatment of cognitive and affective disorders in human beings, such as anxiety and depression. Ironically, those animals that are likely to be the best models for psychopathology are also likely to be considered the ones that are most morally problematic to use, if it seems probable that (and if indeed they are initially selected as models because) they have experiences that are similar (...) to human experiences that we have strong reasons to avoid causing, and indeed aim to alleviate (such as pain, anxiety or sadness). In this paper, against the background of contemporary discussions in animal ethics and the philosophy of animal minds, we discuss the views that it is morally permissible to use animals in these kinds of experiments, and that it is better to use less cognitively complex animals (such as zebrafish) than more complex animals (such as dogs). First, we criticise some justifications for the claim that human beings and more complex animals have higher moral status. We argue that contemporary approaches that attribute equal moral status to all beings that are capable of conscious strivings (e.g. avoiding pain and anxiety; aiming to eat and play) are based on more plausible assumptions. Second, we argue that it is problematic to assume that less cognitively complex animals have a lesser sensory and emotional experience than more complex beings across the board. In specific cases, there might be good reasons to assume that more complex beings would be harmed more by a specific physical or environmental intervention, but it might also be that they sometimes are harmed less because of a better ability to cope. Determining whether a specific experiment is justified is therefore a complex issue. Our aim in this chapter is to stimulate further reflection on these common assumptions behind the use of animal models for psychopathologies. In order to be able to draw more definite conclusions, more research will have to be done on the influence of cognitive complexity on the experience of (human and non-human) animals. (shrink)

Acts that are considered undesirable standardly violate our expectations. In contrast, acts that count as morally desirable can either meet our expectations or exceed them. The zone in which an act can be morally desirable yet not exceed our expectations is what we call the zone of moral indifference, and it has so far been neglected. In this paper, we show that people can use positive terms in a deflated manner to refer to actions in the zone of moral indifference, (...) whereas negative terms cannot be so interpreted. (shrink)