Why do moral people so often fail to act morally? Standard scientific answers point to poor moral judgment (based on deficient character development, reason, or intuition) or to situational pressure. I consider a third possibility: a relative lack of truly moral motivation and emotion. What has been taken for moral motivation is often instead a subtle form of egoism. Recent research provides considerable evidence for moral hypocrisy—motivation to appear moral while, if possible, avoid the cost of actually being moral—but very (...) little evidence for moral integrity—motivation to actually be moral. The lack of truly moral motivation may, in turn, be linked to a lack of truly moral emotion, at least in response to violation of certain moral standards. (shrink)

Why do people act morally – when they do? Moral philosophers and psychologists often assume that acting morally in the absence of incentives or sanctions is a product of a desire to uphold one or another moral principle (e.g., fairness). This form of motivation might be called moral integrity because the goal is to actually be moral. In a series of experiments designed to explore the nature of moral motivation, colleagues and I have found little evidence of moral integrity. We (...) have found considerable evidence of a different form of moral motivation, moral hypocrisy. The goal of moral hypocrisy is to appear moral yet, if possible, avoid the cost of being moral. To fully reach the goal of moral hypocrisy requires self-deception, and we have found evidence of that as well. Strengthening moral integrity is difficult. Even effects of moral perspective taking – imagining yourself in the place of the other (as recommended by the Golden Rule) – appear limited, further contributing to the moral masquerade. (shrink)

Research on moral psychology has frequently appealed to three, apparently consistent patterns: Males are more likely to engage in transgressions involving harm than females; educated people are likely to be more thorough in their moral deliberations because they have better resources for rationally navigating and evaluating complex information; political affiliations and religious ideologies are an important source of our moral principles. Here, we provide a test of how four factors ‐ gender, education, politics and religion ‐ affect intuitive moral judgments (...) in unfamiliar situations. Using a large-scale sample of participants who voluntarily logged on to the internet-based Moral Sense Test, we analyzed responses to 145 unique moral and conventional scenarios that varied widely in content. Although each demographic or cultural factor sometimes yielded a statistically significant difference in the predicted direction, these differences were consistently associated with extremely small effect sizes. We conclude that gender, education, politics and religion are likely to be relatively insignificant for moral judgments of unfamiliar scenarios. We discuss these results in light of current debates concerning the mechanisms underlying our moral judgments and, especially, the idea that we share a universal moral sense that constrains the range of cross-cultural variation. (shrink)

Our model integrates the nativist assumption of prespecified neural structures underpinning basic emotions with the constructionist view that emotions are assembled from psychological constituents. From a dynamic systems perspective, the nervous system self-organizes in different ways at different time scales, in relation to functions served by emotions. At the evolutionary scale, brain parts and their connections are specified by selective pressures. At the scale of development, connectivity is revised through synaptic shaping. At the scale of real time, temporary networks of (...) synchronized activity mediate responses to situations. To the degree that humans share common emotional functions, neural structuration is similar across scales, giving rise to “basic” emotions. However, unique developmental and situational factors select for neural configurations mediating emotional variants. (shrink)

This chapter discusses neurocognitive work relevant to moral psychology and the proposition that innate factors make important contributions to moral judgment. It reviews various sources of evidence for an innate moral faculty, before presenting brain-imaging data in support of the same conclusion. It is argued that our moral thought is the product of an interaction between some ‘gut-reaction’ moral emotions and our capacity for abstract reflection.

Scientists from various disciplines have begun to focus attention on the psychology and biology of human morality. One research program that has recently gained attention is universal moral grammar (UMG). UMG seeks to describe the nature and origin of moral knowledge by using concepts and models similar to those used in Chomsky's program in linguistics. This approach is thought to provide a fruitful perspective from which to investigate moral competence from computational, ontogenetic, behavioral, physiological and phylogenetic perspectives. In this article, (...) I outline a framework for UMG and describe some of the evidence that supports it. I also propose a novel computational analysis of moral intuitions and argue that future research on this topic should draw more directly on legal theory. (shrink)

Recent work proclaims a dominant role for automatic, intuitive, and emotional processes in producing ordinary moral judgment, despite the fact that we have little direct evidence about moral judgment “in the wild.” Indirect support comes via an assumption of dual-process theory: that conscious, reasoning processes are resource intensive. We argue that reasoning that employs consciously available moral rules undermines this assumption, but this has not been appreciated because of a failure to distinguish between explanation and justification. We conclude that it (...) remains unclear what sorts of cognitive processes are dominant in ordinary moral judgments. (shrink)

Efforts to bridge emotion theory with neurobiology can be facilitated by dynamic systems (DS) modeling. DS principles stipulate higher-order wholes emerging from lower-order constituents through bidirectional causal processes cognition relations. I then present a psychological model based on this reconceptualization, identifying trigger, self-amplification, and self-stabilization phases of emotion-appraisal states, leading to consolidating traits. The article goes on to describe neural structures and functions involved in appraisal and emotion, as well as DS mechanisms of integration by which they interact. These mechanisms (...) include nested feedback interactions, global effects of neuromodulation, vertical integration, action-monitoring, and synaptic plasticity, and they are modeled in terms of both functional integration and temporal synchronization. I end by elaborating the psychological model of emotion–appraisal states with reference to neural processes. (shrink)

Is 'development' a concept that properly belongs to mind and morality and, if it does, what account can we give of moral development now that Piagetian and Kohlbergian models are increasingly being abandoned in developmental psychology? In addressing this central issue, it is hoped that the paper will contribute to the quest for a new integrated model of moral functioning, called for in the September 2008 Special Issue of the Journal of Moral Education (37[3]). Our paper argues that the notion (...) of moral development is fully justified, though it does not occur via invariant stages. Rather, each child is an emergent self-organising organism in which development is highly variable, dynamic and often non-linear. By viewing each child as a self-organising being and adopting the notion that moral development is dynamic and emergent from the predilection to value, the paper points towards a new account of moral development that opens up new avenues for educational research and moral education in schools. (shrink)

Multiple moral emotions were examined from a dynamic motivational framework through two hypothetical dilemmas that originate from the cognitive-developmental research program in morality. A questionnaire based on recognition task measurement of moral motivation and emotions was administered to 546 college students. As part of the dynamic complexity of moral motivation, intrapersonal operation of multiple emotions were expected and found toward each emotion target in each judgment context. Compassion and distress were among the most important moral emotions. Relatively strong degrees of (...) anger and hate were reported toward the victimizers in ways that distinguished judgment choices. Participants distinguished a variety of positive emotions from anger and hate through differential associations with judgment choices. The study revealed orderly patterns of variability in the multiplicity of moral emotional experience based on relations with specific emotion targets, judgment choices, and developmental quality of moral motivation. The overall developmental quality of moral motivation was negatively associated with hate and positively associated with anger toward the victimizers. Emotional awareness was also found to be positively related to the developmental quality of moral motivation. Exploring the intrapersonal multiplicity of moral emotional experience has important implications for understanding the complexity of moral decision making and motivation. (shrink)

Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done (...) by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology. (shrink)

We address the following issues raised by the commentators of our target article and book: (1) the problem of multiple perspectives; (2) how to define group selection; (3) distinguishing between the concepts of altruism and organism; (4) genetic versus cultural group selection; (5) the dark side of group selection; (6) the relationship between psychological and evolutionary altruism; (7) the question of whether the psychological questions can be answered; (8) psychological experiments. We thank the contributors for their commentaries, which provide a (...) diverse agenda for future study of evolution and morality. Our response will follow the organization of our book, distinguishing between evolutionary issues that concern fitness effects and psychological issues that concern motives. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.