Morality

Question 1

utilitarianism

Answer 1

the morality of a decision depends on the consequences of that decision.

Question 2

determinism

Answer 2

The morality of a decision depends on the intrinsic values of the decision not the consequences.

Question 3

the three level theory of moral development Kohlberg

Answer 3

preconventional, conventional and postconventional morality

Question 4

preconventional morality - development of morality

Answer 4

from early childhood on till the age of 9

- children act out of self interest/ in order to avoid punishment

Question 5

conventional morality- development of morality

Answer 5

• an older child acts in order to adhere to social norms and standards to belong to a group / avoid punishment
• acting in a way to maintain friendly relations to others

Question 6

postconventional morality- development of morality

Answer 6

• morality that goes beyond the day to day interactions humans have with one another.
• thinking about moralily and philosophical principles in general.

Question 7

Morality

Answer 7

A collection of virtues, values and practices that work together to regulate selfishness and enhance the ability to cooperate with unrelated individuals. Hence enhancing the fitness of an individual .

Question 8

Limitations of kohlberg

Answer 8

Kohlberg is focusing a lot on the cognitive aspect of morality and does not consider that not all cognition does always get translated into action.

Question 9

Moral identity

Answer 9

Moral identity does contain the traits, scripts and values a person morally identifies themselves. The moral identity is part of the persons general Identity.
Depending how much a Moral identity is interanalized it differs on how present the Moral identy is.

Symbolizer:
People that want to be seen as moral persons. They act moral in front of others.

Internalizer:
People that have a very present Moral identity and act out of an internalised convictions.

Question 10

What factors can have an influence on moral decision making?

Answer 10

• gender : women make less utilitarian decisions.
• Andersons rational emotional model –> the expected emotional outcome does affect the way we decide.
• the more sleep a person did get, the higher the moral awareness of this person. The more sensitivity towards unmoral awareness is there.

Question 11

Studies on the correlation of sleep and moral awareness

Answer 11

Barnes et al. (2015), did discover that people were less morally aware when they were sleep deprived the night before they had to judge a scene containing moral violation compared to participants that were not sleep deprived.

Google study:

Analysing google searches a day after the spring time change. Significantly less searches were found related to morality.

Question 12

The motives of morality according to Rai and Fiske

Answer 12

• unity, hierachy, equality, proportionality

- -> being morally indifferent = not having a motive

Question 13

Unity

Answer 13

• caring for ingroup members in order to eliminate threat and support cooperation and protection

Question 14

Hierachy

Answer 14

• create and maintain rank in hierachical groups

- superiors feel obliged to protect and guide subordinates which feel obliged to follow the leaders.

Question 15

Equality

Answer 15

• balance / reciprocity in social relationships

- -> leads to cooperation or revenge

Question 16

Proportionality

Answer 16

• motive for rewards and punishment to be proportional to their costs and benefit

–> judges are obliged to punish proportionately to the crime that has been committed.

Question 17

Kohlbergs theory about morality

Answer 17

Kohlberg states that a humans that are mature enough to overlook a situation and identify that it is a just situation are moral.

Moral is what is fair and just.

Question 18

Criticism on Kohlbergs theory about morality

Answer 18

• Kohlberg mostly studied men which would judge justice as moral
• women also consider care as moral

Cultural blindness
Kohlberg only studied Westerners
–> other cultures have different moral judgements.

Question 19

3 dimensions of morality Shweder

Answer 19

Shweder defined morality in three dimensions due to the reason of moral behaviour and the level of consequences.

Dimension 1: ethics of autonomy - what consequences are gonna be there for the individual ? ( Kohlbergs justice and Gilligans care) —> individualistic

Dimension 2:
the ethics of community -> what are the consequences for the community? (collectivistic)

Dimension 3:

Ethics of divinity : relation to god- transcendent

Strengths:
Shweder focuses on how this dimensions are present in other than the Western culture.

Question 20

Social intuitionist model of Haidt ( Morality)

Answer 20

Haidt describes in his model how intuitive judgements of a situation go together with opinions on moral topics that we get through discussions or reasoning about a topic.

1) intuition–> 2) Judgment–> 3) Reasoning
He argues that when judging an event we first judge intuitionally and post hoc reason to confirm the intuitive judgement that has been made.

The private reflection link describes the influence of reasoning of Person A on his/her own intuition which in turn changes his/her own judgement.

–> discussion can also influence peoples judgment

Person A’s reasoning can have an influence on the intuition of person B which in turn changes persons B judgment.

Question 21

Moral foundation of the social intuitionist model

Answer 21

Haidt made an experiment asking people how much money they would spend on doing certain things.

–> the money they would spend on those things indicated how morally valuable they found those things

According to Haidt there are moral categories that drive moral judgement:
- care & fairness–> individualising foundations
focuses on protecting the individual rights of a person ( rational and untilitarian aspect of moral judgement)

• loyality ,respect , authority &purity
  –> binding foundation
  Binding foundations allow individual to work as collective.
• unfortunately they often apply for ingroup members and against outgroup members.

–> this can be changed through redefining the ingroup and outgroup

Different groups empathize the individualizing or group factors more.

Conservatives value both individualizing and binding foundations. Liberals value the individualizing factors more.

Question 22

Weakness of Haids social intuitionist model Morality

Answer 22

People sometimes apply binding foundations towards members of the outgroup. Especially when they have a strong moral identity.

Smith ( 2014) tested the effect of Moral identity on relying and binding foundations:

1 testing the degree of condemning torture of terrorists as an interrogation technique

2 level of agreement of sharing water with an outgroup child at the expense of an ingroup child.

Peope with strong binding foundation have high levels of outgroup derogation and in group favouritism - only if the MI was low.

High levels of moral identity promote a widened circle of moral regard and no ingroup outgroup favouritism.

Question 23

dual process model of moral cognition Greene

Answer 23

Greenes dual system model moral cognition is based on the dual system model.

Including system 1 and system 2 :

Moral decisions which arise from system one ( more intuitive, heuristic based ) lack explanatory properties ( nor arguments to justify the decision).

System 2 does correct the intuitive answer given by System one. System 2 processes happen in the brain.

Utilitarian processes require system 2 processes while deontological ( the action is important not depending on the consequences) responding requiees system 1 processes.

–> Finding that supports this theory:
the more limited the response time the less utilitarian choices are made.

controlled processing correlates utalitarian
deontological judgement –> emotional processing

Question 24

Bago et al. (2019) –> Weaknesses of the dual process model of moral cognition

Answer 24

• Conducting 4 studies with the task for pp to give a an initial response to moral dilemmas under time pressure and cognitive load–> afterwards giving a final response after reflecting for some time.

Most final utilitarian responses were already initial utilitarian responses. corrections were exceptions.

The less confident the people were the more likely they were to change their initial answer.

–> the deontological choice weighs more once the saviour of a family member is included.

Question 25

Social domain theory

Answer 25

The social domain theory aims to differenciate between Moral identity and social norms.

The moral behavior of a person should be differentiated to the way a person is taught and obliged to act in a society due to social norms.

Question 26

Social functionality approach

Answer 26

When humans make a decision they consider how they will be able to justify this decision in front of others.–> this influences the decision.

E.G. Tversky and Shafir tested students with asking them to buy a cheap holiday ticket. Students that didnt know the outcome of their exam did buy way less tickets than the ones that knew they had passed or failed.

This can be explained through the social functionality approach. Students that could justify their decision as I need to celebrate or I need to relax had an easier time making that decision.

Question 27

Compare the different moral theories to one another

Answer 27

Kohlbergs theory :
Is considering the conscious deliberate moral judgement and not considering emotional moral decision making.

Moral foundation theory/ social intuitionist model :

Moral decision making involves mostly system 1 processing system 2 only confirms the judgment of system 1.
–> covers emotional and cognitive moral decision making

Dual process model of moral decision making:

Both the system 1 and system 2 are important in moral reasoning. Emotion is just as important as cognitive processing.

Social functionality approach:

Covers the social aspect in moral decision making.