Morality Flashcards
Moral psychology
Relationship regulation
–> moral normas ensure group continuity
Exclusion of norm violators
- eliminate potential threat for survival of group
- sustain positive ingroup evaluations and identity
- sustain group cohesion
Punishment for norm violators
- ingroup punished harder than outgroup deviants
- deviant members are often ostracized
Theoretical approaches to moral psychology
- Kohlberg, 1969: 1 system - understanding of justice
- Gilligan, 1982: 2 systems - justice & care
- Turiel, 1983: “Justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other”
- Massive issue: based on Western ideas = ethnocentrism
- Shweder (Ethics, chapter 4)
- Fiske (Relational Models)
- Haidt (Moral Foundations)
Intuitive ethics
Innate preparedness to feel flashes of approval or diasapproval towards certain patterns of events involving other human beings = gut feeling
Differences in morality
Implementation of universal moral basis
–> culture builds morailty on top of a foundation of shared intuitions
- status and respect
- equality and reciprocity
Religion
Religion is one of the strongest cultural influences on moral values, and in a larger across-national study of values religious values varied between nations more than any other single factor
Religious groups
- religions have norms, customs, identities, values, roles, institutions, etc.
- maybe we need to move away form IND/COLL and assess religious differences
- religions provide clea normative and moral guidelines
Function of religion
Psychological advances
- meaning of life, particularly when facing adversity
- helps deal with social excluson
- lower risk for depressive symptoms
- religious people are happier with their social contacts
Religiosity-as-social-value hypothesis
- self-esteem: religious believers > nonbelievers
- psychological adjustment: religious believers > nonbelievers
–> only posiitve effexts is societally values
Rituals
Non-religious rituals
=/= routines
=/= social conventions
= often specific behaviors that are recurrent, and take place at a specific place/time with symbolic value attached to them
Rituals are functional
- belonging/inclusion
- identity
- social cohesion
- cooperation
- cultural transmission
–> family rituals are related to positive experiences as they strengthen family bonding
Dignity
Everyone born with the same value
Honor
Valperception/evaluation and that of others
Face
Face is tied to the satus commendaded by social position
Face cultures
Where the concept of honor is important for social interactions
- meditarranean
- middle-east
- central asia
- army/police
- gangs/organized crime
Definition of Honor
Honor is the value of a person in his own eyes, but also in the eyes of his society. It is his estimation of his own worth, his claim to pride, but it is also the acknowledgement of that claim, his excellence recognized by society, his right to pride
Psychological approaches to honor
- to some extent see honor as ‘cultural syndrome’
- attempts to explain honor cultures and the impact of honor
- lawless environments
- harsch environments
Honor and psychology
People in honor cultures, when insulted…
- … experience more shame and anger
- … are more agressive
–> honor is a cultural syndrome - it is culturally specific and not comparable across culture or understood from a Western perspective
Real versus alleged misconduct
- honor
- actual misconduct
- alleged misconduct: slander, defamation
–> cowardice stigma - important to have an appropriate and adequate response: failing to react proportionately to a serious attack or a slanderous insult is - in any community - considered evidence or cowardice
Cowardice stigma
Not defending one’s (moral) reputation
Stigma by association
Stigmas extend to others that are related to the stigmatized, who are seen as partially responsible by acts of commission or acts of ommission
Individuals distance themselves from deviants in order to decrease the chances of stigma-by-association
The higher the experienced threat to one’s social image, the higher the intentions to sanction the deviant
Where is the influence of culture on honor
-what is considered immoral
- norms about dealing with immoral behavior
- differences in terms of vigilance - related to tightness/looseness
Radicalization
A process through which people become increasingly motivated to use violent means against members of an out-group or symbolic targets to achieve behavioral change and political goals
- personal grievance
- group grievance
- slippery slope
- love
Terrorism
Act of violence, directed at non-combatants/civilian, to influence political direction/create fear
- George W. Bush: ‘evil cowards’
- not rational
- morally bad people
–> these are radical / a terrorist
Sacred values
Any value that a moral community implicitly treats as possessing infinite or transcendental significance that precludes comparisons, trade-offs, or indeed any other mingling with bounded or secular values
- support for suicide attacks in non-utlitarian
- suicide is a costly group > individual investment that is adaptive for the group
- conflict can be reduced not by fincancial means but by symbolic gestures, dimished humiliation, and respect
