Post-conventional moral reasoning and reputation

Kohlberg’s theory of moral development conceives conventional and post-conventional moral reasoning as consecutive levels in a developmental sequence. This claim was examined in terms of the relationship between preference for these two styles of reasoning on the one hand and moral identity as perceived by others (reputation) and as self-perceived and on the other. Participants (n = 172), in groups of four mutual acquaintances, provided ratings of one another’s standing, and estimates of their own standing and reputation, on four trait dimensions (moral responsibility, consideration for others, respect for authority, and political orientation). Post-conventional moral reasoning, assessed using the Defining Issues Test, was not significantly related either to reputation or to self-rating on any dimension except political orientation. Conventional reasoning was related to politics though in the opposite direction, but additionally to both self- and other-ratings of moral responsibility and to the corresponding ratings of respect for authority. Findings do not support the view that the conventional/post-conventional distinction in moral reasoning is a developmental difference. An alternative proposed is that these are independent domains of moral thought, related to quite different aspects of social behaviour and political attitudes.     

A path to the Oasis: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sharī‘ah</Emphasis> and reason in Islamic moral epistemology

I propose a framework for comparative Islamic—Western ethics in which the Islamic categories Islam, Iman, and Ihsan are juxtaposed with the concepts of obligation, value, and virtue, respectively. I argue that shari’a refers to both the obligation component and the entire structure of the Islamic ethic; suggesting a suspension of the understanding of shari’a as simply Islamic “law,” and an alternative understanding of usul al-fiqh as a moral epistemology of obligation. I will test this approach by addressing the question of reason in Islamic moral epistemology via an examination of an argument advanced by a founding usul scholar Muhammad bin Idrīs al-Shāfi‘ī (150 A.H./767 C.E.).     

Enrolling the Citizen in Sustainability: Membership Categorization,Morality and Civic Participation

This article examines the common-sense and methodical ways in which “the citizen” is produced and enrolled as an active participant in “sustainable” regional planning. Using Membership Categorization Analysis, we explicate how the categorization procedures in the Foreword of a draft regional planning policy interactionally produce the identity of “the citizen” and “civic values and obligations” in relation to geographic place and institutional categories. Furthermore, we show how positioning practices establish a relationship between authors (government) and readers (citizens) where both are ascribed with the same moral values and obligations toward the region. Hence, “the citizen” as an active participant in “sustainable” regional planning is viewed as a practical accomplishment that is underpinned by a normative morality associated with the task of producing orderliness in “text-in-interaction.”

Imagining human enhancement: whose future,which rationality?

This article critically evaluates bettering human life. Because this involves lives that do not exist yet, the article investigates human eugenics and enhancement through the social prism of ‘the imaginary’ (defined ‘as a set of assumptions and concepts for thinking and speaking about human enhancement and its future direction’) [1]. “Exploring basic assumptions underlying the idea of human enhancement” investigates underlying assumptions and claims for human enhancement. Firstly, human eugenics and enhancement entangles a factual as well as a normative claim about what improvement/betterment maybe constitutive of. Secondly, claims about what a better life is, is often a future orientated claim about whether certain kinds of life that do not exist yet should ever exist. Moral images of thought are introduced and how they work to make normative judgments about lives that do not exist. This implicates the moral problem of difference, where an image of a ‘better’ life—classically expressed in eugenics as a ‘superior’ and/or ‘normal’ life—necessarily entails inferiority and/or deviance from a norm. “Moral imagination in contemporary fiction and the history of old eugenics”, introduces moral images in history of eugenics and demonstrates how examples fall foul of the problem. “The new (liberal) eugenics and the moral image of therapy” examines progress in contemporary debates, the move from authoritarian to non-authoritarian eugenics (human enhancement), and how, to some extent, this has solved the problem of difference, through liberal defence of personal choice. “The heart of the eugenic issue” suggests that personal choice in liberal non-authoritarian eugenics is not immune to basic drive behind all eugenic arguments; desire as lack which is expressed as the continual dissatisfaction of not having our future expectations met.

德性儒学的成就、困境与走向

Beginning with the promotion of morality in Confucianism, a Neo-Confucian movement in modern Chinese philosophy was initiated, in which Confucianism underwent a transition from tradition to modernity. However, Moral Confucianism did not successfully develop the “new kingliness without” from its “sageliness within,” respond to modernization marked by science and democracy, and provide moral impetus for the development of a modern Chinese society or appeal to many beyond the small circle of “elite Confucianists.” The fundamental reason is that it was caught in a web of moral idealism, overemphasizing what ought to be without confronting what actually was. Translated by Huang Deyuan from Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Xuebao 中国人民大学学报 (Journal of Renmin University of China), 2006, (1): 9–15     

亲社会情境中儿童的道德情绪判断及归因模式的实验研究

运用故事情境的临床访谈方法,本研究考察了4岁和6岁儿童在亲社会情境的道德情绪判断及其归因模式,研究结果表明:(1)在亲社会道德情境中,年幼儿童倾向于判断行为者产生消极的情绪体验,年长儿童则作出积极的情绪判断;(2)在归因定向中,4岁儿童以结果定向为主,6岁儿童出现了由结果定向到道德定向的过渡;(3)亲社会情境的类型不影响儿童的道德情绪判断及归因;(4)在观点采择任务中,甚至4岁儿童也能对自己的情绪体验作出合乎道德准则的判断和归因。     

青少年道德判断能力的研究

德国道德心理学家林德提出“道德行为与发展的双面理论”,并设计了著名的“道德判断测验”,在20多年的研究中取得了很多重要成果。我们以中文版的“道德判断测验”为测量工具,以724名12-27岁青少年学生为被试进行实证研究,研究结果表明:学生的C分数随年级提高而有所提高,但不同年级之间有一定波动,说明学校教育有助于提高学生的道德判断能力,但存在不稳定因素。男女生C分数不存在显著差异,学校内部各年级之间也不存在显著差异,不同性质的学生之间不存在显著差异;     

Moral chronicity and social information processing: Tests of a social cognitive approach to the moral personality

Following Higgins, King, and Mavin (1982) chronicity paradigm, we examined the effects of chronically accessed moral constructs for prototypic moral character using two different research paradigms, spontaneous trait inferencing and lexical decision. Study 1 presented target sentences in a deliberate or spontaneous processing condition. Recall was cued with either a dispositional or semantic cue. Moral chronics made more spontaneous trait inferences with dispositional cues than semantic cues. In Study 2, participants read stories about characters who did or did not help. Moral chronics were faster responding to probes reflecting negative evaluations of story characters who did not help when requested (e.g., “disloyal”). Findings support claims that the moral personality is usefully conceptualized in terms of the chronic accessibility of moral knowledge structures.     

论信用的道德限度

社会诚信的研究和建设是当前伦理学研究和道德建设的重点,且很多学者都把信用制度的建设作为主要途径和突破口,但这是否抓出了问题的要害,却是需要慎思的。我们通过对这两个概念的反思和比较,发现诚信比信用有更高的立意和更丰富的内涵,而信用有其内在的道德限度,表现为:信用主体是抽象的人,诚信主体是现实的人;信用要实现的是外在利益,诚信则立足于人的内在价值;信用体现的是工具理性,诚信体现一种实践智慧。通过两者的比较,我们就能合理地确定信用制度起作用的性质、范围和程度,认识到它的必要性和局限性,从而摆正它在社会诚信建设中的地位。     

Moral Principles or Consumer Preferences? Alternative Framings of the Trolley Problem

We created paired moral dilemmas with minimal contrasts in wording, a research strategy that has been advocated as a way to empirically establish principles operative in a domain-specific moral psychology. However, the candidate "principles" we tested were not derived from work in moral philosophy, but rather from work in the areas of consumer choice and risk perception. Participants were paradoxically less likely to choose an action that sacrifices one life to save others when they were asked to provide more reasons for doing so (Experiment 1), and their willingness to sacrifice lives depended not only on how many lives would be saved, but on the number of lives at risk (Experiment 2). The latter effect was also found in a within-subjects design (Experiment 3). These findings suggest caution in the use of artificial dilemmas as a key testbed for revealing principled bases for moral judgment.