Learning for oneself: A Confucian‐inspired case for moral formation in ethics pedagogy

This article explores the disconnection between ethical theory and ethical practice in ethics courses at secular U.S. colleges and universities. In such contexts academic ethics focuses almost exclusively on “ethical reasoning” and leaves the business of practical moral formation of students in the realm of “student life.” I argue this disconnection is inevitable given the dominant understanding that moral formation must be guided by a consistent ethical theory, and must eventuate in certain prosocial behaviors, while norms of pluralism and free inquiry mandate that academic courses not attempt to dictate certain views or behaviors as normative. Drawing on the Confucian model of moral cultivation expressed by the early Chinese figure Mengzi, I argue for a different understanding of moral formation that focuses on open‐endedness, self‐direction, and the acquisition of skills in directing attention and will. This approach avoids the most serious challenges to practical moral formation in secular contexts, and I suggest some broadly applicable principles for implementing these ideas in ethics courses.     

Genetic Moral Enhancement? Yes. Holiness? No

As moral human beings, we deplore our violence and try to rein it in through moral suasion and post-hoc restraint. Could genetic engineering help? Moral enhancement through genetic engineering might predispose us to performing good acts, good deeds. However, good acts alone, theologically speaking, do not count as either morality or holiness. Becoming a good and holy person-in-community is a process of freely chosen character development. While re-creating ourselves genetically to eliminate aggressive acts is not insignificant, such interventions constitute a starting point, not the endpoint, of living a meaningful life in relation to God. Bernard Lonergan’s notion of moral agency requires moral conversion and religious conversion, neither of which could be achieved through gene expression alone. Conversion requires free and intentional participation in moral character development. Finally, we note that salvation according to Christianity is not earned, regardless of a person’s good acts or good moral character.     

金钱刺激和决策者角色对个体道德决策的影响——基于过程分离范式

以大学生为被试,采用3（金钱刺激：无金钱刺激、金钱奖励、金钱惩罚）×2（决策者角色：决策者、旁观者）的被试间实验设计,利用过程分离范式分别计算被试道德决策中的功利主义倾向和道义论倾向,从而探讨金钱刺激和决策者角色对个体道德决策的影响。结果发现：（1）无论是决策者还是旁观者,金钱刺激都不会影响其道义论倾向;（2）决策者的道义论倾向大于旁观者;（3）只在有金钱奖励时决策者的功利主义倾向才大于旁观者。     

道德动机动态系统理论：一种道德发展的新科尔伯格取向

在科尔伯格道德认知发展阶段理论、动态系统理论和自我决定理论基础上,Kaplan提出了道德动机的动态系统理论,把道德动机界定为认知和情绪成分自我组织和自我调节的动态发展过程。该理论有其特定的提出背景、基本观点和主要内容,并且具有一定的实证证据支持。未来研究应着力解决道德认知与情绪的关系、环境因素的影响、横断研究与纵向研究的结合以及研究工具的完善等问题。     

Classroom Collective Moral Disengagement Scale: Validation in Czech adolescents

Moral disengagement (MD) provides a fruitful framework for understanding how adolescents could attenuate moral self-regulation and behave aggressively. While measures of individual MD have a long tradition, only recently have Gini, Pozzoli, and Bussey developed an instrument measuring collective MD (CMD): Classroom Collective Moral Disengagement Scale (CCMDS). The present study examined psychometric properties of a Czech version of the scale with a sample of 662 adolescents, aged 11–15, from 20 randomly selected elementary schools. Participants completed the scale and a peer-rating measure of bullying, victimization, and defending. The analyses indicated that the CCMDS could be considered a unidimensional gender-invariant scale with very good internal consistency and criterion validity. Importantly, the scale score aggregated at the classroom level was associated with three bullying behaviors: bullying, victimization, and defending. The results support the use of the CCMDS as a promising measure of CMD.     

Discriminators of Moral Orientation: Gender Role or Personality?

Gender role (i.e., masculinity and femininity), personality traits, age, and level of education were used as discriminators of moral orientation in an examination of their role in the process of moral decision making. Responses of adult participants indicated the justice orientation to be most strongly associated with personality characteristics of judging and intuition; the care orientation was most strongly associated with perceiving and sensing. Masculinity and femininity, however, contributed very little to the analysis. Results indicate moral orientation may be less differentiated by gender role patterns and more by characteristics of the personality, involving perception of information and type of judgment.     

“Intrinsically” or just “Instrumentally” Valuable? On Structural Types of Values of Scientific Knowledge

Debates about scientific (though rarely about otherforms of) knowledge, research policies or academic trainingoften involve a controversy about whether scientificknowledge possesses just “instrumental” value or also “intrinsic” value. Questioning this common simpleopposition, I scrutinize the issues involved in terms of agreater variety of structural types of values attributableto (scientific) knowledge. (Intermittently, I address thepuzzling habit of attributing “intrinsic” value to quitedifferent things, e.g. also to nature, in environmentalethics.) After some remarks on relevant broader philosophicaldebates about scientific knowledge, I pave a path throughthe (terminological) thicket of structural types of values. Our initial simple opposition is shown to conflate thedistinctions intrinsic/extrinsic and instrumental (or justuseful)/final. Next, I consider the value(s) of knowledgeand knowing in general and their possible value components(like the values of truth and justifiedness). After havingdiscussed the types of value of everyday knowledge,especially its functional and constitutive value (notionsintroduced earlier), I argue that these can or should alsobe attributed to scientific knowledge, thus departing fromboth objectivist and sociological views of science. One could say that I offer a certain defense of theintrinsic value of scientific knowing (and the inherentvalue of scientific knowledge) and some importantdifferentiations of its “instrumental values”. I alsocaution (in relation with my puzzle) against drawing hastymoral conclusions. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

帛书《易传》四篇天人道德观析论

本文通过对帛书易传<二三子问>、<易之义>、<要>、<缪和、昭力>四篇的分析,认为帛传四篇为孔子<易>论,其中包涵着<论语>、<孔子集语>、传世本<易传>等反映孔子思想的传世文献所隐微罕见的天人道德观念;帛传四篇表现了孔子在涵括三代以至春秋新旧天人观念的基础上对于天人内涵的初步的哲学改造,反映了孔子将传统的主宰之天转化为道德之天、并将传统的主体对于形上存在的外在超越关系转化为内在超越关系的致思取向,从而凸显了孔子作为当时敏锐而深邃的思想家的形象;帛传四篇所涵具的孔子天人道德思想补足了三代天命德政观与思孟天道性命思想之间的逻辑缺环,是经由曾子(<天圆>)而达致<中庸>、郭店儒家简、<孟子>乃至传世本<易传>所体现的天道性命思想高峰的理论根据.     

The Independence of Practical Ethics

After criticizing three common conceptions of therelationship between practical ethics and ethical theory, analternative modeled on Aristotle's conception of the relationshipbetween rhetoric and philosophical ethics is explored. Thisaccount is unique in that it neither denigrates the project ofsearching for an adequate comprehensive ethical theory norsubordinates practical ethics to that project. Because the purpose of practical ethics, on this view, is tosecure the cooperation of other persons in a way that respectstheir status as free and equal, it seeks to influence thejudgments of others by providing them with reasons that areaccessible to their own understanding. On this account, theindependence of practical ethics is rooted in an appreciation ofthe constraints that non-ideal circumstances place on the rolethat the philosophically refined premises of moral theory canplay in such public deliberations. Practical and philosophicalethics are united, not by shared theoretical frameworks orprinciples, but by the need to exercise intelligently the sameintellectual and affective capacities. They are separated, notby the particularity or generality of their starting points, butby their responsiveness to the practical problem of facilitatingsound normative deliberations among persons as we find them,under non-ideal circumstances.     

青少年网络道德与其网络亲社会行为的关系

青少年是互联网的最大用户群体,他们的网络道德和亲社会行为表现值得关注。该研究使用问卷法探讨了447名中学生网络道德和网络亲社会行为的特点及其之间的关系,发现：青少年的网络道德较积极;青少年在网络环境中表现的亲社会行为类型由高到低依次为:紧急型、利他型、情绪型、匿名型、依从型、公开型,其网络亲社会行为水平较高;青少年的网络亲社会行为水平随年级升高而下降;网络道德认知和网络道德情感对网络亲社会行为有正向预测作用.