Moral injury and the ethics of teaching tainted legacies

Cases like that of John Howard Yoder – a pacifist theorist who perpetrated sexual violence – raise difficult questions about teaching material implicated in traumatic pasts. This paper argues that “moral injury” provides a useful framework for understanding the dynamics of teaching prominent cases of tainted legacies like Yoder's and for developing best pedagogical practices across the field of religious ethics. The moral injury framework empowers students to think critically and self‐reflectively about authority, conceptions of the good, the various stakes for different persons and communities in social issues, and the need for moral repair. It establishes the importance of professor and student preparation; propels students into the moral questioning and analysis that constitutes “ethics”; draws attention to the connections between and intersectionality of various moral problems while also attending to important moral distinctions; and affords opportunities to study individual and institutional efforts at moral repair.     

Kant and Hegel on purposive action

This essay discusses Kant and Hegel’s philosophies of action and the place of action within the general structure of their practical philosophy. We begin by briefly noting a few things that both unite and distinguish the two philosophers. In the sections that follow, we consider these and their corollaries in more detail. In so doing, we map their differences against those suggested by more standard readings that treat their accounts of action as less central to their practical philosophy. Section 2 discusses some central Kantian concepts (Freedom, Willkür, Wille, and Moral Law). In Section 3, we take a closer look at the distinction between internal and external action, as found in Kant’s philosophy of morality and legality. In Section 4, we turn to Hegel and his distinctions between abstract right (legality), morality, and ethical life, as well as the location of his account of action within his overall theory of morality. We discuss the distinction between Handlung and Tat, and non-imputable consequences. The overall aims of our essay are to shed light on some puzzles in Kant and Hegel’s conceptions and to examine where their exact disputes lie without taking a stand on which philosophy is ultimately the most satisfactory.     

Raising the Virtuous Bar: The Underlying Issues of Genetic Moral Enhancement

From the perspective of virtue ethics, is it possible and permissible to enhance moral behavior through gene modification? In preparation to answer this question, we must ask five questions: (1) What may we assume regarding genetic inheritance and human nature? (2) Can specific genes predispose behavior related to the moral virtues? (3) What kind of genetic enhancement would be useful for moral enhancement? (4) Should there be a distinction between somatic and germline gene modification? (5) Is genetic modification best approach to moral enhancement? This article concedes that genetic engineering has the capacity to enhance the human disposition to moral behavior, but gene editing cannot create virtue because virtues are stable, habituated dispositions, acquired over time. That being said, gene editing for purposes of enhancing moral behavior is permissible.     

道德信息对面孔吸引力判断的无意识调节

抽象语言信息是否能够影响知觉?本研究在审美领域对此进行考察,探索无意识获取的道德信息是否影响个体对相应面孔吸引力的知觉判断。结果发现个体对面孔吸引力的知觉判断受到内隐道德信息的调节,且调节效应与面孔本身吸引力水平无关; 另外,面孔审美判断的反应时受到道德美丑和面孔吸引力的共同影响,尤其当两类信息相矛盾时被试需要更长的时间进行判断。研究结果表明抽象的社会道德信息可以对面孔吸引力的知觉判断产生自上而下的调节。     

Psychometric Properties of a Chinese Version of the Moral Attentiveness Scale

This study focuses on the reliability and validation of the Chinese version of the Moral Attentiveness Scale. Factor analysis confirmed that the scale includes two factors: perceptual moral attentiveness and reflective moral attentiveness. Moral attentiveness is negatively correlated with normlessness and positively associated with internalization and symbolization, moral identity, and other academic dishonesty behaviors. Reflective moral attentiveness moderated the relationship between formalism and unethical decision making. All results showed that the Chinese version of the Moral Attentiveness Scale has satisfactory psychometric properties and is a valid and reliable measurement of moral attentiveness in the Chinese population.     

Characteristics Associated With Individuals’ Caring,Just, and Brave Expressions of the Tendency to Be a Moral Rebel

Extending previous research on the characteristics associated with adolescents’ general tendency to be a moral rebel (Sonnentag & Barnett, 2016), the present study examined the roles of moral identity and (general and situation-specific) moral courage characteristics on 3 (i.e., caring, just, and brave) expressions of the tendency to stand up for one’s beliefs and values despite social pressure not to do so. Results revealed that general and situation-specific moral courage characteristics are important motivators of individuals’ caring, just, and brave expressions of the tendency to be a moral rebel, especially when they possess a relatively strong moral identity.     

Moral (dis)engagement with anthropogenic climate change in online comments on newspaper articles

Anthropogenic climate change (ACC) is widely acknowledged to be morally significant, but little is known about everyday moralising around ACC. We addressed this gap via quantified thematic analysis of 300 online comments to British newspaper articles on ACC, drawing on Bandura's moral disengagement theory. Moral disengagement through denial of ACC was widespread. Other disengagement strategies, such as palliative comparison and diminishing agency, occurred less often. There was also some moral engagement, most often through assertions of the existence of ACC and/or its harmful effects. Moral disengagement was significantly more common in comments on right wing than left wing newspapers, whereas the opposite was true of moral engagement. Although Bandura's framework provided a useful starting point to make sense of ACC moralising, it did not capture moral concerns that extended beyond its “harm/care” remit. In particular, many “denial” comments included a “dishonesty” discourse, whereby ACC proponents were accused of deception for ulterior motives. To classify this discourse as moral disengagement obscures its engagement with a different set of moral issues around trust and honesty. We suggest that Bandura's theory represents one possible “moral landscape” around ACC and could be extended to encompass a broader range of moral concerns.     

Counter‐intuitive moral judgement following traumatic brain injury

Several neurological patient populations, including traumatic brain injury (TBI), appear to produce an abnormally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of judgements to moral dilemmas; they tend to make judgements that maximize the welfare of the majority, rather than deontological judgements based on the following of moral rules (e.g., do not harm others). However, this patient research has always used extreme dilemmas with highly valued moral rules (e.g., do not kill). Data from healthy participants, however, suggest that when a wider range of dilemmas are employed, involving less valued moral rules (e.g., do not lie), moral judgements demonstrate sensitivity to the psychological intuitiveness of the judgements, rather than their deontological or utilitarian content (Kahane et al., Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7, 2011, 393). We sought the moral judgements of 30 TBI participants and 30 controls on moral dilemmas where content (utilitarian/deontological) and intuition (intuitive/counter‐intuitive) were measured concurrently. Overall TBI participants made utilitarian judgements in equal proportions to controls; disproportionately favouring utilitarian judgements only when they were counter‐intuitive, and deontological judgements only when they were counter‐intuitive. These results speak against the view that TBI causes a specific utilitarian bias, suggesting instead that moral intuition is broadly disrupted following TBI.