Moral Worth and Doing the Right Thing by Accident

Kantian conceptions of moral worth are thought to enjoy an advantage over their rivals in virtue of accommodating two plausible intuitions—that the praiseworthiness of an action is never accidental, and that how an agent might have acted in other circumstances does not determine the moral worth of her actual conduct. In this paper, I argue that neither the Kantian nor her rivals can adequately accommodate both intuitions, in as much as non-accidentality presupposes counterfactual robustness. If we are to adequately accommodate both claims, then we must reconsider the kind of non-accidentality that really matters to moral worth. I propose that the kind of non-accidentality worth caring about requires only that the agent who does what is right acts competently from morally relevant concerns. Under this account, both the Kantian and (some of) her rivals can ensure that the praiseworthiness of an action is never accidental without counting the behaviour of non-actual agents as being relevant to assessments of moral worth.     

Abusive supervision,leader-member exchange,and moral disengagement: A moderated-mediation model of organizational deviance

This paper draws from social exchange theory and social cognitive theory to explore moral disengagement as a potential mediator of the relationship between abusive supervision and organizational deviance. We also explore the moderating effect of leader-member exchange (LMX) on this mediated relationship. Results indicate that employees with abusive supervisors engaged in moral disengagement strategies and subsequently in organizational deviance behaviors. Additionally, this relationship was stronger for those higher in LMX. Important implications for management research and practice are discussed.     

Hope as an irreducible concept

I argue for a novel answer to the question “What is hope?”. On my view, rather than aiming for a compound account, i.e. analysing hope in terms of desire and belief, we should understand hope as an irreducible concept. After criticizing influential compound accounts of hope, I discuss Segal and Textor's alternative of describing hope as a primitive mental state. While Segal and Textor argue that available developments of the standard definition do not offer sufficient conditions for hope, I question the deep‐seated idea that desire and belief are even necessary conditions for hope. My suggestion is that we should take seriously the fact that we hope in a great variety of ways and should question the search for elements that are common to all cases. A promising alternative follows the Wittgensteinian idea that cases of hope are related in terms of family resemblance, i.e. are multiply realizable on the ontological level while falling under the non‐definable concept of hope.     

A meta-analysis of the relationship between moral disengagement and bullying roles in youth

Over the last several years, researchers have become increasingly interested in the influence of moral factors on bullying behaviors. This is the first meta-analytic review to exclusively examine the relationship between moral disengagement (MD) and the key bullying roles of bully, victim, defender, and bystander. Forty-seven independent samples examining a total of 43,809 children/adolescents (aged 7–19) were included in this meta-analysis. Results indicated a positive relationship between MD and bullying (r = 0.31; 95% CI [0.27, 0.34]), MD and victimization (r = 0.08; 95% CI [0.05, 0.12]), and a negative relationship between MD and defending (r = −0.11; 95% CI [−0.17, −0.04]). No significant relationship was found for MD and bystanding behavior. Moderators of bullying type (traditional vs. cyberbullying), reporting type (self vs. peer report), age, and gender were included in the analyses. The results are discussed in the context of relevant literature with particular emphasis on the importance of distinguishing between guilty and unconcerned bystanders, and the significant overlap between bullying and victimization in the cyber context.     

MORALITY THROUGH INQUIRY,MOTIVE THROUGH RHETORIC: THE POLITICS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE EPOCH OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

In an epoch marked by the threat of global warming, the conflicts between science and religion are no longer simply matters that concern only intellectual elites and armchair philosophers; they are in many ways matters that will determine the degree to which we can meet the challenges of our times. John H. Evans's Morals Not Knowledge represents an important provocation for those committed not only to using scientific method as a resource for making moral judgments but also to creating political alliances with religious constituencies. In this important work, Evans argues that most conflicts between science and religion do not concern a clash between two contradictory ways of knowing, but rather a clash over our moral responsibilities and ultimate values. In my response to his work, I suggest that integrating both John Dewey's pragmatic understanding of the moral situation and Kenneth Burke's rhetorical interpretation of motives helps bolster Evans's cause and provides support for a political movement that aims to bridge the divide between science and religion in the epoch of the Anthropocene.     

Telling Others to Do What You Believe Is Morally Wrong: The Case of Confucius and Zai Wo

Can it ever be morally justifiable to tell others to do what we ourselves believe is morally wrong to do? The common sense answer is no. It seems that we should never tell others to do something if we think it is morally wrong to do that act. My first goal is to argue that in Analects 17.21, Confucius tells his disciple not to observe a ritual even though Confucius himself believes that it is morally wrong that one does not observe the ritual. My second goal is to argue against the common sense answer and explain how Confucius can be justified in telling his disciple to do what Confucius thought was wrong. The first justification has to do with telling someone to do what is second best when the person cannot do what is morally best. The second justification has to do with the role of a moral advisor.     

具身认知视角下的道德隐喻表征

道德隐喻已成为道德心理学研究的热点问题,随着具身认知相关理论的兴起,道德隐喻的具身研究逐渐展开。目前,具身道德隐喻的维度主要包括空间、温度、洁净、颜色、明暗、触觉、味觉、嗅觉等。具身道德隐喻的相关理论解释主要包括概念隐喻理论、具身认知理论、知觉符号理论和架构理论。今后的具身道德隐喻应更多的探讨跨文化的差异性,丰富道德隐喻具身维度的内容以及各维度之间的相关性,同时要引入道德隐喻的影响机制分析。     

Being dishonest about our prejudices: moral dissonance and self-justification

We applied the moral dissonance reduction framework, used to explain the maintenance of a positive self-concept in dishonest behavior, to understand self-justification of prejudice. Participants identified ambiguously negative intergroup behaviors, then evaluated those behaviors when performed by others and themselves. As predicted by moral dissonance reduction, participants were less critical of their own behavior when considering others’ behaviors before their own. In a third study directly comparing prejudiced and dishonest behavior, participants’ responses showed the greatest self-justification in the initial question about their behavior regardless of the content of the question, whereas subsequent questions showed more stability, consistent with the idea that participants adjusted their initial self-reports to avoid damage to their self-concepts.     

Why We Earthlings Should Colonize Mars!

Mars can and should be settled with Earth émigrés. For our generation and many that will follow, Mars is the New World. Exploration, settlement, and colonization are inherent in the human spirit. We earthlings must reject misleading prophesies such as the Malthusian fear that we are running out of resources on our planet. Resources abound off-Earth in space. Humanity's potential for growth is unlimited. Failure to terraform and colonize Mars would constitute a failure to live up to our human nature, and a betrayal of our responsibility as members of the community of life itself.     

Moral transgression during the Vietnam War: a path analysis of the psychological impact of veterans’ involvement in wartime atrocities

Background and Objectives: Involvement in wartime combat often conveys a number of deleterious outcomes, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, hostility, aggression, and suicidal ideation. Less studied is the effect of engagement in wartime atrocities, including witnessing and perpetrating abusive violence.

Design and Methods: This study employed path analysis to examine the direct effects of involvement in wartime atrocities on hostility, aggression, depression, and suicidal ideation independent of combat exposure, as well as the indirect effects via guilt and PTSD symptom severity among 603 help-seeking male Vietnam War veterans.

Results: Involvement in wartime atrocities was predictive of increased guilt, PTSD severity, hostility, aggression, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation after controlling for overall combat exposure. Combat-related guilt played a minor role in mediating the effect of atrocity involvement on depression and suicidal ideation. PTSD severity had a larger mediational effect. However, it still accounted for less than half of the total effect of involvement in wartime atrocities on hostility, aggression, and suicidal ideation.

Conclusions: These findings highlight the heightened risk conveyed by involvement in wartime atrocities and suggest that the psychological sequelae experienced following atrocity involvement may extend well beyond guilt and PTSD.