Value and Obligation Once More

In Understanding Moral Obligation (2012), Robert Stern sets out to provide a fresh interpretation of the role of autonomy in Kant's moral philosophy and attempts to rectify J. B. Schneewind's standard account in The Invention of Autonomy (1998). While Stern agrees that Kant's resort to autonomy is at the basis of a constructivist account of moral obligation, he claims that autonomy plays no role in Kant's theory of value, such that, in this respect, Kant remains a realist. Accordingly, Stern characterizes Kant's moral philosophy as a “hybrid” view because he sees it as involving a compromise between realism with regard to value and constructivism with regard to obligation. Stern's interpretation relies on a sharp distinction between value and obligation. The purpose of the present article is to question Stern's reliance on that rigid distinction, which involves intermixing theoretical and practical reason and assumes a distorted view of human agency.     

Guilt feelings and the intelligibility of moral duties

G.E.M. Anscombe argued that we should dispense with deontic concepts when doing ethics, if it is psychologically possible to do so. In response, I contend that deontic concepts are constitutive of the common moral experience of guilt. This has two consequences for Anscombe's position. First, seeing that guilt is a deontic emotion, we should recognize that Anscombe's qualification on her thesis applies: psychologically, we need deontology to understand our obligations and hence whether our guilt is warranted. Second, the fact that guilt is a deontic moral emotion debunks Anscombe's claim that deontic concepts are a relic of the Western, religious past: guilt feelings–hence the idea of moral duty as well–can be found in cultures without an ethics of divine command. Modern moral philosophers' interest in oughts and obligations is not an academic hobbyhorse, but a vital concern arising out of a primeval human emotion.     

Relations between forms and functions of aggression and moral judgments of aggressive transgressions

The present study sought to examine the influence of aggressive behavior, psychopathy, and gender on moral judgments of aggressive transgressions. A two-dimensional conceptualization of aggression was used, such that proactive relational aggression, reactive relational aggression, proactive physical aggression, and reactive physical aggression were treated as distinct subtypes of aggression and also as distinct subtypes of moral judgments of aggression. Participants were 421 emerging adults (215 women). Self-report measures of aggression, psychopathy, and moral judgments were collected. Peer-reports of aggression and psychopathy were obtained from a randomly assigned subsample of 73 participants (46 women) for validity purposes. Unique associations were found between subtypes of aggression and corresponding moral judgments of the same subtypes.     

新型冠状病毒疫情影响下大学生对医生角色行为的道德判断研究

2020年初,在我国发生了新型冠状病毒引发的重大疫情,医生是战“疫”的重要角色,也是最受关注的职业群体。这次疫情是否改变了以往因医患矛盾而引发的大众对医生的道德判断?本研究采用徐科朋(2019)编制的道德判断材料,以非医护专业大学生为被试,用实验法分别比较了疫情前和疫情中大学生对医生道德和不道德行为的判断。结果发现:(1)疫情前大学生对医生在公平行为上的赞扬程度显著高于疫情中,疫情中大学生对医生在关爱、忠诚、权威行为上,赞扬程度显著高于疫情前。(2)在整体不道德行为上,疫情中大学生均对医生的评价比对照组严格。疫情前大学生对医生在背叛、颠覆行为上的评价要比对照组宽松。疫情中大学生对医生在伤害、背叛、堕落行为上的评价要比对照组严格。(3)疫情中,大学生对医生在整体不道德行为和各维度不道德行为上的评价较疫情前均更加严格。     

Learning through observing: Effects of modeling truth‐ and lie‐telling on children’s honesty

The current study examined the influence of observing another's lie‐ or truth‐telling – and its consequences – on children's own honesty about a transgression. Children (N = 224, 5–8 years of age) observed an experimenter (E) tell the truth or lie about a minor transgression in one of five conditions: (a) Truth‐Positive Outcome – E told the truth with a positive outcome; (b) Truth‐Negative Outcome – E told the truth with a negative outcome; (c) Lie‐Positive Outcome – E lied with a positive outcome; (d) Lie‐Negative Outcome – E lied with a negative outcome; (e) Control – E did not tell a lie or tell the truth. Later, to examine children's truth‐ or lie‐telling behavior, children participated in a temptation resistance paradigm where they were told not to peek at a trivia question answer. They either peeked or not, and subsequently lied or told the truth about that behavior. Additionally, children were asked to give moral evaluations of different truth‐ and lie‐telling vignettes. Overall, 85% of children lied. Children were less likely to lie about their own transgression in the TRP when they had previously witnessed the experimenter tell the truth with a positive outcome or tell a lie with a negative outcome.     

First steps toward an understanding of procedural fairness

In four experiments, we tested whether 20‐month‐old infants are sensitive to violations of procedural impartiality. Participants were shown videos in which help was provided in two different ways. A main character provided help to two other agents either impartially, by helping them at the same time, or in a biased way, by helping one agent almost immediately while the other after a longer delay. Infants looked reliably longer at the biased than at the unbiased help scenarios despite the fact that in both scenarios help was provided to each beneficiary. This suggests that human infants can attend to departures from impartiality and, in their second year, they already show an initial understanding of procedural fairness.     

Toward ethical cognitive architectures for the development of artificial moral agents

New technologies based on artificial agents promise to change the next generation of autonomous systems and therefore our interaction with them. Systems based on artificial agents such as self-driving cars and social robots are examples of this technology that is seeking to improve the quality of people’s life. Cognitive architectures aim to create some of the most challenging artificial agents commonly known as bio-inspired cognitive agents. This type of artificial agent seeks to embody human-like intelligence in order to operate and solve problems in the real world as humans do. Moreover, some cognitive architectures such as Soar, LIDA, ACT-R, and iCub try to be fundamental architectures for the Artificial General Intelligence model of human cognition. Therefore, researchers in the machine ethics field face ethical questions related to what mechanisms an artificial agent must have for making moral decisions in order to ensure that their actions are always ethically right. This paper aims to identify some challenges that researchers need to solve in order to create ethical cognitive architectures. These cognitive architectures are characterized by the capacity to endow artificial agents with appropriate mechanisms to exhibit explicit ethical behavior. Additionally, we offer some reasons to develop ethical cognitive architectures. We hope that this study can be useful to guide future research on ethical cognitive architectures.     

勿以恶小而为之：滑坡效应的心理机制及预防策略

滑坡效应是指个体的不道德程度有随时间推移而逐渐加剧的倾向, 即不道德行为具有反复性和渐进性。它广泛存在于个体自身层面以及人际互动过程中, 会影响个体正常社会交往, 甚至阻碍社会和谐健康发展。滑坡效应的研究方式包括实验者操纵法和自发性欺骗法, 心理机制包括道德推脱、内隐偏差、自我非人化等, 对应的干预措施包括提升预防定向动机和塑造积极的描述性社会规范。未来研究可从心理过程和生理机制的角度进一步探讨滑坡效应的适用范围、神经干预方式等。     

道德“沾光”效应：道德评价对道德自我知觉及道德行为的影响

人们喜欢关注道德事件并表达自己的立场。以往研究发现回忆自己(而非他人)的道德行为能影响个体的道德自我知觉和道德行为。本研究关注参与道德评价是否会对个体的道德自我和道德行为产生影响。2个研究共同发现：(1)存在道德“沾光”效应：评价支持他人的道德事件,或反对他人的不道德事件,能提升个体的道德自我知觉;(2)道德评价通过提升道德自我知觉,进一步增加个体的道德行为。     

具身视角下道德概念净脏隐喻的特征、影响因素与未来展望

摘 要 基于概念隐喻理论与具身认知理论,身体净脏与道德概念存在隐喻联结;道德概念净脏隐喻具有心理现实性,并对道德判断产生一致性和补偿性效应;道德概念净脏隐喻的中介因素有厌恶情绪和道德自我意象,调节因素有身体敏感性和道德敏感性;未来研究应在道德概念净脏隐喻的神经机制、情境性、指向性、干预机制、文化差异等方面进行丰富和完善。