Voters’ Partisan Responses to Politicians’ Immoral Behavior

Politicians’ moral behaviors affect how voters evaluate them. But existing empirical research on the effects of politicians’ violations of moral standards pays little attention to the heterogeneous moral foundations of voters in assessing responses to violations. It also pays little attention to the ways partisan preferences shape responses. We examine voters’ heterogeneous evaluative and emotional responses to presumably immoral behaviors by politicians. We make use of moral foundation theory’s argument that people vary in the extent to which they endorse, value, and use the five universally available moral intuitions: care, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity. We report on a 5 × 3 between‐subjects experiment asking a random sample of 2,026 U.S. respondents to respond to politicians’ violations of different moral foundations. We randomly vary which of the five foundations is violated and the partisanship of the actor (Republic/Democrat/Nonpartisan). Results suggest that partisanship rather than moral foundations drives most of U.S. voters’ responses to moral foundations violations by politicians. These foundations seem malleable when partisan actors are involved. While Democrats in this sample show stronger negative emotional response to moral violations than Republicans, partisans of both parties express significantly greater negativity when a politician of the other party violates a moral foundation.     

The power of nonviolence: Confirming and explaining the success of nonviolent (rather than violent) political movements

Drawing on literatures on social movements and collective action, mentalization, and morality, four studies investigated whether a social movement's use of nonviolence can increase people's willingness to support and join the movement. In a correlational study with a nested design, across 23 movements perceived use of nonviolence predicted participants' willingness to support and join the movement (Study 1, n = 203). This effect was also found experimentally, with Americans supporting nonviolent movements more than violent ones, in hypothetical and real foreign countries (Study 2 and 3, ns = 606 and 373). Study 4 (n = 247) replicated the effects in participants' own country. The effects were transmitted by attribution of mental states to nonviolent movements and subsequent greater perceived morality (Study 2–4). This research demonstrates that nonviolence can benefit social movements in terms of support and mobilization potential, and that these benefits are rooted in perceptions of mental capacity, humanness, and morality.     

THE SCOPE AND IMPLICATIONS OF MORALS NOT KNOWLEDGE

I greatly appreciate the opportunity provided by the editor of Zygon to further develop the ideas in my book Morals Not Knowledge: Recasting the Contemporary U.S. Conflict between Religion and Science in conversation with four critical commentaries. It is an honor to have one's work focused upon so intently, and I greatly appreciate the time and effort of the critics. The book was quite intentionally written as a provocation, an attempt at agenda setting, and as a call for changing the thinking of the entire religion and science academic community. In my previous writings I have kept close to the data, allowing myself at best mid‐level conclusions, but this book is a foray into the abstraction and inevitable lack of precision required for high‐level generalization. I hope that it continues to be generative of debate.     

SCIENCE,RELIGION, AND ETHICS: THE BOYLE LECTURE 2019

How do we and should we decide what is morally right and what is morally wrong? For much of human history, the teachings of religion were presumed to provide either the answer, or much of the answer. Over time, two developments challenged this. The first was the establishment of the discipline of moral philosophy. Foundational texts, such as Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and the growth of coherent, nonreligious approaches to ethics, notably utilitarianism, served to marginalize the role of religion. And then, second, the twentieth century saw the rapid growth of evolutionary biology with an enthusiastic presumption that biology was the source of ethics. Here, I begin by discussing these developments and then examine the extent to which religion is still needed for a coherent account of ethics.     

民营企业家的创业心理研究

在当前全民创业、全面创新的时代背景下,许多研究者探讨了民营企业家的创业心理和创业历程,该文在参阅国内外企业家创业研究相关文献的基础上,根据当前创业心理研究的重点,着重阐述了民营企业家创业的心理动因与环境影响、创业的心理历程与企业发展、创业企业家的心理素质与胜任特征、创业的心理误区与决策失误、以及创业企业家的社会责任与利他行为等.     

论世俗道德的特点及其困境

世俗道德的产生是社会生活世俗化的必然结果,是经济发展的内在逻辑.它具有现实性、人本性和平凡性等特征.世俗道德不可避免地陷入利益主义、享乐主义和庸俗化等困境.只有"回到人本身",才能走出困境.     

"谦"的德性传统及其当代命运

The virtue of qian, one of the traditional Chinese virtues, usually refers to humbleness, humility and modesty. Ancient thinkers in China not only expounded on the meaning and basis of qian, but also argued for its value. It was usually thought that the value of qian rested in its ability to cultivate virtue, promote scholarship, get along with people, and maintain enterprises. Ancient thinkers in China placed so much emphasis on the virtue of qian that there was a tendency to overemphasize qian. There is also a tradition of qian in the West, which is less likely to become excessive compared to that in the East. Presently, Chinese society is transitioning into a modern society, but the virtue of qian still has value. While continuing to embrace its traditional essence, we should adopt useful aspects from the Western concept of qian to reshape the virtue of qian so that it conforms to modern Chinese society. Translated by Huang Deyuan from Daode Yu Wenming 뗀뗂폫컄쏷 (Morality and Civilization), 2007, (3): 18–24     

Common morality: comment on Beauchamp and Childress

The notion of common morality plays a prominent role in some of the most influential theories of biomedical ethics. Here, I focus on Beauchamp and Childress’s models in the fourth and fifth edition of Principles of Biomedical Ethics as well as on a revision that Beauchamp proposed in a recent article. Although there are significant differences in these works that require separate analysis, all include a role for common morality as starting point and normative framework for theory construction in combination with a coherence theory of moral justification. I defend to some extent the existence and empirical significance of common morality, as delineated by Beauchamp and Childress in different versions, but criticize its normative role. It is neither convincing as a moral foundation nor well compatible with a standard coherentist justification. I suggest that the authors should give up the foundational account for a more modest account of common morality as resource of well-established moral insights and experiences, which have proved generally valid but neither sufficient nor infallible. Beauchamp’s latest proposal appears as a step in this direction; indeed, it may be the beginning of the end of his common-morality theory.

道德具身认知的理论研究*

具身认知作为一种新兴思潮,强调身体经验及身体与环境的相互作用对于个体抽象概念及认知的作用。从具身认知的角度出发,考察身体和道德认知加工的关系已成为现今道德心理学和神经科学的研究热点。本文结合以往道德具身认知研究,介绍了概念隐喻理论、知觉符号理论、模拟感觉运动隐喻理论和进化理论四种道德具身认知理论,讨论并分析了现有理论研究中存在的矛盾与问题。未来的研究可在多文化背景下进行,并依靠认知神经科学技术对道德的具身认知机制进行更深入的探究。     

Pluralism and Ambivalence in the Evolution of Morality

Much good work has been done on the evolution of human morality by focusing on how “selfish genes” can give rise to altruistic human beings. A richer research program is needed, however, to take into account the ambivalence of naturally evolved biopsychological motivators and the historical pluralism of human morality in religious systems. Such a program is described here. A first step is to distinguish the ultimate cause of natural selection from proximate causes that are the results of natural selection. Next, some proximate causes are suggested as possible conditions of biological and emotional valuing as well as of customary social morality and individual rational ethical thought. Finally, different moral perspectives of Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity are briefly presented in order to illustrate how one might inquire about the selection of a variety of biopsychological and cultural proximate causes that enable the evolution of a plurality of religious moral systems.