Moral Theory Research Articles

The role of Dark Triad personality traits in consumers’ counterfeit luxury consumption: a moderated mediation model

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine the influence of the Dark Triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy) on consumers’ purchase intentions for counterfeit luxury products via the mediating effect of moral disengagement, drawing on moral disengagement theory. Furthermore, descriptive norms are tested as a moderators of the mediated relationships between the Dark Triad personality traits and purchase intentions via moral disengagement based on trait activation theory.Design/methodology/approachTo test the hypotheses, a survey design is employed to gather primary data from 205 consumers. The final data are analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.FindingsThis study finds that moral disengagement mediates the relationships between (1) Machiavellianism, (2) psychopathy and purchase intentions. Descriptive norms are found to moderate the indirect effect of moral disengagement between psychopathy and purchase intentions.Originality/valueDark Triad personality traits are linked to various unethical behaviours. However, no studies have explored how Dark Triad personality traits influence consumers’ purchase intentions for counterfeit luxury products. This study sheds light on how consumers with high Dark Triad personality traits are more likely to be morally disengaged, thereby leading to purchase intentions for counterfeit luxury products, drawing on moral disengagement theory. Furthermore, this study demonstrates descriptive norms as the boundary condition for the mediating relationship between Dark Triad personality traits and purchase intentions via moral disengagement, drawing on trait activation theory. The findings can be used to formulate better strategies to counteract the phenomenon of counterfeit luxury consumption.

Islamic And Western Ethical Perspectives On Mandatory Vaccination Policy For Children In Malaysia

This study explores into the discussion of vaccination mandate for children in Malaysia from Islamic and Western ethical perspectives using the descriptive qualitative method of content analysis from journal articles and books as well as thematic analysis from the interviews with the Malaysian parents. Based on the study, the concept of Maslahah Mursalah and Maqasid Syariah were used from Islamic ethics and theory of Duty-based ethics (Deontology) and Utiliniarism (Ontology) were used from Western ethics to analyse the issue. The opinions of the parents of the Malaysian were studied as well and majority shows positive response towards the idea vaccination mandate for the children in Malaysia. The relation between these two distinct perspectives were explored to understand further before coming into conclusion that both of them shows relatively positive idea about vaccination mandate for children can be implemented in Malaysia with increase awareness and knowledge should be given to all parents prior punishing them for refusal.

Influence of perceived congruence in basic moral values on perceived level of ethical leadership: A Russophone organization case

Background This study investigates the influence of perceived follower–leader congruence in basic moral behaviors, as defined by the morality-as-cooperation theory (MAC), on the perceived level of ethical leadership. Although important for the leadership theory and practice, this association is scarcely covered by the literature. Methods The study employed a mixed-methods approach, consisting of a one-site quantitative survey in Phase 1 carried out in a Russophone logistics company, and a follow-up series of semi-structured interviews within the same population in Phase 2. Results The results of Phase 1 showed a moderate positive correlation (r(54) = [.34;.64], p < .05) between perceived congruence in each MAC element and the perceived level of ethical leadership, whereas the findings from Phase 2 demonstrated that this association is causal. Moreover, the research unexpectedly revealed that the influence of the congruence in care for kin, heroism, and deference is mediated by the congruence in loyalty to the group and reciprocity, with the significance level at p < .05 for all indirect effects. The study also found a moderating role of duration of leader’s moral behavior observation by followers. Conclusions This research advances ethical leadership literature by applying the MAC theory to studying the antecedents of the perceived leaders’ ethicality and revealing the mediating role of some basic moral values in assessing a leader’s ethicality. Besides, the study contributes to the cross-cultural validity of both MAC and ethical leadership theories by testing the respective instruments in a Russophone organization.

Generative AI and future education: a review, theoretical validation, and authors' perspective on challenges and solutions.

Generative AI (Gen AI), exemplified by ChatGPT, has witnessed a remarkable surge in popularity recently. This cutting-edge technology demonstrates an exceptional ability to produce human-like responses and engage in natural language conversations guided by context-appropriate prompts. However, its integration into education has become a subject of ongoing debate. This review examines the challenges of using Gen AI like ChatGPT in education and offers effective strategies. To retrieve relevant literature, a search of reputable databases was conducted, resulting in the inclusion of twenty-two publications. Using Atlas.ti, the analysis reflected six primary challenges with plagiarism as the most prevalent issue, closely followed by responsibility and accountability challenges. Concerns were also raised about privacy, data protection, safety, and security risks, as well as discrimination and bias. Additionally, there were challenges about the loss of soft skills and the risks of the digital divide. To address these challenges, a number of strategies were identified and subjected to critical evaluation to assess their practicality. Most of them were practical and align with the ethical and pedagogical theories. Within the prevalent concepts, "ChatGPT" emerged as the most frequent one, followed by "AI," "student," "research," and "education," highlighting a growing trend in educational discourse. Moreover, close collaboration was evident among the leading countries, all forming a single cluster, led by the United States. This comprehensive review provides implications, recommendations, and future prospects concerning the use of generative AI in education.

The Ethics of Clinical Ethics.

The concept ethics defines health care ethics as a professional practice. Yet the meaning of "ethics" is often unclear in the theory and practice of clinical ethics. Clarity on this matter is crucial for understanding the nature of clinical ethics and for debates about the professional identity and proper role of ethicists, the sort of training and skills they should possess, and whether they have ethics expertise. This article examines two different ways the ethics of clinical ethics can be understood: Real Ethics, which consists of objective moral norms grounded in moral truth; and Conventional Ethics, which consists of conventional norms grounded in bioethical consensus. Drawing on the bioethics literature and features of professional practice, it shows that Conventional Ethics is the dominant paradigm. Then it presents a critique of Conventional Ethics, arguing that it cannot avoid the challenge of moral pluralism, it fails to address vitally important moral questions, and it is incapable of providing an essential service to the people ethicists aim to help. It ends with suggestions about how the practice of clinical ethics might overcome these problems.

Do counselor candidates have individualizing or binding moral foundations?

ABSTRACT Recent research has highlighted the application of moral foundations theory in counseling settings as it can provide a complex framework to understand the concept of morality, moral diversity, values, and decision-making processes. The emergence and development of social justice and multicultural counseling competencies has particularly raised important concerns regarding the application of values in counseling. The present study examined moral foundations as predictors of counseling students’ universality – diversity orientation. Three hundred and fifty-six counseling students at the undergraduate level participated in the research (M age = 21.86, SD = 2.26, 77.1% female). The results of a series of multiple regression analyses indicated that individualizing foundations were stronger predictors of universality – diversity orientation. Fairness was the only significant predictor of the behavioral aspect of universality – diversity orientation (diversity of contact), while fairness and care robustly predicted the cognitive aspect of universality – diversity orientation (relativistic appreciation). Care, authority, and loyalty significantly predicted the emotional aspect (comfort with differences). Overall, these results suggest that the participating counselor candidates were more likely to rely on individualizing foundations for cultural competence.

Ethical reasoning in technology: using computational approaches to integrate ethics into AI systems

Purpose This paper does not concern with the “why” of ethics. Such questions are typically of interest to philosophers and are outside the scope of this work. In the next section, the authors offer a look into “what” of ethics, i.e. various types and subtypes of ethics. Subsequently, the authors explore “how” of ethics, by summarising various computational approaches to ethical reasoning offered by researchers in the field. Design/methodology/approach The approaches are classified based on the application domain, ethical theory, agent type and design paradigm adopted. Moreover, promising research directions towards ethical reasoning are also presented. Findings Since the field is essentially interdisciplinary in nature, collaborative research from such areas as neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, law and social sciences is necessary. It is hoped that this paper offers much needed insight into computational approaches for ethical reasoning paving way for researchers to further engage with the question. Originality/value In this paper, the authors discussed vaious computational approaches proposed by researchers to implement ethics. Although none of the approaches adequately answer the question, it is necessary to engage with the research effort to make a substantial contribution to the emerging research area. Though some effort has been made in the design of logic-based systems, they are largely in stages of infancy and merit considerable research.

Democracy and Climate Change for Realists: An Integrated Empirical and Normative Assessment

Abstract When scholars consider the relation between domestic political regimes and global climate change, they typically rely on assumptions about liberal democracy's core competencies with respect to environmental protection in general. As a result, an ostensibly normative debate pitting democracy against “eco-authoritarianism” depends for its resolution on causal theory and empirical analysis. I offer an integrated assessment of both empirical (causal) and normative (ethical) theories on democracy, autocracy, and climate change, concluding that democracy's superiority is less compellingly supported than regime-neutrality. Theoretically, the causal logic of environmentally protective democracy cannot readily be extended to climate change as a distinctive political problem. Empirically, my review of global statistical analyses of regime type and climate change reveals that the evidence is more consistent with regime-neutrality than democratic advantage. Regime-neutrality, in turn, revitalizes difficult normative arguments about trade-offs between democratic freedom and climatic stability. Something resembling the “win-win” situation of climate-fixing democracy may still be salvaged, theoretically. But political science's search for this outcome should take a realist turn: abandoning the liberal-authoritarian dichotomy in favor of a new one, pitting post-liberal forms of democracy against climate-fixing hybrid regimes.

Ethics and ontology: comparing Amartya Sen’s ethics and Tony Lawson’s Critical Ethical Naturalism

Abstract While Sen’s ethics, particularly through his capability approach, are recognised for their critical nature and alignment with certain realist ontological principles, this paper explores the compatibility and potential tensions between Sen’s framework and Critical Ethical Naturalism (CEN), an ethical theory introduced by Tony Lawson. This comparative exercise reveals that Sen’s adoption of realist ontological notions such as openness, relationality and the importance of process and institutions suggests compatibility with CEN—a potential compatibility noted by Lawson himself. However, there is also an important difference between Sen’s moral theory and CEN, which indicates the possibility of further fundamental tensions between them. This difference lies in their divergent orientations regarding the content and relevance of ontology. Sen’s project is shown to be predicated on the irrelevance of ontology to ethical theorising, which contrasts sharply with Lawson’s framework; indeed, the whole point of Lawson’s approach is to develop an ethical theory grounded on an explicit ontological account. Through a detailed examination of Sen’s reluctance to engage with ontology, an exploration of potential sources of this reticence and an analysis of the explicit ontological basis of CEN, the paper highlights fundamental distinctions between Sen’s approach and CEN.

Courageous, Fearful, Bureaucratic, and Quantum Organizational Types, and Personal Ethics

Integrating the perspective of the values in action classification theory (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), which asserts that personal attributes, such as fearlessness, authenticity, enthusiasm, and perseverance, create courage, and the deontological theory of ethics (Kant, 1996), which posits that what is wrong for one person to do is wrong for anyone and that morality is for everybody, this research examined four organizational types—courageous, fearful, bureaucratic, and quantum—to determine their effects on ethical behavior. The type of organization an employee works in can influence ethical behavior regarding supporting fairness and dignity, advocating for personal beliefs, challenging discrimination, defending colleagues’ rights, empowering underrepresented voices, and championing meritocracy and inclusivity (Kilmann et al., 2002). A statistically significant difference between fearful and quantum organizations was identified. This research affirms that individuals who worked in fearful organizations rated lower on personal ethics than those in quantum organizations, who rated higher on personal ethics. Furthermore, ethnicity emerged as the only statistically significant socio-demographic variable regarding the relationship between organizational type and personal ethics.

Moral uncertainty for consequentialists

Abstract How might an agent's moral uncertainty affect what they ought to do? One approach posits principles independent of all first-order moral theories to provide impartial guidance to those uncertain about which moral theory is true; a popular candidate is the principle of maximizing expected choiceworthiness (MEC). Another approach focuses on what first-order moral theories themselves might say about the moral implications of moral uncertainty. This paper considers the latter question in the context of consequentialism by exploring how two consequentialist strategies for dealing with non-moral uncertainty could be extended to moral uncertainty. My conclusion is that a consequentialist could plausibly adopt maximizing expected goodness as a standard of rightness, but not MEC, and that neither is likely to be part of the best consequentialist decision procedure. This result refutes the common suspicion that MEC represents a distinctively consequentialist approach to moral uncertainty.

Ethics Education from Suffering on Screen?

In this paper I argue that tragic films can have significant potential for ethics education when they prompt audiences to sympathise with suffering on screen. I first summarise two accounts of the relationship between tragic art, moral education and aesthetic value (those provided by Rorty and Lamarque). I then discuss problems with these accounts and explain how a new criterion of aesthetic value might help to resolve them. I thereafter argue that tragic films have potential to ethically educate audiences in a way that enhances the aesthetic value of the films in at least three directions: by deepening moral understanding, by deepening understanding of the nature of human being and ethical purpose and by deepening understanding of ethical theory. I conclude by showing how Denis Villeneuve’s film, Arrival, screens a tragic story with ethics education potential in each of the aforementioned senses.

Moral foundations messaging to improve vaccine attitudes: An online randomized experiment from Argentina.

The uptake of routine childhood vaccinations has declined globally since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, due in part to increased vaccine hesitancy among parents. The Moral Foundations Theory proposes six foundations which can be targeted to increase vaccine uptake. In this study, we tested whether a post by UNICEF with a purity violation message could affect vaccine attitudes among parents in Argentina, where routine immunization coverage has been declining since 2014. Using an online randomized controlled survey experiment, we included 1,511 parents with a child under 12 years in Argentina. Outcomes were measured on the Vaccine Trust Indicator (VTI). We found that the purity violation message significantly affected vaccine attitudes: 80% of the intervention group scored high on the Vaccine Trust Indicator, compared to 73% in the control group (coefficient: 0.33, 95% Confidence Interval 0.20-0.47). Vaccine messaging framed as a purity violation is a promising way to improve vaccine attitudes among parents.

Avicenna's Logic of Ethics

This article deals with the logic of ethical propositions, i.e. the reason for the integrity of ethical rules from Avicenna's point of view. It begins with the consideration of Ara-e Mahmoudeh (accepted norms), the philosopher's first and most famous keyword, which describes the essence of ethics and explains the reason for its observance in a person's life. Considering Avicenna's logic of ethics and through critical analysis, two new conclusions can be stated: 1) Avicenna's ethics is compatible with contemporary evolutionary explanations of ethics due to its non-platonic character, practicality and minimal rationality. 2) The path taken by Avicenna in his book "Al-Isharat wal-tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions)", which leads from logic to mysticism, can be continued in his ethical theory metaphorically and certainly through a relatively free reading. In the sense that a person's ethical choice begins with the motive of fulfilling biological needs and human interactions, but the correspondence of an ethical action with nature and the rhythm of life accelerates the continuation of ethical choice and finally interprets a mystical life with a meaning that corresponds to the psychological-evolutionary descriptions of mysticism.

Thought Experiments in Design Ethics

How is the designer to approach questions of responsibility, obligation, or right and wrong in relation to their role in creating, sustaining and altering the complex worlds which we inhabit together? Every design decision stands as the first teetering domino at the head of an infinitely complex fractal chain reaction of consequences, the full repercussions of which are ultimately unforeseeable. The moment of ethical crisis – being faced with a range of possible options and lacking a fully adequate knowledge of which path is best to choose – is an unavoidable component of the design process. Ethical theories, principles, codes and rules always lag one step behind the frontier of the new, the territory in which design operates. Recognising that ethical crisis is an integral reality of the design process, how can designers be best supported and equipped for this challenge? This paper explores one path towards this aim, presenting the case for the use of philosophical thought experiments as appropriate and useful devices for developing capacities for ethical thinking and for nurturing a transformed ethical mindset within practising designers. Thought experiments do not directly guide or provide knowledge or answers as to the ‘right’ thing to do in any given situation. Rather, the argument is presented here that thought experiments can stimulate productive conditions in which designers can learn not to ‘know ethics’ but to ‘think ethics’. By playing these mind games, the designer can exercise and strengthen their mental capacities for responding to ethical encounters within the complexity of real-world design practice.

Building ethical awareness to strengthen co-production for transformation

AbstractAwareness of different ethical theories can support transformation-oriented researchers in navigating value-based decisions in co-production. We synthesize and explicitly link the literature on co-production and ethical theories in philosophy to initiate this awareness. Four key decision points in co-production projects are outlined that require value-based actions: (1) what to focus on, (2) who to include, (3) how to co-create and (4) how to continue. To discuss how project actions can be examined from different ethical perspectives, we synthesize the claims of four ethical theories and discuss them in the context of co-production project choices. The four ethical theories are: deontological ethics, utilitarianism, contractualism and virtue ethics. Overall, we argue for embracing pluralistic ethical perspectives when navigating decisions in co-production projects.

Surrendering Noble Lies Where We Buried the Bodies: Formative Civic Education for Embodied Citizenship

AbstractTo enact democracy, which is to live in communication with difference, requires a formative process that involves an education of the whole person for and through civic life. Drawing on Charles Mills's theory of Herrenvolk ethics and Jonathan Lear's analysis of psychosocial lapses that ail us, Sheron Fraser‐Burgess and Chris Higgins pursue a critical, historiographical, and psychosocial reading of our failures to live up to this aspiration, offering (1) a critique of our tendency to saddle ourselves with a false choice between a homogenizing unity and a differentiated but fractured republic; (2) a demonstration of why we must eschew a thin universalism of principles and confront difference as embodied; (3) an argument from the ethics of risk against the urge to reify and compartmentalize difference; and (4) an evocation of how deep pluralism itself might serve as a unifying creed. Civic education is not a matter of informing but of forming and cultivating vision and values. In pursuing the credal deep pluralism that is required to do justice to the prospects and perils of our democracy‐in‐the‐making, the task of the formative educator may be more difficult; but by embracing this creed, teachers may inspire their students to do the same.

Moral foundations and political ideology in the UK

Moral foundations theory is one of the most popularised and tested lenses of recent years, with its ability to account for differences in political ideology. For the first time using a nationally representative random probability sample, we assess how the newly refined moral foundation questionnaire may explain differences in political ideology and views on political issues in the UK. We confirm a six-factor model with robust estimates for the moral intuitions of care, equality, proportionality, authority, loyalty, and purity. We then use moral intuitions to predict (a) economic left-right and socially liberal-conservative ideology and (b) the relationship between political ideology and views on salient political issues. We find moral intuitions mostly play a unifying role across a series of issues, with the exception of feelings toward patriotism and Brexit.

Moral Comments in Social Media: Analyzing the Role of Ideology-Matching Moral Framing and Impression Motivation in the Persuasive Effect of User Comments on YouTube

ABSTRACT This research explores how users form attitudes when they are presented with online videos and moral comments from their fellow audience. Based on the Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM) and Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), the study aims to find out how different moral foundations represented in user comments interact with the motivational state, the political orientation, and the moral beliefs of the viewer. In two pre-registered experiments (N = 314 and N = 1015), the inclusion of moral arguments within comments below a YouTube video (harm vs. authority), their valence (positive vs. negative) and the participants’ motivational states (high vs. low impression motivation) were varied. While Experiment 1 revealed no significant effects regarding the persuasive effect of user comments and accompanying moral arguments, Experiment 2 showed a more general effect of comment valence on viewers’ attitude formation. These results help to specify the conditions under which user comments may lead individuals to construct their attitude in a way that fits the perceived majority opinion.

Binaries and Blurred Lines: The Ethical Stress of Child Protection Social Work in the Grey of Extra-Familial Harm

ABSTRACT Social care responses to extra-familial harm require social workers to work across the binaries of welfare and justice, victim and perpetrator, parent and professional, risk and protection. This paper examines the ethical consequences of working in this manner, through qualitative data (focus groups, interviews, observations, case file analysis and documentary review) from three children's social care organisations in England who trialled new child protection pathways for significant harm outside of family homes/relationships. The extent to which these pathways created five conditions for a welfare response to extra-familial harm are considered, before these results are brought into conversation with Bourdieu’s meta theory of capital, habitus and doxa, and Fenton's practice theory of ethical stress. The challenges identified evidence of the importance foregrounding social work values in the pursuit of welfare-based response to extra-familial harm. They also offer a rationale for studying theories of care ethics in social work in the context of interagency practice.