Moral Experience Research Articles

Conscience as a higher moral capacity

The article is devoted to the psychological analysis of the concept “conscience”, which is considered in connection with the psychological model of spiritual capacities [the author’s previous works of 2010, 2016]. Conscience is described as a higher moral capacity related to the moral component/level of this model. The psychological frame of considering conscience within the psychological model of spiritual capacities allows emphasising its spiritual nature; explaining the dual nature of its manifestation – rationality/irrationality; showing its connection with higher meanings and absolute values, as well as spiritual and moral qualities, spiritual altruistic orientation, moral feelings and moral experience; noting its interaction with the higher capacities of all three components/levels of the model of spiritual capacities – moral, mental, transcendent. Conscience is interpreted as a regulator of moral behaviour, as a spiritual mentor, guiding a person on the path from the egocentric “I” to the spiritual “I”. Thanks to conscience, a person rises to the highest level of personality functioning – a spiritual one, at which it manifests itself as a spiritual personality, focused on the principles of absolute morality.

The problem of the synthesis of pedagogical strategy and moral practice in modern medical education (aspects of integrating international experience)

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of "medical humanities" as an independent interdisciplinary area of research, formed on the basis of the international experience integration as a reality. Тhe phenomenon is comprehended simultaneously in the field of Russian patristic tradition and medicine, since it focuses pedagogical strategy and moral practice. In the Russian spiritual tradition, it fits into the processes of educating humanity, which receives a modern consideration both in moral and religious categories, and in the categories of natural science, which are significant for medicine. Spirituality is the category of thinking that changes the idea of a person in the existing reductionist approach to his integrity in medicine. The action of the worldview of the individual is considered as a mandatory constant, which acts as a constructive mechanism for the transformation of the value foundations of thinking and ethical reflection. The fundamentals of spiritual and moral education and patristic experience make complex conditions for the restoration of humanitarian culture in medicine. The purpose of the process is to qualitatively change its anthropological, ethical and psychological components. Systemic humanitarian knowledge is main for medical education. The author reveals the significance of the positive convergence of the humanities for medicine.

Filozoficzna droga Paola Valoriego

Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie filozoficznej twórczości Paola Valoriego (1919–2003). Był on jednym z najważniejszych przedstawicieli fenomenologii we Włoszech. Analiza jego głównych tekstów pozwala zaprezentować drogę do zainteresowania fenomenologią, zwłaszcza koncepcję fenomenologicznej analizy doświadczenia moralnego. Valori ukazuje specyfikę doświadczenia moralnego, a także postuluje potrzebę ontologii moralnej. Artykuł ukazuje źródła tego przekonania oraz proponowane cechy takiej ontologii.

'I found myself a despicable being!': Medical students face disturbing moral dilemmas.

ContextThe psychological realm of medical students' moral experiences is explored tangentially in medical education literature, often in the context of ethics or professionalism education. This study deepens our understanding by (a) investigating the nature of moral dilemmas experienced at the onset of clinical practice, (b) exploring students' emotional response to these dilemmas, and (c) examining how students perceive the influence of these dilemmas on their professional development.MethodsThis is a cross‐sectional qualitative study carried out in 2017 that applied thematic template analysis to individual interviews performed with last‐year medical students. The interviews followed the drawing of a Rich Picture representing moral dilemmas experienced by medical students at the onset of clinical practice.ResultsMoral dilemmas have four intertwined dimensions. The first relates to students' struggle to prioritise, balance and apply conflicting moral values; the second comprises the clash between students' inner motivation and the external constraints that limit the moral action; the third refers to the conflict between students' current attitudes with the desired/idealised attitudes of the doctor they intend to become; and the fourth corresponds to weighting conflicting ethical principles during the moral decision. Students' emotional responses are intense and long‐lasting, and with a remarkable residue effect, particularly when the moral decision does not align with their moral beliefs. Moral dilemmas are impactful experiences that affect the professional development of medical students and can culminate in both detachment and growth in moral courage.ConclusionMoral dilemmas are memorable, complex and emotionally intense experiences that impact the professional development of medical students. Understanding students' moral dilemmas can help educators to devise pedagogical activities to anticipate and reflect on these experiences. These activities should happen under the guidance of a non‐judgemental facilitator, capable of listening and legitimating students' thoughts and feelings while providing insights to nurture their professional development.

Sex and Its Discontents: How Moral Incongruence Connects Same-Sex and Non-Marital Sexual Activity with Unhappiness.

A growing body of research has demonstrated how the link between pornography use and various manifestations of psychological distress and dissatisfaction is explained by moral incongruence-the experience of violating one's deeply held moral values. The predictive power of moral incongruence, however, has yet to be applied to other sexual activities. Drawing on data from available waves of the General Social Surveys (1988-2018: nmen = 6590, nwomen = 7047; 1989-2018: nmen = 3558, nwomen = 4841), this study extended moral incongruence theory by testing whether engaging in same-sex or non-marital sexual activity when one rejects either as morally wrong is associated with a greater likelihood of reporting unhappiness. Analyses demonstrated that American men (but not women) who reported engaging in same-sex sex in the previous year were more likely than other men to say they were unhappy, but only if they viewed homosexuality as "always wrong." Analyses also showed that American women (not men) who reported higher frequencies of non-marital sex in the previous year were more likely than other women to report being unhappy, but only if they viewed non-marital sex as "always wrong." Though nuanced by gender, findings affirmed expectations from moral incongruence research: Sexual behavior per se is not associated with unhappiness, but moral inconsistency or conflict regarding one's sexual behavior is.

Militantismo filosófico y espiritualidad política en Foucault

En los últimos cursos que impartió en el Collège de France, entre 1980 y 1984, Michel Foucault dio un protagonismo creciente en sus investigaciones al cinismo antiguo. Su estudio histórico de la ética antigua, orientado primero hacia la experiencia moral de los placeres, y luego al tema del cuidado de sí y de las prácticas ascéticas a través de las cuales se constituye la subjetividad en el marco de una estética de la existencia, termina con el ejemplo de los cínicos a causa del fallecimiento de Foucault en junio de 1984. No obstante, los cínicos parecen representar al final de esos análisis un momento privilegiado, en cierto modo una culminación. El presente artículo pretende indagar en las razones de ese privilegio sobre la hipótesis de que, en los cínicos, Foucault encuentra respuesta al problema del aspecto voluntario de las resistencias al poder.

Moral identity, moral self-efficacy, and moral elevation: A sequential mediation model predicting moral intentions and behaviour

ABSTRACT Witnessing acts of uncommon moral virtue can elicit feelings of moral elevation, which translate further into prosocial intentions and behaviour. Recent findings suggest that moral identity strengthens the elevation response after witnessing such acts. In the present paper, we propose that the positive relationship between moral identity and elevation is mediated by perceived moral self-efficacy (i.e. perceived ability to behave up to one’s moral standards), as a result of the moral vicarious experience. We present a set of five studies that tested the effect of moral identity (either measured or manipulated) and moral self-efficacy on elevation, prosocial intentions, and behaviour, following exposure to an act of uncommon virtue. Results supported a sequential mediation model: the positive effect of moral identity on elevation was mediated by moral self-efficacy; and elevation then mediated the effect of moral identity on prosocial intentions (Studies 3a-3b-4) and behaviour (Study 4). Implications and limitations are outlined.

Deployment Stressors in United States Air Force Nurses Associated with the Experience of Moral Distress

Deployment stressors among military service members are well-documented in the literature such as those related to the horrific experiences often encountered in a war setting. However, less known are the implications of military healthcare professionals providing clinical care in a deployed setting. Previously conducted research examined the experience of moral distress in U.S. Air Force Critical Care Air Transport (CCAT) nurses. A secondary analysis was completed to identify the deployment stressors which affected the nurses' experiences of moral distress. Utilizing an explanatory narrative qualitative approach, 15 previously transcribed interviews were analyzed to identify and describe stressors associated with moral distress experiences told by CCAT nurses in the earlier research study. While the identified stressors cannot be referred to as moral distress, the situation were precipitated or exacerbated by the deployment stressors. Eight themes, with descriptors, resulted from the analysis of interviews. Mitigating strategies to target deployment stressors related to the experience of moral distress may equip healthcare providers to better manage the encounters that arise in the deployed environment, thereby reducing its negative impact.

Foucault’s Political Theologies and the Traces of Liberation Theology in Latin America

ABSTRACT In this piece I explore resonances between Foucault's engagements with political theology and a localized political spirituality embedded in a vast popular uprising in Colombia's Afro-Pacific littoral in May of 2017. I follow the prompt of Foucault's late remarks regarding a “philosophy of the future” that would emerge beyond the frontiers of Europe, attentive to ideas that emerge in people's lived experiences and struggles on the ground; and moved by how life is affirmed otherwise in these practices of resistance. I approach the ethnographic site from this angle, to probe the potentialities and limitations of Foucault's “tactical pointers” for understanding the political force of the popular Catholicism that played a decisive role in this uprising. A form of Christianity that, in the heterogeneous and discontinuous traces of liberation theology in Latin America not only departs drastically from Foucault's characterization of Christianity in his genealogy of moral experience in the West, but also defies in intriguing ways his distinction between “liberation” and “practices of freedom”, and the conceptualization of resistance articulated around it.

Objective Purport, Relational Confirmation, and the Presumption of Moral Objectivism

All else being equal, can an objective-seeming character of moral experience support a presumption in favor of some form of moral objectivism? Don Loeb (2007) has argued that even if we grant that moral experience appears to present us with a realm of objective moral facts—something he denies we have reason to do in the first place—the objective purport of moral experience cannot by itself provide even prima facie support for moral objectivism. In what follows, I contend against Loeb that granting the objective purport of ordinary moral experience is sufficient to shift a presumptive case in favor of moral objectivism, and this by constituting non-explanatory, relational confirmation that incrementally raises the prima facie probability that moral facts exist. More specifically, I appeal to a modest confirmational principle shared by Likelihoodists and Bayesians—namely, the Weak Law of Likelihood—in an effort to show that (i) at a minimum, granting the objective purport of moral experience establishes a middling scrutable probability for a sufficient but not necessary condition of moral objectivism being true, and that (ii) this moderate probability in turn constitutes evidence that makes it prima facie more probable than not that at least some form of moral objectivism is true.

РЕТРОСПЕКТИВНЫЙ АНАЛИЗ ПРОБЛЕМЫ ПРИОБЩЕНИЯ ОСУЖДЕННЫХ К ЦЕННОСТЯМ ИСКУССТВА

The problem of socialization of the individual in the contradictory conditions of the country is one of the most urgent for modern Russia. The socio-cultural crisis has affected all the main spheres of our existence, led to the loss of many values, and affected the spiritual and moral sphere. In these conditions, it is important to know which deep regulators, that is, the motives of human actions – goals, traditions, emotions, needs and values drive the behavior of the individual. It seems to us that the active introduction of convicts to various types of art in the correctional and educational process will help to form positive value orientations of offenders, will contribute to their more successful moral correction. Meanwhile, the analysis of penitentiary practice reveals contradictions between the spiritual and moral potential of art and its lack of demand in the correctional process of penitentiary institutions, the presence of rich experience in moral and aesthetic education of the individual and the lack of technology for its implementation in places of deprivation of liberty, the insufficiency of modern professional training of specialists for the penal system. Therefore, problems related to the study, identification, description and understanding of general and specific ways, adequate methodological techniques that contribute to the formation of moral value orientations of convicts by means of art are relevant for science and practice. Works of art are not mechanically transformed into human actions, but undergo rethinking and selection in his moral experience, filling it with socially valuable content, contribute to the versatile development of personality, develop an aesthetic attitude to reality. A retrospective analysis of the introduction of convicts to the values of art will contribute to search new ways to correct the personality based on the principles of humanism and democracy.

An Ethnographic Study of the Moral Experiences of Children with Cancer in New Delhi, India

There is a paucity of research examining children’s experiences with cancer in India. Childhood ethics is an emerging field, focusing on the moral dimension of children’s experiences, to promote children’s participation in their health care. A focused ethnography, using a moral experience framework, was conducted to better understand children’s participation in decisions, discussions, and actions in three oncology settings in New Delhi, India. We interviewed key informants, retrieved key documents, and conducted semi-structured interviews and participant observations with children. All 22 children demonstrated interest in varying aspects of their cancer care. Certain factors facilitated or impeded their participation. Some children became distressed when they lacked information about their treatment or were not given opportunities to enhance their understanding. The results advance our understanding of the moral experiences of children with cancer in India for healthcare professionals, policy makers, families, and interested others.

ПЕРСОНИФИКАЦИЯ В ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОМ ТЕКСТЕ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ РОМАНА АРНО ДЕ ЛА ГРАНЖА «LES VENTS NOIRS» («ЧЁРНЫЕ ВЕТРЫ»)

The paper examines the denotata of personification in the novel "Les vents noirs" ("The Black Winds") by Arnaud de La Grange. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the material under study has resulted in the identification of the main groups of personifications in the emotive prose text: personification of objects, personification of abstract concepts, personification of physical (natural) phenomena. Within each group, subgroups have been identified based on semantic features. The group of physical (natural) phenomena includes denotata of meteorological phenomena, time of day, celestial bodies and the light they radiate. The group of abstract concepts covers a wide variety of denotata related to mental states, mental and physical abilities, moral experiences, military and political terms and the philosophical category of time. It has been figured out that the most frequent examples are personification of objects that include geographical objects, natural objects and related substances, human body parts, and objects related to the war. Those objects and phenomena that play a key role in the development of the novel have been personified. Personification as a part of the lexical system of the novel, serves as the most important means of constructing this emotive prose text.

Charles Taylor and Moral Realism: A Falsifiable Realism

This paper aims to come to grips with the moral realism of Charles Taylor by focusing on the debate between realists and nonrealists. I believe that a close examination of Taylor’s moral realism can express Taylor’s critical attitude to contemporary moral philosophy, it also brings out a new way which can face to the challenges of nonrealism. Ruth Abby argues that Taylor’s moral realism is different from two current popular realisms: strong and weak moral realism and she takes Taylor’s moral realism as a falsifiable realism. But some of Taylor’s commentators contend that his moral realism belongs to the strong side. However, there are also some claims that his realism is weak. I attempt to argue against those commentators and defend his moral realism as a falsifiable realism. As a result, the contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it reveals the defects of both strong moral realism and weak moral realism. Second, as a consequence, this analysis not only make us believe that Taylor’s moral realism does not belong to strong or weak side, but also his attention to individual’s moral life and experience has its own unique characteristic and superiority, It also illustrates the importance of good and why his realism is called a falsifiable realism.

Pilgrim Friending and the Place of Peace

William Clough and Mark Ellingsen both explore the goods, harms, and challenges brought by a new powerful digital social media. Clough uses perspectives from social sciences, ethics, and Biblical theology--self and society in reciprocal relation through language, art, institution, and God’s friending Word. He urges caution, applying universal ethics centered in love of God and neighbor, and respect for facts and science. Ellingsen applies brain sciences to explain social media downsides and encourage a balance of good habits and activities. This essay relates their contributions to human subjective, moral, interpersonal, communal, and religious experience and traditions. Protection in a place of peace amid social media may be fostered by realizing aspects of human life and nature unseen through the optics of modern sciences, in “pilgrim friending” toward virtues such as forgiveness, chastity, humility, and diligence, trusting and following God’s Holy friending received through nature, solitude, prayer, Scripture, and a covenant community.

Ethical reflexivity in qualitative research: the use of cinematographic movies as an instrument for continuous training.

to analyze ethically, aesthetically and politically the cine-debate of the movie "Human", reflecting on training of researchers in qualitative research. the debate about moral questions as the essence of humanity was based on Narrative Bioethics; the comprehensive, relational and reflective character of qualitative methods; and the ethical and social sense of qualitative researches. the narratives of the experiences of morality, loaded with facts and valuations, highlighting the importance of reflexivity in all phases of the qualitative research process, from thinking about themes and research questions to fieldwork, from data analysis to the production of reports, fostering the researcher's responsibility both in the intervention for understanding and narrating the world, and in its possible transformation. cinematographic art becomes an instrument of reflexivity capable of affecting and mobilizing students, in a fusion of horizons of understanding of different universes that dialogue.

Этика и психология (на примере исследования стыда)

The paper explores a number of approaches explaining the interaction between ethics and psychology. These approaches state that: а) appeals to psychological data are destructive to moral philosophy, b) such appeals are harmless, but are useless in creating a correct theoretical vision of morality, c) the interaction between ethics and psychology can be collaborative and involve some mutual correction of methodologies. The object of research is psychological and ethical studies of shame. The author characterizes briefly two main psychological interpretations of shame: a) as an emotion of self-assessment that requires a real or imagined external blame, b) as an emotion of self-assessment that is focused on the personal features of a transgressor. Against the background of this reconstruction, the author establishes how psychological studies of shame can use resources provided by an ethical analysis of the sense of morality and by the content of particular moral concepts. On the other hand, the author shows, how ethical studies of the subject can use moral psychology to get rid of some elements of subjectivism in the image of the common moral experience that they create. Such collaboration is possible in demarcating shame and guilt (where it helps to grasp the two-sided character of shame) as well as in evaluating these two emotions (here, it highlights complimentary nature of them). The proposed analysis suggests that the third approach to the interaction of ethics and psychology is more justified.

J. Butler and P. Strawson on resentment

Resentment is one of the most important morally significant phenomena. It is therefore not surprising that it has attracted much attention from moral philosophers. This paper explores two approaches to the philosophical conception of resentment. The first was developed in Early Modern by Joseph Butler. The second was proposed in the mid-twentieth century by P. Strawson. Butler offered his ideas about the nature of resentment within the framework of preaching, which, however, does not mean that the theological context of his argumentation subordinates its philosophical content. Butler’s theory is closely related to his ideas about human nature as something holistic: we need resentment to balance another moral emotion, compassion. Butler also distinguished two kinds of resentment: sudden and deliberate. Strawson, for his part, presented his views on the nature of resentment in an academic lecture, which was then published as an article. His reasoning concerns the relation between freedom, moral reactions, and determinism. Strawson attempts to show that our conception of freedom is closely tied to practices of moral responsibility, the existence of which has nothing to do with determinism. A key point of his argument is the claim that we should stop over-intellectualizing moral experience. If we abandon the intellectualist illusion, we will see in the factuality of moral practices something more than mere factuality. Everything that is necessary for morality is already there, in moral practice itself: desert, resentment, justice, etc. If one realizes this fact, the problem of free will is solved. I conclude this paper by comparing Butler’s and Strawson’s approaches.

"To Make an Example of Myself": The Problems of an Instructive Realism in Gottfried Keller's Der grüne Heinrich

This paper seeks to explore the links between the representative and instructive character of Gottfried Keller's Der grüne Heinrich. By examining the technique of fashioning "exemplary" characters, the author seeks to resolve the novellas conception of realism as a lived practice with Keller's deep skepticism that any representation can be adequate to moral experience. The paper concludes that what is ultimately held up as exemplary to the reader is the novel's circular structure, in which not only ways of living, but also metaethical concepts like conflict and resolution, are revealed to be necessary moments of the same infinitely unfolding process.

The Vicious Undertow of Vanity in Young Adult

The film Young Adult offers a striking example of vanity and its entanglement with other vices. Mavis Garry is prompted to return to her home town to woo a married, former beau out of vanity: an overweening desire to be admired for her appearance and authorship. Vanity involves wishing to be seen possessing something valuable that others lack and bestowing excessive attention on it, as in Mavis’s repeated physical preening and buffing. Because comparison is central to vanity, it contributes to Mavis’s envy. Vanity also encourages her arrogance by inflating Mavis’s distorted view of her self-worth. At the film’s climax, Mavis’s defects are publicly witnessed, producing in her the salutary moral experience of shame. However, Mavis’s incipient self-awareness and shame are dissipated by a few words from a fawning fan, as the undertow of vanity pulls Mavis beneath the clarity of the moral sensibility that was momentarily evoked by shame.