Moral Intention Research Articles

The Software Piracy Decision-Making Process of Chinese Computer Users

Drawing on Jones's ethical model and Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, this study proposes and tests an integrative model for the decision-making process underlying software piracy. Survey data collected from computer users in Guangzhou, China, in accordance with two software piracy scenarios under study—end user piracy and software counterfeiting—provide general support for the model. Consistent with major propositions of the theory of planned behavior, the findings show that Chinese computer users’ perceived moral intensity of software piracy significantly affects their corresponding moral recognition, judgment, and intention in both scenarios. Moreover, a direct influence of moral judgment on attitude toward software piracy is found in both scenarios. With regard to end-user piracy specifically, the findings further echo the theory of planned behavior by demonstrating a direct influence of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on intention to pirate. As in the case of software counterfeiting, the findings, however, show that only attitude and subjective norm but not perceived behavioral control significantly influence this intention. Implications derived from this study suggest the potential to synthesize ethical and general social psychological concepts to explain software piracy behavior, and also furnish insights on how to deter software piracy in China.

The Ethics of Meaningful Work: Types and Magnitude of Job-Related Harm and the Ethical Decision-Making Process

This research on the ethics of meaningful work examined how types of job-related harm (physical, economic, emotional, and cognitive) and their magnitude of consequences (MOC, low, high) influenced components of ethical decision-making (moral recognition, moral evaluations, and moral intentions). The research also investigated the moderating effects of individual differences (experience with carpal tunnel syndrome, experience with layoffs, ability to read others’ emotions, and intrinsic motivation orientation [IMO]) on the relation between the MOC and the ethical decision-making elements for each type of harm. Using a sample of 185 Chinese professionals, a between-subjects, fully crossed experimental scenario design revealed that physical and economic job-related harm were recognized as moral issues to a greater extent than cognitive or emotional harm. Second, physical job-related harm stimulated a higher level of moral evaluations than economic and cognitive harm. Third, individuals intended to act ethically when MOC was high versus low. Finally, experience with layoffs and IMO helped explain the relations between MOC and moral evaluations for economic and cognitive job-related harm, respectively. Implications for research and management are discussed.

“I SLICED MY FLESH INTO PAPER, AND GROUND MY LIVER INTO INK”: WANG CIHUI’S (1593–1642) SENSUALIST POETRY AS AN ALTERNATIVE ROUTE TO SELF-REALIZATION

Wang Yanhong 王彥泓 (zi Cihui 次回, 1593–1642) was active in the last decades of the Ming. Because of his particular interest in representing erotic and amorous experiences with women in rich and sensual detail, his poetry was controversial and condemned by those who upheld a Confucian poetics in which poetry was meant to express the poet’s moral intentions and social criticism. This paper is the first attempt to translate Wang’s poems into English and to closely examine them in the contexts of Chinese poetic tradition and late Ming literati culture. I argue that his “decadent” aestheticization of his amorous and emotional experiences with women was related to his identity as a “loser” who failed in the civil service examinations but sought in writing poetry an alternative path of self-realization. His poetics served to fulfill his ambition to become a poet of extraordinary creativity and aestheticism, even as it reveals his sense of self as an “invalid” member of his society.

What Would I Do? Civilians' Ethical Decision Making in Response to Military Dilemmas

This research explored the ethical decision-making process of civilians in response to real-world military dilemmas. Results revealed the complexity of these dilemmas, with about equal proportions of civilians choosing each of two response options. The moral intensity dimension of social consensus significantly predicted moral judgment in both dilemmas, whereas that of magnitude of consequences did so in only one dilemma, partially supporting our hypothesis. Both dimensions were significant predictors of moral intent in both dilemmas as was moral judgment, also supporting our hypotheses. We conclude with suggestions for future research questions in this compelling area.

Supererogation and Intentions of the Agent

It has been claimed, by David Heyd, that in order for an act to count as supererogatory the agent performing the act must possess altruistic intentions (1982 p.115). This requirement, Heyd claims, allows us to make sense of the meritorious nature of acts of supererogation. In this paper I will investigate whether there is good reason to accept that this requirement is a necessary condition of supererogation. I will argue that such a reason can be found in cases where two people act in the same way but with only the person who acted with altruistic intent counting as having performed an act of supererogation. In such cases Heyd’s intention requirement plays an important role in ruling out acts that intuitively are not supererogatory. Despite this, I will argue that we should reject Heyd’s requirement and replace it with a moral intention requirement. I will then investigate how to formulate this requirement and respond to two objections that might be raised against it.

An analysis of moral intensity, intention and socially responsible investment behaviour among fund managers of Malaysian unit trust companies

This study examines the impact of moral intensity on perceived socially responsible investment (SRI) behaviour. Questionnaires have been distributed to 320 fund managers. On a scrutiny of the sent-in questionnaires, it has been found that only 73 are fit for further processing. Structural equation modelling analysis showed the goodness of fit for the model indicating the appropriateness of the use of instrument and measurement. The analysis found that perceived potential benefit has a significant and positive direct effect on perceived SRI behaviour. Besides, it has a significant and positive indirect effect on perceived SRI behaviour through intention variable. However, the study found no evidence to support the influence of perceived social pressure. Even though limited by a lower response rate, the study’s outcomes provide good understanding on the interaction of moral intensity components, intention and behaviour in the context of socially responsible investment in emerging economies like Malaysia.

Perceptions of real estate agents on the role of professional training in ethical decision making

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of the real estate agents on the role of the pre and post licensing training in enabling them to evaluate potential ethical conflicts in their work environment. The findings in this research indicate that real–estate agents/brokers perceive pre–post licensing ethical training as helpful in avoiding obstacles to moral awareness, moral action and developing moral intention. However, the findings also reveal that there is no sufficient evidence to claim that real estate agents view pre–post licensing ethical training as helpful to avoiding obstacles to moral reasoning. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed extensively.

Overcoming the Problem of Impossibility in Kant's Idea of the Highest Good

The goal of this article is to defend Kant’s idea of the highest good as part of his ethics, particularly in relation to the alleged problem of impossibility, according to which it would be impossible to promote it, due to the obscurity of moral intentions and of the relative nature of happiness. As a preliminary step, a singular definition of the highest good is unfolded, one that sees the highest good as a moral world where virtue will be rewarded with happiness, which is a duty and an object of hope, individually and collectively. Regarding the defense itself, a distinction is made between fallible and infallible duties, and a soft interpretation of the “ought implies can” principle (as developed by Stern) is used. The article also points out what is yet required for an overarching defense of the highest good, namely, a response to the other problems at stake, which are here labeled as those of heteronomy (the highest good undermines the principle of autonomy, since it as an object includes happiness), deduction (the highest good is not contained and does not follow from the moral law), and irrelevance (the highest good is irrelevant for ethics).

The Investigating of Psychological Mechanism in the 'Moral Identity-Donation Intention' Relation: The Moderating Role of Self Construal

The Investigating of Psychological Mechanism in the 'Moral Identity-Donation Intention' Relation: The Moderating Role of Self Construal

Moral Enhancement Worth Having: Thinking Holistically

John Shook (2012) describes five mechanisms for moral enhancement: “heightened moral appreciation, … stronger moral decisions, … more correct moral judgments, … improved moral intentions, … and mor...

Ideal Moral Beliefs and Real Moral Behavior: Understanding Moral Reasoning in Adult Female Volunteer Leaders

Moral decision making during dilemmas has become a concern for organizational leaders and stakeholders, as well as society. The purpose of this non-experimental, mixed method, multiple case study was to explore the moral decision making of adult female volunteer leaders associated with a youth leadership development organization in western Virginia to understand how and why their idealistic moral beliefs and intentions translated into behaviors in the real world. The quantitative data relied upon Rest‘s moral development schemas: personal interests, maintaining norms, and postconventional. Most participants were consolidated in the maintaining norms moral development schema. Six major themes and two minor themes emerged from coding and analysis of the qualitative interviews. Suggestions for leaders and stakeholders include taking time to understand the volunteer decisions, maintaining good interpersonal relations with the volunteer, providing safe systems for volunteers to report ethical violations, valuing quality versus quantity in volunteer recruitment and retention, and mitigating ethical problems in the workplace to minimize the consequences of unethical/immoral behavior.

Morality and the prevention of corruption: action or intent – a new look at an old problem

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the established dilemma of action versus intent as explanations of the basis of ethical behaviour. In essence it aims to pose the question “If one had a choice between an executive who acted from cold calculated intent, and behaved ethically as it was profitable – compared to someone with excellent intent who consistently got it ethically wrong – who would you choose – the psychopathic ethicist or the well‐intentioned bumbler?”. The intended contribution of this paper is to add some further considerations to that debate.Design/methodology/approachThis paper notes the basic dilemma of moral choice, action or intent: it also adds to the debate by a consideration of several lesser points, including different meanings of “outcome” and the awareness that morals refer to an underpinning value choice. Its analytic path touches short‐term versus long‐term perspectives, commonsense, the theoretical debate, idealism and utilitarianism, equitability, morals and the law, morality and genes, unintended consequences and paradox of compliance.FindingsThe paper acknowledges that moral values are values that may be derived from wider elements, and that moral choices are such that they should be expressed in principles that transcend special times, place, or special pleading. There is an expressed need for consistency of approach.Research limitations/implicationsThe debate, still alive and well, needs to extend to include contemporary issues. The present writers are inclined to the view that a raised awareness of the issue, and its application to real life situations, is critical. The discussed issues would certainly benefit from further speculation.Practical implicationsMorals must operate in a real world, and that clearly implies desirable outcomes: good intent is recognised as powerful – but does not do as much to foster moral behaviour as does an orientation to outcome. It is such qualifications that need to be borne in mind when considering the complementary roles of moral decision making in any context, including that of business and of crime. It is hoped that directorial and managerial decisions will be invested with this understanding.Originality/valueThe major contributions that this paper seeks to make is that the distinction between intent and consequences may be a false dichotomy; that the notion of outcome has more than one meaning; and that so often our intentions have paradoxical outcomes.

Quaestio Disputata the Recovery of Aquinas's Action Theory: A Reply to William Murphy

The article addresses a recent claim regarding Aquinas's understanding of voluntary human action; namely, that moral species is determined by an object that functions as the proximate end of a chosen behavior. This reply examines the context of the argument, the text on which the argument is said to be based, and Aquinas's more specific texts in regard to formulating a moral intention to an end and choosing a way to accomplish that end.

Peace Talk: Or, The Unspeakable Conviviality of Becoming

Abstract This essay unfolds within the wider theological project of an apophatic relationalism. The moral intention of political theology, in its progressive hope, takes refuge here in the apophatic folds of a Cusan cosmological mysticism that, in turn, lends depth to a polyvocal Whiteheadian theology. In this paper hope finds itself tangled in the question of religio-political peace, vis-à-vis a specific thousand-year loop of Western history. In the knotty present, this cosmopolitics—with an eye to each new wave of Islamophobia—lives with uncertainty as to the realism of its pluralistically complicated peace-talk. Partners in the pilgrimage of this paper include (with Whitehead) certain political theorists who read him, especially William Connolly and Paulina Ochoa, along with William Cavanaugh, Enrique Dussel, and Eduourd Glissant, who do not. The aim will be to convert—at the level of symbolic resonance at least—what I call the crusader peace complex into the complex conviviality of peace. The pulses of this transdisciplinary exercise (an effort in self education rather than specialization) will proceed through eight theopolitical vignettes.

The relationship between the Personal Ethical Threshold and workplace spirituality

This article explores the relationship between the Personal Ethical Threshold and workplace spirituality. We begin by reviewing our concept of the Personal Ethical Threshold, or PET, defined as an individual’s vulnerability to organizational pressures that can derail moral intentions. Next, we consider how individuals resolve their intrapersonal conflict when they violate their moral principles and we explain how to assess the PET. We tie the PET to workplace spirituality by focusing on flow as the expression of spirituality experienced by behaving with integrity, and then examining how organizations can encourage employees to act according to their values.

Formal Infrastructure and Ethical Decision Making: An Empirical Investigation and Implications for Supply Management

ABSTRACTBuilding on Rest's (1986) conceptual model of ethical decision making, we derive and empirically test a model that links an organization's formal ethical infrastructure to individuals’ moral awareness of ethical situations, moral judgment, and moral intention. We contribute to the literature by shedding light on the importance of a multifaceted formal ethical infrastructure—consisting of formal communication, recurrent communication, formal surveillance, and formal sanctions—as a crucial antecedent of moral awareness. In so doing, we discern how these four elements of a formal ethical infrastructure combine to collectively influence moral awareness based on a second‐order factor structure using structural equation modeling. We test our model based on survey data from 805 respondents with significant work experience across three separate ethical scenarios. Our results across the three scenarios provide overall support for our model. We found that a second‐order factor structure for the formal ethical infrastructure explains the variance among the four infrastructure elements and that a multifaceted formal ethical infrastructure significantly increases moral awareness. Our results further suggest a strong positive effect of moral awareness on moral judgment, which in turn was found to have a positive impact on moral intention. These results were substantiated when taking several individual and contextual control variables into account, such as gender, age, religiosity, work satisfaction, and a de facto ethical climate. Implications for theory, practice, and supply management are discussed.

Person as moral scientist

AbstractScientists are generally more moral, and moralists more scientific, than Knobe suggests. His own experiments show that people, rather than making unscientific judgements about the moral intentions of others, are behaving as good Bayesians who take account of prior knowledge.

On “Trust and Being True”: Toward a Genealogy of Morals

This Nietzschesque “genealogy of morals” presents the Confucian virtue of xin (trust and true) so basic to friendship as a civic virtue rooted among social equals. Among non-equals, a servant has to prove his trustworthiness but not yet vice versa. The script 信 (xin) tells of living up to one’s words. Yanxing 言行 (speech and action) describes actively keeping a verbal promise. The Agrarian school endorses xin as the primary virtue in its utopia of virtual equals. It knew oral trust and had no use for written covenants. In debating Mencius, Gaozi kept to that earlier primacy granted public speech as tied to one’s social reputation. Mencius turned inward and elevated mind as the inner good of moral intent instead. In the Doctrine of the Mean, inner xin would expand outward into becoming the ultimate truth, the sincerity of Heaven and Earth. The essay ends on an aside on the case of the Cretan Liar.

Moral issues in educational praxis: a perspective from pedagogiek and didactiek as human sciences in continental Europe

In this paper we will define the object of study of Pedagogiek, followed by a brief discussion about current trends in educational policy, teacher education and educational research. We refer here to the continental European ‘pedagogy as human science’, or more precisely the ‘science of the child’s upbringing’ in the social context. Central in this tradition is the moral debate about the complex relation between pedagogische aims and methods. Praxis has remained an important concept in this discussion down the centuries; it is concerned with the moral intentions behind a person’s actions as well as the consequences of the actions in the social context.

God in History: An Augustinian Approach to Narratives of Western Civilization

This paper proposes a Catholic narrative structure for the story of Western civilization, a general outline that eschews secularism and historicism as much as biblical literalism and Catholic triumphalism. In brief, St. Augustine is more correct than Leonardo Bruni: There is only one age of man. We, God’s wondrous creatures, do not change over recorded time. Everywhere in the world, best documented and demonstrated in the West, we see mankind struggle against himself more than merely respond passively to impersonal and improbable social, economic, political, or gender-based “forces.” God, the author of history, writes straight across crooked lines. He shows us that the path of history points toward unity in diversity. Can there be a “Catholic” reading of history, particularly in the case of Western civilization, and, if so, what would it say? The question challenges the academic discipline’s status quo, because normally no such thing is allowed. On the whole, professional historians, especially those who write books about Western civilization, either do not believe in God or Christianity, or they write as if God did not exist and Christianity were just one set of shared discourses, ideas, and practices among many. 1 While historians sometimes write about religion as a reality for some of the people they study, they are generally not supposed to imply, let alone argue, that what might have been true for those people is still true for us today. When it comes to God, the historian is supposed to fall silent. 2 The rule of self-censorship, however, does not apply if one is a disciple of any number of modern, secular theoreticians (Marx, Weber, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, Durkheim, Foucault, et al.); in that case, dogmatic pronouncements are perfectly in order. Christian or Catholic historians, however, almost without exception, are expected to keep their faith to themselves and out of the classroom and their writing. This double standard is particularly flagrant because all historical writing, beyond the relation of bare fact, always has a moral intention, a competitive set of attitudes, values, assumptions, and beliefs. Historians, then, serve a purpose, a goal, or a master, if you will, when they teach and write. They try to persuade, to seek acceptance for their arguments. As writers, they try to convert their readers to their