In her theory of moral exemplarity, philosopher Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski observes how every era and culture has recognized supremely good individuals, models who inspire admiration and imitation. On the early modern stage, Bess Bridges — heroine of Thomas Heywood’s The Fair Maid of the West — emerges as one such magnanimous figure. Her virtuous exemplarity enkindles deep admiration in other characters, their mimetic responses leading to metanoia. This essay explores the moral psychology of admiration in Heywood’s play, the complex relationship between the passions and conversion, and early modern theatre as a school and fruitful site for the realization of virtue.

Abstract Predominantly, previous interpretations of Hume’s discussion of the sensible knave embrace the following three claims: (1) that Hume raises the topic of the knave to respond to the ‘why be just?’ question; (2) that Hume’s discussion of the knave extends the theory of justice and moral psychology developed within the Treatise ; and (3) that Hume’s reply to the knave is unsatisfactory. In this paper, I develop an interpretation of the knave passage that draws exclusively on the second Enquiry and shows that Hume’s discussion of the knave follows consistently from the conclusions Hume draws within it. Beyond challenging the above three claims, the Enquiry interpretation highlights Hume’s views on the connection between happiness and virtue, shows that Hume is most plausibly read as a qualitative hedonist, and suggests that the differences between the accounts of justice within the Treatise and the second Enquiry are more significant than has been previously acknowledged.

In the past fifty years (1975–2025), accounting theory has changed a lot because of the combined influence of the economy, human behaviour, ethics, institutions and technology. This study provides a comprehensive review and critical analysis of the historical development of accounting theories and traces their transformation from prescriptive and normative approaches to empirical, behavioural and sustainability-oriented paradigms. The study shows that accounting ideas have grown step by step, but are still connected. In the late 20th century, Positive Accounting Theory was the main focus. Later, Institutional and Behavioural views developed to handle problems in corporate governance. In the 21st century, new ideas like Sustainability Accounting and Digital Accounting became more important. The study shows that modern accounting theory includes many different ideas and approaches. It focuses on ethical responsibility, social trust and openness through technology. However, there are still gaps in bringing together ethics, sustainability and digital change into one complete framework. The paper concludes that the future of accounting theory depends on combining knowledge from different fields such as economics, data science, behavioural psychology and environmental ethics to build a well-rounded and global foundation for accounting practice.

Abstract This article presents Hume’s insights into the mechanics of social comparison. It attends to the overlooked role of comparison in Hume’s theory of cognition and its bearing on his moral psychology of social comparison. This article identifies three main meanings of comparison in Hume: (a) the comparative principle of reasoning, b) acts of comparison, and c) a comparative disposition. It also identifies four modes of comparative valuation: (1) intrinsic valuation, (2) experiential valuation, (3) subjective social valuation, and (4) objective social valuation. This provided taxonomy of comparison across Hume’s theory of cognition helps us better understand the moral psychology of social comparison by grounding it in his theory of cognition. Consequently, this article challenges the view that comparison plays a secondary role to sympathy in Hume and corrects scholarly positions on social comparison’s primary dependency on the principles of context, contrast, and “reversal-comparison.”

Purpose Drawing on research in the political activism and moral psychology literatures, this paper aims to examine how organisational members perceive Chief Executive Officer (CEO) political activism and whether such perceptions are influenced by the context of CEO activism (i.e. liberal vs conservative). Design/methodology/approach To test the hypotheses regarding the perceptions of CEO activism, the authors conducted an online experiment in which working adults read a hypothetical workplace scenario and then assessed the appropriateness of CEO activism (vs no activism) across different contexts. Findings The authors found that organisational members generally perceive CEO political activism as inappropriate. In addition, they also found that this perception differs depending on the context of CEO political activism (i.e. whether a CEO engages in political activism related to liberal vs conservative causes). Originality/value As a result of the increasing political polarisation, more organisations and their leaders are becoming vocal and active in advocating for or against certain political causes. However, political activism in an organisational context can be risky because, as this research shows, organisational members generally perceive CEO political activism as inappropriate, especially in a conservative context.

This teaching case portrays the predatory exploitation of the psychological weaknesses in the digital marketing process in three jaw-dropping stories in the swirling half-trillion-dollar digital economy in India, in the age of algorithms that predict our desires even before we know we have them. The case follows the lives of Priya, a marketing professionals whose shopping frequency had risen to thrice a week and whose satisfaction had declined to 40-percent; and Rajesh, another data engineer whose study became his control system; and Anita, a social media influencer whose expenditure had tripled to 18,000 a month with no concept that she was a manipulator of her 400 followers. These narratives expose the vulnerability algorithm—exploiting time, emotional, social, cognitive, and financial insecurity and faking scarcity, artificial social proving, gamified decision-making, and mood-controlled advertising in the given scenario of 700 million internet users, frictionless UPI payments, and inbuilt social commerce. The case provides a challenge to the simple economic idea of consumer rationality, illustrating how platforms construct preferences rather than fulfilling them. It teaches the relationships between consumer psychology, behavioral economics, information technology, and business ethics to enable students to attain the principles of decoding the processes of manipulation and develop essential digital literacy. Students argue about burning issues, by means of discussion questions that are well designed: Where does the persuasion and manipulation begin and end? So what then shall we do in order to preserve human agency in the algorithmic worlds? The ultimate awakenings of the protagonists by means of digital detox, reverse-engineering of algorithms, and moral reckoning give hope and contribute timely information to IT, marketing, and ethics courses as future leaders redefine the boundary between profitable persuasion and unethical exploitation.

Recent developments in neuroscience and comparative philosophy challenged the classical dichotomy between reason and emotion, revealing emotions as cognitive appraisals shaped by cultural norms. This paper examines how late Joseon litigation novels (The Tale of Eunae and The Tale of Sin Yeocheok) anticipate this insight through a Confucian model of “empathetic justice,” where emotions such as righteous anger serve as publicly ratified indicators for recognizing moral legitimacy when aligned with communal ethical standards. Contrary to Adam Smith’s impartial spectator, which regulates emotion through imaginative distance, Joseon-era thought valued the appropriateness (中節) and communal alignment of emotion as essential criteria for public reasoning. Analysis of royal verdicts and their fictional representations reveals how moral emotions, when ethically cultivated and publicly endorsed, functioned as both motivational forces and evaluative criteria for justice. This framework offers an alternative to Western models, with implications for contemporary debates on restorative justice and moral psychology.

ABSTRACT Written in the 1780s, when slavery was a hotly debated issue in France, Germaine de Staël’s Mirza, or Letter from a Traveler addresses topics such as enslavement, free trade, freedom, and the relationship between Europe and Africa. When the author, nine years later, decided to publish the novella, it was accompanied by Essay on Fictions, a veritable manifesto for an engaged, philosophical literature. However, in the scholarship, Mirza is typically treated independently of Staël’s aesthetic manifesto. The present paper seeks to overcome this shortcoming. It shows how her early abolitionist novella sheds light on her moral psychology – particularly her discussion of greed – but also on her philosophy of literature.

This article offers a narrative of moral development for Kantian practical philosophy. It does so by bringing together elemental features of the two most prominent traditions concerned with the moral psychology of moral development: the Freudian-psychoanalytic tradition, which is principally concerned with an authority relation (the parent-child relation), and the Piagetian stage theory tradition, which is principally concerned with an equality relation (the peer relation). The fundamental Freudian insight is that our ability to subject impulsiveness to rule is explained by our introjecting the parental figure as an authoritative aspect of the psyche, the superego. David Velleman suitably revised this insight to be fit for Kantian purposes: our idealization of the parent supports their introjection not just as superego but as ego-ideal and thus represents a genuine standard of practical reason. But the parental relation cannot be the whole story because of the paternalistic nature of that relation: moral persons are self-legislative, and the authority of the parent is licensed by a recognition of the child as less than self-legislative. The fundamental Piagetian insight, making up for this lack, is that peer relations, constituted by acts of co-legislation, are predicated on the reciprocal recognition of self-legislation (e.g., children’s games require and respect the authoritative assent of each). But Piaget denies necessary, positive contributions from the parental relation—authority cannot give way to equality without contradiction. In showing how authority can give way to equality, as providing its necessary basis, this article brings together parents and peers as essential contributors to development.

Purpose of the study: Islamic education plays a vital role in shaping students’ character and spirituality, particularly through Tahfiz Quran programs that emphasize not only memorization but also moral and spiritual internalization. This study aims to explore effective strategies for internalizing Islamic values through Quran memorization at three Islamic junior high schools in Deli Serdang. Methodology: This qualitative phenomenological study explores strategies for internalizing Islamic values through Quran memorization at three Islamic junior high schools in Deli Serdang: Junior High School Jabal Noor, Al-Hijrah, and Nurul Ilmi. Data were collected via observation, interviews, and documentation. Main Findings: Islamic values occurs through various strategies, including habituation, exemplary role modeling, talaqqi (direct recitation), muraja’ah (systematic review), reinforcement systems, and active parental involvement. These approaches effectively cultivate students’ faith, worship discipline, morality, and social responsibility in daily life. Supporting factors include teachers’ pedagogical competence, strong religious school culture, and parental collaboration, while challenges arise from limited time, digital distractions, and inconsistent student motivation. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study lies in its integration of classical Tahfiz pedagogy with a modern character education framework, offering a new model for value internalization that harmonizes traditional Islamic learning with contemporary educational demands. This research contributes theoretically by bridging spiritual formation and moral psychology, and practically by proposing a holistic Tahfiz-based model adaptable to modern schooling contexts. The study concludes that Tahfiz Quran, when integrated with reflective understanding, technological awareness, and community engagement, can effectively strengthen Qur’anic character and moral integrity among adolescents in the digital era.

Why do we hurt people in the name of morality? Here we elaborate on the theory that moral judgment is an evolutionary strategy for choosing sides in conflicts. Hurting wrongdoers is part of the strategy. Morality may seem like a guiding light for cooperation, but it is actually closely tied to aggression. As a result, moral condemnation is not always good: It is a gamble that risks punishing the innocent and inflaming hostilities between factions. These dangers are obscured by confusing morality with benevolence. Thus, we examine how moral judgment fundamentally differs from benevolence and goodness. The argument appeals to evolutionary psychology, moral psychology, and what we will call the method of natural language. Accordingly, we will minimize jargon and scholarly accounting to address a general audience across the many disciplines concerned with morality. The final section provides a concise review of the essential literatures for further reading.

Morality is a pervasive characteristic of human societies, with social norms and codes of conduct defining acceptable and unacceptable behaviors across cultures. Our evolved moral sense facilitates group living by regulating interpersonal interactions and promoting cooperation beyond the bounds of kinship ties. Moral beliefs that are held with high certainty and perceived as absolute and universally applicable can motivate a strong commitment to justice and benevolent collective action. They also have a darker side. Moral conviction can foster dogmatism, intolerance, and punitive actions, including vigilantism and violence. This article integrates theories and empirical evidence from evolutionary social psychology, cognitive science, political psychology, and neuroscience to examine both the ultimate and proximate mechanisms of moral conviction. This interdisciplinary approach clarifies the functional architecture and potential deleterious consequences of moral conviction.

This study aims to examine the concept of moral literacy in Al-Ghazali’s Ihya’ Ulumuddin and its relevance to the moral development of pesantren students in the digital era. The research employs a library study with a qualitative approach through content analysis of classical texts combined with contemporary theories of moral education, psychology, and sociology. The findings reveal that moral literacy in Al-Ghazali’s perspective is not limited to normative understanding, but rather an integration of knowledge, practice, and inner refinement through tazkiyatun nafs, muraqabah, muhasabah, and mujahadah. Pesantren provide a conducive ecology for moral internalization through the exemplarity of the kiai, daily habituation of adab, and learning communities. The discussion highlights key digital-era challenges, including moral degradation, attention distraction, identity fragmentation, and moral disengagement. Integrating the values of Ihya’ Ulumuddin with modern educational strategies such as role modeling, authentic assessment, adaptive moral curriculum, and digital ecology management can strengthen students’ moral literacy. In conclusion, Ihya’ Ulumuddin remains highly relevant as a multidisciplinary framework for formulating resilient moral education strategies in the face of digitalization

Purpose This study aims to discuss the joint influence of moral identity, religiosity and situational ethics on digital piracy intentions. It proposes a self-regulatory model whereby moral identity sets up the main motivational structure in guiding moral behaviour, supported by two further dimensions: firstly, religiosity inputting culturally based normative content into the structure; secondly, situational ethics, representing the individual’s context-dependent reasoning about morality. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional inquiry has been taken up with 1,020 Turkish university students as a sample. Validated scales measured the dimensions of situational ethics (relativism), religiosity, moral identity and digital piracy intentions. It is proposed to test the hypothesis through moderated mediation analysis whereby moral identity would act as a moderator and religiosity would be a mediator in the relationship of situational ethics with piracy intentions. Findings The results show that situational ethics does not directly predict piracy intentions. However, religiosity significantly mediates this relationship, and this mediation effect is conditional upon the level of moral identity. Specifically, the more central morality is to one’s identity, the more likely religious norms translate into reduced piracy intentions, even when situational justifications are present. Originality/value The study offers a novel hierarchical framework for understanding digital piracy as a morally negotiated act, not simply a legal transgression. By centring moral identity as a self-regulatory mechanism, it advances the literature on digital ethics and moral psychology and offers implications for educational interventions, religious messaging and digital platform policy design.

<em><span>This study explores the internalization of moral feeling as the basis for shaping the accountability character of students at Pesantren Darur Ridwan Al-Fadholi, Pati. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, data were collected through interviews, observations, and documentation with the pesantren leaders, teachers, and students. The findings reveal four interrelated dimensions of accountability: institutional, individual, spiritual, and social. Institutional accountability is reflected in financial transparency and reporting practices, while individual accountability is fostered through students’ direct involvement in managing pesantren business units that require honesty and responsibility. Spiritual accountability is manifested in the habituation of religious practices, such as congregational prayers, Qur’an recitation, and tahfidz programs, which cultivate the awareness of accountability before Allah. Social accountability emerges through students’ participation in community activities, shaping their sense of responsibility beyond the pesantren environment. The study concludes that accountability in pesantren cannot be built solely on formal systems, but must be reinforced through the deep internalization of moral feelings. This research contributes theoretically by integrating moral psychology and Islamic accountability, and practically by offering insights for pesantren to strengthen both affective character formation and institutional systems of transparency.</span></em>

ABSTRACT This paper reconsiders Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s debt to François Fénelon by recovering their conflicting views on moral psychology. While many scholars argue that Rousseau follows Fénelon closely on the conception of republican virtue, his oft-neglected critique of Fénelon on romantic love reveals the underlying distinction between the former’s emphasis on “activity of passion” and the latter’s pursuit of “tranquillity of soul”. This distinction in moral psychology maps onto different republican models: where Fénelon presents a dispassionate “guardian of the laws” that pursues “true glory”, Rousseau depicts a passionate “lover-warrior” motivated by “patriotic pride”. The two republican models further result in two distinct political designs, with Fénelon eulogizing the Christian ideal of universal brotherhood and Rousseau promoting the ‘romantic’ republic. Despite their many similarities, I argue that the two thinkers belong to two different republican traditions.

<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Context and relevance. </strong>The inclusion of the subject context of an ethically charged situation and the background of the group as variables determining the application of a moral prohibition allows us to establish a link between moral decisions and previous experience and reveal the substantive specifics of identifying, structuring and resolving moral contradictions in an ethically ambiguous situation. This formulation of the problem calls for a revision of the tradition established in moral psychology in the study of moral prohibition as a general predisposition to follow universal values in their judgments and behavior. <br><strong>Objective.</strong> To substantiate the role of contextual variables within realistic scenarios of the moral prohibition, taking into account the criteria of its application, and to establish how these criteria manifest themselves in conditions of both unilateral and joint influence such as ethically loaded situations and the background of an educational and professional group. <br><strong>Research design.</strong> The article analyzes the peculiarities of the application of moral prohibition in an ethically burdened situation by students belonging to different educational and professional groups (“lawyers”, “doctors”, “teachers”). The significance of the influence of different types of subject contexts of situations (professionally labeled, professionally neutral, and everyday) on the variance of indicators of imperativeness, completeness, reasonableness, and consistency in the application of moral prohibition by representatives of these groups is assessed. <br><strong>Participants.</strong> The study was conducted at K.E. Tsiolkovsky Moscow State University on a sample of students from three educational and professional groups (“lawyers”, “doctors”, “teachers”). Total – 195 people, 137 girls and 58 boys, age <em>M</em> = 20,02; <em>SD</em> = 1,34. <br><strong>Methods.</strong> Situational methodology “Decision-making in an ethically burdened situation”, which includes 12 situations with a subject-professional (law, medicine) and everyday context of the application of moral prohibition. <br><strong>Results.</strong> The dissonance between the imperative of applying a moral prohibition and its reasonableness in professionally intimate (“lawyers”) and everyday (“educators”) contexts is revealed. “Doctors” applied more mature moral reasoning in medical situations, “lawyers” in situations “close” to themselves (law), on the contrary, resorted to arguments of a socially conventional nature. The compared groups differ in the selective use of criteria of moral prohibition: “doctors” showed less willingness to strictly follow the moral prohibition, which resulted in lower consistency compared to other groups; “lawyers” increased the consistency of the application of the prohibition with increasing imperativeness of their decision. It is established that the moderators of such variability are the background of the group and the subject context of the situation: the background affects the imperative of the moral prohibition and the completeness of the description of the moral contradiction, whereas the context of ethically loaded situations affects only the reasonableness. At the same time, the background of the group and the context of the situation do not interact in a meaningful way during the application of the moral prohibition. <br><strong>C</strong><strong>onclusions.</strong> The application of the moral prohibition is due to both the different subject context of situations and the background of educational and professional groups, namely, their experience of orientation and reasoning in the meaningfully relevant context of professionally labeled situations.</p>

Recently, higher education has undergone significant changes due to the use of digital technologies and innovations. The use of innovative platforms, hybrid models and online services cannot overcome the requirements of today. To solve these problems, the article proposes a hypothesis regarding the use of a digital twin of a teacher. The use of modeling, design and optimization of the pedagogical educational process based on a cyber-physical system built on mathematical modeling and synergy is suggested. The study presents the process of building cooperation between a teacher and a higher education student when creating a digital twin of the latter, which integrates a model of the subject area of knowledge for the educational process, takes into account the variable parameters of the education student and models the educational process based on the use of the latest artificial intelligence technologies. The proposed architecture includes Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, machine learning and big data analytics, which together reflect the digitalization of Industry 4.0 and support for the “live” learning process. The results of the study demonstrate the practical consequences of using artificial intelligence tools among students and teachers. The need to use significant computing and machine equipment to analyze the results of the implementation of a digital twin is emphasized. The results of a two-stage survey of higher education students and university teachers are presented. They indicate positive aspects, such as: work-life balance and flexibility of learning. At the same time, the disadvantages are obvious as psychological safety and ethics of data use. As a result, the authors concluded that the digital twin of a teacher is an individual, transparent, adaptive and motivational tool for improving the educational process. Its further implementation depends in the future on resolving issues related to the ethics of personal data and psychological support by creating a conference database, impartiality algorithms and a reliable methodological foundation for resolving potential conflicts.

This article provides a critical and interdisciplinary reflection on the doctoral experience, highlighting the pivotal role that supervision plays in shaping doctoral students’ stress, anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion. Grounded in a comprehensive review of recent literature, this paper analyzes both the mitigating and inducing effects that the supervisor–student relationship can exert throughout the doctoral process. The theoretical framework draws from organizational psychology, critical pedagogy, and relational ethics to illuminate key psychosocial and institutional tensions, exposing significant gaps in the current research. The findings reveal that the quality of doctoral supervision goes far beyond technical or methodological proficiency, serving as a core determinant of sustainable scientific success and human integrity. The article concludes by proposing theoretical and practical implications for reimagining doctoral supervision as an interdisciplinary endeavor rooted in responsibility and ethical care, and it outlines innovative future research directions aimed at assessing, diagnosing, and reshaping the relational quality of the doctoral experience.

ABSTRACT Diverging from care modalities based on psyche, “Confucianized” psychomoral training for Chinese officials who suffer from heartache (mental distress and ethical conflicts) emphasizes the heart/xin as the moral core and its affective and aesthetic attunement in achieving harmony. However, the focus on the heart, while valuable in “indigenizing” or recasting psychology from Chinese precepts, remains tied to state ideologies. Such training moralizes structural issues that have generated heartache. This dual process of “indigenization” and Confucianization highlights contentious roles psychotherapists and moral psychologists play in cultivating a form of therapeutic governance anchored in the heart that straddles party-state and market in the name of care.