Moral Reasoning Styles Research Articles

Practical Wisdom and the Value of Cognitive Diversity

AbstractThe challenges facing us today require practical wisdom to allow us to react appropriately. In this paper, we argue that at a group level, we will make better decisions if we respect and take into account the moral judgment of agents with diverse styles of cognition and moral reasoning. We show this by focusing on the example of autism, highlighting different strengths and weaknesses of moral reasoning found in autistic and non-autistic persons respectively.

Which styles of moral reasoning predict apprehension toward consensual non-monogamy?

Consensual non-monogamy (CNM) refers to any intimate relationship where partners agree to form multiple, concurrent intimate relationships. Stigma against CNM is well-documented, but its antecedents are unclear. Here, we test how apprehension toward CNM is related to moral reasoning. In Study 1, participants (N = 229) identified reasons why people disapprove of CNM from which we created the CNM Apprehension Scale (CNMapp). In Study 2, participants (N = 726) completed the CNMapp alongside established measures of moral decision-making: the moral foundations questionnaire, the social dominance orientation scale, the zero-sum thinking in romantic relationships scale, the moral approbation scale, and the HEXACO-60. We identified five reasons for CNM apprehension: 1) anticipated relationship conflict, 2) moral belief violation, 3) reputational damage, 4) sexual health risk, and 5) same-sex intimacy. People who scored higher on CNMapp reported more zero-sum thinking about their romantic relationships, stronger purity and antiegalitarian beliefs, lower openness to experience, and greater desire for moral approbation from others. We argue that CNM apprehension can be traced to two primary concerns: unrestricted sociosexuality and risk of interpersonal conflict. We conclude by considering how moral intuitions about CNM may be adaptively mismatched to environments where technology addresses the recurrent adaptive challenges of non-monogamy.

The role of moral reasoning & personality in explaining lyrical preferences.

Previous research has supported that personality traits can act to a precursor to media preferences. Due to the ongoing association between morality and media preferences in public and political discourse (e.g., blaming immoral behaviours on media preferences), this research sought to expand the knowledge about factors that contribute to media preferences by investigating if moral reasoning styles explain some of the variance that was not already explained by personality traits. A specific form of media preferences were chosen – lyrical preferences in metal music – as claims between metal lyrical themes and behaviour have been ongoing since the 1980s, despite a lack of empirical evidence to support these claims. A lyrical preferences scale was developed, and utilizing this scale, it was found that different types of metal fans exhibit different moral reasoning styles dependent on their metal sub-genre identification. Further, it was found that moral reasoning styles explain a portion of the variance in lyrical preferences that weren’t already explained by personality traits. In particular, lyrical preferences were often thematically consistent with moral reasoning content and personality traits, such as that individuals that preferred lyrics about celebrating metal culture and unity had higher levels of the group loyalty moral reasoning domain alongside being higher in extraversion. The implications of moral reasoning styles and personality traits as being precursors to media preferences are discussed.

Exemplars, ethics, and illness narratives.

Many people report that reading first-person narratives of the experience of illness can be morally instructive or educative. But although they are ubiquitous and typically sincere, the precise nature of such educative experiences is puzzling, for those narratives typically lack the features that modern philosophers regard as constitutive of moral reason. I argue that such puzzlement should disappear, and the morally educative power of illness narratives explained, if one distinguishes two different styles of moral reasoning: an inferentialist style that generates the puzzlement and an alternative exemplarist style that offers a compelling explanation of the morally educative power of pathographic literature.

Examining Moral Reasoning and Transactional Leadership behaviour in the Nigerian Public Sector

The relationship between moral reasoning and leadership style has received considerable attention for decades, however this has been not fully explicated as different leadership styles elist different ethical values. What constitutes moral behaviour is conflicting and subjective. This study examines public leaders’ degree of moral judgment associated with leadership styles in a public sector organization. To test the hypothesized relationship, data were collected using questionnaire survey distributed to 550 workers out which 300 were found worthy to be used. The Defining Issues Test (DIT2) and the Multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ X5) were completed by leaders and subordinates respectively. The PLS path analysis of the structural model indicates significant statistical relationship between cognitive moral development (CMD) and transactional leadership style (TSL) ( β= -0.214, P< 0.012). However, we argue that cognitive moral development is amiable to the individual qualities of the leader that might necessitate the application of particular leadership style and behaviour. We also found collaboration evidence that leaders high in cognitive moral development are perceived more as transformational leaders by their subordinates. Finally, we suggest that the dichotomies between moral reasoning and leadership style are hinged more on individual leadership values and motivational beliefs.

Choice, Rights, and Virtue: Prenatal Testing and Styles of Moral Reasoning in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Using a Foucauldian biopower analytic, this article combines insights from several ethnographic research projects around the moral reasoning styles underpinning debates over selective reproductive technologies in Aotearoa/New Zealand. We show that divergent or shared public, private, state, individual, and community moral reasoning styles become highly politicized truth discourses that have the potential to, and at times do, affect one another, modifying a dominant, state-supported, principal-based bioethics framework. The styles of moral reasoning that we identify pivot on an aspirational cultural ideal of the provision of choice to citizens, which is taken as an appropriate position from which to regulate selective reproductive technologies.

Mundane morality

The paper introduces the concept of ‘mundane morality’, which refers to the practices of everyday life in which people mix moral evaluations, a sense of right and wrong, blame and culpability, etc., with ordinary accounts and descriptions of persons, actions, and events. Challenging traditional psychological work on moral development, including Gilligan’s work on the gendered nature of moral reasoning, we argue that ‘morality’ is best understood as a communicative practice. Rather than focus on identifying gendered styles of moral reasoning, we show how gender is invoked to do moral work in an episode of recorded neighbour dispute mediation. We analyse the way in which parties make complaints on the basis of gendered category memberships, and show how ‘the accountability of social conduct brings directly into focus moral dimensions of language use’ (Drew 1998: 295). Overall, we aim to show how to analyse ‘moral reasoning’ as it happens; as it is imbricated in the daily practices of everyday life.

Thinking about Nuclear Power

This article makes two sets of observations about the moral bases of opposition to nuclear power. First, the article distinguishes between survivalist opposition to nuclear power (built on a conviction that the central moral fact about nuclear power is the cataclysmic threat it represents) and a more political opposition that focuses on matters of justice and democratic equality. Second, the article notes that the tension between these two styles of moral reasoning reflects a more general tension in the environmental movement as a whole. The movement against nuclear power therefore provides an illustration writ small for why environmentalists would do well not to rest their politics entirely on claims about human (and broader ecosystem) survival.

Thai and American doctors on medical ethics: Religion, regulation, and moral reasoning across borders

Recent scholarship argues that successful international medical collaboration depends crucially on improving cross-cultural understanding. To this end, this study analyzes recent writings on medical ethics by physicians in two countries actively participating in global medicine, Thailand and the United States. Articles (133; published 2004–2008) from JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand are analyzed to inductively build a portrait of two discursive ethical cultures. Frameworks of moral reasoning are identified across and within the two groups, with a focus on what authority (religion, law, etc.) is invoked to define and evaluate ethical problems. How might similarities and differences in ethical paradigms reflect the countries' historical “semicolonial” relationship, shed light on debates about Eastern vs. Western bioethics, and facilitate or hinder contemporary cross-national communication?Findings demonstrate substantial overlap in Thai and American doctors' vocabulary, points of reference, and topics covered, though only Thai doctors emphasize national interests and identity. American authors display a striking homogeneity in styles of moral reasoning, embracing a secular, legalistic, deontological ethics that generally eschews discussion of religion, personal character, or national culture. Among Thai authors, there is a schism in ethical styles: while some hew closely to the secular, deontological model, others embrace a virtue ethics that liberally cites Buddhist principles and emphasizes the role of doctors' good character. These two approaches may represent opposing reactions—assimilation and resistance, respectively—to Western influence. The current findings undermine the stereotype of Western individualism versus Eastern collectivism. Implications for cross-national dialog are discussed.

Violent Forensic Psychiatric Patients: Individual Differences and Consequences for Treatment

The literature on differences between aggressive individuals exhibiting reactive and proactive aggression raises the issue whether different treatment programs should be developed for violent forensic psychiatric patients with a conduct disorder or an antisocial personality disorder. In order to study this issue, aggressive behavior of 133 inpatients and of 176 outpatients was analyzed in detail for four subgroups, composed on the basis of the two factors of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. Contrary to expectations, there were no differences found in scores on self-report questionnaires for disposition to anger, hostility and aggressive behavior between the four subgroups. Minor differences were found, however, between these four subgroups in the relationship to aspects of aggressive behavior on the one hand, and neuroticism, social anxiety and social skills on the other hand. To some extent, this explorative study appears to confirm recommendations to distinguish between individuals who exhibit reactively aggressive behavior, and those who primarily display proactively aggressive behavior. In line with our clinical experiences and with our findings, it seems advisable to focus especially on anger management and social skills in the reactively aggressive group and on moral reasoning and prosocial thinking styles in the proactively aggressive group.

Promoting Psychological Health in Law Students

This article discusses research documenting the negative effects of stress during law school.These effects include decreases in law students' emotional and psychological health, development of substance abuse problems, and impairment of the ability to learn.Personality type, moral reasoning, motivation, and learning style are also linked to the ability to cope with the stress of law school.Recommendations are made for changes in legal education which emphasize student differences and needs in an effort to decrease stress, improve psychological and emotional health, and increase learning.

Framing effects within the ethical decision making process of consumers

There has been neglect of systematic conceptual development and empirical investigation within consumer ethics. Scenarios have been a long-standing tool yet their development has been haphazard with little theory guiding their development. This research answers four questions relative to this gap: Do different scenario decision frames encourage different moral reasoning styles? Does the way in which framing effects are measured make a difference in the measurement of the relationship between moral reasoning and judgment by gender? Are true framing effects likely to vary with the situation? and Are true framing effects likely to vary by gender? The conclusions reached were that (1) different scenario frames encourage both types of reasoning, but rule based moral reasoning is dominant regardless of frame, (2) accounting for formal equivalency in the measurement of true framing effects is likely to enhance the interpretation of studies in moral reasoning and judgment, (3) True framing effects are more likely to occur in situations with low to moderate perceived ethicality, and (4) true framing effects are not likely to vary by gender. Explanations as to why these results occurred are discussed.

The Relationship of Moral Reasoning Style to Counselor Expression of Empathy

Results in the literature indicate that high levels of moral development are positively correlated with high levels of empathy. However, the issue of moral reasoning style and its relationship to empathy remains unclear. The role that moral reasoning style (care vs. justice orientation) plays in counselors' ability to relate empathically to clients was investigated among a sample of 44 counselors-in-training. Results indicate that counselors were able to respond equally to clients with the same moral reasoning style as themselves and to those with a different style. Counselors with a care orientation were no more able than justice-oriented counselors to respond empathically. Findings contribute information about measures of moral reasoning style and suggest that matching of counselors with college-aged and young adult clients based on moral reasoning style is not an issue of concern for college counselors.

Ethical Decision Making in Nurses

Stress related to ethical decision-making is a serious consequence of frequent encounters with ethical dilemmas for oncology nurses. A descriptive, correlational design using survey techniques was used as a study design with a nationwide sample of 229 oncology nurses. The results indicated nurses experienced an average of 32 different types of ethical dilemmas within the past year on a daily basis. Pain management is the most frequently cited ethical dilemma, followed by cost containment issues and making quality of life and other decisions in the patient's best interest. Approximately 80% of respondents rated their ethics stress level as a 6 or above on a scale of 0 to 10. Forty-three percent of the sample indicated they use an independent or "sovereign" style of moral reasoning, 23% rely on or accommodate to the judgment of others, and 34% use characteristics of both moral reasoning styles. Understanding the relationships among style of moral reasoning, coping style, and ethics stress can assist nurses and administrators to deal more effectively with the increased moral distress found in many oncology practice settings today. Findings suggest specific interventions for reducing ethics stress in this population of nurses.

Contemporary American Religion: An Ethnographic Reader

chapter 1 Penny Edgell Becker and Nancy L. Eiesland, Introduction chapter 2 1. Shoshanah Feher, Managing Strain, Contradictions, and Fluidity: Messianic Judaism and the Negotiation of a Religio-Ethnic Identity chapter 3 2. Matthew Lawson, Struggles for Mutual Reverence: Social Strategies and Religious Stories chapter 4 3. Edward R. Gray and Scott L. Thumma, The Gospel Hour: Liminality, Identity, and Religion in a Gay Bar chapter 5 4. Janet Stocks, To Stay or to Leave?: Organizational Legitimacy in the Struggle for Change Among Evangelical Feminists chapter 6 5. Penny Edgell Becker, What is Right? What is Caring? Moral Logic in Local Religious Life chapter 7 6. Elfriede Wedam, Splitting Interests or Common Causes: Styles of Moral Reasoning in Opposing Abortion chapter 8 7. Tim Nelson, The Church and the Street: Race, Class, and Congregation chapter 9 8. Nancy L. Eiesland, Contending with a Giant: The Impact of a Megachurch on Exurban Religious Institutions chapter 10 9. Mike McMullen, The Religious Construction of a Global Identity: An Ethnographic Look at the Atlanta Bahai Community chapter 11 Robert Wuthnow, Conclusion chapter 12 References chapter 13 Index

Care and Justice Moral Orientation: A Scale for Its Assessment

A quantitative measure of adult moral orientation, based on the theoretical frameworks of Kohlberg and Gilligan, was developed to measure preference for justice or moral thinking. The Moral Orientation Scale Using Childhood Dilemmas (MOS), a short, objective measure, presents adults with a series of dilemmas frequently faced by children, each followed by two care-oriented and two justice-oriented responses to the dilemma. The procedures for developing and scoring the measure are discussed, and validity and reliability data are presented. Used with both male and female social work and law students, as expected, the MOS shows males to be more justice-oriented in their moral reasoning than females who are shown to be more care-oriented. Moreover, in further agreement with Gilligan's theory that gender and experience, taken together, are related to moral reasoning style, male lawyers and female social workers are shown to have the strongest preferences.

Moral Orientation as a Cue to Political Identity

Previous research has indicated a relationship between the political orientations of conservative versus radical and the styles of moral reasoning characterized in Kohlberg's (1976) cognitive-developmental theory as the Conventional and Principled levels. Conservatives are more likely to reason at the Conventional level and radicals at the Principled level. The only interpretation of this relationship consistent with Kohlberg's theory is that radicals are relatively more morally mature than conservatives. An alternative view is that the Conventional-Principled distinction in moral reasoning is not developmental but reflects differences in the content of politicomoral ideology. Consistent with this view it was found that expression of these alternative moral reasoning styles conveys to others clear information about political identity but none about relative cognitive sophistication.