Moral Task Research Articles

Being blind (or not) to scenarios used in sacrificial dilemmas: the influence of factual and contextual information on moral responses.

Traditionally, human morality has been largely studied with classical sacrificial dilemmas. A way to advance current understandings of moral judgment and decision-making may involve testing the impact of contexts that are made available to individuals presented with these archetypal dilemmas. This preliminary study focused on assessing whether the availability of factual and contextual information delivered through classical scenarios would change moral responses. A total of 334 participants were presented with sacrificial dilemmas either with a scenario or without a scenario before performing two moral tasks: one consisted in moral judgment (e.g., is it acceptable to sacrifice one person to save five?) and one was related to choice of action (e.g., would you sacrifice one person to save five?). In the condition with a scenario, participants were presented with a story describing the dilemma, its protagonists, their roles, the location and some background details of the situation, before answering to the two moral tasks. In the condition without a scenario, participants were only asked to perform the two moral tasks without any additional contextual elements usually provided by the scenario. Participants' emotions were also measured before and after completing the two moral tasks. The results indicated that the presence of a scenario did not affect moral judgments. However, the presence of a scenario significantly increased utilitarian action choices (i.e., sacrificing one person in the interest of saving a greater number) and this effect was partially mediated by an increase in the perceived plausibility of the sacrificial action. Regarding emotional reaction to dilemmas, no differences were observed between the two conditions, suggesting that emotions are mainly based on the two moral tasks. These findings underscore the value of carefully considering the role of factual and contextual information provided by the scenarios in moral dilemmas.

Relationship between reasoning, autistic and alexithymic traits in moral judgments

The present research investigated whether individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) present with specificities of moral reasoning. Some previous exploratory studies have assessed the differences in moral judgment between ASD and control participants, but results were mixed. The present study aimed to quantify such differences using a larger sample and a standard moral task built upon the new CNI (Consequences, Norms and Generalized Inaction) model of moral judgment that resolves multiple confounds in the measurement of moral judgments. A total of 148 adults with ASD and 151 controls completed 24 sacrificial dilemmas from the CNI battery, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Cognitive Reflection Task. We did not find any differences in moral judgments between ASD and control participants, and this pattern was consistent for all the CNI parameters. Equivalence tests revealed that it can be safely excluded that our study missed medium to large differences in moral judgments between ASD and control participants when assessed using sacrificial dilemmas. Additional data quality checks allow to rule out the possibility that the small differences in moral judgments between the groups are due to poor data quality. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

The Moral Dimension of Mental Health Treatment.

Patients regularly bring value-laden concerns to treatment, but clinicians are often unsure about what role to play in their patients' moral lives. Addressing problems in moral functioning depends on assessing how individuals are accomplishing basic moral tasks: developing moral commitments, making moral decisions, implementing these decisions, assessing the correspondence between their ideals and behavior, dealing effectively with moral failure, and developing morally admirable character traits, or virtues. Clarity about the moral dimension of clinical work is important for shaping the direction of treatment, achieving clinical aims, and engaging the moral challenges that clinicians face.

Vulnerability in Times of War

Vulnerability as a critique of the one-sidedness of the principle of autonomy is at risk of overemphasizing the positive dimension of vulnerability. Moreover, in the discourse on vulnerability, the threat of dehumanization (or moral vulnerability) has not been scrutinized enough ethically. Therefore, the ethics of vulnerability is insufficient when faced with the force of war that requires the conceptualization of vulnerability for political-ethics. The Russian war in Ukraine demonstrates this weakness in a striking way: the called-for openness to the other as well as an active form of nonviolence, as promoted by Judith Butler, may not be an option in times of war. Continuing Jessica Benjamin’s psychoanalytic approach to mutual recognition, the essay shows that the task of morality does not rest upon broadening one’s vulnerability, but rather in understanding vulnerable agency as the dialectic of vulnerability and agency. For the further development of this dialectic, the triadic figuration is emphasized, complementing the dyadic relation of self and other. While the Third can take multiple figurations in the psychoanalytical setting, I understand the Third within the political-ethical context as the possibility of a “moral world” of nonviolence and respect. During war, the role of the bystander is to become a witness who, through the process of witnessing, advocacy, diplomacy, and justice, allows for the moral Third to reemerge. Among others, the ethics of vulnerability must spells out the price for the failure of taking on this responsibility, namely the eclipse of morality.

Современные исследования нейрональных основ принятия моральных решений

<p style="text-align: justify;">The article is devoted to a review of modern research on the neuronal foundations of moral decision-making. Psychological approaches to the study of the problem of decision-making and moral choice are analyzed. The data of empirical studies of their temperamental and characterological correlates are presented. The results of neurobiological and neurophysiological studies of worldview and moral assessments, taking into account age and cross-cultural factors, are discussed. Empirical studies of the neurophysiological foundations of decision-making in persons with mental disorders are highlighted. It is concluded that different moral tasks can involve different neural mechanisms. The significance of the results of the detected activity of the brain departments for understanding the neurophysiological and psychophysiological correlates of moral decision-making, and allowing the transition to understanding higher, conscious regulators of behavior, is substantiated. The prospects of comparing the dynamics of the activity of brain structures with the personal profile and the level of subjective stress of a person for the development of prognostic and diagnostic methods for assessing behavior in life-threatening situations are indicated.</p>

Is ethical human resource management effective for ethical voice? Role of moral efficacy and moral task complexity

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine the underlying mechanism as well as the boundary effect between employees' perceived ethical human resource management (HRM) and ethical voice based on social cognitive theory. The authors expect that employees who perceive ethical HRM could develop their moral reasoning and conduct through one of the cognitive processes (i.e. vicarious experience).Design/methodology/approachBased on structural equation modelling and hierarchical regression analysis, the authors conducted a questionnaire survey on 265 employees and their immediate supervisors from a manufacturing company in China.FindingsEmployees' perceived ethical HRM was positively related to ethical voice, and moral efficacy mediated this relationship. Moral task complexity not only moderated the relationship between employees' perceived ethical HRM and moral efficacy but also moderated the indirect effect of employees' perceived ethical HRM on ethical voice such that the impact was stronger when the moral task complexity level is higher and weaker when low.Practical implicationsThis research model provides a framework through which organisations can diagnose potential ethical issues with the implementation of ethical HRM, as well as increase employee awareness of ethical values and then enhance their moral efficacy. Moreover, organisations can benefit from combining interventions and practices that influence the task design.Originality/valueThis study fills research gap by examining the mechanisms that shape employees' ethical voice from the perspective of HRM through moral efficacy and demonstrates that higher levels of moral task complexity contribute to higher levels of moral efficacy and ethical voice.

The Transformation of the parable and Jemal Karchkhadze’s “He”

       The work analyzes the inner world of Jemal Karchkhadze's literary characters based on such important events as revenge and forgiveness with their religious and literary interpretations. Jemal Karchkhadze's theological and psychological observations are shown for the purpose of searching the human essence, to achieve the divine in order to discover the true purpose. The classic story of revenge and forgiveness can be considered Jemal Karchkhadze's story "He". At the level of extralinguistic context, this work is the main work of Jemal Karchkhadze - because the character of the story is the eternal hero of the Gospel stories, which includes himself all the dimensions of the universe. All the plate of the parallel language coexist in it simultaneously - the chronotype, epiphany at the beginning of the road and at the end of the road, all the anthropomorphism used in the text of the story indicates the conotactic meaning of the words and concentrates in the subtleties of the Gospel. He is the protagonist of the Gospel books, which is transformed in other writings of the writers and has different names. He has to solve one of the major moral tasks everywhere - whether he can create a great mystery of being a human, fulfill his will and choice - to forgive and to be elevated to the Divine. That is why it does not matter what name he is called, or not called any name. He is the son of all times, all the epochs. The idea of ​​his name is combined with the portrayal of Georgian national souls in the works "Zebulon", "Antonio and David", "Resident", "Dimension".   "He", as the central base parable, is transformed in almost every other work of Jemal Karchkhadze and embodies a single parable system that presents the depth dimension of the writer's creativity. This dimension, in its turn, serves the greatest mission of personal and moral perfection before the divine.

“My Whole Life I’ve Been a Fraud”: Resisting Excessive (Self-)Critique and Reaffirming Authenticity as Communal in David Foster Wallace’s “Good Old Neon” and Albert Camus’s The Fall

The themes of paralyzing, solipsistic self-critique versus the necessarily communal character of authentic, meaningful existence in the work of American novelist David Foster Wallace are best understood in light of existentialism. This article compares Wallace’s story “Good Old Neon” with Albert Camus’s novella The Fall, as responses to similar unproductive tendencies within the respective postmodernist and Marxist discourses of their times. Both works portray an absolutist self-critique that produces feelings of (inauthentic) fraudulence and exceptionality; and both include an interlocutor that ultimately makes the reader the direct addressee of the text. In doing so, “Good Old Neon” and The Fall confront the reader with the moral task of resisting excessive (self-)critique and reaffirming authentic, meaningful existence as always arising in connection to others.

Minister of Education and Culture Counseling Socialization No. 82 of 2015 Concerning Prevention and Management of Acts of Violence in the Education Unit Environment

Lecturers have an important role in character education in higher education. In carrying out the main tasks of the Tri Dharma of Higher Education, namely conducting teaching, research and community service. Another goal of this community service is for lecturers to go directly into the community and learn about educational problems that occur in the community. Broadly speaking, this program intends to provide reinforcement to all residents in the school environment about the importance of education, especially Counseling to Permendikbud No. 82 of 2015 concerning Prevention and Management of Acts of Violence in Environmental Education Units. The function of education is to refer to a person's character or behavior and personality. Conversely, the role of education is very large in preparing and developing reliable and competitive Human Resources (HR). That is why carrying out education is a moral task that is not light. So that the importance of education in an effort to educate the nation's life, improve people's welfare, and build and build national dignity, the government is trying to pay serious attention to addressing various problems in the field of improving education starting from elementary, middle, to high levels.

Cerebral Activation During Moral Decisions and Salience Network Coherence in Ideation of Suicide

PurposeTo look for structural and/or functional deviations of the salience network in depressive patients that might help to identify individuals with ideation of suicide. Material and methodsIn 2 matched groups of patients with major depression and with and without ideation of suicide and in a healthy control group, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed during resting state and activation by a moral decision paradigm. Data were evaluated using voxel based morphometry, statistical parametric mapping, independent component analysis and network-based statistics (NBS) and related to the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire score of suicidality. ResultsFunctional connectivity was reduced significantly (p<0.05, NBS corrected) within the salient network during resting state in patients with suicide ideation. Application of a moral paradigm activated nearly identical areas, and both anterior parts of the insulae correlated negatively to the score of suicidality. ConclusionBecause the cerebral areas activated during a moral decision paradigm are nearly identical to the salience network seen in our study and because selected areas within this network, mainly the anterior parts of the insula, correlate negatively to suicidality, a special training using moral tasks or possibly also religious reinforcement might help to reduce suicidality in depressive patients.

Emotional descriptions increase accidental harm punishment and its cortico-limbic signatures during moral judgment in autism

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present difficulties in integrating mental state information in complex moral tasks. Yet, ASD research has not examined whether this process is influenced by emotions, let alone while capturing its neural bases. We investigated how language-induced emotions modulate intent-based moral judgment in ASD. In a fMRI task, 30 adults with ASD and 27 neurotypical controls read vignettes whose protagonists commit harm either accidentally or intentionally, and then decided how much punishment the protagonist deserved. Emotional content was manipulated across scenarios through the use of graphic language (designed to trigger arousing negative responses) vs. plain (just-the-facts, emotionless) language. Off-line functional connectivity correlates of task performance were also analyzed. In ASD, emotional (graphic) descriptions amplified punishment ratings of accidental harms, associated with increased activity in fronto-temporo-limbic, precentral, and postcentral/supramarginal regions (critical for emotional and empathic processes), and reduced connectivity among the orbitofrontal cortex and the angular gyrus (involved in mentalizing). Language manipulation did not influence intentional harm processing in ASD. In conclusion, in arousing and ambiguous social situations that lack intentionality clues (i.e. graphic accidental harm scenarios), individuals with ASD would misuse their emotional responses as the main source of information to guide their moral decisions. Conversely, in face of explicit harmful intentions, they would be able to compensate their socioemotional alterations and assign punishment through non-emotional pathways. Despite limitations, such as the small sample size and low ecological validity of the task, results of the present study proved reliable and have relevant theoretical and translational implications.

Nuclear Ethics Revisited

AbstractScott Sagan asked me to revisit Nuclear Ethics, a book I published in 1986, in light of current developments in world affairs. In doing so, I found that much had changed but the basic usability paradox of nuclear deterrence remains the same. As do the ethical dilemmas. To deter, there must be some prospect of use, but easy usability could produce highly immoral consequences. Some risk is unavoidable and the moral task is how best to lower it. Nuclear weapons pose moral problems but nuclear use is the greater evil. Abolition may be a worthy long-term goal, but it is unlikely in the short-term relations among the nine states now possessing nuclear weapons. Drawing on just war theory, I examine the three dimensions of intentions, means, and consequences to outline a ten-point agenda for just deterrence that seeks to lower risks of nuclear war. The world has changed since the book was published but the basic moral dilemmas remain the same.

Effect of subclinical depression on moral judgment dilemmas: a process dissociation approach

Dual-process theory of moral judgment indicates that moral decision-making is guided by emotional or cognitive processing, competing with each other. While emotional processing overwhelms cognitive processing, individuals preferentially make deontological judgments. Further, while cognitive processing dominates emotional processing, individuals preferentially make utilitarian judgments. This theory predicts that individuals with subclinical depression associated with emotion regulation deficits may deliver more utilitarian judgments. Experiment 1 indicated that higher depressive symptoms predicted utilitarian judgment. However, previous studies have not determined why individuals with subclinical depression make a utilitarian judgment. Thus, Experiment 2 employed the process-dissociation approach, which can separately measure the relative strength of individual deontological and utilitarian inclinations. Deontological inclination (parameter D) was associated with emotional processing, whereas utilitarian inclination (parameter U) was related to cognitive processing. In Experiment 2, the two groups (higher depressive symptoms/minimal depressive symptoms) completed the moral task of the process-dissociation approach to investigate the underlying mechanism. There was a significant interaction effect between the group and parameter of process dissociation. Parameter D in the higher depressive symptoms group was weaker than in the minimal depressive symptoms group. Individuals with subclinical depression bias their utilitarian judgments by making fewer deontological moral judgments.

The Connotation and Realization Path of Ecological Civilization Education in Chinese Universities under the Background of Mobile Internet

The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China creatively clarified the general pattern of socialist construction as “five-in-one,” namely, the construction of economy, politics, culture, society, and ecological civilization and pointed out that the construction of ecological civilization should lead and integrate into socialism. This marks that China has entered a new era of ecological civilization and started the great historical journey of building a beautiful China. Ecological civilization education in colleges and universities is an important content and foundation of ecological civilization construction, which can provide sufficient human resources and intellectual preparation for ecological civilization construction, promote the popularization of ecological civilization concept in society, and promote the ecological transformation of economic and social development. Therefore, the education of ecological civilization in colleges and universities is not only the meaning of the integration of ecological civilization into higher education but also an initiative to implement the national strategy, and it is also a realistic demand for realizing the fundamental task of morality and cultivation of people in higher education. This research uses mobile Internet technology to study the path of ecological civilization education in Chinese colleges and universities mainly using the questionnaire survey method, on the basis of multiple stratified sampling, with the help of the revised Chinese New Environmental Paradigm Scale (Chinese New Environmental Paradigm Scale) to collect data.

Delegation of Moral Tasks to Automated Agents—The Impact of Risk and Context on Trusting a Machine to Perform a Task

The rapid development of automation has led to machines increasingly taking over tasks previously reserved for human operators, especially those involving high-risk settings and moral decision making. To best benefit from the advantages of automation, these systems must be integrated into work environments, and into the society as a whole. Successful integration requires understanding how users gain acceptance of technology by learning to trust in its reliability. It is, thus, essential to examine factors that influence the integration, acceptance, and use of automated technologies. As such, this study investigated the conditions under which human operators were willing to relinquish control, and delegate tasks to automated agents by examining risk and context factors experimentally. In a decision task, participants ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N=43$ </tex-math></inline-formula> , 27 female) were placed in different situations in which they could choose to delegate a task to an automated agent or manual execution. The results of our experiment indicated that both, context and risk, significantly influenced people’s decisions. While it was unsurprising that the reliability of an automated agent seemed to strongly influence trust in automation, the different types of decision support systems did not appear to impact participant compliance. Our findings suggest that contextual factors should be considered when designing automated systems that navigate moral norms and individual preferences.

The Development Change and Countermeasures of College Students' Mental Health Education from the Perspective of "Internet +"

Mental health education plays an increasingly important role in the field of higher education teaching. Carrying out the mental health education of college students is the requirement for colleges and universities to strengthen humanistic care and implement the fundamental task of morality and cultivating people. It helps college students to enhance their self-awareness, achieve self-regulation and self-healing, so as to grow up healthily. "Internet +" is conducive to promoting the online courses and popularization of mental health education, but there are also problems such as insufficient attention of students, lack of effective interaction between teachers and students, and weak professional ability of teachers. Under the background of "Internet +", colleges and universities should build a three-dimensional mental health curriculum system in the form of online courses, use the anonymity and openness of the Internet to enhance teaching interaction and experience, and promote the integration of teachers' ideological education and mental health education capabilities.

Exploration and Comparison of the Experimental Teaching System of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Chinese and French Business Colleges and University

Mental health education plays an increasingly important role in the field of higher education teaching. Carrying out the mental health education of college students is the requirement for colleges and universities to strengthen humanistic care and implement the fundamental task of morality and cultivating people. It helps college students to enhance their self-awareness, achieve self-regulation and self-healing, so as to grow up healthily. "Internet +" is conducive to promoting the online courses and popularization of mental health education, but there are also problems such as insufficient attention of students, lack of effective interaction between teachers and students, and weak professional ability of teachers. Under the background of "Internet +", colleges and universities should build a three-dimensional mental health curriculum system in the form of online courses, use the anonymity and openness of the Internet to enhance teaching interaction and experience, and promote the integration of teachers' ideological education and mental health education capabilities.

Moral Intensity, Perceived Impacts, and Task Motivation: Evidence From Volunteers

Although work tasks often address substantive social issues, the effects of issue characteristics on task motivation are little understood. This study explores this topic by examining how the moral characteristics of an issue (moral intensity) affect motivation in tasks intended to address the issue (task motivation). Adopting the lens of work design theory, I hypothesize that moral intensity increases task motivation through the mediation of perceived task impacts on the community (perceived community impacts), and that this effect will occur after controlling for the effects of perceived task impact on the worker and their organization. In two studies in the context of volunteering I find that, rather than acting in parallel with other task impacts, the effect of moral intensity through perceived community impacts is fully mediated by perceived organization and self impacts in a three-stage mediation. These findings demonstrate the potential relevance of issue characteristics such as moral intensity to work design theory and shed new light on the psychological mechanisms through which perceived prosocial impacts promote task motivation. I discuss implications for research and practice.

The Role of Temperature in Moral Decision-Making: Limited Reproducibility.

Temperature is one of the major environmental factors that people are exposed to on a daily basis, often in conditions that do not afford control. It is known that heat and cold can influence a person’s productivity and performance in simple tasks. With respect to social cognition, it has also been suggested that temperature impacts on relatively high-level forms of decision-making. For instance, previous research demonstrated that cold temperature promotes utilitarian judgment in a moral dilemma task. This effect could be due to psychological processing, when a cool temperature primes a set of internal representations (associated with “coldness”). Alternatively, the promotion of utilitarian judgment in cold conditions could be due to physiological interference from temperature, impeding on social cognition. Refuting both explanations of psychological or physiological processing, however, it has been suggested that there may be problems of reproducibility in the literature on temperature modulating complex or abstract information processing. To examine the role of temperature in moral decision-making, we conducted a series of experiments using ambient and haptic temperature with careful manipulation checks and modified task methodology. Experiment 1 manipulated room temperature with cool (21°C), control (24°C) and hot (27°C) conditions and found only a cool temperature effect, promoting utilitarian judgment as in the previous study. Experiment 2 manipulated the intensity of haptic temperature but failed to obtain the cool temperature effect. Experiments 3 and 4 examined the generalizability of the cool ambient temperature effect with another moral judgment task and with manipulation of exposure duration. However, again there were no cool temperature effects, suggesting a lack of reproducibility. Despite successful manipulations of temperature in all four experiments, as measured in body temperature and the participants’ self-reported perception, we found no systematic influence of temperature on moral decision-making. A Bayesian meta-analysis of the four experiments showed that the overall data tended to provide strong support in favor of the null hypothesis. We propose that, at least in the range of temperatures from 21 to 27°C, the cool temperature effect in moral decision-making is not a robust phenomenon.

Public Moral Discourse

Public moral discourse encompasses open discussions in which moral concepts of good and right are brought to bear on questions of public policy and on broader issues of basic rights and the goals and rules that guide social institutions. These public questions also raise practical, apologetic, and political concerns that are central to Christian ethics and moral theology. Public discourse frames legal and political understandings of religious freedom, and Christian ethics has a practical interest in ensuring that these choices do not limit Christian worship and formation or unduly restrict the institutional life of the church. Public discourse also engages apologetic theology in a moral task because the questions raised in public discourse involve conceptions of human good, human nature, and human community that have been discussed in Christian theology across the centuries. Christians have a distinctive understanding of persons in society that they hope to make effective, or at least to make understood, in a wider public discussion. Finally, public moral discourse gives rise to a moral responsibility for Christian participation in politics to create a public consensus on the creation of shared human goods.