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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Moral'
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Lusenga, Richard Mishack. "School leaders' moral understanding and moral reasoning." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/25322.
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School leaders are faced with serious moral challenges on a daily basis at schools, which often result in them making poor moral choices. In a situation of moral decay in schools, reports in the news media create the impression that school leaders often fail to demonstrate the necessary values advocated by the Moral Regeneration Movement and the Manifesto of Values, Education and Democracy. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore school leaders’ understanding and reasoning regarding values and morality. For the purposes of the study a number of possible lenses, such as cultural relativism, religious beliefs, ethical subjectivism, classical utilitarian theory, Domain theory, and the ethic of justice, ethic of care, ethic of critique and the ethic of community, were identified and used in analysing the way school leaders reason about moral dilemmas. A design located within hermeneutic phenomenology was used in the study with the aim to understand school leaders’ understanding and reasoning regarding values and morality. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data gathering techniques was used in a concurrent mixed method design using a single questionnaire. The sample for the study consisted of educators enrolled for a formal management training programme. This group was largely homogenous in terms of religion, language, culture and was mainly from rural areas of Mpumalanga. Seventy-three participants took part in the study. It emerged from the data that the espoused theories used by school leaders could be related to the lenses identified in the literature. The school leaders’ espoused theories were mainly based on the ethic of justice and the ethic of care and were aligned to their preferred value orientations. At the espoused theory level, school leaders revealed a strong moral orientation. Further research is indicated to study school leaders’ theory in action.Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2010.
Education Management and Policy Studies
unrestricted
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Gholamzadehmir, Maedeh. "The impact of moral action and moral values on moral judgment and moral behaviour." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2016. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/65081/.
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This thesis focuses on how recalling past behaviour affects attitudes, intentions and behaviour in the domain of moral decision-making. It extends the existing literature on moral licensing and moral cleansing by exploring whether different individual difference variables moderate such licensing and cleansing effects. Five empirical studies are reported. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the moral licensing and moral cleansing literature and also outlines research into the predictive effects of moral norms on behavioural intentions within the structure of the TPB. In chapter 2, the first study reveals evidence of moral cleansing effects: participants in an immoral condition were more likely to donate to charity than were participants in a moral condition or control group. Study 2 investigated whether self monitoring moderated licensing and cleansing effects. Chapter 3 (study 3) investigated the mediation effect of emotion and the moderation effect of moral identity regarding licensing and cleansing effects on attitudes, intentions and moral norm and behaviour. A partial mediation of condition and behaviour by negative emotions was identified. The results also indicated evidence of a cleansing effect. Moreover, in studies 1, 2 and 3 mediation of the moral norms – intention relationship via attitudes was examined. Moral norms were identified as a strong predictor of charitable donation intentions. In Chapter 4, environmental attitude was investigated as a moderator of the effect of individuals' past pro-environmental behaviour on TPB components. Internally motivated pro-environmental attitude was found to be a significant moderator. Chapter 5 draws upon the idea that conception of morality differs in different cultures and examined how different moral foundation values and cultural orientations affect moral attitudes and intentions in the UK and Iran. Surprisingly, moral norms were a more useful predictor of intention than were attitudes in both national cultures.
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Chiotis, Vangelis. "Morals by convention : the rationality of moral behaviour." Thesis, University of York, 2012. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3913/.
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The account of rational morality presented in Morals by Agreement is based, to a large extent, on the concept of constrained maximisation. Rational agents are assumed to have reasons to constrain their maximisation provided they interact with other similarly disposed agents. On this account, rational agents will internalise a disposition to behave as constrained maximisers. The assertion of constrained maximisation is problematic and unrealistic mainly because it does not explain how the process of internalisation occurs. I propose an amended version of constrained maximisation that is based on a conventional understanding of social behaviour and the social contract. Repeated interactions between rational agents lead to the creation of social conventions, which in turn serve as supportive mechanisms for behaviours that reinforce their stability. In addition, established social conventions facilitate and ensure information sharing, thus making it possible for conventional agents to know others' dispositions. The development and establishment of social conventions are best described and explained through an evolutionary account of social structures. The evolutionary account offers a more powerful and more realistic method of discussing cultural evolution, since it considers large populations over long periods of time and the interdependence between social structures and individual behaviour. In this context, information availability ensures that the most efficient conventions take over and maximising strategies become dominant. While for Gauthier moral behaviour depends on constrained maximisation, in the conventional account of morality it comes about as a result of repeated interactions between rational agents within the bounds of social conventions.
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Dawson, Paul. "Moral cognitivism and moral realism." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.407370.
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Doggett, Tyler 1976. "Moral properties and moral imagination." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/28836.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-73).
"Moral Realism" is about an argument against moral realism, why it is unsound, and what emerges from that. The argument is that if there were moral properties, they would be queerly related to non-moral properties and this is sufficient reason to think there are no moral properties. The argument is unsound for two reasons. The first emerges from consideration of sensational properties like being in pain or being in ecstasy-they bear the queer relation to non-sensational properties. The second emerges from consideration of vice properties like being an instance of greediness-they are not queerly related to non-moral properties. Analogies between moral and sensational properties are discussed. A disanalogy between the moral and sensational is important to "The Explanatory Gap" which discusses Levine's notion of an explanatory gap, relates it to the queer relation discussed in "Moral Realism," and criticizes one use to which it is put. The criticism emerges from consideration of the disanalogy between the moral and sensational: our moral imagination is considerably more limited than our sensational imagination. That there are limits to our moral imagination is interesting. "Imaginative Resistance" solves an old puzzle from Hume about the limits of our imaginative capacities, for example, the inability of some people (myself, for example) to imagine that baseless killing is morally permissible. Both the puzzle and solution illuminate the natures of imagination and possibility and the relation between them.
by Tyler Doggett.
Ph.D.
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Schaefer, G. Owen. "Moral enhancement and moral disagreement." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cf152e03-a7a0-4877-b519-bd90dd253e89.
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At first glance, the project of moral enhancement (making people more moral) may appear uncontroversial and obviously worth supporting; surely it is a good idea to make people better. However, as the recent literature on moral enhancement demonstrates, the situation is not so simple – there is significant disagreement over the content of moral norms as well as appropriate means by which to manipulate them. This disagreement seriously threatens many proposals to improve society via moral enhancement. In my dissertation, I develop an understanding of how, exactly, disagreement poses problems for moral enhancement. However, I also argue that there is a way forward. It is possible to bring about moral improvement without commitment to particular and controversial moral norms, but instead relying on relatively uncontroversial ideas concerning morally reliable processes. The upshot is that, while attempting to directly manipulate people’s moral ideas is objectionable, it is relatively unproblematic to focus on helping people reason better and avoid akrasia, with the justified expectation that this will generally lead to moral improvement. We should, therefore, focus not on how to bring people in line with what we take to be the right ideas, motives or behaviors. Rather, we should look to helping people determine for themselves what being moral consists in, as well as help ensure that they act on those judgments. Traditional, non-moral education, it turns out, is actually one of the best moral enhancers we have. In fact, the tools of philosophy (which is, in many aspects, concerned with proper reasoning) are central to the project of indirect moral enhancement. Ultimately, one of the best ways to make people morally better may well be to make them better philosophers.
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Beaulieu, Gerald Denis. "Moral experience and the moral problem." Thesis, McGill University, 2004. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=85124.
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This thesis examines the relationship between moral experience and moral knowledge in contemporary analytic meta-ethics. It begins with a critical examination of the work of Michael Smith, notably his book The Moral Problem, which leaves out of consideration the notion of moral experience. I treat Smith as representative of those working within what I call "the traditional meta-ethical framework," which is characterized by the assumption that moral knowledge, if it exists, is available, in principle, from any perspective. Within that framework, Smith's philosophy stands out as a model of clarity and forceful argument. I consider and develop some objections to his program from within the traditional framework. However, the latter part of the thesis is critical of the framework itself. Against it, I argue that moral knowledge is only available from a certain perspective, namely, the perspective of the virtuous agent. It is by coming to perceive or see things from this perspective that the right things will matter to us. In other words, I argue that we cannot hope for the impartial body of knowledge promised by the traditional framework where the things that ought to matter are supposed to be capable of codification or otherwise understandable across perspectives. In this regard I examine a number of philosophers who are sympathetic to the idea of moral perception, notably, Jonathan Dancy, John McDowell, Iris Murdoch, and David Wiggins. Finally, I consider the recent debate between Robert Brandom and John McDowell on the nature of perceptual experience in order to assess just how rich a notion of experience is required in order to make sense of moral knowledge based on moral perception.
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Tanner, Julia K. H. "Animals, moral risk and moral considerability." Thesis, Durham University, 2007. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2477/.
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I believe that accounts of the moral considerability of animals can be strengthened in an interesting and novel way if attention is paid to moral risk and epistemic responsibility. In this thesis I argue for a sentience-based account of moral considerability. The argument from marginal cases gives us a reason to prefer accounts of moral considerability that include animals; if we think marginal humans are morally considerable we must accept that animals are too. Moral uncertainty gives us another reason to include animals. When we are making moral decisions we ought to minimise the amount of moral risk we take. I call this the 'cautious approach '. We cannot know for certain which account of moral considerability is correct. Given that we are trying to do what is right we should avoid any course of action that may be wrong. I will argue that accounts of moral considerability that exclude animals are taking an unnecessary moral risk: animals might be morally considerable and if they are most of our current treatment of them is wrong. When assessing risk one of the things that needs to be taken into account are benefits and losses. I will argue that conceding animals moral status will benefit humans. I argue that we should favour a sentience-based account of moral consideration because it is the least risky and most epistemically responsible; this gives us extra reasons to prefer it. I outline respect utilitarianism, which makes provision for protecting individuals. On this account we ought to give the interests of sentient beings (at least all vertebrates) equal consideration. Animals' interests not to be eaten and/or used for testing are sufficiently weighty to dictate that most westerners ought to become vegan and testing on animals should stop.
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Frimannsson, Gudmundur Heidar. "Moral realism, moral expertise and paternalism." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14812.
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In this essay I examine the notion of moral objectivity of moral properties. Moral objectivity seems to be able to resist the arguments of subjectivists. There seem to be true moral sentences and moral facts can explain actions and occurrences in the world. Values seem best accounted for in objective terms and persons can have interests or good independently of their desires. It seems to be reasonable to think of the nature of moral value in terms of consequences. Knowledge requires truth so the objectivity of moral properties makes moral knowledge possible. Moral knowledge should be accounted for in similar terms as other kinds of knowledge. The major requirement on moral knowledge is coherence. Moral expertise is both possible and plausible and so are moral experts. Paternalism is possible because our values can conflict: autonomy can conflict with general welfare. Paternalism is making someone do what is in his own interest. This seems best thought of in terms of the consequences for his good. The justification of paternalistic interventions seems best based on the weighing of the consequences of the intervention and the decision of the agent. One thing which must be taken into this weighing is the rationality of the decision of the agent. Rationality is basically thought of as the maximization of good. Autonomy is part of everyone's good. It can conflict with the agent's general or overall welfare. But the importance of autonomy for every agent creates a presumption against paternalism. But paternalism can maximize autonomy and paternalism can be justified to secure some minimal autonomy. So paternalism and autonomy seem to be compatible.
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Johnson, Jennie Susan. "Organizational Justice, Moral Ideology, and Moral Evaluation as Antecedents of Moral Intent." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/27063.
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The present research in ethical decision-making draws from the fields of moral philosophy, social psychology, and organizational theory with the intention of establishing links among social/organizational influences, individual cognitive elements of moral behavior, individual difference characteristics, and the intention to act ethically. Ethical decision-making, by investigating the moral judgment (evaluation) and moral intent components of an ethical decision-making model, was examined. This augments existing research concerning inconsistencies between the ethical behavior of an individual and the individualâ s level of moral development, which in the workplace are hypothesized to be related to organizational factors. Research questions developed from this groundwork, as well as research on moral ideology and organizational justice, were formulated to examine how moral ideology, moral evaluation, and organizational justice work together to explain moral intent. Moral evaluation explained 55% of the variance in moral intent after controlling for moral ideology and organizational justice. For a subset of the data, three organizational justice variables explained a very modest proportion of the variance in moral evaluation after controlling for two moral ideology variables. Implications for future research and considerations for practice are presented.Ph. D.
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Millar, Matthew James Denver. "Making moral judgements : internalism and moral motivation." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29275.
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Making Moral Judgements addresses an apparent tension between the internalist view that there is a necessary connection between moral judgements and motivation and the cognitivist view that such judgements express beliefs about how the world is morally. This thesis argues that to resolve this tension we need first to distinguish the act of making a moral judgement from the content of a moral judgement. Act internalism asserts a necessary connection between the act of making a moral judgement and motivation. This is perfectly consistent with there being no connection between the truth of moral propositions - the content of moral judgements - and motivation. The act internalist approach is developed using speech act theory. Speech acts that do more than simply state facts or express motivating states are ubiquitous in our linguistic practice. Moral judgements can be construed as a type of compound speech act that involves assertion and motivation. This approach, it is argued, can help us better understand the complexities of moral motivation and of moral practice. On the speech act approach, an agent in making a moral judgement goes beyond description or cognition in holding herself and others to account with regard to a moral requirement. To be able to do this, the agent must be generally susceptible to a range of reactive attitudes that make up the point of view of normative participation. It is in relation to this participant point of view that we can account for the capacity of agents to be motivated by moral considerations. And it is with regard to this point of view that internalism is best understood as an expression of our interested or participatory relation to moral deliberation and moral practice.
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Young, Benjamin Scott. "Moral Friction, Moral Phenomenology, and the Improviser." Scholar Commons, 2012. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/4264.
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This dissertation offers a phenomenology of that mode of self-interpretation in which it becomes possible for an interpreter to intentionally participate in the production of moral norms to which the interpreter himself or herself feels bound. Part One draws on Richard Rorty's notion of the "ironist" in order to thematize the phenomenon I call "moral friction"; a condition in which an interpreter becomes explicitly aware of the historical and cultural contingencies of their own moral vocabularies, practices, and concerns and as a result find themselves incapable of feeling the normative weight implicit in these. Part Two draws on Heidegger's existential analytic of human being, Gadamer's development of Hermeneutic Phenomenology, and Hegel's notion of "sublation" in order to map how novel interpretations can irreversibly displace the coherence of older interpretations. I call this form of interpretation "moral phenomenology." Finally, in Part Three, I utilize a selective phenomenology of musical improvisation to plot the unique temporal orientation of self-interpretation that results from intentionally deploying this irreversible displacement of older interpretations that involve normative moral implications. I call the form of life that is marked by this hermeneutic mode the "improviser." The result is a description of a form of life in which it becomes possible to explicitly participate in the production of moral norms within a historical and culturally contingent context that nevertheless preserves standards of rational justification for normative moral judgment without the need for atemporal first principles. The availability of this mode of self-interpretation displaces the sharp distinction between non-normative descriptive phenomenology and normative moral reasoning by placing the latter within a non-teleological historical practice that engages in the production of interpretations which irreversibly displace older interpretations--a practice that is governed by the critical cultivation of contingent moral norms within the open investigation into the good life for human being.
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Islam, Ferdosh. "Moral realism : a study in moral objectivity." Thesis, University of North Bengal, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/78.
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Chen, Johnny. "The moral high ground: Perceived moral violation and moral emotions in consumer boycotts." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11141.
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xiii, 173 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.Prior research has tended to focus on rational (e.g., collective social action and cost-benefit factors) rather than emotional processes when predicting boycott intention. The current dissertation proposes that both processes contribute to a boycotting decision and that each is premised on a perceived moral violation. A model is offered in which boycott intention is conceptualized as a consumer coping response. Three studies provide support that moral emotions and cost-benefit factors independently contribute to overall consumer boycott intention. In Study 1, online survey responses from active boycotters (N = 121) indicated that participants felt other-condemning moral emotions more acutely in symbolic boycotts than in non-symbolic boycotts. In Study 2, the theoretical relationship between perceived moral violation, boycott intention, and boycott behavior was established in a simple experiment (N = 201). In Study 3, experimental results from a real world consumer panel (N = 709) indicated that the key to diffusing consumer boycott intention is counter-message tactics aimed at reducing overall perceived moral violation. Path analysis using the data from Study 2 and 3 provided additional insight into the structure of the proposed model. Other-condemning and self-conscious emotions, along with perceived boycott benefit (ability to make a difference and self-enhancement), contributed to boycott intentions whereas cost perceptions played a lesser role in predicting boycott intention. Comparisons between the hypothesized model and a set of alternatives supported the proposition that boycott intention may be conceptualized as a coping behavior. Finally, the results of a path analysis indicated that two individual difference variables were determinants of perceived moral violation: humanitarian- egalitarian orientation and negative attitude towards big businesses.
Committee in charge: Robert Madrigal, Chairperson, Marketing; Lynn Kahle, Member, Marketing; David Boush, Member, Marketing; Robert Mauro, Outside Member, Psychology
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Sprod, Tim. "Philosophical discussion in moral education the community of ethical inquiry /." London : Routledge, 2001. http://www.myilibrary.com?id=7101.
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Ljungström, Andreas. "Moral Intuition Versus Moral Reasoning In the Brain." Thesis, Högskolan i Skövde, Institutionen för biovetenskap, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:his:diva-9574.
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Humans express complex moral behaviour, from altruism to antisocial acts. The investigationof the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying our moral minds is of profoundimportance for understanding these behaviours. By reviewing recent findings in cognitive andmoral neuroscience, along with other relevant areas of research, the current study aims to: (1)Investigate the neural correlates of moral intuition and moral reasoning, and see how thesetwo systems relate to moral judgement and moral behaviour. (2) Examine how the moralintuitive system and the moral reasoning system relate to one another. Neuroscientificevidence suggests that these two systems are supported by different areas in the brain. Whiletheir relationship is argued to be both sequential, integrative and competitive, evidenceindicates that the moral reasoning system primarily functions as a post hoc rationalization ofour intuitive-driven judgements and behaviours. While our moral intuitive system motivateskin altruism, both moral intuition and moral reasoning serve to uphold reciprocal altruism.
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Harris, Philip Anthony. "The legal moral and the non-legal moral." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.245645.
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Hagen, Daniel Scott. "Moral expertise and moral education : a Socratic account." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/84417.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 97-101).
What is virtue and can it be taught? These questions preoccupied Socrates and this dissertation offers a Socratic answer to them. In Chapter 1 ("Virtue as Expert Moral Knowledge") I develop and defend a novel interpretation of the Socratic thesis that virtue is a kind of knowledge. I argue that the relevant kind of knowledge of interest to Socrates is expert moral knowledge or moral expertise-a complex epistemic state that integrates practical knowledge, theoretical knowledge, and self-knowledge. This account unifies several seemingly disparate epistemological threads that run through Plato's Socratic dialogues, it helps us resolve other interpretive questions surrounding Socrates and Socratic philosophy, and it is philosophically attractive in its own right. In Chapter 2 ("Socrates the Educator and Socratic Education") I confront a puzzle about Socrates' status as a teacher. It's natural to think of him as one, yet (1) Socrates persistently denies that he is or ever was anyone's teacher, (2) he seems to think knowledge of some sort is necessary for being a teacher while disavowing knowledge himself, and (3) he argues on occasion that virtue-the thing he took to be most important of all-cannot be taught. I use the account from Chapter 1 to resolve this puzzle. I conclude the chapter by considering some of the further benefits of Socratic education and some of the limitations it faces. In Chapter 3 ("Moral Deference and Moral Development") I explore the interaction between expertise and education by examining Socratic policies regarding each. In particular, I consider how Socrates thinks we ought to interact with moral experts, and I consider how he thinks we ought to promote our own moral development (in light of the account of virtue from Chapter 1). I argue that while there appears to be a trade-off between deference and development, Socrates' characteristic method of inquiry, elenchus, offers a way to reconcile the two. I bookend the chapter with a discussion of some recent work in moral epistemology on the puzzle of pure moral deference. The Socratic perspective on deference and development supplies a new diagnosis of this puzzle.
by Daniel Scott Hagen.
Ph.D.
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Phillips, Glynn Stuart. "Moral education and the nature of moral judgment." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1996. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/74566/.
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A vigorous debate is taking place about whether school pupils should be morally educated. Opinion appears to be sharply divided both about whether this is possible, and even if it is, what it would be. Some claim that schools have a duty to teach pupils 'universal' values. Others reject this, claiming that this is based on a misconception of what a moral judgment is. This school of thought takes moral judgment to be in a broad sense subjective or relative, and bases its doubts about the enterprise of moral education on these conceptions. Such scepticism about moral education, I suggest, is indicative of a more general view that unless claims made in a subject or activity can be objective and objectively assessed, they are not a fit vehicle for educational activity. Subjective or relativistic conceptions about moral judgment are ways of doubting whether claims made in morality can be objective and so can be a proper domain of educational activity. These claims about how we understand the concept of moral judgment, are philosophical claims. To get to grips with these positions, I use the resources of metaethics to examine them. I suggest that any metaethical theory about the nature of moral judgment can be assessed by four tests, which are laid out in chapter 1. These are whether a theory (a) accounts for our basic moral convictions, (b) explains how we should understand the nature of moral disagreement, (c) explains what kind of knowledge is moral knowledge or what kind of justification is moral justification, and (d) explains the connection between moral judgment and moral action. In chapters, 2-7, I examine the claims of emotivism, universal prescriptivism, two versions of subjectivism, relativism, moral realism and, more briefly, ethical naturalism to provide a satisfactory philosophical account of the nature of moral judgment. In the concluding chapter, I draw out the implications of these different metaethical theories for moral education. I argue that emotivism, standard subjectivism, and relativism, the metaethical theories upon which sceptical views about the possibility of moral education are based, do not do justice to those aspects of our moral experience which form the basis for my four tests, and do not support the case that moral education is not possible. I go on to argue that we can deepen our understanding of what it is to be morally educated and what it is to engage in moral education, by making judicious selections from the ideas and claims in universal prescriptivism and moral realism.
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Starks, Shannon. "Moral Values in Moral Psychology? A Textual Analysis." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2016. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6067.
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What values, if any, is moral psychology based on with regard to what humans should be like? While the value-free ideal of science requires at least the bracketing of values in regards to the conducting of research and influence on its results, this investigation takes seriously the concerns of leading social psychologists that biases may influence the subdiscipline. Textual analyses of moral psychology's literature involving content analysis of codes and cultural discourse analysis of value themes illuminate values involving moral problems and moral goods that may inherently influence research at various levels. It is proposed that values are impossible to eliminate from moral psychological research and that a simple epistemic/nonepistemic value distinction is inadequate for deciding which values are appropriate. A norm of value disclosure to replace the norm of the value-free ideal is recommended.
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Grigoletto, Simone. "Only Through Moral Complexity: The Case of Supererogation." Doctoral thesis, Università degli studi di Padova, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11577/3425231.
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The present research work will focus on two morally relevant issues: the nature of the experience of a moral agents and a possible account of the concept of supererogation. Even if, at a preliminary stage, these two subjects look to be unrelated, it will become clear how they both are expressions of the complexity typical of the moral domain.
I will endorse, as a starting point, the approach of moral phenomenology as defined by Maurice Mandelbaum. A phenomenological study is then intended as the analysis of what it is like to perform a given act from the perspective of the first-person. Accordingly, the experience of the moral agent appears to be manifold and heterogeneous. On a normative level, the best moral account that allows the management and the comprehension of such complexity seems to be moral pluralism. In particular, I will distinguish between two sorts of pluralism: methodological pluralism (about the different ways of moral reasoning) and axiological pluralism (about the different values that we take to have ultimate relevance). These denominations represent two ways of understanding morality in virtue of its complexity. As such, the approach of moral complexity relies on the acknowledgment of the manifold structure of morality. In this regard, I will consider the account offered by Charles Larmore in his Patterns of Moral Complexity. His admission of different and equally valid moral principles does not only explain something essential about our moral experience, but it will also become particularly helpful as I will try to apply his theory to the justification of supererogatory acts.
Supererogation, as I will highlight, is a moral concept that relies on the existence of the many levels of morality and on the many possible achievements of the good. In this way, a clear distinction between the Right and the Good will provide the theoretical space for this category of acts. I will define this as the need of complexity, that is, the need of a multilevel theoretical structure that resembles the distinction between precepts and concepts that gave birth to the concept in the Christian tradition.
I will try to show how the loss of moral complexity is the first responsible of the theoretical struggles that the major monist theories (in particular Utilitarianism and Kantian Ethics) face when confronted with the justification of supererogatory acts. These theoretical approaches usually tend to be anti-supererogationists for a clear reason. When the level of the Right and the level of the Good merge into the same category there is no easy way to give an account of morally good acts that go beyond the call of duty. I believe that the endorsement of a pluralist system will solve the so-called problem of supererogation by reestablishing a clear distinction between the two faces of morality: the deontic and the evaluative. This is why, in the final chapter, I will introduce the Multiple Sources Dynamics as possible explanation, on a normative level, of how supererogatory acts can be performed. A system that provides multiple sources of the good has the tools to explain the establishment of our moral obligations and, at the same time, it can explain how we are able to see and foster some other good that lies beyond the level of requirements.
In the present work, moral pluralism will be taken to be a sort of inference to best explanation of different morally relevant issues. This claim will be warranted by highlighting how moral pluralism can explain why our moral experience is so essentially complex (to the point of facing true moral dilemmas) and by showing how it can provide a satisfactory account of the concept supererogation. If these two subjects (which will be considered, at this point, directly related) are proved to hold true, the endorsement of a pluralist system will be considered the preferable option over the other normative systems.Il presente progetto di ricerca si concentrerà su due questioni di rilevanza morale: la natura dell’esperienza morale degli morali ed un possibile giustificazione del concetto di supererogatorio. Anche se, ad uno stadio preliminare, queste due questioni non sembrano essere in relazione, diventerà chiaro in secondo momento come esse siano entrambe espressioni di quella complessità tipica dell’ambito morale. Come punto di partenza, seguirò l’approccio della fenomenologia morale come viene definita da Maurice Mandelbaum. Tale studio fenomenologico è quindi inteso come l’analisi, dalla prospettiva della prima persona, di cosa voglia dire fare una data azione. A questo proposito, l’esperienza morale dell’agente appare multiforme ed eterogenea. Ad un livello normativo, la miglior teoria che permette di affrontare e comprendere tale complessità sembra essere il pluralismo morale. In particolare, distinguerò due tipologie di pluralismo: un pluralismo metodologico (che riguarda i diversi modi di ragionare moralmente) ed un pluralismo assiologico (che riguarda i diversi valori a cui diamo una rilevanza assoluta). Queste due interpretazioni rappresentano due modi di comprendere la moralità in virtù della sua essenziale complessità. Come tale, l’approccio della complessità morale si fonda sul riconoscimento della struttura variegata della morale. A questo proposito, analizzerò la posizione di Charles Larmore come espressa nel suo Strutture di complessità morale. La sua identificazione di diversi principi morali egualmente validi, non solo spiegherà qualcosa di essenziale riguardo all’esperienza morale, ma diventerà particolarmente funzionale quando, nell’ultimo capitolo, farò riferimento alla sua teoria per la giustificazione degli atti supererogatori. Il supererogatorio, come evidenzierò, è un concetto morale che si fonda sull’esistenza dei diversi livelli della morale e sulle molteplici modalità di conseguire il bene. In questo modo, una chiara distinzione tra il Giusto ed il Bene fornirà lo spazio teorico per questa categoria di atti. Definirò tale operazione la necessità della complessità, ovvero, il bisogno di una struttura teorica a più livelli che ricordi la distinzione tra precetti e consigli che ha dato vita al concetto nella tradizione cristiana. Cercherò di dimostrare come la perdita di complessità morale è la prima causa delle difficoltà teoriche che le principali teorie moniste (in particolare utilitarismo ed etica kantiana) si trovano a fronteggiare nella giustificazione degli atti supererogatori. Questi approcci teorici, infatti, tendono ad essere anti-supererogazionisti per un motivo ben chiaro. Quando il livello del Giusto ed il livello del Bene si fondono nella stessa categoria, non resta alcun modo diretto di rendere conto degli atti moralmente buoni che vanno oltre il senso del dovere. Credo che l’adozione di un sistema pluralista risolverà il così detto problema del supererogatorio, ristabilendo una chiara distinzione tra le due facce della morale: il deontico e l’assiologico. Da qui il motivo per cui, nel capitolo finale, introdurrò la Multiple Sources Dynamics come una possibile spiegazione, ad un livello normativo, di come si diano le azioni supererogatorie. Un sistema che garantisca molteplici fonti del bene ha gli strumenti per fondare le nostre obbligazioni morali e, allo stesso tempo, per vedere e perseguire beni di altro genere che stanno oltre il livello degli obblighi. In questo lavoro il pluralismo morale viene inteso come una sorta di inferenza alla miglior spiegazione di diverse questioni moralmente rilevanti. Questa affermazione verrà giustificata evidenziando come il pluralismo morale possa spiegare perché la nostra esperienza morale è essenzialmente complessa (fino al punto di fronteggiare reali dilemmi morali) e dimostrando come si possa fornire una giustificazione soddisfacente del concetto di supererogatorio. Se queste due questioni (che a questo punto si danno come direttamente relazionate) sono verificate come valide, l’adozione di un sistema pluralista sarà considerata come l’opzione preferibile tra i vari sistemi normativi.
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Ransome, William Felix. "Moral reflection /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2004. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe18405.pdf.
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Schellenberg, Ingra Prinz Jesse J. "Moral moods." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,612.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006.Title from electronic title page (viewed Oct. 10, 2007). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the department of Philosophy." Discipline: Philosophy; Department/School: Philosophy.
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Harman, Elizabeth 1975. "Moral Status." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17645.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2003.Includes bibliographical references.
Chapters One through Three present the following view: (i) I explain moral status as follows: something has moral status just in case we have reasons not to cause harms to it simply in virtue of the badness of the harms for it. (ii) Moral status is not a matter of degree. (iii) A living thing has moral status just in case it is ever conscious. (iv) If something has moral status, then the strength of a moral reason not to harm it is proportional to the severity of the harm. In this view, all humans and animals that are ever conscious have moral status. Future consciousness is sufficient for present moral status. An embryo of any species that will actually be conscious in the future, presently has moral status. Living humans who were conscious but are not and never will be again do have moral status. Any being that dies before it is ever conscious lacks moral status, regardless of its potential. Mere potentiality to be a person is not sufficient for moral status. However, a being's potential future affects the severity of certain harms. There are stronger reasons to avoid causing the deaths of humans than to avoid causing the deaths of cats, because humans lose more in death than cats do. Chapters One through Three present the above view. I argue that this view can resolve certain apparent tensions within two different attractive combinations of views, and on this basis I argue that the above view should be adopted.
(cont.) Chapter Four, "Can We Harm and Benefit in Creating?" proposes a solution to the puzzle of actions that appear to be wrong in virtue of harming a particular individual, but where the individual would not have existed if the action had not been performed, so the individual is not made worse off by the action. Chapter Five, "Ethics Without Ethical Theory," defends part of the methodology of Chapters One through Four by defending the view that we can justifiably reach important substantive ethical conclusions without commitment to a particular ethical theory, or to a particular meta-ethical view.
by Elizabeth Harman.
Ph.D.
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Shafer-Landau, Russell Scott. "Moral indeterminacy." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/185898.
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My dissertation focuses on issues of indeterminacy in ethics and the philosophy of law. My aim is to establish the existence of moral indeterminacy and to show how we can allow some degree of indeterminacy in both ethics and the law without necessarily abandoning objectivist positions that may withstand noncognitivist or legal realist criticisms. The dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first, I devote a chapter to each of three sources of moral indeterminacy. The first chapter focuses on the open texture of moral concepts. The second concentrates on value incommensurability, understood as incomparability among morally laden options. The third is devoted to what I call descriptive indeterminacy--situations where morally relevant features can be described in different, equally appropriate ways, and the moral verdict we reach will differ depending upon which description is selected. The second part of the dissertation is devoted to exploring the implications of indeterminacy for ethics and jurisprudence. Chapter Four is given over to metaethics, and is devoted to defending the compatibility of objectivism and indeterminacy. Chapter Five considers a miscellany of challenges to my conclusions in Chapter Four, and further develops the case for the compatibility of objectivism and indeterminacy. Chapter Six examines the structure of moral theories and argues that indeterminacy can be retained in either a rule-based ethic or one less sympathetic to the existence of generally-relevant moral properties. The last chapter is devoted to establishing the existence of ineliminable indeterminacy in any developed system of law.
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Jiménez, Fariña Jaime Andrés 1991. "Moral distraída." Tesis, Universidad de Chile, 2015. http://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/137030.
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Seminario de título para optar al grado de Ingeniero Comercial, Mención AdministraciónEl caso Moral Distraída examina un problema de toma de decisiones y de análisis industrial. Los integrantes de Moral Distraída, agrupación musical chilena reciben una oferta emitida de una cadena de televisión Costarricense para realizar una gira al extranjero y deben decidir si aceptar o no la propuesta. Además, tienen la opción de extender la gira más allá de las fechas requeridas por la cadena de televisión siempre cuando ellos asuman los costos extras y se gestionen de manera independiente nuevas fechas para tocar. La gira propuesta por la cadena Costarricense involucraba tres presentaciones durante las dos primeras semanas de Enero, temporada de verano en Chile, el cual era el periodo más demandado y rentable del año, por lo tanto esta decisión tiene fuertes repercusiones económicas para la planificación del resto del año. La banda tenía pensado realizar la promoción de su álbum recién lanzado durante este periodo y también habían planeado realizar la grabación de su segundo álbum en el 2016, sin embargo, para lograr esto se requería de una gran cantidad de recursos, por lo tanto dependían de la cantidad de ingresos recaudados en el verano para dar inicio al proceso de grabación. Existían posturas diversas entre los integrantes de la agrupación sobre qué curso de acción de tomar. Los múltiples escenarios de decisión hacían más difícil llegar a un consenso, pero debían hacerlo pronto, pues la oferta que tenían no estaría disponible por mucho tiempo.
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Xu, Zhixing. "Integrating moral identity and moral judgment to explain everyday moral behavior: a dual-process model." HKBU Institutional Repository, 2014. https://repository.hkbu.edu.hk/etd_oa/69.
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A dual-process framework argues that both intuition and reflection interact to produce moral decisions. The present dissertation integrated moral identity and moral judgment to explain moral behavior from the dual-process model and its account was tested by three studies. A typical everyday moral behavior of interest in the present research was honest behavior. Participants were introduced to use their intuitive ability to predict the dice number demonstrated on a computer. The reward will base on their self-reported accuracy. Studies examined cheating behavior of individuals who had a chance to lie for money. In study 1, sixty participants with diversified background were recruited in a laboratory study. The results supported that honest behavior was more an intuitive result than a reflective outcome. Honest behavior resulted from the absence of temptation and priming moral constructs increased honest behavior. Study 2 contained two parts, in the first part, the researcher developed a Chinese version of moral identity based on Aquino and Reed’s (2002) work, in the second part, fifty-eight participants’ moral identity was investigated by the instrument in the first part. Their honest behavior was measured in the same task adopted in study 1. The result confirmed that different mechanisms led different people to behave ethically. For people who had strong moral identity, honesty resulted from the absence of temptation, while for individual with weak moral identity, honest behavior resulted from the active resistance of temptation. In study 3, moral identity and moral judgment were integrated to explain moral behavior. A Web-based survey with 437 subjects showed that the relationship between moral identity and moral judgment was significant. Individuals who viewed themselves as moral people preferred formalistic ideals to utilitarian framework when making moral judgment. The follow-up experimental study demonstrated that moral identity and moral judgment interacted together to determine moral behavior. When formalism was coupled with the motivational power of moral identity, individuals were most likely to behave morally.
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McAteer, John Michael. "Moral beauty and moral taste from Shaftesbury to Hume." Diss., [Riverside, Calif.] : University of California, Riverside, 2010. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=2019836971&SrchMode=2&sid=2&Fmt=2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1274294228&clientId=48051.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2010.Includes abstract. Title from first page of PDF file (viewed May 19, 2010). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in print.
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Dimmock, Mark. "In defence of moral error theory and moral abolitionism." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2016. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31237/.
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In this thesis I present a challenge to anyone who continues to engage in moral thinking – that is to say, I present a challenge to most people currently alive. In the first three chapters, I defend the idea that no non-negative moral proposition is ever true ('Moral Error Theory'). On the back of this defence, I then provide arguments in support of the related - but not entailed – Moral Abolitionist account. According to this view, moral thought, moral talk and morally-coloured motivations should be abolished in favour of an entirely non-moral assessment of the world and the options that face us when we deliberate on questions regarding to ‘how to act’ or ‘how to live’.
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Vokey, Daniel James. "Reasons of the heart, moral objectivity and moral education." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ28076.pdf.
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Star, Daniel. "Beyond moral particularism : moral principles in theory and practice." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.442913.
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Douglas, Thomas. "Medical means, moral ends : enhancement, fairness and moral motivation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.543688.
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Webber, Anderson Vieira de Lima. "Reconhecimento social e comportamento moral: Estudo em moral naturalizada." Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, 2018. http://www.repositorio.jesuita.org.br/handle/UNISINOS/7349.
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Analisamos como podemos pensar a moralidade no âmbito descritivo do comportamento à luz da hipótese de que o agente da ação moral está sujeito à pressão do reconhecimento de outros agentes, e em que medida isso é de relevância para a tomada de decisão. Ao final do trabalho não apresentamos uma resposta para um guia da ação moral, uma norma que possa auxiliar na tomada de decisão frente à dilemas e problemas morais. Ao final teremos clara a ideia de que uma ação pode ser influenciada por reconhecimento com o peso equivalente ao que atribuímos a valores e razões, a importância do reconhecimento sugirirá que valores e razões não poderiam viger sem o reconhecimento.
The present work is a strictly bibliographic study of moral behavior. In order to research, through the work of other researchers, the hypothesis according to which moral behavior is before influenced by values, influenced by the recognition of other moral agents. How can we think of morality in the descriptive scope of behavior in the light of the hypothesis that the agent of moral action is subject to pressure from the recognition of other agents, and that is relevance for decision-making. At the end of this work we will not be with a definitive answer the description of the behavior, because it requires a holistic work of various areas of knowledge. Nor at the end of the work will we have an answer to a moral action guide, a norm that can assist in the decision-making in the face of dilemmas and moral problems. In the end, we will be in the perspective that, before an action is motivated by reasons and values, it is motivated by recognition.
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Awad, Edmond. "Moral machines : perception of moral judgment made by machines." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112532.
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Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2017.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 79-85).
While technological development of vehicular autonomy has been progressing rapidly, a parallel discussion has emerged with regard to the moral implications of a future wherein people hand over to autonomous machines the controls to a mode of transportation. These discussions have entered a new phase with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) releasing a 15-point policy that requires manufacturers to explain how their AVs will handle "ethical considerations". However, there is a huge gap in our understanding of the ethical perception of Al, as there have been few large-scale empirical studies on human moral perception of outcomes to autonomous vehicle moral dilemmas. Additionally, public engagement is a very important piece of the puzzle, especially given the emotional salience of traffic accidents. With that in mind, I co-developed the "Moral Machine" (http://moralmachine.mit.edu). Moral Machine is a platform for gathering a human perspective on moral decisions made by machine intelligence, such as AVs. The web site went viral, and got covered in various media outlets. This web site has also been a valuable data collection tool, allowing us to collect the largest dataset on Al ethics ever collected in history (with 30 million decisions by over 3 million visitors, so far). This thesis will introduce the Moral Machine platform as a data-gathering platform. Moreover, insights about the human perception of the different routes to full automation will be covered in the thesis, with the data collected through other online platforms.
by Edmond Awad.
S.M.
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Stephens, Christopher. "The moral community and moral consideration : a pragmatic approach." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/97136.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellembosch University, 2015.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this thesis is to argue for a new metric for determining the moral status of another being. Determining this status is of foundational importance in a number of legal, political, and ethical concerns, including but not limited to animal rights, the treatment of criminals, and the treatment of the psychologically afflicted. This metric will be based upon one’s capacity to morally consider others. In other words, in order to have full moral status, one must be able to have moral concern for others and act upon this concern to even a minimal degree. In doing so, one will be considered to belong to a “moral community”, which affords the member a certain set of rights, privileges, and duties towards other community members. Arguing for the existence of such a community achieves the pragmatic aspect of this thesis. I argue that morality is geared towards group-survival strategies which have been evolutionarily selected for, and thus by organizing societal structures towards the tools which nature has armed us with, we may maximize the powers and capacities of the community members. In order to achieve these aims, I defend a concept of morality as based in emotion, requiring certain neurological structures, which gives the first set of criteria for identifying potential members of the moral community. I then discuss the issue of identifying the capacity for morality in non-human minds, arguing that we may infer moral capacities from behaviourism. In summary, the findings of this paper are that first, morality is essentially emotional in nature and is a product of the nature of our neurological system, although rational processes and enculturation shape particular moral sensitivities and priorities. Second, one can infer the existence of moral capacities in animals from their behaviour, and, at risk of engaging in anthropomorphism, to deny these capacities completely entails solipsism. Thirdly, and most importantly, those who are capable of morally considering others ought to be afforded full moral status themselves and be brought into a “moral community” wherein special rights, freedoms, and privileges allow the members to most efficiently contribute to the community, maximizing the powers and benefits of the community.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doel van hierdie tesis is om ’n nuwe maatstaf voor te hou waarvolgens die morele status van ’n ander wese bepaal kan word. Die bepaling van hierdie status is van fundamentele belang vir ’n hele aantal regs-, politiese en etiese aangeleenthede. Dit sluit, onder andere, diereregte, die behandeling van misdadigers en die behandeling van diegene met sielkundige probleme in. Hierdie maatstaf sal gebaseer word op die vermoë van die individuele wese om ander moreel in ag te neem. Met ander woorde om volle morele status te hê, moet 'n wese daartoe in staat wees om moreel besorg te wees oor ander en om, ten minste tot ’n minimale mate, na gelang van hierdie besorgheid op te tree. Op grond hiervan kan daar aanvaar word dat daardie wese tot ’n “morele gemeenskap” behoort, wat ook aan hom ’n stel regte, voordele en pligte teenoor ander gemeenskapslede sal besorg. Om ’n argument vir die bestaan van só ’n gemeenskap te maak sal die pragmatiese doelwit van hierdie tesis bereik. Ek argumenteer dat moraliteit ingestel is op groepsoorlewingstrategieë wat evolusionêr geselekteer is. Dit wil sê deur samelewingstrukture op só ’n wyse te organiseer dat dit gebruik maak van die gereedskap waarmee die natuur ons bewapen het, sal ons die bevoegdhede en die vermoëns van gemeenskapslede kan maksimaliseer. Om hierdie doelwitte te bereik, verdedig ek ’n verstaan van moraliteit as gebaseer in emosies wat sekere neurologiese strukture benodig. Dít verskaf die eerste stel kriteria waarvolgens potensiële lede van die morele gemeenskap geïdentifiseer kan word. Ek bespreek vervolgens die moontlikheid om die vermoë tot moraliteit in nie-menslike verstande te identifiseer en argumenteer dat morele vermoëns vanuit gedragsleer afgelei kan word. Ter opsomming is die bevindinge van hierdie tesis, eerstens, dat moraliteit wesenlik emosioneel van aard en ’n produk van ons neurologiese sisteem is, alhoewel rasionele prosesse en verkulturering spesifieke morele sensitiwiteite en prioriteite vorm. Tweedens kan die bestaan van morele vermoëns in diere afgelei word vanuit hulle optrede, en, alhoewel ons hier die risiko van antropomorfisme loop, behels die ontkenning van hierdie vermoëns solipsisme. Derdens, en die belangrikste, diegene wat daartoe in staat is om ander moreel in ag te neem behoort self volledig morele status toegeken te word. Hulle word sodoende in die “morele gemeenskap” betrek waar spesiale regte, vryhede en voordele gemeenskapslede sal toelaat om op die mees effektiewe wyse tot die gemeenskap by te dra om sodoende die bevoegdhede en voordele van die gemeenskap te maksimaliseer.
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Eriksson, David. "Moral (de)coupling : moral disengagement and supply chain management." Doctoral thesis, Högskolan i Borås, Institutionen Textilhögskolan, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-3708.
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This research aims to fill an important gap in focusing on why individuals are able to take part in and/or support activities that have effects on economic, environmental, and social dimensions that are not consistent with their sense of right and wrong. The research focuses on the relationship between supply chain management and moral disengagement, and how this relation affects social responsibility. After observing individuals avoiding responsibility for misconduct an explanatory concept, moral decoupling, was proposed. Moral decoupling considers moral responsibility a flow in the supply chain. Moral decoupling occurs when the flow is restricted. If moral decoupling occurs at an identifiable point it is called a moral decoupling point. The concept was developed by identifying and linking specific supply chain activities and structures with moral disengagement, a theory that explains the deactivation of self regulation. Moral decoupling was able to suggest how to reduce moral disengagement and improve social responsibility. To validate the suggestions a literature review on social responsibility was conducted and identified sixteen elements of social responsibility in supply chain management. The suggestions based on moral disengagement were compared with elements of social responsibility and a large overlap was found. Lastly, suggestions on how to reduce moral disengagement and map moral responsibility in a supply network are proposed, links between elements of social responsibility are presented, and moral coupling is added as a complementary term to moral decoupling. A model explaining the relationship between ethical guidelines, moral responsibility, moral decoupling, and social responsibility is proposed. In relation to current theoretical knowledge the thesis has contributed to the field of socially responsible supply chain management with an application of a new theoretical lens that gives one explanation as to why identifed elements of social responsibility are important. The understanding of social responsibility has reached an increased explanatory depth following the identification of moral disengagement as a generative mechanism, subject to conditions in supply chain management. The research has also applied moral disengagement in a context not identified in earlier research, and shows some of the complexity of applying it to a real-world global context. The elements of social responsibility and moral (de)coupling help practitioners identify what they should focus on to increase social responsibility and also offer an explanation for `why?'. The findings can be used to construct supply chains that are less prone to misconduct and to identify where in the chain it is important to be aware of immoral behavior. The value and originality of this research is centered on the application of a new theoretical lens for socially responsible supply chain management. It is the only identified research in the area which identifies mechanisms on a generative level that explains human behavior and conditions to which those mechanisms are subject. This is also in itself a novel application of moral disengagement in a new research context.Doctoral thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Textile Management at the University of Borås to be publicly defended on Wednesday, December 10, 2014, at 1:00 p.m.,in room M404, University of Bor as, Allégatan 1, Borås
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Palatnik, Nataliya. "Kant's Science of the Moral World and Moral Objectivity." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23845444.
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Kant’s Science of the Moral World and Moral Objectivity
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Critics of Kant's moral philosophy often object that it cannot account for moral requirements that are both genuinely objective and contentful. Notwithstanding the long history of this dispute, Kantians have been unable to put these objections to rest. I argue that we can answer these objections and fully understand Kantian moral objectivity only if we consider Kant’s moral philosophy in light of his methodological and architectonic concerns.
My dissertation takes up this task by providing a new account of Kant’s conception of moral theory as a philosophical science: Kant’s moral philosophy, I argue, appropriates the central features of the then revolutionary method of Newtonian natural science for the investigation of practical cognition. Just as Newtonian science begins with a priori (largely mathematical) principles and then gradually "comes down to" particular concrete physics, so too Kantian moral philosophy begins with general a priori moral principles that then gradually translate into a system of particular requirements. The objectivity of the content of our practical thought develops as the background conditions of moral deliberation become progressively more inter-subjectively justifiable. This progress is possible only through co-deliberation and collective action demanded by the duty to make morality fully efficacious in our shared social world, that is, the duty to promote the highest good.
My account highlights the attractiveness of Kant’s conception of the relationship between a priori and empirical aspects of practical thought, between theory and practice, and enables its systematic defense against objections by later German Idealists, particularly by Hegel. I argue that Hegel’s polemic against Kant's account of morality is fundamentally a disagreement about the nature of philosophical science and its method, and adjudicating between their views requires adjudicating the methodological dispute itself. I offer a systematic assessment of the methodological grounds of Hegel’s approach and of his critique of Kant’s moral philosophy. I argue that (1) Hegel’s approach does not, on the whole, present a viable alternative to Kant’s moral theory and (2) Hegel’s challenge can be met, but only by appealing to developmental or genetic aspects of Kant’s conception of moral objectivity grounded in his views on the proper method and form of a philosophical science. I show that these aspects of Kant’s thought, generally overlooked by commentators and Kantian theorists, are indispensable to his moral theory and provide a basis for a fruitful engagement with contemporary issues in moral philosophy, such as questions about the nature and role of imperfect duties.Philosophy
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Ellertson, Carol Frogley. "Opening and Closing the Moral Judgment--Moral Action Gap." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2010. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd3483.pdf.
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Lit, Keith. "Moral Reasoning and Moral Emotions Linking Hoarding and Scrupulosity." NSUWorks, 2017. http://nsuworks.nova.edu/cps_stuetd/111.
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Hoarding and scrupulous OCD are part of the Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, which are characterized by obsessional preoccupation and ritualistic behavior. Prior research has found a statistical relationship between hoarding and scrupulosity after controlling for these common factors, suggesting the existence of other features shared by these two disorders. Clinical accounts and empirical research of hoarding and scrupulosity suggest three such shared factors: a tendency to experience intense guilt and shame, rigid moralistic thinking, and general cognitive rigidity. However, results of the current study show that, although both hoarding and scrupulosity were related to cognitive rigidity and a tendency to experience guilt and shame, they are not associated with rigid moralistic thinking. Instead, beliefs about the importance of emotions as moral guides were related to both disorders. These results are interpreted in terms of dual-process theories of moral reasoning. Additionally, implications for the conceptualization and treatment of hoarding and scrupulosity are discussed.
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Dean, Brian Edward. "The problem of moral luck the indeterminacy of moral responsibility and the instability of moral judgment /." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 1998. http://www.tren.com.
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Moran, Thomas. "Moral development and moral action : a study of youthful offenders." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/29027.
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This study was designed to explore possible relations between moral maturity and moral action by evaluating groups of delinquent and non-delinquent youth, and examining their relative position on multiple measures of moral maturity and criminality. Subjects were 60 male adjudicated juvenile offenders between the ages of 14 and 17, and 20 non-delinquent controls. All youth participated in a series of structured interviews used as a way of assessing their abilities on Kohlberg's moral reasoning, Turiel's social convention understanding, and Selman's social perspective taking measures, and were administered Hogan's socialization, empathy, and autonomy scales. The delinquent youth were assigned immorality ratings and further classified according to legal categories. Ratings for Hare's Psychopathy Checklist were obtained from primary therapists for the delinquents and from school counsellors for the non-delinquent comparison group.
The results revealed that as a group, delinquent subjects showed substantial developmental delays in their performances on measures of moral reasoning, social convention understanding, interpersonal awareness and indices of socialization and autonomy. Hogan's empathy measure also showed a trend in the same direction. The majority of the delinquent youth were found to score at a preconventional-concrete reasoning level and showed a general lack of social-moral character. Tests of communality among the six moral maturity measures produced distinct and internally consistent cognitive reasoning (i.e., moral reasoning, interpersonal awareness, and social convention understanding) and moral character (i.e., socialization, empathy, and autonomy) clusters which lend support to the claims of Brown, Harre, and Hogan regarding the multidimensionality of moral development. There was an expected inverse relationship between immorality and moral maturity for the low and moderate seriousness groups, and an inconsistent pattern for the high group. This later finding was interpreted as an artifact of the fact that those delinquents whose criminal acts were judged most immoral were particularly guilty of various sexual offenses.
The psychometric properties of the Psychopathy Checklist confirm its usefulness with adolescent populations. Three internally consistent factor scales emerged (i.e., motivational deficit, lack of ego strength, and behavioral deviation). While psychopathy was found to significantly correlate with immorality ratings, an unexpected positive relationship was also found between psychopathy and moral reasoning for the sex offender group.
Taken together, all of these results were interpreted in terms of Heider's theory of the psychology of action, which views behavior, in this case moral behavior, as a combination of "can" (i.e., moral reasoning competency) and "try" (i.e., moral character).Arts, Faculty of
Psychology, Department of
Graduate
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Courte, Lisa J. "Engaging the moral imagination through metaphor, implications for moral education." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape8/PQDD_0026/MQ50506.pdf.
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Lackamp, Denise. "Aesthetic and moral judgments the moral value of immoral art /." abstract and full text PDF (free order & download UNR users only), 2007. http://0-gateway.proquest.com.innopac.library.unr.edu/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:1442870.
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Björklund, Fredrik. "Moral cognition : individual differences, intuition and reasoning in moral judgement /." Lund, 2000. http://www.lub.lu.se/luft/diss/soc231_transit.html.
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Thomas, Bradley Charles. "The Non-moral Basis of Cognitive Biases of Moral Intuitions." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2008. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses/44.
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Against moral intuitionism, which holds that moral intuitions can be non-inferentially justified, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that moral intuitions are unreliable and must be confirmed to be justified (i.e. must be justified inferentially) because they are subject to cognitive biases. However, I suggest this is merely a renewed version of the argument from disagreement against intuitionism. As such, I attempt to show that the renewed argument is subject to an analogous objection as the old one; many cognitive biases of moral intuitions result from biases of non-moral judgments. Thus, the unreliability of moral intuitions due to biases (and the reason inferential justification was required) can be removed by clearing up the non-moral biases. Accordingly, biases of moral intuitions do not threaten a slightly qualified version intuitionism which posits non-inferential justification of intuitions when non-moral biases are not present. I also present an empirical study that lends initial support to my argument.
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Courte, Lisa J. "Engaging the moral imagination through metaphor : implications for moral education." Thesis, McGill University, 1998. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=21203.
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The first contemporary approaches to moral education emphasize, moral reasoning skills and value analysis. The possible role of imagination in moral understanding is, by and large, neglected. More recent approaches suggest engaging the imagination can benefit moral education. The concept of imagination, however, remains elusive. As the capacity to consider the possible beyond the actual, imagination is a valued educational tool. It is offered that morality and the opportunity for meaningful interpretation of human experience may best be conveyed in symbolic terms. Metaphor, once viewed as an ornamental product of language, has been rediscovered; claiming a position in our comprehension of human understanding. This thesis proposes that engaging the imagination through metaphor is critical for moral education on the basis that our moral understanding is fundamentally imaginative and metaphoric in nature.
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Willis, Martin E. H. "Moral decisions, moral distress, and the psychological health of nurses." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2015. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/16817.
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The major focus of this thesis is the role of feelings and emotions in moral thinking/knowing, ethical conduct and, in particular, moral distress in nursing. Research has consistently found that the moral decisions nurses must make can sometimes lead to distress. However, such experiences are overly individualised in the literature. An alternative view of the person, drawing on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (e.g. 1927-8/1978) and the recent work of Paul Stenner (e.g. 2008), sees human subjectivity or mind as processual and always embodied and in-the-world. The emphasis upon the body draws attention to the role of felt experiences this thesis views feelings as integral to both sense-making knowing and thinking and sensibility or emotionality. The emphasis in-the-world highlights that subjectivity is embedded within social contexts, which include relations of power and organisations of material and symbolic capital aligned with those relations. Influenced by deep empiricism (e.g. Stenner, 2011a), this thesis develops a novel bricolage methodology based on a metaphor of diffraction to explore nurses experiences of moral distress. Nurses feelings of discomfort, a particular form of feelings of knowing , appear to be the seeds of moral distress. Various situations seem to be important antecedents for these seeds to bloom into full moral distress, including certain clinical issues, ethical conflict with colleagues, and issues of competency. Nurses also experience some aspects of their job as systemic barriers to high standards of care, which can also be morally distressing. Such distress sometimes affects nurses relationships, their physical health, and their mental health. Participants have found several strategies useful in coping with their distress. It is argued that these strategies are about altering one s feelings through changing one s activities and/or environment. Additionally, past distress may remain a dormant part of a person s subjectivity and re-emerge or become (re)enacted in the narrations of those past distressing experiences. It is suggested that subjectivity entails an organisation of past experiences in the present, for present purposes and in anticipation of the future. Six dominant thematic patternings, which recurred throughout the analyses, are discussed: (i) the centrality of feelings; (ii) the relationality of felt experiences; (iii) the complexity of morality, moral conduct, and moral distress moral/ethical issues become entangled with identity, power, professional competency, and social relations; (iv) the prominence of power and interest; (v) nurses' lives as afflicted by moral distress; and (vi) life-as-process. Discussion of these motifs leads to a rethinking of moral distress. Implications for nursing practice, moral distress research and the study of feelings, emotions, and affect are discussed.
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Pryke, Miriam Jean Vivien Eve. "Being reasonably moral : Prichard and the mistake of moral philosophy." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2015. http://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/being-reasonably-moral(3232777f-b36b-432e-8339-01c932d7cf32).html.
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The question ‘Why ought we to do what we think we ought to do?’ was said by H.A. Prichard to be an improper question, manifesting erroneous presuppositions about the nature of moral reasoning. Moral rationalists think it a legitimate question, and they maintain that we are rationally justified in acting as we are morally obliged to act. Anti-rationalists deny this claim: specifically, they deny that acting in accord with moral obligation is endorsed by practical rationality. In my dissertation I try to uncover the source of disagreement amongst these three views. I then propose a resolution by appealing to my interpretation of Plato’s version of moral rationalism. I argue that contemporary moral rationalists and antirationalists in fact share the presupposition(s) that Prichard regarded as erroneous and which are not found in Plato. However, Prichard misread Plato as a rationalist of the instrumental persuasion and also offered only the beginnings of a positive view on the nature of practical reason. Therefore he failed to recognize that Plato gives a good positive answer to the original question on which the rationality of morality does not depend upon endorsement from any external source. Even so, Prichard’s limited remarks on the nature of moral deliberation show intimations of a better conception of the nature of moral rationality than is assumed in the contemporary debate between moral rationalists and anti-rationalists. One proponent of a more developed conception of the nature of moral thinking in the spirit of Plato is Iris Murdoch, and from her work I sketch a conception of the relation between thought, words and moral experience that in my view offers a way to understand the rationality of morality that is truer to the phenomena.
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Burgoon, Jacob N. "The Moral Foundations of Teaching: Measuring Teachers' Implicit Moral Beliefs." University of Toledo / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1544787174462244.
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Mackintosh, Elizabeth Karen. "Abortion and moral context : human beings in a moral community." Thesis, Durham University, 2015. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11077/.
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In this dissertation, I urge that ethical discussions of abortion remain dissatisfying in large part because they conduct the debate in terms of the contested concept of the ‘person.’ Building on the reflections of MacIntyre, I will argue that the loss of ethical context to which he refers has also meant that we have come to view ‘persons’ and human beings as individual, independent units, abstracted from their relations with others. Philosophers have sought to analyse and elevate the concept of ‘person’; competing conceptions of personhood have pursued the specific individual qualities that grounds a being's claim to having a morally significant life. This predilection of the personhood literature has often severely limited the abortion dialogue and prevented richer and varied understandings of our layered nature from emerging. I contend that the deadlock, to which Ruth Macklin refers, within the personhood dialogue means that we need to broaden our moral vocabulary and give a much more central place to the notion of the socialised human being. Rather than place personhood at the heart of the debate, I would suggest we should emphasise our relationships and our membership in an already-existing moral context and community, and that we should reflect far more fully on these settings. Rather than considering what kinds of entities qualify as ‘persons,’ we should instead consider the notion of the human being existing in a moral community and thereby situated in a wide and complex web of relationships. I argue that an ethic of care, coupled with a phenomenological approach, will provide the most fruitful framework when responding to ethical issues generated by the abortion dialogue. Taking account of our nature as socialised beings, in relationship with other beings is, I shall try to show, key to understanding our moral existence in general and to grasping the intricacies of the moral debate over abortion in particular. Membership within a social network or moral community is fundamentally a moral issue where certain experiences and conditions can threaten what really matters. When providing us with accounts of the moral community, philosophers have often put forward very particular qualifications for membership. To underscore the need to explore further accounts of moral communities I consider the work of cultural and philosophical anthropology where we find that observations relating to the distinctly human life remain pertinent for our current ethical climate. Philosophical anthropology reveals just how complex the idea of moral community is and hints at the broader moral vocabulary I believe is required. I argue that it is crucial that we understand the ethical consequences of choosing to see someone as being either a member or not a member of the moral community and as Eva Feder Kittay argues, there are a range of morally repugnant current moral exclusions. I believe this discussion has considerable bearing on the abortion debate, and I provide two specific examples of the marginalisations that a moral community can create: recent empirical studies into abortion stigma and Judith Butler’s considerations on vulnerability and female sexuality. We need to address these exclusions and consider the ways we define the moral agent, and consider how we make assumptions about which human lives have value. With an ever-expanding and complex ‘moral community’ under review I would argue that recognizing ourselves as human beings, participants in a moral community, must be our starting point. It is from this platform that we can then refuse to enact exclusions and try to live out Butler’s call to make a concern for all human lives a real and valid ethical concern.