Moral psychology.html

Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. Some use the term "moral psychology" relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development.^[1] However, others tend to use the term more broadly to include any topics at the intersection of ethics and psychology (and philosophy of mind). Such topics are ones that involve the mind and are relevant to moral issues. Some of the main topics of the field are moral responsibility, moral development, moral character (especially as related to virtue ethics), altruism, psychological egoism, moral luck, and moral disagreement.^[2]

Some psychologists that have worked in the field are Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Jonathan Haidt, Marc Hauser, and C. Daniel Batson. Some philosophers that have worked in the field are Stephen Stich, John Doris, Joshua Knobe, Shaun Nichols, Thomas Nagel, Michael Smith, and R. Jay Wallace.

1 History
2 Topics
3 See also
4 Footnotes
5 References and further reading
6 External links

History

Historically, early philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato engaged in both empirical research and a priori conceptual analysis about the ways in which people make decisions about issues that raise moral concerns. Moral psychological issues have been central theoretical issues explored by philosophers from the early days of the profession right up until the present. With the development of psychology as a discipline separate from philosophy, it was natural for psychologists to continue pursing work in moral psychology, and much of the empirical research of the 20th century in this area was completed by academics working in psychology departments.

Nowadays, moral psychology is a thriving area of research in both philosophy and psychology, even at an interdisciplinary level.^[3] For example, the psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg questioned boys and young men about their thought processes when they were faced with a moral dilemma,^{citation needed} producing one of many very useful empirical studies in the area of moral psychology. As another example, the philosopher Joshua Knobe, recently completed an empirical study on how the way in which an ethical problem is phrased dramatically effects an individual's intuitions about the proper moral response to said problem.^{citation needed} More conceptually focused research has recently been completed by researchers such as John Doris. Doris (2002) discusses the way in which social psychological experiments such as the Stanford Prison Experiments call into question the idea that individuals have a single environment independent moral character. As a further example, Shaun Nichols (2004) examines how empirical data on psychopathology suggests that moral rationalism is false.

Topics

The subjects covered by moral psychology include:

Human character
Ethical temperament
Standards of evaluation for moral action
Moral luck
Standards of personal moral success

The structure of action
Perceived causes and events of moral action
Emotions in morality
The faculties of the mind involved in moral decision
The interaction of those faculties and the emotions

Moral commitment
Rationality in moral matters
Moral judgement
The relationship between ethics and moral action
The means by which moral agents understand each other

Humean versus Anti-Humean theories of motivation
Practical reasoning
Internalism and externalism in ethics

Footnotes

^ See, for example, Lapsley (2006).
^ See Doris & Stich (2008), §1.
^ Doris & Stich (2008), §1.

References and further reading

Batson, C. D. (1991). The Altruism Question: Toward a Social-Psychological Answer. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Doris, John M. (2002). Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Doris, John & Stich, Stephen. (2008). "Moral Psychology: Empirical Approaches". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). link
Jackson, Frank & Smith, Michael (eds.) (2007). The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy, Oxford University Press.
Lapsley, Daniel K. (1996). Moral Psychology. Westview Press. ISBN 0813330335
Nagel, Thomas. (1970). The Possibility of Altruism. Princeton University Press.
Nichols, Shaun. (2004). Sentimental Rules: On the Natural Foundations of Moral Judgment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plato. The Republic, public domain.
Richardson, Henry S. (2008). "Moral Reasoning", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). link
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, ed. (2007). Moral Psychology, 3 volumes. MIT Press. ISBN 0262693542
Smith, Michael. (1994). The Moral Problem. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell.
Thagard, Paul. (2007). "The Moral Psychology of Conflicts of Interest: Insights from Affective Neuroscience". Journal of Applied Philosophy, 24(4), pp. 367-380.
Wallace, R. Jay. (2007). "Moral Psychology", Ch. 4 of Jackson & Smith (2007), pp. 86-113.
Wallace, R. Jay (2006). Normativity and the Will. Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Practical Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

External links

Moral Psychology: Empirical Approaches - an entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP).
Moral Character - entry in the SEP.
Empathy - entry in the SEP.
Moral Motivation - entry in the SEP.
Moral Responsibility - entry in the SEP.
Psychological Issues in Metaethics - section 1b of the "Ethics" entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP).
Moral Character - entry in the IEP.
Moral Development - entry in the IEP.
Responsibility - entry in the IEP.
Moral Psychology Research Group - with Knobe, Nichols, Doris and others.

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