christian morality - moral origins and developments test

Where does moral psychology get its insights from?

Developmental psychology, neuroscience and many other disciplines

What are moral philosophers fundamentally concerned with?

Deciding what's right and what's wrong

What are moral psychologists fundamentally concerned with?

understand how other people think about and make moral decisions

According to Kohlberg, what do humans develop through six distinct stages?

Moral framework

In whom has Bloom explored moral understanding?

infants

According to Bloom, what do babies like and dislike?

like good guys and don't like bad guys

According to Bloom, what matters in moral development?

culture

According to Haidt's moral foundations theory, how many systems provide a foundation for morality? What are they?

there are at least six (and likely more) systems that provide a foundation of morality. care/harm; fairness/cheating; loyalty/betrayal; authority/subversion; sanctity/degradation; and liberty/oppression.

Does Haidt think these systems are universal?

these underlying systems are universal

Why does Haidt think there are differences?

Some people place more or less emphasis on a given foundation

What does Gray say all morality can be boiled down to?

One essential issue: perceived harm

What is Gray's theory of morality called?

Dynamic morality

According to Gray, what is our shared moral template based on?

Two perceived minds - an agent who causes harm and a patient who suffers from it

According to Greene, what cognitive functions do people use?

Morality uses the same cognitive functions that people use for everyday decisions

According to Greene, what do moral problems involve?

Reason emotion, motivation, mental stimulations and many other humdrum faculties

According to Pinker, what has the world steadily become?

Less violent and more principled

What can the field of psychology help people understand, as the field keeps moving forward?

How we arrive at moral decisions and how other people get there too

documents produced by Ecumenical Councils

3 most recent Ecumenical Councils are:

- the Council of Trent (1545-1563) (best known for responding to Luther & other Protestants breaking from the Church)

- Vatican I (1869-1870) (best known for its teachings on the infallibility of the pope)

- Vatican II (1962-1965) (best known for attempting to update the Church & promote dialogue with the modern world)

[e.g. The Chuch in the Modern World]

In Encyclicals (official letters produced by the pope)

- The Gospel of Life [from JPII in 1995; some topics include the death penalty, euthanasia, & abortion]

(death penalty only used in very rare cases)

- Laudato Si [from Pope Francis in 2015; on the environment]

Catechism of the Catholic Church

(an official summary of Catholic teachings on the catholic faith) [it's a book=CCC]

(death penalty is never allowed and should be abolished)

documents produced by Vatican Congregations, such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith [CDF] [they're groups that advise the pope]

- Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics (1976)

- Declaration on Euthanasia (1980)

- Donum Vitae (1987) & Instructions on Certain Bioethical Questions (2008) [IVF; genetic interventions]

pastoral letters

- written by individual bishops on groups of bishops ["pastor" = shepherd]

- Examples:

- Marriage: Gift from God by Bishop Malooly (2013)

- The Challenge of Peace by the US Catholic bishops (1983) [Just war teaching today; nuclear weapons]

- The Many Faces of AIDS: A Gospel Response (1987) [a reflection on the responsibilities of society & the Church to respond to the AIDS crisis]

strict consequentialism

considers consequences of actions only; choose the action that gives the most favorable consequences

deontology

considers moral principles/moral laws before acting; asks, "What are my duties/obligations?"

utilitarianism

asks: what action produces the greatest amount of happiness/good for the greatest number of people? (that's what I should do)

the three sources of morality

- determine if an action is right or wrong AND influence the seriousness of the act

- the object, the intention, and the circumstances

- all 3 "sources" must be good for an action to be morally good

- If any one source is bad, then the whole action is morally bad

The "object"

the act itself

- E.g. You tell your parents an untruth

The intention

your motive or why

- E.g. to avoid getting in trouble with them

The circumstances

relevant conditions that can (a) affect the seriousness of the act or (b) increase/decrease a person's responsibility

- E.g. because, after being pressured by friends, you attend a drinking party held at a near-by sex-offenders house

clarifications

- Some actions are considered "intrinsically evil" and are never morally good under any circumstances (e.g. torture, abortion)

- this approach to morality is called "deontology" (considers moral laws and principles before acting and asks: what are my obligations? or what is the moral law? or what is my duty?)

- doesn't simply focus on the consequences

What is the question that human beings have wondered about?

are we born morally good, are we born morally bad, or are we born blank?

why are babies used in research?

using babies in research allows humans to be studied before they are impacted by family and experiences. answers the question: what are you like before external forces?

describe two experiments done with the babies and the outcomes of those experiments

puppet shows

- nice puppy helps other puppet open the box, mean puppy slams the box

- more than 75% of babies chose the nice puppet, they think the ball thief deserves punishment

- babies chose the puppet who chose the same snack

- wants different puppet treated badly

what conclusions so the researchers draw about children?

- universal moral core (basic sense of right and wrong)

- predisposed to break things into different groups

- bias to favor something similar to self

what is Jonathan Haidt's view of the blank slate?

- worst idea in all of psychology

- children are born ready to learn and with intelligence

the "first draft" of the moral mind

- 6 foundations

- malleable and capable of revision

jonathan haidt's three principles

intuitions/strategic reasoning, more to morality than harm and fairness, morality binds and blinds

intuitions/strategic reasoning

intuitions come first; strategic reasoning comes second

- we decide if something is right or wrong based on our "intuition" or gut-feeling then, we try to reasonably explain why its right or wrong

more to morality than harm/fairness

humans have other basic moral "receptors" (like taste buds on human tongues that detect specific flavors or sensitivities

morality binds and blinds

it can unite people of different backgrounds for shared purposes but also makes it difficult for us to understand one another

rider + elephant

= whole person

- rider = reasonable part of you

- elephant = emotional part of you

does Haidt think that morality is reducible to a single moral foundation?

no (contrast to Kohlberg)

Haidt - human society views

human societies, with different needs and challenges, grow these six basic moral receptors in different ways

what evidence does steven pinker give that human morality is improving?

- overall improvement in the human condition

- infant mortality, war casualties, global poverty, illiteracy, life expectancy

- things improved because of the increase in global commerce and democracy

- don't just look at the headlines, but also the bigger picture

who was kohlberg?

created an influential theory on how humans develop morally

how did Kohlberg develop his theory?

- influenced by the work of Piaget

- studied a group of American males from childhood to adulthood

- gave them moral dilemmas to solve

- interested in the "why" (not "what") of their solutions; identified 6 perspectives in the responses to dilemmas that study participants gane

level one = pre-conventional level

[self-centered]

- stage 1: act out of fear of punishment

- stage 2: act out of hope for personal gain and reward; satisfy your own needs

level two = conventional

[group-centered or widening perspective]

- stage 3: seek to please others and do what they approve of (You're a "good boy" or "nice girl")

- stage 4: [most people reach this stage] law and order stage: right = doing your duty, respecting reles/authority, maintaining social order

level three = post-conventional level

[principle-centered; do the right thing because you demand it for yourself]

- stage 5: right is based on social standards that you critically examine

- stage 6: [difficult to distinguish 5 from 6] right is based on universal, obstruct principles (e.g. Golden Rule); "I couldn't live with myself if I..."

C. Gilligan

at one time, she worked with Kohlberg but then worked on her own and developed her own theory about how morality develops in people. She argued that females approach morality differently from males; males focus on "justice / impartiality" while females focus on concern for relationships when they make moral decisions.