Moral emotions have been badly neglected by philosophical ethics. In my view to the detriment of this discipline because they are not only important for the moral evaluation of persons but also for value theory and thus also for a theory of morally right actions. This paper outlines my account of moral emotions. Emotions such as regret or shame are sometimes but not always moral emotions. I will determine when they are (...) class='Hi'>moral emotions. In I will deal with the views of some other authors and in and I will explain my own account. (shrink)

Emotions can be the subject of moral judgments; they can also constitute the basis for moral judgments. The apparent circularity which arises if we accept both of these claims is the central topic of this paper: how can emotions be both judge and party in the moral court? The answer I offer regards all emotions as potentially relevant to ethics, rather than singling out a privileged set of moral emotions. It relies on (...) taking a moderate position both on the question of the naturalness of emotions and on that of their objectivity as revealers of value: emotions are neither simply natural nor socially constructed, and they apprehend objective values, but those values are multidimensional and relative to human realities. The axiological position I defend jettisons the usual foundations for ethical judgments, and grounds these judgments instead on a rationally informed reflective equilibrium of comprehensive emotional attitudes, tempered with a dose of irony. (shrink)

Moral Emotions builds upon the philosophical theory of persons begun in _Phenomenology and Mysticism _and marks a new stage of phenomenology. Author Anthony J. Steinbock finds personhood analyzing key emotions, called moral emotions. _Moral Emotions _offers a systematic account of the moral emotions, described here as pride, shame, and guilt as emotions of self-givenness; repentance, hope, and despair as emotions of possibility; and trusting, loving, and humility as emotions of (...) otherness. The author argues these reveal basic structures of interpersonal experience. By exhibiting their own kind of cognition and evidence, the moral emotions not only help to clarify the meaning of person, they reveal novel concepts of freedom, critique, and normativity. As such, they are able to engage our contemporary social imaginaries at the impasse of modernity and postmodernity. (shrink)

Psychological research shows that our emotions and feelings often guide the moral decisions we make about our own lives and the social groups to which we belong. But should we be concerned that out important moral judgments can be swayed by "hot" passions, such as anger, disgust, guilt, shame and sympathy? Aren't these feelings irrational and counterproductive? Using a functional conflict theory of emotions (FCT), Giner-Sorolla proposes that each emotion serves a number of different functions, sometimes (...) inappropriately, and that moral emotions in particular are intimately tied to problems faced by the individuals in a group, and by groups interacting with each other. Specifically, the author suggests that these emotions help us, as individuals and group members, to: Appraise developments in the environment Learn through association Regulate our own behavior Communicate convincingly with others. Drawing on extensive research, including many studies from the author's own lab, this book shows why emotions work to encourage reasonable moral behaviour, and why they sometimes fail. This is the first single-authored volume in the field of psychology dedicated to a separate examination of the major moral and positive emotions. As such, the book is ideal reading for researchers, postgraduates and undergraduates of social psychology, sociology, philosophy and politics. (shrink)

Wrongdoing and the Moral Emotions provides an account of how we might effectively address wrongdoing given challenges to the legitimacy of anger and retribution that arise from ethical considerations and from concerns about free will. The issue is introduced in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 asks how we might conceive of blame without retribution, and proposes an account of blame as moral protest, whose function is to secure forward-looking goals such as the moral reform of the wrongdoer (...) and reconciliation in relationships. Chapter 3 considers whether it's possible to justify effectively dealing those who pose dangerous threats if they do not deserve to be harmed, and contends that wrongfully posing a threat is the core condition for the legitimacy of defensive harming. Chapter 4 provides an account of how to treat criminals without a retributive justification for punishment, and argues for an account in which the right of self-defense provides justification for measures such as preventative detention. Chapter 5 considers how we might forgive if wrongdoers don't basically deserve the pain of being resented, which forgiveness would then renounce, and proposes that forgiveness be conceived instead as renunciation of the stance of moral protest. Chapter 6 considers how personal relationships might function without retributive anger having a role in responding to wrongdoing, and contends that the stance of moral protest, supplemented with non-retributive emotions, is sufficient. Chapter 7 surveys the options for theistic and atheistic attitudes regarding the fate of humanity in a deterministic universe, and defends an impartial hope for humanity. (shrink)

In the post‐Kohlbergian era of moral education, a ‘moral gap’ has been identified between moral cognition and moral action. Contemporary moral psychologists lock horns over how this gap might be bridged. The two main contenders for such bridge‐building are moral emotions and moral selves. I explore these two options from an Aristotelian perspective. The moral‐self solution relies upon an anti‐realist conception of the self as ‘identity’, and I dissect its limitations. In (...) its stead, I propose a Humean conception of the moral self which preserves Aristotelian insights into the difference between self and identity, yet remains closer to modern sensitivities. According to such a conception, the moral‐self versus moral‐emotions dichotomy turns out to be illusory. Finally, I show some of the practical implications of this conception for moral education. (shrink)

This research was focused on investigating why some consumers might support cause-related marketing campaigns for reasons other than personal benefit by examining the influence of moral emotions and cultural orientation. The authors investigated the extent to which moral emotions operate differently across a cultural variable (US versus Korea) and an individual difference variable (self-construal). A survey method was utilised. Data were collected from a convenience sample of US ( n = 180) and Korean ( n = (...) 191) undergraduates. Moral emotions significantly influenced purchase intention for a social-cause product. The influence of an ego-focused moral emotion (i.e., pride) on purchase intention was greater for US than Korean participants. The influence of another-focused moral emotion (i.e., guilt) on purchase intention was greater for high-interdependent participants than for low-interdependent participants. The findings of this research provide important and relevant implications to marketers and policy makers in developing persuasive messages and customer relationship programmes. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to illuminate the limitations of adopting thick ethical concepts to support the rationality of moral emotion. To this end, I shall first of all concentrate on whether emotions, especially moral emotions are thick concepts and can be analysed into both evaluative and descriptive components. Secondly,I shall examine Gibbard’s thesis that to judge an act wrong is to think guilt and anger warranted. I then raise the following question. If we identify (...) moral considerations with anger in particular, it overly emphasizes one seemingly arbitrary emotion. In other words, I doubt whether ‘other’s anger’ can be the general concept corresponding to thick concepts such as courage or generosity. My doubt about the objectivity of Gibbard’s moral emotion depends on Bernard Williams’doubt about ethical objectivity in terms of a critical notice of the distinction between thick and thin ethical concepts. Finally, I shall pose a challenge to the distinction between thick and thin ethical concepts on the ground that it is not in fact a clear one. I shall argue that it is impossible clearly to classify various ethical concepts either as thick or thin. This is because, I shall argue, as Scheffler points out, “any division of ethical concepts into the two categories of the thick and the thin is itself a considerable oversimplication.” Indeed, I shall argue, our ethical vocabulary is tragically rich with an irreconcilable plurality of values. If my analysis is right, I argue Gibbard’s attempt to appeal to thick concepts to explain the rationality of moral emotion is open to question. (shrink)

Current discussions of hermeneutical injustice, I argue, poorly characterise the cognitive state of victims by failing to account for the communicative success that victims have when they describe their experience to other similarly situated persons. I argue that victims, especially when they suffer moral wrongs that are yet unnamed, are able (1) to grasp certain salient aspects of the wrong they experience and (2) to cultivate the ability to identify instances of the wrong in virtue of moral (...) class='Hi'>emotions. By moral emotions I mean emotions like indignation that reflect an agent’s ethical commitments and bear on her ethical assessments. Further, I argue that victims can impart their partial understanding of the wrong they suffer to others who are not similarly situated by eliciting moral emotions such as pity that are tied to broad notions of justice and fairness. (shrink)

To understand the structure of moral emotions poses a difficult challenge. For instance, why do liberals and conservatives see some moral issues similarly, but others starkly differently? Or, why does punishment depend on accidental variation in the severity of a harmful outcome, while judgments of wrongfulness or character do not? To resolve the complex design of morality, it helps to think in functional terms. Whether through learning, cultural evolution or natural selection, moral emotions will tend (...) to guide behavior adaptively in ordinary social situations. Thus, considering possible functions of morality can help us to comprehend its form. (shrink)

While psychopathy research has been growing for decades, a relatively new area of research is corporate psychopathy. Corporate psychopaths are simply psychopaths working in organizational settings. They may be attracted to the financial, power, and status gains available in senior positions and can cause considerable damage within these roles from a manipulative interpersonal style to large-scale fraud. Based upon prior studies, we analyze psychopathy research pertaining to 23 moral emotions classified according to functional quality and target. Based upon (...) our review, we suggest that psychopaths are high in moral emotions associated with other-directed negative signals, low in self-directed negative signals, and low in other-directed positive signals. We found no empirical articles related to self-directed positive signals. This understanding of the specific moral emotion deficits of corporate psychopaths provides greater theoretical understanding and practical implications of knowing which individuals not to promote, though more research is needed on moral emotions that are faked for manipulative reasons. (shrink)

Although much research on emotion and morality has treated emotion as a relatively undifferentiated construct, recent work shows that moral transgressions can evoke a variety of distinct emotions. To accommodate these results, we propose a multiple-appraisal model in which distinct appraisals lead to different moral emotions. The implications of this model for our understanding of the relationship between appraisals, emotions and judgments are discussed. The complexity of moral emotional experience presents a methodological challenge to (...) researchers, but we submit that a complete understanding of human morality must acknowledge the differentiated nature of moral emotions. (shrink)

It is well known that the Neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi particularly emphasizes the role of emotions in human life. This paper shows that the four ‘moral emotions’ are central to Zhu's thinking, insofar as only their genuine actualization enables the individual to achieve spiritual freedom. Moreover, I discuss the crucial notions of ‘awareness’/‘perception’ and ‘knowledge’/‘wisdom’, in order to reveal the complex dynamic that moral emotions are said to create in the moral agent. I also (...) analyse two important passages from the Mencius and examine how Zhu Xi, in his exegetical glosses, defines the conditions of virtuous agency as based on the moral emotions. Finally, I explain the reasons why Neo-Confucians like Zhu Xi have sometimes been described as Kantian thinkers avant la lettre. (shrink)

The purpose of this thesis is to examine two moral emotions(‘ressentiment' and 'cheerfulness’) in Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality. In “the first essay”, Nietzsche analyzes 'ressentiment' as the moral emotion of the weak and explains how the weak have succeeded in the inversion of values. However, Nietzsche considers that 'ressentiment' have played a negative role in harming human health from the perspective of the value of life. The feeling of the incompetence inherent in 'ressentiment', at first, (...) turned the discontent toward the powerful men. But in the end it resulted to oneself, and ascetic ethics appeared. The ascetic ethics have played a role in their own way. It not only interpreted the meaning of human suffering, but also kept it from disturbance of impulses and emotions. But Nietzsche says that the ascetic ethics is far from "great health", because it excessively restrains the exertion of our nature and power. The feelings of 'ressentiment' still remain in the ascetic ethics and make a life heavy. A sinful Life itself can never be a cheerful life. It is Nietzsche's idea that you can not really feel the cheerful emotion without departing from the moral duties and self-condemnation. Nietzsche suggests that "emotions of power" should be exercised to the maximum, unlike the ascetic who want to suppress emotions as much as possible. He believes that man must be completely free from moral obligations and guilt in order to experience these emotions. For Nietzsche, 'cheerfulness' is an emotion that comes to free humans completely free from moral duty. Man must unleash the yoke of life that forces only truth and good. Nietzsche says that "great health" comes when man seeks strength and beauty. 'Cheerfulness' is the signal that "great health" is coming. The restoration of 'cheerfulness' from the feelings of 'ressentiment' is a new challenge of Nietzsche's philosophy. (shrink)

Anger, disgust, elevation, sympathy, relief. If the subjective experience of each of these emotions is the same whether elicited by moral or nonmoral events, then what makes moral emotions unique? We suggest that the configuration of moral emotions is special—a configuration given by the underlying structure of morality. Research suggests that people divide the moral world along the two dimensions of valence (help/harm) and moral type (agent/patient). The intersection of these two dimensions (...) gives four moral exemplars—heroes, villains, victims and beneficiaries—each of which elicits unique emotions. For example, victims (harm/patient) elicit sympathy and sadness. Dividing moral emotions into these four quadrants provides predictions about which emotions reinforce, oppose and complement each other. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue for the value of two complementary pedagogical tools for teaching moral emotions: (1) taxonomies and (2) normative case studies. The paper proceeds in four parts. Section One discusses our motivations for teaching moral emotions. Section Two introduces envy as the central example we use to demonstrate the value of developing a scaffolded approach to teaching moral emotions that moves from taxonomy to normative case studies. Specifically, we engage with Sara (...) Protasi’s The Philosophy of Envy (2021). We start by focusing on how an instructor could use Protasi’s taxonomy of envy effectively in the classroom. Then, Section Three engages with Rebecca M. Taylor’s recent work on normative case studies. We build on one of Protasi’s cases to demonstrate how instructors can design normative case studies to speak directly to the experiences of their students and we suggest a sample assignment. Finally, Section Four concludes by reinforcing the complementary relationship between taxonomies and normative case studies for teaching moral emotions. (shrink)

This article provides an analysis of moral emotions from an attributional point of view, guided by the metaphors of man as a naïve scientist (Heider, 1958) and as a moral judge (Weiner, 2006). The theoretical analysis focuses on three concepts: (a) The distinction between the actor and the observer, (b) the functional quality of moral emotions, and (c) the perceived controllability of the causes of events. Moral emotions are identified (admiration, anger, awe, contempt, (...) disgust, elevation, embarrassment, envy, gratitude, guilt, indignation, jealousy, pity, pride, rage, regret, remorse, resentment, respect, schadenfreude, scorn, shame, and sympathy). A classification of these moral emotions is suggested and the empirical evidence briefly summarized. In discussing our results, we identify unresolved issues awaiting further analyses and research. (shrink)

Fitouchi et al. illustrate the cognitive and evolutionary foundations of puritanical morality, while leave the emotional foundation unclear. We complement their theory by proposing moral emotions (e.g., guilt and shame) as characteristic emotions underlying puritanical morality. Our proposition is based on the findings that these moral emotions emerge after violations of puritanical norms and promote self-control and cooperation.

This article outlines a developmental approach to the study of moral emotions. Specifically, we describe our developmental model on moral emotions, one in which emotions and cognitions about morality get increasingly integrated and coordinated with development, while acknowledging inter-individual variation in developmental trajectories across the lifespan. We begin with a conceptual clarification of the concept of moral emotions. After a brief review of our own developmental approach to the study of moral (...) class='Hi'>emotions, we provide a selective summary of the developmental literature on negatively and positively valenced moral emotions, and describe a recent line of developmental research on the anticipation of negatively and positively valenced moral emotions in multifaceted contexts of social exclusion and inclusion. Next, we describe what it means to take a developmental perspective on moral emotions. Finally, we provide some preliminary conclusions and recommendations for future work to the developmental study of moral emotions. (shrink)

Moral emotions shape the effectiveness of culturally diverse teams. However, these emotions, which are integral to determining ethically responsive patient care and team relationships, typically go unrecognised. The contribution of emotions to moral deliberation is subjugated within the technorational environment of healthcare decision‐making. Contemporary healthcare organisations rely on a multicultural workforce charged with the ethical care of vulnerable people. Limited extant literature examines the role of moral emotions in ethical decision‐making among culturally diverse (...) healthcare teams. Moral emotions are evident in ethnocentric moral perspectives that construct some colleagues' practices as ‘other’. This article examines how moral emotions are evoked when cultural dissonance influences nurses' moral perceptions. We use a qualitative investigation of teamwork within culturally diverse healthcare organisations. We use Haidt's () account of moral emotions to examine practice‐based accounts of 36 internationally educated and 17 New Zealand educated nurses practising in New Zealand. The study provides evidence that moral emotions are frequently elicited by communication and care practices considered ‘foreign’. The main implication is that although safe practice in healthcare organisations is reliant on highly functioning teams, collaboration is challenged by interprofessional power relations of contested culturally shaped values. We address practice‐based strategies that enable engagement with moral emotions to enhance effective teamwork. (shrink)

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction: Risk and Emotions -- PART I Risk Debates, Stalemates, Values and Emotions -- 2 Emotions and Values in Current Approaches to Decision Making About Risk -- 3 Risk Perception, Intuitions and Values -- PART II Reasonable Risk Emotions -- 4 Risk Emotions: The 'Affect Heuristic', its Biases and Beyond -- 5 The Philosophy of Moral Risk Emotions: Toward a New (...) Paradigm of Risk Emotions -- PART III Emotional Deliberation About Risk -- 6 Reflection on and with Risk Emotions -- 7 Participation with Emotion -- 8 Emotional Deliberation on Technological Risks in Practice -- Epilogue -- References -- Index. (shrink)

This study investigates the role of “moral” emotional traits—guilt proneness, shame proneness, empathic concern, and perspective taking—as predictors of workplace bullying perpetration. We also test and find support for a model derived from moral emotions literature and the sociometer theory of self-esteem in which the tendency to take reparative action following interpersonal transgressions mediates the buffering effect of guilt proneness on bullying. Data were obtained from working MBA students and advanced undergraduates during 2 survey sessions, 4 to (...) 6 weeks apart. Findings indicate that moral emotional traits may be useful to consider in personnel selection as a means to reduce workplace bullying. (shrink)

Two correlational studies tested whether personality differences in empathy and perspective taking differentially relate to disapproval of unethical negotiation strategies, such as lies and bribes. Across both studies, empathy, but not perspective taking, discouraged attacking opponents' networks, misrepresentation, inappropriate information gathering, and feigning emotions to manipulate opponents. These results suggest that unethical bargaining is more likely to be deterred by empathy than by perspective taking. Study 2 also tested whether individual differences in guilt proneness and shame proneness inhibited the (...) endorsement of unethical bargaining tactics. Guilt proneness predicted disapproval of false promises and misrepresentation. Empathy did not predict disapproval of false promises when guilt proneness was included in the analysis. The comparatively private nature of the sin of false promises suggests that private ethical breaches are more likely to be deterred by anticipated guilt, while ethical breaches with clear interpersonal consequences are more likely to be deterred by empathy. (shrink)

The essays in this collection explore, from philosophical and religious perspectives, a variety of moral emotions and their relationship to punishment and condemnation or to decisions to lessen punishment or condemnation.

Emotions are said to be moral, as opposed to non- moral, in virtue of their objects. They are also said to be moral, for example morally good, as opposed to immoral, for example morally bad or evil, in virtue of their objects, nature, motives, functions or effects. The definition and content of moral matters are even more contested and contestable than the nature of emotions and of other affective phenomena. At the very least we (...) should distinguish moral norms, moral obligations, moral right and wrong, moral values and moral virtues. And different accounts of morals and of morality understand norms, values and virtues and their interrelations in different ways. For example, such accounts disagree about the relation between moral and non- moral oughts, the relation between moral and non- moral values, and the relation between moral and intellectual virtues ; and about the moral weight to be attached to self-regarding attitudes and behaviour and other-regarding attitudes and behaviour. Thus we may expect the range of putative moral emotions to display a bewildering variety. (shrink)

Le dernier livre d’Anthony Steinbock, Moral Emotions, aborde une thématique en apparence inédite chez cet auteur connu aux spécialistes de phénoménologie surtout pour Home and Beyond : Generative Phenomenology after Husserl (1995), mais aussi, plus récemment, pour Phenomenology and Mysticism. The Verticality of Religious Experience (2007) ; et cependant, il investit et prolonge les résultats de ces ouvrages à plus d’un titre, pour révéler ce faisant la profonde cohérence du travail de son aut...

The name of Thomas Reid rarely appears in discussions of the history of moral thought. This is a pity, since Reid has a lot of interesting ideas that can contribute to the current discussions in meta-ethics. Reid can be understood as an ethical intuitionist. What makes his account especially interesting is the role affective states play in his intuitionist theory. Reid defends a cognitive theory of moral emotions. According to Reid, there are moral feelings that are (...) the result of a moral judgment made by reason. The judgment and the feeling together constitute what Reid calls sentiments. Reid thinks that affective states (feelings and sentiments) play the role of helping reason to guide and control the egoistic feelings and passions. The affective states are particularly important, in Reid's view, because the motivating force of reason is often defeated by the stronger motivating force of the passions. So without affective states, we would often not be able to do what is morally good or right. In this paper, I will argue that the role of the affective states is still too limited in Reid's approach. He takes affective states to have a merely motivational function, namely, to help reason to control the passions and motivate to action where reason is too weak. Reid thinks that in making moral judgments we do not need to have feelings, feelings are at most a result of a judgment. Instead, I will argue that affective states also play an epistemological role. (shrink)

Abstract: Forgiveness of wrongdoing in response to public apology and amends making seems, on the face of it, to leave little room for the continued commemoration of wrongdoing. This rests on a misunderstanding of forgiveness, however, and we can explain why there need be no incompatibility between them. To do this, I emphasize the role of what I call nonangry negative moral emotions in constituting memories of wrongdoing. Memories so constituted can persist after forgiveness and have important (...) class='Hi'>moral functions, and commemorations can elicit these emotions to preserve memories of this sort. Moreover, commemorations can be a restorative justice practice that promotes reconciliation, but only on condition that the memories they preserve are constituted by nonangry negative, not retributive, emotions. (shrink)

We present two studies investigating the impact of causal perceptions and the moral emotions of anger, shame, and guilt on the justification of deviant workplace behavior. Study 1 tests our conceptual framework using a sample of undergraduate business students; Study 2 examines a population of practicing physicians. Results varied significantly between the two samples, suggesting that individual and contextual factors play an important role in shaping the perceptual and emotional processes by which individuals form reactions to undesirable affective (...) workplace events. Implications of these findings for the study of ethics, emotions, and attributions, as well as for promoting ethical behavior, are discussed. (shrink)

Five years ago, the Journal of Nietzsche Studies published a special issue on Nietzsche and the affects. In it, Aurelia Armstrong wrote generically about the passions, Michael Ure discussed Schadenfreude, Joanne Faulkner addressed disgust, and Joseph Kuzma focused on eroticism.1 In subsequent issues, authors have discussed love,2 emotion in general,3 resentment,4 compassion,5 honor and empathy,6 and affect in general.7 This special section on emotions and reactive attitudes is a chance to take stock of the progress we have made as (...) a field, draw connections among the affects and emotions addressed in the secondary literature, and introduce new ideas and tools for future research.If the articles here are any... (shrink)

I vindicate the thrust of the particularist position in moral deliberation. this purpose, I focus on some elements that seem to play a crucial role in first-person moral deliberation and argue that they cannot be incorporated into a more sophisticated system of moral principles. More specifically, I emphasize some peculiarities of moral perception in the light of which I defend the irreducible deliberative relevance of a certain phenomenon, namely: the phenomenon of an agent morally coming across (...) a particular situation. Following on from Bbernard Williams, I talk of an agent’s character as a factor that contributes to fixing what situations an agent comes morally across. A crucial point, in the debate, will be how an agent confronts the normatively loaded features of his own character when he is engaged in first-person deliberation. (shrink)

Patients at the end of their life who express a wish to die sometimes explain their wish as the desire not to be a burden to others. This feeling needs to be investigated as an emotion with an intrinsically dialogical structure. Using a phenomenological approach, two key meanings of the feeling of being a burden to others as a reason for a wish to die are identified. First, it is an existential suffering insofar as it contains the perception of a (...) plight so desperate that it can only be relieved by the end of the patient’s existence. Second, it is an empathic concern that implies caring about those who bear the burden of caring for the person at the end of their life. It is therefore a moral emotion, encompassing a series of difficulties, including the subjective perception of a stark imbalance between giving and taking, the adequacy of the representation of the caregiver burden in the patient’s mind, and the danger of diminishing the worth of one’s life out of shame or self‐denigration. R. D. Laing’s terminology of crossed perspectives in interexperience is used to systematically distinguish the actual caregiver burden, the patient’s view of the caregiver burden, the stress for the patient in feeling that s/he is a burden to the caregiver, and the caregiver’s view of the patient’s stress. The sense of being a burden implies the belief that the caregiver feels burdened, and the fear that this burden could become unbearable. (shrink)

In this article we explore a self-regulatory perspective on the self-evaluative moral emotions, shame and guilt. Broadly conceived, self-regulation distinguishes between two types of motivation: approach/activation and avoidance/inhibition. We use this distinction to conceptually understand the socialization dimensions (parental restrictiveness versus nurturance), associated emotions (anxiety versus empathy), and forms of morality (proscriptive versus prescriptive) that serve as precursors to each self-evaluative moral emotion. We then examine the components of shame and guilt experiences in greater detail and (...) conclude with more general implications of a self-regulatory perspective on moral emotions. (shrink)

Inspired in part by a renewed attention to Aristotle's moral philosophy, philosophers have acknowledged the important role of the emotions in morality. Nonetheless, precisely how emotions matter to morality has remained contentious. Aristotelians claim that moral virtue is constituted by correct action and correct emotion. But Kantians seem to require solely that agents do morally correct actions out of respect for the moral law. There is a crucial philosophical disagreement between the Aristotelian and Kantian (...) class='Hi'>moral outlooks: namely, is feeling the correct emotions necessary to virtue or is it an optional extra, which is permitted but not required. I argue that there are good reasons for siding with the Aristotelians: virtuous agents must experience the emotions appropriate to their situations. Moral virtue requires a change of heart. (shrink)

We present two studies investigating the impact of causal perceptions and the moral emotions of anger, shame, and guilt on the justification of deviant workplace behavior. Study 1 tests our conceptual framework using a sample of undergraduate business students; Study 2 examines a population of practicing physicians. Results varied significantly between the two samples, suggesting that individual and contextual factors play an important role in shaping the perceptual and emotional processes by which individuals form reactions to undesirable affective (...) workplace events. Implications of these findings for the study of ethics, emotions, and attributions, as well as for promoting ethical behavior, are discussed. (shrink)

Just war thinking serves a social and psychological role that international law cannot fill. Law is dispassionate and objective, while just war thinking accounts for emotions and the situatedness of individuals. While law works on us externally, making us accountable to certain people and institutions, just war thinking affects us internally, making us accountable to ourselves. Psychologically, an external focus leads to feelings of shame, while an inward focus generates feelings of guilt. Philosophers have long recognized the importance of (...) these two moral emotions. Recently, psychologists have found that feelings of guilt are linked to positive social outcomes, such as the desire for reconciliation and reparation, while shame generates anger and hostility. Just war thinking, as an inward-looking tradition, has a special relationship with guilt. By focusing on moral emotions, just war thinking can move beyond the law in four ways, by developing an ethic of accountability, by providing a foundation for addressing moral injury, by providing a common language for discussing the costs of war, and for identifying ethical problems in radically new contexts. (shrink)

Although prior work on ethical decision-making has examined the direct impact of magnitude of consequences as well as the direct impact of emotions on ethical judgments, the current research examines the interaction of these two constructs. Building on previous research finding disgust to have a varying impact on ethical judgments depending on the specific behavior being evaluated, we investigate how disgust, as well as happiness and sadness, moderates the effect of magnitude of consequences on an individual’s judgments of another (...) person’s unethical behavior. Specifically, we propose and find that because disgust and happiness are both associated with more heuristic-based processing, they both lead to a stronger reliance on the magnitude of consequences when forming ethical judgments. In contrast, because sad and neutral emotional states are associated with more systematic processing, they both result in a weaker reliance on the magnitude of consequences. As such, the effect of magnitude of consequences on judgments of unethical behaviors is stronger when individuals making the judgments are experiencing disgust or happiness versus sadness or a neutral state. This research shows that ethical judgment severity is contingent on individual-level factors, particularly the current emotional state being experienced by the individual, interacting with magnitude of consequences to impact the ethical decision-making process. (shrink)