Morality Flashcards
(32 cards)
What are the different sets of moral concerns?
> Fairness/reciprocity
> Harm/care
What is the definition of emotion?
An episode of interrelated, synchronised change in the states of all (or most) of the five organismic subsystems in response to an appraisal of internal or external events
What are the five organismic subsystems of emotion?
> Cognitive appraisals > Behavioural tendencies > Emotion triad: -> Subjective feelings -> Physiological reactions -> Motor expressions
What is the functionalist definition of morality?
> Evolved mechanism
Regulate selfishness
Makes a cooperative social life possible
What is the definition of moral emotions?
Emotions linked to the interested or welfare of either society as a whole or a smaller group of persons not including the judge or agent
What are the prototypical features of moral emotion?
> Eliciting event > Motor expressions > Physiological change > Phenomenological experience > Motivation or action tendency
What is required for a moral emotion to occur?
Agent needs to be connected to or identify with others
What is a disinterested elicitor?
A moral emotion triggered in someone with no emotional connections to any of the parties involved and does not develop empathy
What is the moral axis?
> One axis is moral type (agent to recipient)
Other axis is valence (help to harm)
Determines strength and direction of moral emotions
What are the two types of moral emotions?
> Other
> Self
What are the different types of ‘other’ moral emotions?
> Other-condemning emotions
Other-praising emotions
Other-suffering emotions
What are ‘self’ moral emotions?
Self-conscious emotions (eg, shame, guilt, etc)
What does the social intuitionist approach propose?
> Intuition initially (eg, strong revulsion)
> Reasoning follows (consciously, to justify emotion)
What do the rationalist models of moral judgement propose?
> Morality is rational
> Morality and moral emotions are reached through reasoning and reflection
What does social intuitionism propose about the social nature of morality?
> Evolved to create consequences for harmful group behaviour
> Evolved to reward helpful group behaviour
What evidence is there to support the social intuitionist viewpoint?
> Kunst-Wilson and Zajonc (1980)
Damasio (1994)
Haidt and Hersh (2001)
Greene et al (2004)
What did Kunst-Wilson and Zajonc (1980) find?
> People automatically prefer familiarity, even when consciously unaware
Brains are always automatically evaluating everything they perceive (inc other humans)
What did Damsio (1994) find?
Moral judgements involved ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which related to emotion
What did Haidt and Hersh (2001) find?
People cannot always explain moral actions
What did Greene et al (2004) find?
> Affective reactions push, but do not force, moral judgement
Personal moral thinking is domain specific
Impersonal moral thinking is domain neutral
What did Moll et al (2002) find?
> Moral v non-moral scenes
> Activation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex
What is the role of the medial frontal gyrus in morality?
> Integration of emotion into decision making and planning
> Theory of Mind
What is the role of the orbitofrontal/ventromedial frontal cortex in morality?
> Reward/punishment value
> Theory of Mind
What is the role of the posterior cingulate, precuneus and retrosplenial cortex in morality?
Integration on emotion imagery and memory
