Moral consciousness is an undeniable fact of human experience. The moral sensibility is something essential for the peaceful society and the work. Even gods are believed to incarnate to restore righteousness and peace in the society. Down through the centuries, many religious teachers, and philosophers were interested in the rational ground of morality. The caste duties of the Hindus prescribed...

This study provides exploratory evidence about how behavioral and neural responses to standard moral dilemmas are influenced by religious belief. Eleven Catholics and 13 Atheists (all female) judged 48 moral dilemmas. Differential neural activity between the two groups was found in precuneus and in prefrontal, frontal and temporal regions. Furthermore, a double dissociation showed that Catholic...

Scientific and religious thinking compete with each other on several levels. For example, activating one generally weakens the other. Since priming religion is known to increase moral behaviour and moral sensitivity, priming science might be expected to have the opposite effect. However, it was recently demonstrated that, on the contrary, science priming increases moral sensitivity as well. The...

This paper presents a model of agent behavior that takes into account emotions and moral values. In our proposal, when the description of the current situation reveals that an agent’s moral value is ‘at stake’, the moral goal of reestablishing the threatened value is included among the active goals. The compliance with values generates positive emotions like pride and admiration, while the oppo...

Praying over longer time spans can foster self-control. Less is known about the immediate, short-term consequences of praying. Here we investigated the possibility that praying may counteract self-control depletion. Participants suppressed or did not suppress thoughts about a white bear before engaging in a brief period of either personal prayer or free thought. Then, all participants completed...

Many philosophers assume that, when making moral decisions under uncertainty, we should choose the option that has greatest expected value, regardless of how risky it is. But their arguments for maximizing value do not support over rival, risk-averse approaches. In this paper, I present a novel argument value: think about larger series each decision is part of, all but most agents would prefer ...

There has been an upsurge of interest in moral decision making, which appears to have some distinctive properties. For example, some moral decisions are so strongly influenced by ideas about how sacred entities are to be treated, that they seem to be relatively insensitive to the costs and benefits entailed (e.g., ‘‘do not allow companies to pollute the earth for a fee, even if pollution credit...

Schools have long been seen as institutions for preparing children for life, both academically and as moral agents in society. In order to become capable, moral citizens, children need to be provided with opportunities to learn moral values. However, little is known about how teachers enact social and moral values programs in the classroom. The aim of this article is to investigate the the mora...

Since 1954, American churches have faced a difficult decision: either say nothing about the moral issues that drive their religion or face losing their tax-exempt status. This fundamentally unsound choice falls down upon them due to an Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") regulation that prohibits religious organizations from commenting on the moral attributes of a candidate for political office.1 ...

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between first year college men’s religious preference (Catholic, Protestant, or none) and their level of moral development as measured by the Defining Issues TestShort Form (Rest, 1986). Data analyses were conducted based upon results for 161 in-coming college men. Results of an analysis of variance indicated that those with no stated rel...