Carol Gilligan is associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her 1982 book, In a Different Voice, presents a theory of moral development which claims that women tend to think and speak in a different way than men when they confront ethical dilemmas. Gilligan contrasts a feminine ethic of care with a masculine ethic of justice. She believes that these gender di...

Theories of moral development posit that an internalized moral value that one should help those in need-the principle of care-evokes helping behaviour in situations where empathic concern does not. Examples of such situations are helping behaviours that involve cognitive deliberation and planning, that benefit others who are known only in the abstract, and who are out-group members. Charitable ...

This article examines children's moral judgments and emotional evaluations in the context of social exclusion. As they age, children and adolescents face increasingly complex situations in which group membership and allegiance are in opposition with morally relevant decisions, such as the exclusion of an individual from a group. While adolescents are often characterized as being conformists to ...

A law school professor recounts the results of Dr. Bebeau's two papers, reporting on her remedial ethics program for oral health professionals who have been referred by the State Dental Board for breaches of professional conduct.

Sixty 2nd, 5th, and 8th graders were interviewed on their moral and ecological reasoning about the 1990 Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Results showed that children understood that the oil spill negatively affected the local Alaskan shoreline, marine life, fishermen, recreationists, and the oil company. Children cared that harm occurred to the shoreline and...

Associations between young children's developing theory of mind (ToM) and judgments of prototypical moral transgressions were examined 3 times across 1 year in 70 American middle class 2.5- to 4-year-olds. Separate path models controlling for cross-time stability in judgments, within-time associations, and children's age at Wave 1 indicated that across both 6-month intervals, children who evalu...

On day 2 of the symposium, panelists talked about efforts to create environments that diminish moral distress and improve moral resilience.

A series of seven computing and online games was reviewed following a criterion based selection process. The games were reviewed relative to their capacity to incorporate elements of gaming comparable to content or themes evident in children’s literature including, type of game, genre, elements of violence, disturbing scenes, gender of key protagonists or heroes, location and relative time fram...

The enhancement of human traits has received academic attention for decades, but only recently has moral enhancement using biomedical means--moral bioenhancement (MB)--entered the discussion. After explaining why we ought to take the possibility of MB seriously, the paper considers the shape and content of moral improvement, addressing at some length a challenge presented by reasonable moral pl...