A distinction is made between two forms of morality on the basis of approach-avoidance differences in self-regulation. Prescriptive morality is sensitive to positive outcomes, activation-based, and focused on what we should do. Proscriptive morality is sensitive to negative outcomes, inhibition-based, and focused on what we should not do. Seven studies profile these two faces of morality, suppo...

This research examines how (a) person information (morality vs. competence and positive vs. negative information) and (b) perceiver differences (prosocials vs. proselfs) influence active (Study 1) and more passive (Study 2) forms of information selection in impression formation. Consistent with the moralityimportance hypothesis, the majority of participants first searched for morality informati...

Morality and justice have apparent similarities. Both facilitate social interaction, coordination, and cooperation. Both can feel like external standards that somehow should carry more weight than individuals’ preferences. That said, morality and justice are not synonymous. Scholars as far back as Aristotle have identifi ed ways that morality and justice differ (see Konow, 2008 ). In this chapt...

Morality, sociability, and competence are distinct dimensions in person perception. We argue that a person's morality informs us about their likely intentions, whereas their competence and sociability inform us about the likelihood that they will fulfill those intentions. Accordingly, we hypothesized that whereas morality would be considered unconditionally positive, sociability and competence ...

Greif, Avner, and Tadelis, Steven—A theory of moral persistence: Crypto-morality and political legitimacy Why, how, and under what conditions do moral beliefs persist despite institutional pressure for change?Why do the powerful often fail to promote the morality of their authority? This paper addresses these questions by presenting the role of crypto-morality in moral persistence. Crypto-moral...

In The Order of Public Reason (2011a), Gerald Gaus rejects the instrumental approach to morality as a viable account of social morality. Gaus’ rejection of the instrumental approach to morality, and his own moral theory, raise important foundational questions concerning the adequate scope of instrumental morality. In this article, I address some of these questions and I argue that Gaus’ rejecti...

Longstanding debates about whether morality is best defined in terms of emotions or judgments have been recently rekindled. In this essay, we review recent approaches from social psychology and moral neuroscience that have emphasized emotions and intuitions as central to morality. We assert that the results of developmental science research on judgments and reasoning informs these approaches an...

BACKGROUND The principles of biomedical ethics - autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice - are of paradigmatic importance for framing ethical problems in medicine and for teaching ethics to medical students and professionals. In order to underline this significance, Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress base the principles in the common morality, i.e. they claim that the principle...

In this paper, we will consider the neuro-cognitive systems involved in mediating morality. Five main claims will be made. First, that there are multiple, partially separable neuro-cognitive architectures that mediate specific aspects of morality: social convention, care-based morality, disgust-based morality and fairness/justice. Second, that all aspects of morality, including social conventio...