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Moral Reasoning (moral + reasoning)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	31%
Psychology	28%
Medical Sciences	18%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	15%
2 Other Domains	8%

Selected Abstracts

Developmental Stages of Age and Moral Reasoning as Predictors of Juvenile Delinquents' Behavioral Intention to Steal Clothing

FAMILY & CONSUMER SCIENCES RESEARCH JOURNAL, Issue 2 2005
William Scott Forney
This study explored juvenile delinquents' moral reasoning and behavioral intention to steal clothing using age group and the aligned theories of planned behavior and cognitive developmental moralization. Participants (n = 100) were preteen and teen first-time theft/shoplifting offenders participating in a diversion program aimed at preventing future offenses. Factor analysis revealed three strongly correlated dimensions of moral reasoning: risk and need (preconventional ethics), and peers (conventional ethics). Multiple regressions predicted positive moral reasoning that justified stealing clothing for risk, need, and peers by preteens but not teens. Risk and need, but not peers or age group, predicted behavioral intention to steal clothing. Adevelopmental shift existed from preteens to teens in their moral reasoning to steal clothing. Juvenile delinquents that identified with preconventional ethics exhibited behavioral intention to steal clothing. [source]

Age Changes in Prosocial Responding and Moral Reasoning in Adolescence and Early Adulthood

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENCE, Issue 3 2005
Nancy Eisenberg
Age changes' measures of prosocial responding and reasoning were examined. Participants' reports of helping, empathy-related responding, and prosocial moral reasoning were obtained in adolescence (from age 15,16 years) and into adulthood (to age 25,26 years). Perspective taking and approval/interpersonal oriented/stereotypic prosocial moral reasoning increased from adolescence into adulthood, whereas personal distress declined. Helping declined and then increased (a cubic trend). Prosocial moral judgment composite scores (and self-reflective empathic reasoning) generally increased from late adolescence into the early 20s (age 17,18 to 21,22) but either leveled off or declined slightly thereafter (i.e., showed linear and cubic trends); rudimentary needs-oriented reasoning showed the reverse pattern of change. The increase in self-reflective empathic moral reasoning was for females only. Thus, perspective taking and some aspects of prosocial moral reasoning,capacities with a strong sociocognitive basis,showed the clearest increases with age, whereas simple prosocial proclivities (i.e., helping, sympathy) did not increase with age. [source]

Moral judgment in high-functioning pervasive developmental disorders

PSYCHIATRY AND CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCES, Issue 4 2007
TOSHINOBU TAKEDA md
Abstract Individuals with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) are characterized by deficits in socialization. To date, moral judgment, which may have a considerable influence on socialization, has not been fully investigated in high-functioning PDD (HFPDD), particularly from a viewpoint of practical adjustment with peers. Human External Action and its internal Reasoning Type (HEART), a standardized test for evaluating moral judgment in school children developed in Japan, was used to compare various aspects of moral judgment between 23 students with HFPDD (6,14 years old) and 23 students with typical development matched for age, intelligence, and socioeconomic status. Students with HFPDD scored significantly lower on Internal Moral Reasoning than control students. As for the level of Internal Moral Reasoning, while both groups reached a conventional (third) level in almost all items, fewer students with HFPDD achieved an autonomous (fourth) level and more students with HFPDD remained at a heteronomous (second) level than did control students. In the HFPDD group there were significant positive correlations between some items of Internal Moral Reasoning and verbal ability-related items of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III. A comparatively lower score in students with HFPDD may relate to difficulty in socialization. [source]

Moral Reasoning in the Context of Reform: A Study of Russian Officials

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 3 2002
Debra W. Stewart
This article reports on an exploratory study of ethical reasoning among public administrators in Russia. Survey interviews and focus group follow-ups with civil servants participating in graduate training programs at the Russian Academy of Public Service provide information about their preferred mode of ethical reasoning; the demographic, attitudinal, organizational, and professional factors associated with that reasoning; and the behavioral choices implied. Using a sample of 113 public officials who represent a broad spectrum of regions in Russia, this study assesses moral reasoning, examines variables associated with alternative models, and compares these responses with findings from studies conducted in Poland and the United States. Based on this exploratory study, we suggest implications for theory, research, and practice. [source]

Social Information Processing, Moral Reasoning, and Emotion Attributions: Relations With Adolescents' Reactive and Proactive Aggression

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2009
William F. Arsenio
Connections between adolescents' social information processing (SIP), moral reasoning, and emotion attributions and their reactive and proactive aggressive tendencies were assessed. One hundred mostly African American and Latino 13- to 18-year-olds from a low-socioeconomic-status (SES) urban community and their high school teachers participated. Reactive aggression was uniquely related to expected ease in enacting aggression, lower verbal abilities, and hostile attributional biases, and most of these connections were mediated by adolescents' attention problems. In contrast, proactive aggression was uniquely related to higher verbal abilities and expectations of more positive emotional and material outcomes resulting from aggression. Discussion focused on the utility of assessing both moral and SIP-related cognitions, and on the potential influence of low-SES, high-risk environments on these findings. [source]

Moral reasoning among physical therapists: results of the defining issues test

PHYSIOTHERAPY RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL, Issue 2 2010
Laura Lee Swisher
Abstract Background and Purpose.,Although there is extensive literature in other health care fields about the ability to make ethical judgements (moral reasoning), there is a paucity of research addressing the moral reasoning of practising physical therapists. The purposes of this research were to 1) identify the types of moral reasoning used by practising physical therapists as measured by the Defining Issues Test; 2) identify differences in moral reasoning among physical therapists based on educational background, demographic variables, clinical experience, practice setting or expertise in ethics; and 3) compare the moral reasoning of physical therapists with that of other professional groups.,Methods.,The Defining Issues Test of James Rest was used to evaluate moral reasoning. Five hundred thirty-seven physical therapists responded to a mail survey sent to a random sample of 2,000 American Physical Therapy Association members. Twelve physical therapists with expertise in ethics or professionalism completed the same survey.,Results.,The mean postconventional score for the random sample was 41.93. This score was lower than the mean scores of physicians, nurses, medical students, nursing students and dental students established in previous research. Females, ethics experts and those in academic settings had higher postconventional scores.,Conclusions.,Physical therapists scored lower in postconventional moral reasoning than some other professional groups with similar educational background. Factors that may inhibit or enhance the development of moral reasoning among physical therapists and possible consequences of high or low moral reasoning scores in physical therapy require further research. These findings may raise concerns about the entry-level educational curriculum and professional development opportunities in the area of ethics and moral reasoning. Results of this research may also highlight the challenges of evaluation, scholarship and research in physical therapy ethics. Further research and theory development is needed to address the relationships between moral theory and descriptive or empirical research within physical therapy. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Conflict resolution and moral reasoning

CONFLICT RESOLUTION QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2003
Warren R. Heydenberk
The effects of conflict resolution training on students' moral reasoning were examined in this five-year study. Inspired by pilot studies that found increased attachment, cooperation, and prosocial skills in treatment classrooms, the study was conducted with elementary students (ten treatment groups and eight comparison groups) in a low-income Philadelphia school and in two schools in a suburban low-income district. Treatment group teachers were trained in integrated conflict resolution strategies, and they were provided ongoing support to ensure classroom implementation of conflict resolution skills. Treatment group students demonstrated significant improvement in moral reasoning. [source]

Homosexuality and the Church's Witness in the ELCA's Current Struggle

DIALOG, Issue 2 2005
By Marc Kolden
Abstract:, The basis for holding the traditional Christian position against same-sex sexual intimacy is sufficiently well-supported by arguments from scripture and Christian traditions of moral reasoning to vote to continue the present ELCA policies and practices regarding sexual conduct. Also, arguments for revising the traditional view are flawed morally and theologically. Despite the momentum of secular culture in North America and Europe, the ELCA should resist any changes in its policies and any relaxation in its disciplining of those who disregard its present practices. This will be difficult, because many proponents for change have raised their position to the level of a de facto article of faith, that is, something that they consider to be necessary (particularly as it concerns ordination), and thus they will do everything possible to secure acceptance of their position. [source]

Growing up Charismatic: Morality and Spirituality among Children in a Religious Community

ETHOS, Issue 4 2009
Thomas J. Csordas
The first question has to do with the problem of how charisma can be successfully transferred to the second generation of a prophetic community. The second question has to do with how children come to be, and to act as, moral and spiritual beings. These questions converge in a particular way in the ethnographic setting of The Word of God Community: it is founded on a charismatic spirituality closely intertwined with a moral imperative, such that its viability depends on reproduction of that morality and spirituality among children of the founding generation. Data come from interviews with 38 children across three age groups (5,7, 10,12, and 15,17 years), conducted over a four-week period subsequent to a community schism, which left members in a state of reflection, self-examination, and openness. We focus on children's responses to a series of culturally specific vignettes designed to present various dilemmas of moral reasoning. In this highly charged context moral and spiritual life are based on an active engagement characterized by dynamic and contested processes, and it is through these processes that individuals make meaning out of and reconstruct the moral code of their culture. [childhood and adolescence, religion, Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Pentecostalism, morality, spirituality, intentional communities] [source]

Developmental Stages of Age and Moral Reasoning as Predictors of Juvenile Delinquents' Behavioral Intention to Steal Clothing

Posterior cingulate activation during moral dilemma in adolescents

HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 8 2008
Jesus Pujol
Abstract Neuroimaging research examining correlates of adolescent behavioral maturation has focused largely on issues related to higher cognitive development. Currently few studies have explored neural correlates of emotional reactivity in adolescent groups. In this study, we sought to examine the nature of posterior cingulate activation during situations of moral dilemma in normal adolescents. We focused on this region because of emerging evidence that suggests its role in emotionally self-relevant mental processing. Ten healthy teenagers, aged from 14 to 16 years, underwent three fMRI sequences designed to examine (i) brain responses during moral dilemma; (ii) brain responses during passive viewing of the moral dilemma outcome; and (iii); "deactivation" during a simple cognitive task compared with resting-state activity. Our main finding was that during moral dilemma, all subjects showed significant activation of the posterior cingulate cortex, and more variable activation of the medial frontal cortex and angular gyrus. Interestingly, these findings were replicated in each subject using the passive viewing task, suggesting that the previous pattern was not specific to moral reasoning or decision making. Finally, six of the ten subjects showed deactivation of the same posterior cingulate region during the cognitive task, indicating some commonality of function between posterior cingulate activity during moral dilemmas and rest. We propose that these posterior cingulate changes may relate to basic neuronal activities associated with processing self-relevant emotional stimuli. Given the high single-subject reproducibility of posterior cingulate activations, our findings may contribute to further characterize adolescent emotional reactivity in developmental neuroimaging studies. Hum Brain Mapp, 2008. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Aggressive and prosocial children's emotion attributions and moral reasoning

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 1 2009
Tina Malti
Abstract Aggressive and prosocial children's emotion attributions and moral reasoning were investigated. Participants were 235 kindergarten children (M=6.2 years) and 136 elementary-school children (M=7.6 years) who were selected as aggressive or prosocial based on (kindergarten) teacher ratings. The children were asked to evaluate hypothetical rule violations, attribute emotions they would feel in the role of the victimizer, and justify their responses. Compared with younger prosocial children, younger aggressive children attributed fewer negative emotions and were more likely to provide sanction-oriented justifications when evaluating rule violations negatively. Furthermore, age-, gender- and context-effects in moral development occurred. The context-effects included both effects of transgression type (i.e., prosocial morality vs. fairness) on emotion attributions and moral reasoning and the effects of the context of moral evaluation and emotion attribution on moral reasoning. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of emotion attributions and moral reasoning as antecedents of children's aggressive and prosocial behavior. Aggr. Behav. 35:90,102, 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Ego Development and the Ethics of Care and Justice: The Relations Among Them Revisited

JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 4 2002
Eva E. A. Skoe
ABSTRACT This study examined the links among ego development and the ethics of care and justice in 144 Norwegian men and women, 15 to 48 years old, taking into consideration age, sex, education, and verbal intelligence. As expected, the relationship between Loevinger's model of ego development and care-based moral reasoning as measured with Skoe's Ethic of Care Interview (ECI) was significantly stronger than the one between ego development and justice as measured with Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT). Both ethics correlated significantly with verbal ability. Analyses showed that beyond its overlap with verbal intelligence, the variance shared between the ECI and ego development was substantial. By contrast, when verbal intelligence was controlled, the DIT was not significantly related to ego development or to the care ethic. [source]

Culture: A Possible Predictor of Morality for African American Adolescents

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENCE, Issue 2 2009
Marisha L. Humphries
This study examined the ways in which cultural orientation (communalism and material well-being) and empathy influence the moral reasoning of African American middle to late adolescents. Specifically, this study utilized path analysis to investigate Ward's (1995) hypothesis that a communal orientation would promote morality among African American adolescents, while a material well-being orientation would mitigate against it. In addition, it was hypothesized that empathy would mediate the relationship between cultural orientation and moral reasoning. Thirty-seven high school students and 35 college students participated in the study. Results revealed that communalism was a significant predictor of empathy. Despite prediction, communalism and material well-being were not predictors of moral reasoning. The findings did not yield support for empathy functioning as a mediator between communalism and moral reasoning. These findings are discussed in terms of previous findings, methodological limitations, and implications for future research. [source]

Age Changes in Prosocial Responding and Moral Reasoning in Adolescence and Early Adulthood

The role of mental state understanding in the development of moral cognition and moral action

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, Issue 103 2004
Jodie A. Baird
The authors explore children's use of intention information in evaluating the moral quality of others' actions. They also address links among mental state understanding, motives-based moral reasoning, and children's own moral behavior. [source]

Bridging the gap between theory of mind and moral reasoning

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, Issue 103 2004
Janet Wilde Astington
The author argues that the gap between theory of mind and moral reasoning research may be more apparent than real. The wider gap is between sociomoral cognitions and real-world behavior. She calls for research on the relation of children's mental state and moral understanding to their sociomoral behavior. [source]

Modes of rationality in nursing documentation: biology, biography and the ,voice of nursing'

NURSING INQUIRY, Issue 2 2005
Abbey Hyde
Modes of rationality in nursing documentation: biology, biography, and the ,voice of nursing' This article is based on a discourse analysis of the complete nursing records of 45 patients, and concerns the modes of rationality that mediated text-based accounts relating to patient care that nurses recorded. The analysis draws on the work of the critical theorist, Jürgen Habermas, who conceptualised rationality in the context of modernity according to two types: purposive rationality based on an instrumental logic, and value rationality based on ethical considerations and moral reasoning. Our analysis revealed that purposive rationality dominated the content of nursing documentation, as evidenced by a particularly bio-centric and modernist construction of the workings of the body within the texts. There was little reference in the documentation to central themes of contemporary nursing discourses, such as notions of partnership, autonomy, and self-determination, which are associated with value rationality. Drawing on Habermas, we argue that this nursing documentation depicted the colonisation of the sociocultural lifeworld by the bio-technocratic system. Where nurses recorded disagreements that patients had with medical regimes, the central struggle inherent in the project of modernity became transparent , the tension between the rational and instrumental control of people through scientific regulation and the autonomy of the subject. The article concludes by problematising communicative action within the context of nursing practice. [source]

Overriding the Jehovah's Witness Patient's Refusal of Blood: A Reply to Cahana, Weibel, and Hurst

PAIN MEDICINE, Issue 5 2009
John D. Banja PhD
ABSTRACT This article is a response to a survey on moral reasoning among Swiss health professionals that appeared in a recent issue of this journal. The authors of that survey inquired whether or not their respondents would give a blood transfusion to a Jehovah's Witness patient who clearly refused it. A substantial number of the respondents answered that they would override the patient's refusal and give the transfusion. The present article examines the two ethical rationales that were offered to explain the overriding respondents' answers and argues that neither one is ethically acceptable. It concludes with an account of the phenomenon of "motivated reasoning" that, so it is argued, better explains why the overriders would refuse to honor the Jehovah's Witness patient's transfusion refusal. [source]

From Pacifism to War Resistance

PEACE & CHANGE, Issue 2 2001
Iain Atack
Pacifism is often interpreted as an absolute moral position that claims it is always wrong to go to war. As such, it is often rejected on the grounds that it excludes or overlooks other moral considerations, such as an obligation to resist aggression or defend fundamental human rights. Vocational pacifism, restricted to those who choose nonviolence as a way of life, is one version of pacifism that might overcome some of the objections connected to its moral absolutism. Contingent pacifism, on the other hand, acknowledges the complexities of moral reasoning connected to decisions concerning the use of armed force while retaining pacifist objections to war and preparations for war. Even contingent pacifism is limited by its individualism or voluntarism as a moral position, however. War resistance contributes its analysis of the political or structural factors responsible for war or preparations for war while retaining pacifism's moral impetus for action. [source]

Moral reasoning among physical therapists: results of the defining issues test

Moral Reasoning Effects on Political Participation

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2000
Peter Muhlberger
In this study, respondents who agreed to participate in a computer-administered interview were presented with information and questions about public interest groups, followed by the Defining Issues Test of moral reasoning (DIT). Respondents with high DIT scores stressed morally central over morally peripheral considerations in deciding whether to participate in public interest groups. Less sophisticated reasoners showed the opposite pattern. Morally central considerations also had a much greater impact on the probability that sophisticated respondents would attempt to participate in public interest groups after completing the interview. The analysis included controls for potential confounding variables such as cognitive ability, education, prior political participation, and gender. The findings imply motivational differences between advantaged and disadvantaged population groups. Such differences may help to account for the differing strategies and successes of political organizations mobilizing these groups. [source]

The Angelic Doctor and the Stagirite: Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary ,Aristotelian' Ethics

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY (HARDBACK), Issue 1 2001
M. W. F. Stone
To what extent, if any, is the moral thought of Thomas Aquinas ,Aristotelian'? This question is not simply of historical interest, since it directs our attention to those areas of contemporary English-speaking moral philosophy where Thomas is discussed. In some quarters there is a tendency to classify Thomas as a thinker in the ,Aristotelian tradition', and his debt to Aristotle is thought to be apparent in his remarks on moral reasoning and virtue. Nowhere is this tendency more evident than in discussions of Thomas by supporters of modern virtue ethics. In this paper, I will argue that the relationship of Thomas's ethics to Aristotle is much more complicated than these discussions assume. Despite the strong and interesting affinities that exist between the practical philosophies of Thomas and Aristotle, the sum total of their common features can never disguise nor dilute the profound differences that separate them. The paper will conclude with some suggestions as to how an appreciation of these differences can enable us to cast Thomas's remarks on virtue in a different light. [source]

Moral Reasoning in the Context of Reform: A Study of Russian Officials

Levinasian Ethics and Legal Obligation,

RATIO JURIS, Issue 4 2006
JONATHAN CROWE
I begin by examining the structure of moral reasoning in light of Levinas's account of ethics, looking particularly at the role of the "third party" (le tiers) in modifying Levinas's primary ethical structure of the "face to face" relation. I then argue that the primordial role of ethical experience in social discourse, as emphasised by Levinas, undermines theories, such as that of H. L. A. Hart, that propose a systematic distinction between legal and moral species of obligation. [source]

The development of decision-making capacities in children and adolescents: Psychological and neurological perspectives and their implications for juvenile defendants

BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, Issue 2 2009
Praveen Kambam M.D.
The development of decision-making capacities in children and adolescents has been a topic of interest for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Questions regarding the development of decision-making capacities (and moral reasoning) of youth frequently arise in juvenile justice settings, other forensic settings, and sometimes in treatment settings. This article attempts to review the latest and most relevant research on the development of decision-making capacities likely to be relevant in children and adolescents who are defendants. We distinguish cognition versus judgment in decision-making and briefly review adolescent decision-making in laboratory and real world conditions. We review a theoretical framework of two different systems, a cognitive-control system and socio-emotional system, and potentially correlated neurobiological and psychological findings. Implications for selected aspects of the juvenile adjudicative process are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]