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Moral psychology

Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. Historically, the term "moral psychology" was used relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development.[1][2] Moral psychology eventually came to refer more broadly to various topics at the intersection of ethics, psychology, and philosophy of mind.[3][4][5] Some of the main topics of the field are moral judgment, moral reasoning, moral sensitivity, moral responsibility, moral motivation, moral identity, moral action, moral development, moral diversity, moral character (especially as related to virtue ethics), altruism, psychological egoism, moral luck, moral forecasting, moral emotion, affective forecasting, and moral disagreement.[6][7]

Today, moral psychology is a thriving area of research spanning many disciplines,[8] with major bodies of research on the biological,[9][10] cognitive/computational[11][12][13] and cultural[14][15] basis of moral judgment and behavior, and a growing body of research on moral judgment in the context of artificial intelligence.[16][17]

Harm/care, which starts with the sensitivity to signs of suffering in offspring and develops into a general dislike of seeing suffering in others and the potential to feel compassion in response.

Fairness/reciprocity, which is developed when someone observes or engages in reciprocal interactions. This foundation is concerned with virtues related to fairness and justice.

Ingroup/loyalty, which constitutes recognizing, trusting, and cooperating with members of one's ingroup as well as being wary of members of other groups.

Authority/respect, which is how someone navigates in a ingroups and communities.

hierarchal

Purity/sanctity, which stems from the emotion of disgust that guards the body by responding to elicitors that are biologically or culturally linked to disease transmission.

Intersections with other fields[edit]

Sociological applications[edit]

Some research shows that people tend to self-segregate based on moral and political views,[133][134] exaggerate the magnitude of moral disagreements across political divides,[135] and avoid exposure to the opinions of those with opposing political views.[136]

Normative implications[edit]

Researchers have begun to debate the implications (if any) moral psychology research has for other subfields of ethics such as normative ethics and meta-ethics.[137][138][139][140][141] For example Peter Singer, citing Haidt's work on social intuitionism and Greene's dual process theory, presented an "evolutionary debunking argument" suggesting that the normative force of our moral intuitions is undermined by their being the "biological residue of our evolutionary history."[142] John Michael Doris discusses the way in which social psychological experiments—such as the Stanford prison experiments involving the idea of situationism—call into question a key component in virtue ethics: the idea that individuals have a single, environment-independent moral character.[143] As a further example, Shaun Nichols (2004) examines how empirical data on psychopathology suggests that moral rationalism is false.[144]


Additionally, research in moral psychology is being used to inform debates in applied ethics around moral enhancement.[145][146]

Archived 2020-07-14 at the Wayback Machine – with Knobe, Nichols, Doris and others.

Moral Psychology Research Group