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The morality of artificial intelligence (AI) has become a contentious topic in academic and public debates. We argue that AIs moral acceptance depends not only on its ability to accomplish a task in line with moral norms but also on the social status attributed to AI. Agent type (AI vs. computer program vs. human), gender, and organizational membership impact moral permissibility. In a factorial survey experiment, 578 participants rated the moral acceptability of agents performing a task (e.g., cancer diagnostics). We find that using AI is judged less morally acceptable than employing human agents. AI used in high-status organizations is judged more morally acceptable than in low-status organizations. No differences were found between computer programs and AI. Neither anthropomorphic nor gender framing had an effect. Thus, human agents in high-status organizations receive a moral surplus purely based on their structural position in a cultural status hierarchy regardless of their actual performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have compared individuals who use cannabis for recreational versus medical purposes, but little is known about the moral norms and risk perceptions toward recreational versus medical cannabis while driving. This study aims to examine young Israeli adults’ behaviors, perceived moral norms, and perceived risk regarding driving under the influence of recreational versus medical cannabis. Methods: The study was conducted using quantitative questionnaires. Participants were 504 young adults, aged 18–30 (M = 25.26; SD = 5.40), of whom 314 (62.3%) were women. Results: Driving under the influence of medical cannabis was perceived as more moral and less risky than driving under the influence of recreational cannabis. Significant positive correlations were observed between perceived risk and perceived moral norms for both types of cannabis. Significant negative correlations were found between the frequency of driving under the influence of recreational cannabis and the perceived risk and perceived moral norms associated with both types of cannabis. Conclusion: Policymakers should promote prevention, harm reduction, and enforcement interventions to address the issue of driving under the influence of both recreational and medical cannabis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the traditional understanding, Christian ethics touches upon issues of morality and the general structure of a human as a person. At the same time, Christian ethics does not touch upon questions and does not impose restrictions on the development of scientific principles and methodological structures of knowledge of the surrounding world. That is, Christian ethics allows and encourages the exploration of created space. The novelty of the study is fact that the understanding of the importance of artificial intelligence is based primarily on the belief that there is a need to develop boundaries where artificial intelligence is capable of making a decision that will not be approved by humans. The authors show that the creation of such a technology runs counter to the values of a religious nature and Christianity, in particular, due to the representation of freedom of technology, which has moral convictions not based on the principles of humanism. The study compares and develops the main criteria for correlating the sufficiency of ethical norms and the requirements of technological advancement. A promising question for further discussion is the question of the artificial intelligence's deliberate lack of attachment to a particular morality, including extreme or aggressive worldviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between law and morality is important in the professional life of an official. An official must be aware of the importance of morality and find a balance between his or her own inner moral convictions and the law. He must be concerned with moral norms derived from custom, but they must not overshadow the importance of the law in his professional activities. The aim of this research is to show the importance of the relationship between law and morality in the professional activities of officials. The review of literature sources and legal acts shows that in the Lithuanian legal system a law is an act issued in accordance with the Constitution and the Seimas, expressing the will of the legislator. The concept of law is very old, but the concept of law has not changed very much; since ancient times, law has meant a certain norm that must be followed. Understanding the concept of morality is important in order to determine the relationship between law and morality in the professional activities of an official. The concept is also an old one, but it is still relevant in our society today. Morality is the generally accepted rules of life, which are often not codified in law, but which are a very important part of social relations and an important part of the work of employees of statutory bodies. An empirical study conducted to determine the attitude of officers towards the relationship between law and morality found that officers are guided by both the law and morality during their service. Many officers are willing to disregard moral values in certain situations, especially during their service. However, another part of them state that they would put moral norms above the law when the law is unjust, disproportionate, inhuman or when it concerns their family and close people. The results of the survey show that officials agree that laws are designed to ensure that moral values are upheld in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on fieldwork research among the Bosniak (Muslim) population in rural areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this article starts with the technique of summoning the dead, aimed at obtaining information about missing goods. It argues that the practice of summoning the dead, like practices aimed at magically harming others, is based on the same moral rules that govern everyday relations between the living and the dead. While these rules are generally followed and observed in everyday life, they can also be deliberately inverted to one's own advantage or to the disadvantage of others. Ultimately, I argue that the dead prove to be moral agents who act when moral norms are violated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians' uncivil behaviors violate social and moral norms yet seem to be on the rise. We investigated under which circumstances politicians' uncivil behavior towards their peers and opponents is tolerated by their supporters. We hypothesized that public support would depend on the context in which incivility is used (i.e., if it is targeted at political opponents vs. peers) and on the individuals' moral beliefs. In two studies, we asked Democrats and Republicans to evaluate a politician who belonged to their preferred party and engaged in uncivil communication with either a member of the same or the opposing party. As expected, uncivil communication was condoned more when it was directed at the opponents. In the context of intergroup conflict, binding foundations predicted more approval among Republicans, and surprisingly more disapproval among Democrats. However, differences in (dis)approval between parties were not significant across both studies. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situational action theory holds that crime occurs when it is perceived as a viable course of action and when there is a conflict between personal morality and the moral norms of the setting, being self-control and deterrence decisive. In this paper, the propositions of situational action theory are tested in the decision to evade taxes. Based on a survey completed by 1638 adults and containing two tax evasion scenarios, the present study investigates whether a person's moral rules, degree of self-control, and deterrence influence the propensity to tax evasion. Multivariate statistical analyses were performed. The results show that the propensity to tax evasion is higher among men, the elderly, and the employed. Regarding the predictions of situational action theory, the results suggest that morality, self-control, and deterrence influence the propensity to evade taxes. However, contrary to expectations, morality does not moderate the commission of tax evasion and does not interact with self-control. Overall, the results only partially support the propositions of situational action theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates children's dialogic negotiation of the moral order of the classroom in a heterogeneous peer group. Drawing from video-ethnographic research in two primary schools in Italy, the study adopts a CA-informed approach to analyze 9- to 10-year-old children's dialogic interactions around the appropriate and inappropriate ways of behaving in the classroom. As the analysis illustrates, children reproduce institutional moral norms and ideologies to sanction perceived infringements of the classroom moral order. In response to that, the recipients provide accounts to justify their conduct or resist the moral accusation of their classmates. In the discussion it is argued that these morality-building practices are relevant to (a) children's negotiation of their social organization and local identities in the peer group and (b) children's socialization to the moral expectations of the classroom community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wikström's Situational Action Theory (SAT) explains rule-breaking by reference to the cognitive perception-choice process, which indicates how a person's propensity to break rules interacts with the setting's criminogeneity. SAT's situational model claims that the interaction between personal morality and the moral norms of the setting, the so-called moral filter, is critical in the explanation of rule-breaking, and that the influence of self-control is subordinate to this process. Self-control becomes relevant when individuals whose personal morality discourages rule-breaking are exposed to settings in which the moral norms encourage rule-breaking, that is, if the moral filter is conflicted. Whereas most previous studies have equated the moral filter with personal morality, we consider the moral norms of the setting as well. This allows for a more rigorous test of the moral filter, and thus the conditionality of self-control. Here, we investigate student cheating, using data from two waves of a large-scale German school panel study, and we conceptualise the setting's moral norms by reference to the descriptive norm: other students' cheating behaviour. This ensures the spatio-linkage between the setting's criminogeneity and rule-breaking, which is necessary for investigating SAT. Additionally, our estimation strategy – person and school fixed-effect models – controls for alternative explanations by the selection of people into settings with different levels of criminogeneity. Moreover, it controls for heterogeneity across persons and schools. The findings are in line with SAT's predictions. In cases of a correspondence between personal morality and the moral norms of a setting, students with rule-abiding morality are least likely to cheat, whereas students with a rule-breaking morality are the most likely to cheat. Also, in line with SAT, self-control only matters for students with rule-abiding morality when they are exposed to moral norms that encourage rule-breaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Hannah Arendt's account of the relationship between politics and morality. Many critics have argued that Arendt's conception of political action lacks any moral foundations, while others have tried to focus on her understanding of thinking as a normative source of her ethics. In contrast to these views, I present an alternative explanation and argue that the sources of Arendt's political ethics are located neither in the faculty of thinking nor in extrapolitical moral norms or rules, but in the ontological conditions of action, specifically worldliness, natality and plurality. This interpretation allows us to make sense of Arendt's fragmented, unsystematic accounts of the various virtues and moral dispositions required for authentic politics: courage, responsibility, care, respect, moderation, solidarity and gratitude. In particular, an inquiry into the ontological sources of political ethics provides a solid normative grounding for the two moral dispositions—promise and forgiveness—that form an explicit "moral code" of political action for Arendt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars are increasingly examining how formal leaders of organizations change moral norms. The prominent accounts over-emphasize the role of rational persuasion. We focus, instead, on how formal leaders successfully break and thereby create moral norms. We draw on Dreyfus's ontology of cultural paradigms and Williams's moral luck to develop our framework for viewing leader-driven radical norm the change. We argue that formal leaders, embedded in their practices' grounding, clarifying, and organizing norms, get captivated by anomalies and respond to them by taking moral risks, which, if practically successful, create a new normative order. We illustrate the framework with Churchill's actions in 1940 and Anita Roddick's Body Shop. Last, we discuss normative orders, when ordinary leaders change norms, evil, and further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the inclusion of the question of power in theological social ethics. It argues that moral liberalism ignores the dependence on power structures in the ethical justification of moral norms. Using Augustine's theological theory of the political, a concept of theological ethics is developed that includes the question of power in ethical reflection. The article emphasizes the necessity of a political ethics that deals with the responsible handling of political power. The article discusses the challenges in enforcing ethical norms and the relationship between rational argumentation and political power. It is noted that there is often no rational consensus and that political measures are necessary to enforce certain behaviors. The article also examines the criticism of moral liberalism and argues that under the historical conditions of a racialized society, it can lead to the stabilization of racism. It is pointed out that the imagination of the participants in the discussion is limited and that perspectives beyond their imagination are excluded from the discourse. The theological reflection on political power is based on Augustine's work "De Civitate Dei" (The City of God). Augustine distinguishes between the civitas Dei (City of God) and the civitas terrena (earthly city). The civitas Dei represents a redeemed sociality in which all power lies with God and there is hope for a post-political sociality. The civitas terrena, on the other hand, is characterized by power desires and power structures and cannot achieve true justice. However, Augustine recognizes that political rule is necessary to at least ensure an imperfect earthly peace. The hope for a healed sociality lies solely in faith in the civitas Dei. The article discusses theological social ethics as political ethics, referring to Augustine. Augustine sees the political as a direct counterpart to religious hope and emphasizes that there is no possibility to transcend power relations in human coexistence beyond religion. The debate between proponents of moral liberalism and critics revolves around the question of whether human reason could be such a third element that represents a moral corrective to political power. Theological ethics deals with the question of how people can live together peacefully in a world where the good remains an unattainable ideal. It is emphasized that a theologically reflected morality must always be considered under the conditions of exercising power and that the understanding of rules of coexistence is always a political process. The article concludes by emphasizing that a liberal order of society must critically reflect on power structures and processes of exclusion in public communication and that a universally recognized morality requires continuous efforts to include everyone in the discourse. [Extracted from the article]

The article offers a study of the bioethical discourse regarding the value of life through the prism of conceptualizing the main approaches to the study of this phenomenon. It is noted that with all the diversity of approaches that demonstrate a wide range of views on the value of life, the modern bioethical discourse combines the ideas of scientific research, the dogmatics of religious doctrines and the basic principles of moral imperatives, which are interpreted in a civilized society in the context of medico-biological problems of life preservation and reproduction, as well as determining its value. This combination is far from being eclectic. It synthesizes the main achievements of scientific, religious and ethical thought and extrapolates them to the problem of human life, which is a unique phenomenon that should be separated into a specific system of moral norms and imperatives of human activity. The article notes that in modern conditions the bioethical discourse is concentrated around the axiological paradigm in the study of living beings. All the diversity of viewpoints is proposed to be grouped into two main approaches: the ethics of the sacredness (sanctity) of life and the the quality of life ethics. The conceptualization of these two main approaches permits to consider all the diversity of views on the value of life in the context of bioethical discourse as a systematized set of views, which contributes to the creation of an appropriate scientific research situation and will contribute to the deepening of scientific studies on the specified subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germline gene editing has many applications or uses. This article focuses on specific applications. Specifically, the article draws on a moral norm arising from the thinking about the value of communal relationships in the Afro-communitarian ubuntu philosophy to interrogate key issues that specific applications of germline gene editing - for xeno-transplantation, agriculture and wildlife - raise. The article contends that the application of germline gene editing in these areas is justified to the extent that they foster the capacity to relate with others and to be communed with by others. The article grants that our today's decisions about germline gene editing will likely affect future humans, but will attempt to justify how this may be ethically permissible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research shows that civility norms, such as morality norms, are necessary navigational charts to orient an individual in social life. However, there are no studies that establish the extent to which people consider civility norms as objective facts in a similar way to how many moral norms are considered. This research examines the perceived objectivity of civility norms in contrast to morality norms. The results show, firstly, that immoral norms are perceived to be significantly more objective than moral norms, but the opposite occurs with civility norms. Second, there is a high correlation between what participants consider objective and what they believe the rest of their community considers objective. However, this correlation was greater for immoral behaviors than for moral behaviors, and the opposite occurred for civility behaviors. Finally, participants estimated that the percentage of people in their group who engage in uncivil behaviors is higher than those who engage in immoral behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious, legal, and moral norms, which are an integral part of culture, have always existed. Islam has approached the rights, ethical norms of all living beings from different angles and paid special attention to these issues. According to Islam, rights are given to a person from the moment of his creation, not later. Normative rights, which covering human life, are also united with moral norms. Because there are moral norms at the root of any rule, and if there are no such norms, there can be no legal norm. That is why, when Islam speaks of human rights, it emphasizes morality, especially the principles of justice, and creates a link between law and justice. From the Islamic point of view, law and morality, justice; one of the main features of morality, are the main factors in the formation of a person as a social figure. Because law, morality and justice cover the issues that are necessary in the life of every person, which today we call it as Human Rights. The article focuses on the legal and moral norms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, their proportions, social impact, and prestige, as well as the principles of human rights law and justice, other issues related to law and morality, and the differences between them. Research and analysis of some legal and philosophical aspects have been carried out here, referring to the authentic and authoritative works of both Islamic lawyers (faqih) and philosophers, as well as Western lawyer-philosophers (legal philosophers). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid patriarchal conditions that render one son necessary and multiple daughters burdensome, selective abortion of female fetuses has become pervasive in India. Public responses often cast sex selection as self-evidently ignorant, cruel, and misogynistic – an obvious evil meriting denunciation and eradication. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Gujarat state, this article zooms out from ultrasound and abortion to survey the landscape of biomedical, herbal, and religious son production techniques surrounding them. Doing so clarifies the lived moral experience in which sex selection is embedded. Resort to multiple son production techniques is both an abstract moral indicator reflecting prevailing concerns and a pragmatic moral intervention aimed at harnessing every available means in response to those concerns. Fundamentally, people live out the multimodal quest that sometimes leads to selective abortion as aspiration – social, bodily, spiritual – toward an indispensable good, not as heartless rejection of daughters. Pluralistic son production illuminates the moral uses of medical pluralism for care-seekers, social scientists, and policymakers and practitioners. The case underscores that “complementary” therapies, rather than being just desperate behaviors, barriers to biomedical therapy, or curiosities to be integrated into care, may in fact be the clearest markers of the moral conditions in which public health problems unfold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Colombiana de Bioetica is the property of Universidad El Bosque and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent debates in moral psychology and literary Darwinism, several authors suggested that narrative art plays a significant role in the process of the social learning of moral norms, functioning as storage of locally salient moral information. However, an integrative view, which would help explain the inner workings of this morally educative function of narrative art, is still lacking. This paper provides such a unifying theoretical account by bringing together insights from moral psychology (concerning the non-reflective nature of moral cognition), educational sciences (concerning different types of settings and methods of moral learning), cognitive/evolutionary narratology (concerning how easy narrative art lends itself to the transmission of moral information), and cultural evolution (concerning different types of learning strategies/biases in relation to narrative art). A study of contemporary American rap music is included to showcase the benefits of this integrative approach in the context of one particular type of narrative art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common philosophical approaches on the adequacy of emotions usually focus on the most objective assessment of the situation. In contrast to this, I claim that this objective stance, generally called “fittingness”, does not satisfy the current needs of emotional evaluation. Given the motivational role of emotions and their influence on social interactions, it is of utmost importance to also evaluate their moral value. Yet, a further development towards such a moral judgment is missing. In this paper, I provide an approach for the moral adequacy of emotional responses in a social context. I aim to show that in today’s social and political culture the link between emotions and moral norms cannot be neglected. Introducing two instances of judging the moral adequacy, I focus on evaluating either the cause or the consequence of an emotional reaction. By assessing the moral value of emotional responses, I think moral growth can be facilitated – not only in individuals but also in whole societies.

Over the last decade, scholars across the wide spectrum of the discipline of sociology have started to reengage with questions on morality and moral phenomena. The continued wave of research in this field, which has come to be known as the new sociology of morality, is a lively research program that has several common grounds with scholarship in the field of business ethics. The aim of this thematic symposium is to open constructive dialogues between these two areas of study. In this introductory essay, we briefly present the project of the new sociology of morality and discuss its relevance for business ethics. We also review the contributions to this thematic symposium and identify four specific domains where future research can contribute to fruitful dialogues between the two fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationships between the sociology of morality and behavioural sciences. It is argued that, although the classical sociological tradition provides valuable theoretical resources for understanding moral phenomena, the prevalence of behavioural sciences in the field is problematic for the 'new' sociology of morality, particularly given a wider naturalist movement represented by some modern social theorists. In the context of the current discussion about the future of the sociology of morality, especially the question of how it should react to the dominating biological and psychological approaches, I propose two possible perspectives for the field's ongoing development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shadow economy remains a significant problem in post-Soviet countries and less economically developed economies. Even though there are a lot of economic and social arguments for the emergence of the shadow economy, it remains the question how much of the shadow economy, as well as an intrinsic willingness to pay taxes, could be explained by social norms, business ethics and illegal business practices that come from the cultural and historical background. This paper focuses on the ethical dilemma and tries to figure out how morality reflects in the tendency to participate in shadow economy. A qualitative approach is applied in this paper to find linkages between moral norms and an acceptance of the shadow economy. This paper supports the idea that people’s backgrounds, their moral norms and close relationships affect how they perceive tax evasion and how much they are willing to participate in such illegal activities.

Since coined by Comte, altruism has become one of the most controversial concepts in social and behavioral sciences, although altruistic behavior and related topics have been successfully studied within a number of fields. Oddly, while the theme of altruism was of primary significance in classical sociology of morality, modern sociology seems to have relatively little interest in studying altruism and altruistic behavior (although there are some exceptions) and the field is largely dominated by other social and behavioral sciences. The article aims at reconsidering altruism as a concept and as an area of research in sociology of morality by reviewing the major concepts of altruism in classical sociology and modern behavioral sciences. The article argues that, although for the ‘new’ sociology of morality it is necessary to take into account behavioral and psychological perspectives, a promising sociological approach to the study of altruism in different social contexts can be based on renewing the classical focus on the normative components of moral behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedophilia is a sexual preference that is often associated with child sex offending (CSO). Sexual urges towards prepubescent children and specifically acting upon those urges are universally regarded as immoral. However, up until now, it is completely unknown whether moral processing of sexual offenses is altered in pedophiles. A total of 31 pedophilic men and 19 healthy controls were assessed by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in combination with a moral judgment paradigm consisting of 36 scenarios describing different types of offenses. Scenarios depicting sexual offenses against children compared to those depicting adults were associated with higher pattern of activation in the left temporo-parietal-junction (TPJ) and left posterior insular cortex, the posterior cingulate gyrus as well as the precuneus in controls relative to pedophiles, and vice versa. Moreover, brain activation in these areas were positively associated with ratings ofmoral reprehensibility and negatively associated with decision durations, but only in controls. Brain activation, found in key areas related to the broad network ofmoral judgment, theory ofmind and (socio-)moral disgust - point to differentmoral processing of sexual offenses in pedophilia in general. The lack of associations between brain activation and behavioral responses in pedophiles further suggest a biased response pattern or dissected implicit valuation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shadow economy remains a significant problem in post-Soviet countries and less economically developed economies. Even though there are a lot of economic and social arguments for the emergence of the shadow economy, it remains the question how much of the shadow economy, as well as an intrinsic willingness to pay taxes, could be explained by social norms, business ethics and illegal business practices that come from the cultural and historical background. This paper focuses on the ethical dilemma and tries to figure out how morality reflects in the tendency to participate in shadow economy. A qualitative approach is applied in this paper to find linkages between moral norms and an acceptance of the shadow economy. This paper supports the idea that people's backgrounds, their moral norms and close relationships affect how they perceive tax evasion and how much they are willing to participate in such illegal activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are more likely to judge agents as morally culpable after we learn they acted freely rather than under duress or coercion. Interestingly, the reverse is also true: Individuals are more likely to be judged to have acted freely after we learn that they committed a moral violation. Researchers have argued that morality affects judgments of force by making the alternative actions the agent could have done instead appear comparatively normal, which then increases the perceived availability of relevant alternative actions. Across five studies, we test the novel predictions of this account. We find that the degree to which participants view possible alternative actions as normal strongly predicts their perceptions that an agent acted freely. This pattern holds both for perceptions of the prescriptive normality of the alternatives (whether the actions are good) and descriptive normality of the alternatives (whether the actions are unusual). We also find that manipulating the prudential value of alternative actions or the degree to which alternatives adhere to social norms, has a similar effect to manipulating whether the actions or their alternatives violate moral norms. This pattern persists even when what is actually done is held constant, and these effects are explained by changes in the perceived normality of the alternatives. Together, these results suggest that across contexts, participants' force judgments depend not on the morality of the actual action taken, but on the normality of possible alternatives. More broadly, our results build on prior work that suggests a unifying role of normality and counterfactuals across many areas of high-level human cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research has shown that norm violations influence causal judg- ments, and a number of different models have been developed to explain these effects. One such model, the necessity/sufficiency model, predicts an interac- tion pattern in people's judgments. Specifically, it predicts that when people are judging the degree to which a particular factor is a cause, there should be an interaction between (a) the degree to which that factor violates a norm and (b) the degree to which another factor in the situation violates norms. A study of moral norms (N=1000) and norms of proper functioning (N=3000) revealed robust evidence for the predicted interaction effect. The implications of these patterns for existing theories of causal judgments is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a focus on consumer morality, this paper first reviewed the literature on moral norms, identifying six approaches: (a) descriptive/injunctive; (b) personal; (c) altruistic; (d) material, formal and synthetic; (e) autonomy, beneficence and justice; and (f) universal norms. The paper then explored three moral norm-related concepts - what constitutes a moral situation, morally irresponsible behaviour and morally risky behaviour - with a focus on the insights that they can shed on consumer morality, in concert with the notion of moral norms. The discussion then turned to an overview of how these moral norm concepts have been (can be) applied to understand the moral dimension of consumer behaviour. An iterative analysis of this discussion revealed 10 insights that serve as the genesis for an emergent conceptual framework that can scaffold discussions of the role moral norms play in explaining consumer moral behaviour. The paper concluded with a call for a theory on consumer morality and moral norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The chapter discusses the importance of remittances for the way rural people in M anus Province, Papua New Guinea, engage with capitalism in the form of development, wage labor, and the modern consumer economy. Methodology/approach - The chapter draws upon a combination of original ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2002 and 2008 and readings of previous anthropological research about Manus. Findings - The chapter shows how the remittances of goods and money are part of the maintenance of long-term exchange relationships between emigrants and their rural kin, and how remittances are regarded as crucial in fostering local development. The remittances comprise a large proportion of the flow of money into Manus. They also form social ties between migrants and villagers, and may facilitate the return of migrants to their home village. The moral conflicts and evaluations of status and leadership tied into the remittance practices and the strategies employed by returning migrants are explained as the articulation of different values rather than one system supplanting the other. Originality/value - The aspect of remittances related to return migration is particularly under-theorized in anthropology. In this way the chapter has value to both researchers specializing in remittance-economies or local-level politics and development planners and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on magical contagion literature, we show that the way in which money is acquired colors the perception of the money itself, and thus affect the way it is spent. In a hypothetical scenario participants who imagined acquiring money immorally (versus morally) experienced more guilt about the way in which they acquired it and spent less of it. Furthermore, in the immoral, but not the moral condition, guilt correlated significantly with spending: the greater the guilt, the less money was spent. We interpret this finding as stemming from individuals' desire not to handle what they see as 'dirty' money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are verbal reports of disgust in moral situations specific indicators of the concept of disgust, or are they used metaphorically to refer to anger? In this experiment, participants read scenarios describing a violation of a norm either about the use of the body (bodily moral) or about harm and rights (socio-moral). They then expressed disgust and anger on verbal scales, and through facial expression endorsement measures. The use of disgust words in the socio-moral condition was largely predicted by anger words and only secondarily by disgust faces, whereas in the bodily moral condition the use of disgust words was predicted to a similar extent by disgust faces and anger words. Angry faces, however, never predicted disgust words independently of anger words. These results support a middle-ground position in which disgust words concerning socio-moral violations are not entirely a metaphor for anger, but bear some relationship to other representations of disgust. In the case of socio-moral violations, however, the use of disgust language is more strongly related to anger language, and less strongly to facial representations of disgust than in the case of bodily moral violations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Revista Brasileira de Ciencias Sociais is the property of Revista Brasileira de Ciencias Sociais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This overview study focuses on moral cognition in the context of bullying at elementary schools. It derives mainly from the contemporary research literature. It summarizes selected theoretical and empirical findings and draws out possible directions of future research. The article deals partly with attribution of causes of bullying, partly with moral aspects of motivation of various participant roles in bullying. Within the latter issue the study addresses three interlinked areas: the normative area (norms, values, and beliefs), the area of empathy, and finally the Bandura's concept of moral disengagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]