Emotion and moral judgment

Abstract

Research in psychology and cognitive science has consistently demonstrated the importance of emotion in a wide range of everyday judgments, including moral judgment. Most current accounts of moral judgment hold that emotion plays an important role, but the nature and extent of this role are still debated. We outline three increasingly strong claims about the role of emotion in moral judgment and assess the evidence for each. According to the first and least controversial claim, emotions follow from moral judgments, such that witnessing immorality can lead to negative emotions and witnessing moral virtue can lead to positive ones. According to the second claim, emotions amplify moral judgments, for instance, by making immoral acts seem even more immoral. Finally, on the last claim, emotions can actually moralize nonmoral behaviors—that is, they give nonmoral acts a moral status. Although this claim seems to be the most intriguing one theoretically, empirical support for it is still very limited. In this review, we discuss research findings that are in line with each of these views, we highlight recurring themes across these three categories of evidence, and we identify some open questions and areas for future research. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:169–178. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1216 This article is categorized under: Psychology > Emotion and Motivation

Divergent roles of autistic and alexithymic traits in utilitarian moral judgments in adults with autism

“…There is plenty of evidence to support the claim that emotions motivate individuals to reject harmful transgressions 23,115 , even if such actions are necessary to stave off harm of bigger magnitude 49 . Recent research also sheds light on the exact nature of psychological processes that constitute this negative affect 75,115 : aversion to harmful outcome (e.g.…”

“…Emotions play a pivotal role in condemnation of harmful behaviours 23 and empathy is a social emotion that plays a crucial role in such moral evaluations 24,25 . This is because (real or hypothetical) harmful encounters include a suffering victim and empathy allows moral judges to understand their suffering and use the resulting "gut-feelings" to either approve or disapprove of such moral actions 25 .…”

When Leadership Leads to Loathing: The Effect of Culturally (In)Congruent Leadership on Employee Contempt and Voluntary Work Behaviors

“…Pelzer (2005) noted in a review that contempt seems to be very much present in organizational practice yet ignored by research. But interest in contempt appears to be growing, and researchers have approached the topic from the angle of hostility in social interactions (Fischer & Roseman, 2007), as a moral emotion (Haidt, 2003;Hutcherson & Gross, 2011;Mason, 2003;Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999), as an amplifier in moral judgments (Avramova & Inbar, 2013;Horberg, Oveis, & Keltner, 2011;Laham, Chopra, Lalljee, & Parkinson, 2010), and as an influence in emergent leadership categorization (Melwani, Mueller, & Overbeck, 2012). The majority of contempt research has been carried out within psychology, where contempt is often envisioned as a basic emotion, indeed going back to the work of Charles Darwin who viewed contempt as a universal, primary emotion shared by all societies (Pelzer, 2005).…”

On Disgust and Moral Judgments: A Review

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