The Role of Moral Values in Instigating Morally Responsible Decisions

Abstract

What drives the decision to act with virtue when one faces an ethical challenge? Events occurring in social interactions pose moral queries that drive people to respond with ethical strength, or to turn away. To understand the role of values in motivating morally responsible behavior, we identify military managers’ reasons for action when faced with a wartime moral dilemma. We employ qualitative methods to reveal a network of interconnected values, reflecting inferences between them and paths serving as motivations for action. Our approach unpacks what lies behind values that drive virtuous decisions, which we test quantitatively. The laddering technique we employ also serves as a tool, shedding light on the cognitive backstage of ethical decision making. Helping managers become aware of their tacit assumptions will be useful to augment ethics training and management practice. Implications and suggestions for additional research are presented.

Examining the Effectiveness of Fear Appeals in Prompting Help-Seeking: The Case of At-Risk Gamblers

“…Another objective of Study 1 was to depict relevant threats to be integrated into the fear stimuli, targeting at‐risk gamblers. Focus groups can be effectively utilized to study sensitive topics (Bagozzi, Sekerka, Hill, & Sguera, ; Farquhar & Das, ). For example, Calderwood and Wellington () utilized focus group discussions with gambling‐afflicted consumers and stressed the importance of participatory research in developing advertising stimuli to minimize the stigmatization of problem gamblers.…”

Rethinking medical oaths using the Physician Charter and ethical virtues

“…At the most general level, these standards may be referred to as ethical norms, or as ethical values . Such values provide moral focus in medical ethics, health policy, public health and global health, as well as in other contexts where normative standards guide decision making . In this study we use ‘ethical values’ to cover the entire breadth of moral standards contained in medical oaths.…”

Interpreting ethical challenges in military operations

“…Research in the empirical realm -regarding individual personal morality -addresses individual behavior by studying and explaining events in the past and by predicting individual behavior in the future (O'Fallon & Butterfield, 2005). Research in this area focuses on issues such as individual ethical decision-making behavior (e.g., Bagozzi, Sekerka, Hill & Sguera, 2013;Blais & Thompson, 2013;Simmons & Rycraft, 2010), moral reasoning (e.g., Linn, 1989), and moral disengagement or abusive behavior (e.g., Aquino, Reed, Thau & Freeman, 2007;Bandura, 1999;Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara & Pastorelly, 1996;Hannah, et al, 2013).…”

“…Within this subsample, six studies placed the respondents' reasoning central when they were asked to describe the type of moral dilemmas they encountered (e.g., Simmons & Rycraft, 2010) or the values that were at stake (Bagozzi et al, 2013). These studies correspond with the first stream in the cognitive approach, focusing on traditional schools of philosophy (N = 6).…”

“…These studies show, for example, that social workers encounter specific moral dilemmas during deployment due to conflicting clinical and military values (Jeffrey et al, 1992;Simmons & Rycraft, 2010). Other studies focused on personal values that are challenged during deployment (Bagozzi et al, 2013;Benham Rennick, 2013) and addressed the organization's responsibility in order to guide and assist individual servicemen in their dilemmas (Benham Rennick, 2013). In addition, mechanisms for reflection upon and evaluating personal deployment experiences showed that a sense of 'duty' (e.g., patriotic or professional duty) is most central and salient as a motive for servicemen Burnell et al, 2011).…”