Moral Psychology

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Moral Psychology

When it comes to the ethics of a situation, it’s a frequent misconception that people understand the choices they’re making. Toby Groves made choices based on his desire to save his company. Toby was focused on the business side of things, according to Tenbrunsel, with the goals of being competent and successful. His ethics and values vanished from view as he was exclusively focused on mending his business.

These reasons do not prove that Toby did nothing wrong, but they do provide insight into how people like him might improve. We can learn from folks like Toby and use what we’ve learned to help prevent unethical behavior. These are solid and acceptable explanations for Toby’s behavior and how he came to act unethically, in my opinion. He pledged to his father that he would never act unethically, but he ended up making unethical actions due to his lack of awareness of ethics in his situation. This can be utilized as a learning tool to assist you avoids making unethical mistakes in the future.

Toby was born and raised on a farm in Ohio. He placed a high value on the thought that he was a person of good moral character when he was a child. Then, when Toby was around 20 years old, he went home for a visit with his family on a Sunday in 1986, and he had an event that made the urge to be good even more pressing. After making that commitment to his father, Toby found himself in front of the same judge who had convicted his brother, facing the same charge of fraud. Not just any fraud, but a multimillion-dollar bank scam that resulted in the closure of several businesses and the loss of over a hundred employees. Toby was sentenced to prison in 2008, where he claims he spent two years staring at the ceiling, attempting to figure out what had happened.

Toby adds, “Those were things that tormented me every second of every day.” “I couldn’t understand it.” Toby has recently gotten a lot of attention from scientists, especially those who are interested in how human brains absorb information when making judgments. And the researchers concluded that the majority of us are capable of acting in deeply unethical ways. Not only are we capable of it without recognizing it, but we also do it regularly.

Consider a current argument regarding justice and demonstrate how at least two distinct approaches result in different outcomes. Do you believe that any of the techniques is superior to or inferior to the others? Why? (Of course, you don’t have to put up a fight — I just want to hear what you think). “We are all capable of behaving fundamentally unethically without realizing it,” says Toby Groves. Our minds simply can’t digest the options we’re presented with. Business perspective: succeed no matter what Ethical perspective. People can be completely oblivious that they are acting in an immoral manner. It’s not that they’re bad people; it’s that they’re blinded. And, if we wish to combat fraud, we must recognize that much of it is inadvertent.

Maximizing welfare:

Utilitarian/Consequentialist

Aim for the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people possible.

Promoting wealth, raising living standards, and boosting economic growth

Result/goal/incentive focused

Respecting Freedom:

Libertarians/Deontological.

Individual rights must be respected.

Who makes the decision, not what makes the decision.

Oriented toward procedures and rules.

Promoting Virtue:

Virtue Ethics

Religious rights and cultural conservatives

The pleasures of life

Cultivating the attitudes and dispositions, or character attributes, that a decent society requires

Maximizing welfare, honoring freedom, and developing virtue are the three ways mentioned by Sandel. Insulin costs a lot of money and has been increasing in recent years. People with diabetes have no choice but to spend a lot of money on insulin as a result of this. People are also forced to ration their insulin as a result of this. The maximization of welfare is used to justify the high cost of insulin. The insulin business controls the price of insulin, which makes them extremely wealthy. Individual freedom is at the heart of the argument against the high cost of insulin. People with diabetes are unable to choose whether or not to purchase insulin. Their lives rely on it, forcing them to pay the astronomical price for the drug. I believe that maximizing welfare is the worst option since it ignores individual rights in favor of the entire market, wealth, and numbers. Sandel disputes the idea that government and policy should be morally apolitical when it comes to difficult moral issues. He contends that engaging, rather than avoiding, our fellow citizens’ moral convictions may be the most effective approach of achieving a just society.

References

Katz (2018). “Secular Morality”. In Brandt, Allan; Rozin, Paul (eds.). Morality and Health. New York: Routledge. pp. 295–330.

Narvaez, D (2017). “Moral complexity: The fatal attraction of truthiness and the importance of mature moral functioning” (PDF). Perspectives on Psychological Science. 5 (2): 163–181. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.187.2813. Doi: 10.1.

Moral Psychology

Moral Psychology

Step 1: Go to the website www.yourmorals.org (Links to an external site.). Register for a free account (it is run by academics and will not spam you). Once you register, click on the Explore your Morals tab. Step 2: Choose one questionnaire to complete: Take notes as it is hard to access the questions again without creating a new account. The exact questionnaires available sometimes fluctuate, but some good examples include: -The Moral Foundations Questionnaire -Moral Dilemma Survey -Interpersonal Reactivity Index -Business Ethics Questionnaire -Gratitude Questionnaire -Disgust Scale -Morality and Relationships Step 3: Find an empirical scientific paper that also uses the same scale or is on a similar topic. Download a .pdf copy of that paper, and upload this .pdf to Canvas HERE. I recommend using Google Scholar or PsycInfo If you are having trouble consult with me during office hours. Step 4: Write a 3-4 page paper in Times New Roman 12 Point Font, double spaced, in full paragraphs, with no extra spacing after paragraphs. It should fill at least two pages, up to four pages (but the real goal is not length but clarity and precision). Your paper should address the following topics: What was the questionnaire you took about? In other words, what psychological construct does it aim to measure? Try to describe and explain this construct using precise language, but explaining in ways that would be clear to a nonexpert. If your (non psych) roommate or your mom would understand your topic and learn something new about it, you are doing it right. How does the questionnaire you took operationalize (measure) the psychological concept (i.e., how does it turn an abstract psychological construct into a number?). This will require explaining what kinds of questions this measure asks, including an example of each question type, as well as defining the response scale, explaining how answers are coded. Note that some questionnaires measure several different concepts on different subscales. Do your best to fully and clearly explain the all subscales in the space available, and consider each subscale when describing people who score ‘high’ or ‘low’. Report one key finding from the paper that is conceptually related to the scale you took. Take some sentences to explain what they measured and what they found. Specifically, explain what key constructs they measured, and whether they manipulated a variable or simply measured more than one thing. Then report what the statistical relationship was between the two things they measured (e.g., the correlation or regression weight), or report which group scored higher than which other group on the construct they measured. Use words only, do not report numbers or statistics. For example, ‘people higher in disgust sensitivity rated eating one’s dog more immoral than people lower in disgust sensitivity’ or ‘dog owners rated hurting dogs as more immoral than cat owners did.’ Make it clear how they measured the concepts in question (how did participants indicate their immorality ratings? On a 1-5 scale? By giving thumbs up or thumbs down? By howling at the moon?). This might be the exact same way as the questionnaire you took, or it might be a related but different way—clarify. Make sure you cite your paper in the text (e.g., Brandt et al., 2019). However, you do not need a reference section or title page or a running head. Important: use your own language to describe the scale and the finding; do not rely on the language used in the website or article. It is vitally important to develop the skill of accurately summarizing and explaining other people’s work without using their words. Also, plagiarism is bad. Please do not do it. Try to balance being thorough with being efficient—there should be no unnecessary fluff, and you should cover all the important aspects. Experts call that kind of writing “muscular” and one builds writing muscles much like gym muscles—lots of (pen) lifting. Try to smoothly connect the paragraphs together with transition sentences, and frame the entire paper neatly with an introductory sentence and closing sentence. In other words, warm up your reader to the topic before addressing the questions, and give them one last statement to chew on at the end.

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