Academic Ethics: Should Scholars Avoid Citing the Work of Awful People?

Brian Leiter
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally posted October 25, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

The issue is particularly fraught in one of my academic fields, philosophy, in which Gottlob Frege, the founder of modern logic and philosophy of language, was a disgusting anti-Semite, and Martin Heidegger, a prominent figure in 20th-century existentialism, was an actual Nazi.

What is a scholar to do?

I propose a simple answer: Insofar as you aim to contribute to scholarship in your discipline, cite work that is relevant regardless of the author’s misdeeds. Otherwise you are not doing scholarship but something else. Let me explain.

Wilhelm von Humboldt crafted the influential ideal of the modern research university in Germany some 200 years ago. In his vision, the university is a place where all, and only, Wissenschaften — "sciences" — find a home. The German Wissenschaften has no connotation of natural science, unlike its English counterpart. A Wissenschaft is any systematic form of inquiry into nature, history, literature, or society marked by rigorous methods that secure the reliability or truth of its findings.

The info is here.

Mining the uncertain character gap

Byron Williams
Winston-Salem Journal
Originally posted May 26, 2018

What is moral character? That is the open-ended question that has remained so since human beings discovered the value of critical thinking. Individuals like Aristotle and Confucius have wrestled with it; others such as Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi sought to live out this perfect ideal in a rather imperfect way.

Wake Forest University philosophy professor Christian B. Miller grapples with this concept in his new book, “The Character Gap: How Good Are We?”

Utilizing empirical data from psychological research, Miller illustrates how humans can become better people. The difference between our virtues and vices may simply hinge on whether we can get away with it.

Miller offers a thesis that suggests our internal “character gap” may be the distance between the unrealistic virtue we hold for our personal behavior and reality, the way we see ourselves versus how others see us. Moral character is our philosophical DNA comprised of virtues and vices.

The information is here.

Best Practices for School-Based Moral Education

Peter Meindl, Abigail Quirk, Jesse Graham
Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences 
First Published December 21, 2017

Abstract

How can schools help students build moral character? One way is to use prepackaged moral education programs, but as we report here, their effectiveness tends to be limited. What, then, can schools do? We took two steps to answer this question. First, we consulted more than 50 of the world’s leading social scientists. These scholars have spent decades studying morality, character, or behavior change but until now few had used their expertise to inform moral education practices. Second, we searched recent studies for promising behavior change techniques that apply to school-based moral education. These two lines of investigation congealed into two recommendations: Schools should place more emphasis on hidden or “stealthy” moral education practices and on a small set of “master” virtues. Throughout the article, we describe practices flowing from these recommendations that could improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of school-based moral education.

The article is here.

What do we evaluate when we evaluate moral character?

Erik G. Helzer & Clayton R. Critcher

Abstract:

Despite growing interest in the topic of moral character, there is very little precision
and a lack of agreement among researchers as to what is evaluated when people evaluate
character. In this chapter we define moral character in novel social cognitive terms and offer
empirical support for the idea that the central qualities of moral character are those deemed
essential for social relationships.

Here is an excerpt:

We approach this chapter from the theoretical standpoint that the centrality of character
evaluation is due to its function in social life. Evaluation of character is, we think, inherently a
judgment about a person’s qualifications for being a solid long-term social investment. That is,
people attempt to suss out moral character because they want to know whether a particular agent
is the type of person who likely possesses the necessary (even if not sufficient) qualities they
expect in a social relationship. In developing these ideas theoretically and empirically, we
consider what form moral character takes, discuss what this proposal suggests about how people
may and do assess others’ moral character, and identify an assortment of qualities that our
perspective predicts will be central to moral character.

The book chapter is here.

Empirical Approaches to Moral Character

Miller, Christian B.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming

The turn of the century saw a significant increase in the amount of attention being paid by philosophers to empirical issues about moral character. Dating back at least to Plato and Aristotle in the West, and Confucius in the East, philosophers have traditionally drawn on empirical data to some extent in their theorizing about character. One of the main differences in recent years has been the source of this empirical data, namely the work of social and personality psychologists on morally relevant thought and action.

This entry briefly examines four recent empirical approaches to moral character. It will draw on the psychology literature where appropriate, but the main focus will be on the significance of that work for philosophers interested in better understanding moral character. The four areas are situationism, the CAPS model, the Big Five model, and the VIA. The remainder of this entry devotes a section to each of them.

The entry is here.

Implicit Bias and Moral Responsibility: Probing the Data.

By Neil Levy

Abstract

Psychological research strongly suggests that many people harbor implicit attitudes that
diverge from their explicit attitudes, and that under some conditions these people can be
expected to perform actions that owe their moral character to the agent’s implicit attitudes. In
this paper, I pursue the question whether agents are morally responsible for these actions by
probing the available evidence concerning the kind of representation an implicit attitude is.
Building on previous work, I argue that the reduction in the degree and kind of reasons sensitivity
these attitudes display undermines agents’ responsibility-level control over the moral
character of actions. I also argue that these attitudes do not fully belong to agents’ real selves in
ways that would justify holding them responsible on accounts that centre on attributability.

The entire article is here.

Moral Evaluations Depend Upon Mindreading Moral Occurrent Beliefs

By Clayton R. Critcher, Erik G. Helzer, David Tannenbaum, and David A. Pizarro

Abstract

People evaluate the moral character of others not merely based on what they do, but why they do
it. Because an agent’s state of mind is not directly observable, people typically engage in
mindreading—attempts at inferring mental states—when forming moral evaluations. The present
paper identifies a heretofore unstudied focus of mindreading, moral occurrent beliefs—the
cognitions (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, principles, concerns, rules) accessible in an agent’s mind
while confronting a morally-relevant decision that could provide a moral justification for a
particular course of action. Whereas previous mindreading research has examined how people
“reason back” to make sense of why agents behaved as they did, we instead ask how mindread
occurrent beliefs (MOBs) constrain moral evaluations for an agent’s subsequent actions. Our
studies distinguish three accounts of how MOBs influence moral evaluations, show that people
rely on MOBs spontaneously (instead of merely when experimental measures draw attention to
them), and identify non-moral cues (e.g., whether the situation demands a quick decision) that
guide MOBs. Implications for theory of mind, moral psychology, and social cognition are
discussed.

The entire paper is here.

The self is moral

We tend to think that our memories determine our identity, but it’s moral character that really makes us who we are

By Nina Strohminger

Aeon Magazine

Originally published November 17, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Recent studies by the philosopher Shaun Nichols at the University of Arizona and myself support the view that the identity-conferring part of a person is his moral capacities. One of our experiments pays homage to Locke’s thought experiment by asking subjects which of a slew of traits a person would most likely take with him if his soul moved to a new body. Moral traits were considered more likely to survive a body swap than any other type of trait, mental or physical. Interestingly, certain types of memories – those involving people – were deemed fairly likely to survive the trip. But generic episodic memories, such as one’s commute to work, were not. People are not so much concerned with memory as with memory’s ability to connect us to others and our capacity for social action.

(cut)

Why does our identity detector place so much emphasis on moral capacities? These aren’t our most distinctive features. Our faces, our fingertips, our quirks, our autobiographies: any of these would be a more reliable way of telling who’s who. Somewhat paradoxically, identity has less to do with what makes us different from other people than with our shared humanity. 

The entire article is here.

Podcast Episode #7: The Moral Self, Moral Injury, and Moral Emotions with Dr. Strohminger can be found here.

Accountability for Research Misconduct

By Zubin Master
Health Research, Research Ethics, Science Funding
Originally posted September 23, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

This case raises important questions about the responsibilities of research institutions to promote research integrity and to prevent research misconduct. Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiments and other social psychology research have taught us that ethical behavior is not only shaped by dispositional attribution (an internal moral character), but also by many situational (environmental) features. Similarly, our understanding of the cause of research misconduct is shifting away from the idea that this is just a problem of a few “bad apples” to a broader understanding of how the immense pressure to both publish and translate research findings into products, as well as poor institutional supports influence research misconduct.

This is not to excuse misbehaviour by researchers, but rather to shed light on the fact that institutions also bear moral responsibility for research misconduct. Thus far, institutions have taken few measures to promote research integrity and prevent research misconduct. Indeed, in many high profile cases of research misconduct, they remain virtually blameless.

The entire article is here.

Moral bioenhancement: a neuroscientific perspective

By Molly Crockett
J Med Ethics 2014;40:370-371
doi:10.1136/medethics-2012-101096

Can advances in neuroscience be harnessed to enhance human moral capacities? And if so, should they? De Grazia explores these questions in ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom, and What We (Should) Value in Moral Behaviour’.1 Here, I offer a neuroscientist's perspective on the state of the art of moral bioenhancement, and highlight some of the practical challenges facing the development of moral bioenhancement technologies.

The science of moral bioenhancement is in its infancy. Laboratory studies of human morality usually employ highly simplified models aimed at measuring just one facet of a cognitive process that is relevant for morality. These studies have certainly deepened our understanding of the nature of moral behaviour, but it is important to avoid overstating the conclusions of any single study.

The entire article is here.

A theory of jerks

By Eric Schwitzgebel
Aeon Magazine
Originally published June 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Why, you might be wondering, should a philosopher make it his business to analyse colloquial terms of abuse? Doesn’t Urban Dictionary cover that kind of thing quite adequately? Shouldn’t I confine myself to truth, or beauty, or knowledge, or why there is something rather than nothing (to which the Columbia philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser answered: ‘If there was nothing you’d still be complaining’)? I am, in fact, interested in all those topics. And yet I suspect there’s a folk wisdom in the term ‘jerk’ that points toward something morally important. I want to extract that morally important thing, to isolate the core phenomenon towards which I think the word is groping. Precedents for this type of work include the Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s essay ‘On Bullshit’ (2005) and, closer to my target, the Irvine philosopher Aaron James’s book Assholes (2012). Our taste in vulgarity reveals our values.

The entire article is here.

Alzheimer's Challenges Notions Of Memory And Identity

By Tania Lombrozo
NPR.org
Originally published on March 4, 2014

Here are some excerpts:

The startling result was that memory wasn't a frontrunner when it came to what sustains someone's "true self." Instead, the winner was morality. A person who had trouble learning new information or forgot childhood memories, for example, was regarded as less fundamentally altered than one who became cruel or selfish, or even one who acquired positive moral traits, such as honesty or forgiveness.

(cut)

The lesson from Zaitchik's research is that while Alzheimer's patients suffer from serious conceptual impairments relative to their healthy counterparts, these impairments aren't uniform across domains. An Alzheimer's patient can be wrong about whether zebras have stripes or a car is alive, but have social and moral reasoning abilities that are relatively intact.

The entire article is here.

Human Emotion with June Gruber: Moral Emotions

Introduction of Human Emotions and Morality
Yale University

Moral signals, public outrage, and immaterial harms

David Tannenbaum, Eric Luis Uhlmann, & Daniel Diermeier
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47 (2011) 1249–1254

Abstract

Public outrage is often triggered by “immaterially” harmful acts (i.e., acts with relatively negligible consequences). A well-known example involves corporate salaries and perks: they generate public outrage yet their financial cost is relatively minor. The present research explains this paradox by appealing to a person-centered approach to moral judgment. Strong moral reactions can occur when relatively harmless acts provide highly diagnostic information about moral character. Studies 1a and 1bfirst demonstrate dissociation between moral evaluations of persons and their actions—although violence toward a human was viewed as a more blameworthy act than violence toward an animal, the latter was viewed as more revealing of bad moral character. Study 2 then shows that person-centered cues directly influence moral judgments—participants preferred to hire a more expensive CEO when the alternative candidate requested a frivolous perk as part of his compensation package, an effect mediated by the informativeness of his request.

The entire article is here.

Morality in Psychotherapy

By John Gavazzi and Samuel Knapp
Submitted to The Pennsylvania Psychologist

Individuals rarely, if ever, enter psychotherapy with the explicit goals of understanding the origins of their morality, their moral reasoning skills, or matching their expressed moral ideals with their everyday behavior.  Nonetheless, clients and psychologists always bring their moral values into the psychotherapy session.  Although morality and moral values may not be an overt part of the therapeutic dialogue, many psychotherapy sessions are rife with moral issues, value-laden comments, ethical conflicts, and moral reasoning.  

If morality is seldom overtly addressed in psychotherapy, what makes morality so important to the practicing psychologist? 

The entire article is here.

The Partially Examined Life Podcast: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics

Discussing Books 1 and 2.

What is virtue, and how can I eat it? Do not enjoy this episode too much, or too little, but just the right amount. Apparently, if you haven’t already have been brought up with the right habits, you may as well give up. Plus, is Michael Jackson the Aristotelian ideal?

The podcast can be heard here.

All ethics and morality audio resources as they apply to psychology can be found here.

Context and Moral Behavior

By Bradley Cornelius
Inside Higher Ed: The Academic Minute
Originally published April 1, 2013

Dr. Sam Sommers – Context and Moral Behavior

Context matters.  This may not sound like a profound conclusion, but behavioral science reveals that it’s one we often overlook in pondering human nature.  We hear the news about the latest fraud case or the crowd that stood idly by with an emergency going on right in front of it, and we chalk up the events to bad apples—simply people with poor personalities behaving poorly.

But this worldview oversimplifies.  How do we most accurately predict whether individuals will rise to the occasion in an emergency?  By examining the specifics of the situation.  In a famous study at Princeton, seminary students had to walk across campus to give a talk on an assigned topic.  Researchers arranged for students to pass by a shabbily dressed actor stooped over and coughing in a doorway.  Fewer than half stopped to help, in some instances literally stepping over a man in apparent need on their way to discuss the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Personality differences weren’t the best predictors of their behavior.  Rather, the simple matter of whether or not they were running late was most influential.

This hidden power of situations has far-reaching implications.  We’re more influenced by the actions of those around us than we’d like to believe.  Even our private sense of identity is highly context-dependent.  Or consider research in my lab on the observable effects of a group’s diversity on its performance.  How does diversity influence groups?  It depends.  Create a situation in which people are primarily focused on making a good impression and their anxiety tends to undermine communication and social skills.  Tell them instead to focus on maximizing task performance and not only does performance improve, but people also wind up getting along better.  In short, human nature is far more malleable and context-dependent than we assume it is.

The entire Academic Minute is here, including an audio recording.

Situationism and Confucian Virtue Ethics

By Deborah S. Mower

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
February 2013, Volume 16, Issue 1, pp 113-137

Abstract

Situationist research in social psychology focuses on the situational factors that influence behavior. Doris and Harman argue that this research has powerful implications for ethics, and virtue ethics in particular. First, they claim that situationist research presents an empirical challenge to the moral psychology presumed within virtue ethics. Second, they argue that situationist research supports a theoretical challenge to virtue ethics as a foundation for ethical behavior and moral development. I offer a response from moral psychology using an interpretation of Xunzi—a Confucian virtue ethicist from the Classical period. This Confucian account serves as a foil to the situationist critique in that it uncovers many problematic ontological and normative assumptions at work in this debate regarding the prediction and explanation of behavior, psychological posits, moral development, and moral education. Xunzi’s account of virtue ethics not only responds to the situationist empirical challenge by uncovering problematic assumptions about moral psychology, but also demonstrates that it is not a separate empirical hypothesis. Further, Xunzi’s virtue ethic responds to the theoretical challenge by offering a new account of moral development and a ground for ethical norms that fully attends to situational features while upholding robust character traits.

The entire article is here.

Guilt and Moral Character

Academic Minute

Inside Higher Ed

Originally published January 4, 2012

In today’s Academic Minute, Carnegie Mellon University's Taya Cohen analyzes why our moral nature may depend on our response to guilt. Cohen is an assistant professor of organizational behavior and theory in the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon. Find out more about her here.

D'Souza Resigns From King's College

Inside Higher Ed
Originally published October 19, 2012

Dinesh D'Souza, president of the King's College, a Christian college in New York City, has resigned after reports that he shared a hotel room with a woman to whom he was not married before filing for divorce from his wife. In a statement posted on the college's website Thursday, the president of the Board of Trustees said that D'Souza had resigned, effective immediately, to "allow him to attend to his personal and family needs."

The entire story is here.