Motivation and Morality: A Multidisciplinary Approach

How do we define good and bad? Where do our moral systems originate? These questions have long sparked inquiry across multiple disciplines, and scholars have debated the answers both within and across fields for centuries. More recently, new methodologies, involving technological advances and novel modeling approaches, have been employed to test and expand upon historical theorizing about our capacity for morality and immorality. This book offers an integrative examination of the role of motivation in shaping moral cognition, judgment, and behavior. Contributors to this volume cut across disciplines and modes of inquiry to explore and posit answers to key questions about moral motivation. They examine the sociocultural context of morality, including norms and norm compliance, psychological frameworks that underlie virtuous behavior and help navigate competing moral obligations, the neurobiology of moral reasoning, and more. In bringing together leading researchers across sociology, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, this book illustrates the complex motivational aspects of morality and offers a critical step toward understanding how and why our moral choices arise-which in turn can shape and guide our moral actions.