The Perceived Objectivity of Ethical Beliefs: Psychological Findings and Implications for Public Policy [Book Review]
Review of Philosophy and Psychology 1 (2):161-188 (2010)
Abstract
Ethical disputes arise over differences in the content of the ethical beliefs people hold on either side of an issue. One person may believe that it is wrong to have an abortion for financial reasons, whereas another may believe it to be permissible. But, the magnitude and difficulty of such disputes may also depend on other properties of the ethical beliefs in question—in particular, how objective they are perceived to be. As a psychological property of moral belief, objectivity is relatively unexplored, and we argue that it merits more attention. We review recent psychological evidence which demonstrates that individuals differ in the extent to which they perceive ethical beliefs to be objective, that some ethical beliefs are perceived to be more objective than others, and that both these sources of variance are somewhat systematic. This evidence also shows that differences in perceptions of objectivity underpin quite different psychological reactions to ethical disagreement. Apart from reviewing this evidence, our aim in this paper is to draw attention to unanswered psychological questions about moral objectivity, and to discuss the relevance of moral objectivity to two issues of public policy.DOI
10.1007/s13164-009-0013-4
My notes
Similar books and articles
The meta-ethical grounding of our moral beliefs: Evidence for meta-ethical pluralism.Jennifer C. Wright, Piper T. Grandjean & Cullen B. McWhite - 2013 - Philosophical Psychology 26 (3):336-361.
Ethical and fair work behaviour: A normative-empirical dialogue concerning ethics and justice. [REVIEW]M. S. Singer - 2000 - Journal of Business Ethics 28 (3):187 - 209.
Ethical beliefs' differences of males and females.J. Tsalikis & M. Ortiz-Buonafina - 1990 - Journal of Business Ethics 9 (6):509-517.
Ethical Beliefs' Differences of Males and Females M. Ortiz-Buonafina.J. Tsalikis - 1990 - Journal of Business Ethics 9 (6):509 - 517.
Ethical practices and beliefs of psychopathology researchers.Sandra T. Sigmon - 1995 - Ethics and Behavior 5 (4):295 – 309.
An examination of the ethical beliefs of managers using selected scenarios in a cross-cultural environment.Russell Abratt, Deon Nel & Nicola Susan Higgs - 1992 - Journal of Business Ethics 11 (1):29 - 35.
Ethical thought in public relations history: Seeking a relevant perspective.Genevieve McBride - 1989 - Journal of Mass Media Ethics 4 (1):5 – 20.
Objectivity and illusion in evolutionary ethics: Comments on Waller.Peter G. Woolcock - 2000 - Biology and Philosophy 15 (1):39-60.
Analytics
Added to PP
2010-03-07
Downloads
204 (#62,951)
6 months
2 (#299,341)
2010-03-07
Downloads
204 (#62,951)
6 months
2 (#299,341)
Historical graph of downloads
Citations of this work
Experimental Philosophy.Joshua Knobe, Wesley Buckwalter, Shaun Nichols, Philip Robbins, Hagop Sarkissian & Tamler Sommers - 2012 - Annual Review of Psychology 63 (1):81-99.
Folk Moral Relativism.Hagop Sarkissian, John Park, David Tien, Jennifer Cole Wright & Joshua Knobe - 2011 - Mind and Language 26 (4):482-505.
Experimental moral philosophy.Mark Alfano, Don Loeb & Alex Plakias - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:1-32.
Revisiting Folk Moral Realism.Thomas Pölzler - 2017 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8 (2):455-476.
Anti-Realist Pluralism: a New Approach to Folk Metaethics.Thomas Pölzler & Jennifer Cole Wright - 2020 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 11 (1):53-82.
References found in this work
Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment.Allan Gibbard - 1990 - Harvard University Press.