Moral emotions

Moral reasoning has been the focus of most study of morality dating back to Plato and Aristotle. The emotive side of morality, worked by Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments, has been looked upon with disdain, as subservient to the higher, rational, moral reasoning, with scholars like Immanuel Kant, Piaget and Kohlberg touting moral reasoning as the key forefront of morality.{{cite book|title=The Philosophy of Moral Development|last=Kohlberg|first=Lawrence|date=1981|publisher=Harper & Row|isbn=978-0-06-064760-5|series=Essays on Moral Development|volume=1|location=San Francisco|oclc=7307342}} However, in the last 30–40 years,{{When|date=March 2021}} there has been a rise in a new front of research: moral emotions as the basis for moral behavior. This development began with a focus on empathy and guilt, but has since moved on to encompass new emotional scholarship on emotions such as anger, shame, disgust, awe, and elevation. With the new research, theorists have begun to question whether moral emotions might hold a larger role in determining morality, one that might even surpass that of moral reasoning.

There have generally been two approaches taken by philosophers to define moral emotion, with the first approach being "to specify the formal conditions that make a moral statement (e.g., that is prescriptive, that it is universal, such as expedience)".{{cite book| publisher=Oxford University Press, UK| isbn=978-0-19-824659-6| last=Hare| first=R. M.| title=Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point| url=https://archive.org/details/moralthinkingits0000hare| url-access=registration| year=1981}}{{page needed|date=February 2018}} This first approach is more tied to language and the definitions given to moral emotions. The second approach "is to specify the material conditions of a moral issue, for example, that moral rules and judgments 'must bear on the interest or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent{{' "}}.{{cite encyclopedia| volume=6| pages=976–998| last=Gewirth| first=A.| title=Ethics| encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica| location=Chicago| date=1984}} This definition seems to be more action-based. It focuses on the outcome of a moral emotion. The second definition is more preferred because it is not tied to language and therefore can be applied to prelinguistic children and animals. Moral emotions are "emotions that are linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent."{{rp|pages=853}}

Moral emotions, like any emotion, fall under categories of positive and negative. With moral emotions, however, there are two types of negative: inner-directed negative emotions (which motivate people to act ethically) and outer-directed negative emotions (which aim to discipline or punish).{{cite web |title=Moral Emotions |url=https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/moral-emotions |website=Ethics Unwrapped |publisher=McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin}} Within the positive and negative categories, there are specific emotions. Examples of positive moral emotions are gratitude, elevation, and pride in one's beneficial successes. Examples of negative moral emotions include shame, guilt, and embarrassment.{{cite journal |last1=Tangney |first1=June Price |last2=Stuewig |first2=Jeff |last3=Mashek |first3=Debra J. |title=Moral Emotions and Moral Behavior |journal=Annual Review of Psychology |date=1 January 2007 |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=345–372 |doi=10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145 |pmid=16953797 |pmc=3083636 }}

There is a debate whether there is a set of basic emotions or if there are "scripts or set of components that can be mixed and matched, allowing for a very large number of possible emotions". Even those arguing for a basic set acknowledge that there are variants of each emotion (psychologist Paul Ekman calls these variants "families"{{cite journal|last=Ekman|first=Paul|date=1 May 1992|title=An argument for basic emotions|url=http://www.paulekman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/An-Argument-For-Basic-Emotions.pdf|journal=Cognition and Emotion|volume=6|issue=3–4|pages=169–200|doi=10.1080/02699939208411068|issn=0269-9931|citeseerx=10.1.1.454.1984|access-date=25 April 2019|archive-date=5 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200705065610/https://www.paulekman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/An-Argument-For-Basic-Emotions.pdf|url-status=live}}). According to Jonathan Haidt:

{{Blockquote|text=The principal moral emotions can be divided into two large and two small joint families. The large families are the "other-condemning" family, in which the three brothers are contempt, anger, and disgust (and their many children, such as indignation and loathing), and the "self-conscious" family (shame, embarrassment, and guilt)…[T]he two smaller families the "other-suffering" family (compassion) and the "other-praising" family (gratitude and elevation).|sign=|source=}}

Haidt would suggest that the higher the emotionality of a moral agent, the more likely the agent is to act morally. He uses the term "disinterested elicitor" to describe an event or situation that provokes emotions in us, even when these emotions do not have anything to do with our own personal welfare. It is these elicitors that cause people to participate in what he calls "prosocial action tendencies" (actions that benefit society). Haidt explains moral emotions as "emotion families", in which each family contains emotions that may be similar although not exactly the same. These moral emotions are provoked by eliciting events that often lead to prosocial action tendencies. Each person's likelihood of prosocial action is determined by his or her degree of emotionality.

Morality and the emotions that come with it have been categorized into an underlying two-dimensional structure. It consists of two components, the first dimension being valence, which is the help/harm framework. The second dimension is moral type, which is the agent/patient framework.{{Cite web |last=Gray |first=Kurt |last2=Wegner |first2=Daniel |date=2011 |title=Dimensions of Moral Emotions |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254089687_Dimensions_of_Moral_Emotions |access-date=November 11, 2024 |website=Research gate}} These components correspond to the moral event, whether helping or harming, and the exemplars involved, which would be the agent or the patient. Each quadrant illustrates how moral events can have distinct moral emotions attached to them based on the exemplar involved. In the agent/help quadrant, moral emotions such as inspiration and elevation are elicited by heroes. In the patient/help quadrant, emotions of relief and happiness are elicited by beneficiaries. In the agent/harm quadrant, emotions like anger and disgust are elicited by villains. And in the patient/harm section, emotions of sympathy and sadness are elicited by victims. This structure explains how moral emotions can be shaped by the relationship between the morality of the exemplar and the morality of the act.

{{See also|Empathy-altruism}}

Empathy also plays a large role in altruism. The empathy-altruism hypothesis states that feelings of empathy for another lead to an altruistic motivation to help that person.{{cite journal |last1=Batson |first1=C. D. |last2=Klein |first2=T. R. |last3=Highberger |first3=L. |last4=Shaw |first4=L. L. |year=1995 |title=Immorality from empathy-induced altruism: When compassion and justice conflict |journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology |volume=68 |issue=6 |pages=1042–1054 |doi=10.1037/0022-3514.68.6.1042}} In contrast, there may also be an egoistic motivation to help someone in need. This is the Hullian tension-reduction model in which personal distress caused by another in need leads the person to help in order to alleviate their own discomfort.{{cite journal|last1=Batson|first1=C. Daniel|last2=Fultz|first2=Jim|last3=Schoenrade|first3=Patricia A.|date=1 March 1987|title=Distress and Empathy: Two Qualitatively Distinct Vicarious Emotions with Different Motivational Consequences|journal=Journal of Personality|volume=55|issue=1|pages=19–39|doi=10.1111/j.1467-6494.1987.tb00426.x|issn=1467-6494|pmid=3572705}} The Altruism Born of Suffering Literature states that individuals who have undergone difficult times and grown from this trauma identify with seeing others in need and respond altruistically by protecting or caring for others.{{cite journal |last1=Vollhardt |first1=Johanna Ray |title=Altruism Born of Suffering and Prosocial Behavior Following Adverse Life Events: A Review and Conceptualization |journal=Social Justice Research |date=March 2009 |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=53–97 |doi=10.1007/s11211-009-0088-1|s2cid=144224070 }}{{cite journal|last1=Staub|first1=E.|last2=Vollhardt|first2=J. M.|year=2008|title=Atruism born of suffering; the roots of caring and helping after victimization and other trauma| journal=American Journal of Orthopsychiatry|volume=78|issue=3|pages=267–280|doi=10.1037/a0014223|pmid=19123746}} In the context of climate change, it is recognised that for individuals to act altruistically towards their society and environment, they need to learn to increase their capacity to process their emotional experiences as well as increased reflective functioning.{{cite journal|last1=Kieft|first1=J.|last2=Bendell|first2=J|year=2021|title=The responsibility of communicating difficult truths about climate influenced societal disruption and collapse: an introduction to psychological research|url=https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/5950|journal=Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) Occasional Papers|volume=7|pages=1–39|access-date=30 March 2021|archive-date=10 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310074519/https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/5950/|url-status=live}}

Batson, Klein, Highberger, and Shaw conducted experiments where they manipulated people through the use of empathy-induced altruism to make decisions that required them to show partiality to one individual over another. The first experiment involved a participant from each group choosing someone to experience a positive or negative task. These groups included a non-communication, communication/low-empathy, and communication/high-empathy. They were asked to make their decisions based on these standards resulting in the communication/high-empathy group showing more partiality in the experiment than the other groups due to being successfully manipulated emotionally. Those individuals who they successfully manipulated reported that despite feeling compelled in the moment to show partiality, they still felt they had made the more "immoral" decision since they followed an empathy-based emotion rather than adhering to a justice perspective of morality.

Batson, Klein, Highberger, and Shaw conducted two experiments on empathy-induced altruism, proposing that this can lead to actions that violate the justice principle. The second experiment operated similarly to the first, using low-empathy and high-empathy groups. Participants were faced with the decision to move an ostensibly ill child to an "immediate help" group versus leaving her on a waiting list after listening to her emotionally-driven interview describing her condition and the life it has left her to lead. Those who were in the high-empathy group were more likely than those in the low-empathy group to move the child higher up the list to receive treatment earlier. When these participants were asked what the more moral choice was, they agreed that the more moral choice would have been to not move this child ahead of the list at the expense of the other children. In this case, it is evident that when empathy-induced altruism is at odds with what is seen as moral, oftentimes empathy-induced altruism has the ability to win out over morality.

Recently neuroscientist Jean Decety, drawing on empirical research in evolutionary theory, developmental psychology, social neuroscience, and psychopathy, argued that empathy and morality are neither systematically opposed to one another, nor inevitably complementary.{{cite book|last=Decety|first=Jean|series=Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences |title=New Frontiers in Social Neuroscience|date=1 November 2014|chapter=The Neuroevolution of Empathy and Caring for Others: Why It Matters for Morality|chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287290900|volume=21|pages=127–151|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-02904-7_8|isbn=978-3-319-02903-0}}{{cite journal|last1=Decety|first1=J.|last2=Cowell|first2=J. M.|year=2014|title=The complex relation between morality and empathy|url=http://spihub.org/site/resource_files/publications/spi_wp_135_decety.pdf|journal=Trends in Cognitive Sciences|volume=18|issue=7|pages=337–339|doi=10.1016/j.tics.2014.04.008|pmid=24972506|s2cid=355141|access-date=25 April 2019|archive-date=23 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221023104046/https://spihub.org/site/resource_files/publications/spi_wp_135_decety.pdf|url-status=live}}

Emmons (2009) defines gratitude as a natural emotional reaction and a universal tendency to respond positively to another's benevolence.{{Citation |last=Emmons |first=Robert A. |title=Greatest of the Virtues? Gratitude and the Grateful Personality |date=29 June 2009 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511627125.012 |work=Personality, Identity, and Character |pages=256–270 |access-date=16 May 2023 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511627125.012 |isbn=9780521895071 |archive-date=16 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231016142640/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/personality-identity-and-character/greatest-of-the-virtues-gratitude-and-the-grateful-personality/651B2B61260CF05C430A2BDC64D7F429 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }} Gratitude is motivating and leads to what Emmons' describes as "upstream reciprocity". This is the passing on of benefits to third parties instead of returning benefits to one's benefactors.

In the context of social networking behavior, research from Brady, Wills, Jost, Tucker, and Van Bavel (2017) shows that the expression of moral emotion amplifies the extent to which moral and political ideals are disseminated in social media platforms. Analyzing a large sample of Twitter communications on polarizing issues, such as gun control, same-sex marriage, and climate change, results indicated that the presence of moral-emotional language in messages increased their transmission by approximately 20% per word, compared to purely-moral and purely-emotional language.{{Cite journal|last1=Brady|first1=William J.|last2=Wills|first2=Julian A.|last3=Jost|first3=John T.|last4=Tucker|first4=Joshua A.|last5=Bavel|first5=Jay J. Van|date=11 July 2017|title=Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|language=en|volume=114|issue=28|pages=7313–7318|doi=10.1073/pnas.1618923114|issn=0027-8424|pmid=28652356|pmc=5514704|bibcode=2017PNAS..114.7313B |doi-access=free}}

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• Conscience
• Emotion
• Love
• Kama muta
• Kindness priming (psychology)
• Moral psychology
• Mudita (sympathetic or vicarious joy)
• Pity
• Rage
• Remorse
• Resentment
• Righteous indignation
• Schadenfreude
• Self-conscious emotions
• Social intuitionism
• Somatic marker hypothesis
• Sympathy

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Category:Moral psychology

Category:Emotion