<p>This study examined if social distance, i.e. in- vs. out-group membership, had an effect on moral judgments of acts vs. omissions. 164 participants judged the morality of acts vs. omissions of lethal harm, that affected an in- vs. out-group member of the participant, in order to save five other people. The results showed that acts of lethal, but utilitarian, harm were judged more immoral than omissions of equivalent harm. It was also shown that if the victim was an in- group member of the participant the behavior was judged more immoral than if the victim was an out-group member of the participant. However, the acts and omissions of harm were not judged differently when the victim was an in.- vs. out-group member of the participant, indicating that this kind of social distance might not influence the moral judgment of acts and omissions.</p><p> </p>

This study examined if social distance, i.e. in- vs. out-group membership, had an effect on moral judgments of acts vs. omissions. 164 participants judged the morality of acts vs. omissions of lethal harm, that affected an in- vs. out-group member of the participant, in order to save five other people. The results showed that acts of lethal, but utilitarian, harm were judged more immoral than omissions of equivalent harm. It was also shown that if the victim was an in- group member of the participant the behavior was judged more immoral than if the victim was an out-group member of the participant. However, the acts and omissions of harm were not judged differently when the victim was an in.- vs. out-group member of the participant, indicating that this kind of social distance might not influence the moral judgment of acts and omissions.

In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume argues that moral judgments are the product of sentiment. The mechanism of sympathy allows individuals to enter into a common point of view in order to produce judgments that are truly moral, and not merely self-interested. Hume argues that the common point of view is the standard that moral judgments are subjected to. I argue that the common point of view is an inadequate standard for distinguishing between proper and improper moral judgments. The common point of view is inadequate because it is subjective and unreflective. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith offers an account of moral judgment that has an adequate standard for distinguishing between proper and improper moral judgments. Smith avoids the problems with Hume’s account due to his distinction between partial and impartial spectators and the role that self-command plays in his theory of moral judgment.

Sentimentalism as an ethical view makes a particular claim about moral judgment: to judge that something is right/wrong is to have a sentiment/emotion of approbation/disapprobation, or some kind of positive/negative feeling, toward that thing. However, several sentimentalists have argued that moral judgments involve not only having a specific kind of feelings or emotional responses, but judging that one would be <em>justified</em> in having that feeling or emotional response. In the literature, some authors have taken up the former position because the empirical data on moral judgment seems to suggest that justification is not a necessary prerequisite for making a moral judgment. Even if this is true, however, I argue that justifying moral judgments is still an important philosophic endeavour, and that developing an empirically constrained account of how a person might go about justifying his feelings/emotional responses as reasons for rendering (normative) moral judgments by using a coherentist method of justification is both plausible and desirable.

In this dissertation I develop a theory of moral judgment as a natural kind. Instead of analyzing the concept of moral judgment, I develop an empirically grounded theory of its underlying nature. In chapter one I argue that moral judgment is a hybrid state of moral belief and moral emotion. The view is supported by a dual systems model of moral cognition and accounts for the internal but defeasible relationship between moral judgment and motivation. In chapter two I argue that in moral judgment moral norms are conceptualized as social, serious, general, authority-independent and objective. The view is supported by empirical research on the moral/conventional distinction and yields an empirical explanation of the possibility of genuine moral agreement and disagreement. In chapter three I explore whether psychopaths have the capacity for moral judgment, and thus whether they are real life "amoralists," individuals who make moral judgments but lack moral motivation. I argue that psychopaths have an impaired capacity for moral judgment and that prominent internalist accounts of moral judgment have difficulty accounting for psychopaths' peculiar combination of deficits.

How we communicate about brands and companies has changed. CEOs have come into the spotlight of brand communications but little marketing research offers holistic knowledge about CEOs as brand endorsers. This research investigates how CEO endorsers influence consumer attitudes toward a brand differently from conventional endorsers (e.g., celebrities and athletes). Further, this research examines underlying mechanisms that determine consumer responses to CEOs as brand endorsers and especially consumer moral judgments of a brand’s wrongdoing. Building on research on brand endorsers and brand equity, as well as drawing theoretical support from research on leadership, anthropomorphism and mind perception, this dissertation proposes a moderated mediation model of CEO endorser effects on consumer moral judgments. Brand endorsers for decades have been viewed as essentially communicating via three characteristics: attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness. This dissertation identifies perceived leadership as an additional endorser dimension elicited from a CEO-brand endorser. Further, this dissertation introduces brand mind perception into marketing research and finds that perceived leadership positively influences consumers’ perception of brand mind, which in turn determines consumers’ moral judgments. Boundary conditions are explored and include endorser-brand relationship and crisis controllability. Two sets of studies provide empirical support. The first set defines and develops the scale of perceived leadership including item generation (Study 1), item purification (Study 2), and scale confirmation (Study 3). The second set tests the hypotheses in the conceptual model. Two exploratory studies first find preliminary evidence of that perceived leadership differs from existing endorser dimensions by its effects on moral judgments (Study 4), and that mind perception is possible for a brand and can be enhanced by CEO association (Study 5). Study 6 shows positive effects of CEO endorsers on consumer attitudes by communicating perceived brand leadership. Study 7 investigates a brand-wrongdoing scenario and shows that perceived brand leadership yields negative results for a brand by increasing blame and reducing forgiveness; Study 8 demonstrates these relationships are mediated by brand mind perception. Study 9 shows that the inspiring aspects of perceived leadership can enhance perceptions of brand mind (to feel and experience), thus reducing consumers’ blame. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2004-03-22Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:38:11Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 galbiattifilho_ja_me_assis.pdf: 159300 bytes, checksum: db2123b2d88b3d6467673b448a260f49 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Nesta pesquisa realizamos um estudo sócio-moral cujo objetivo foi verificar quais regras e noções de justiça são abstraídas por crianças de rua submetidas à apreciação de uma situação hipotética de conflito envolvendo agressão. Utilizando o método clínico de Piaget e tendo por base suas idéias sobre o juízo moral, observamos e entrevistamos 20 crianças de rua, de sete a treze anos, do sexo do sexo masculino, que freqüentam uma Casa Abrigo localizada na cidade de Jaboticabal (SP). Os dados foram analisados e classificados conformes as tendências de desenvolvimento moral e noções de justiça propostas por Piaget. Os resultados mostraram que as crianças, diante de uma situação de agressão, demonstram mais características heterônomas em suas respostas. As noções de justiça concentram-se entre retributivas e distributivas. Conclui-se que a agressão é uma característica enraizada na formação da moral da criança de rua e que influência fortemente o seu desenvolvimento. Sendo a agressão uma poderosa forma aprendida de resolver problemas em seu contexto de vida, nela espelha-se para solucionar os conflitos do cotidiano. / In this research we carried out a sociomoral study whose objective was to verify which rules and notions of justice are abstracted by street children subject to observation from a hypothetical situation of conflict involving assault. Applying the clinical method of Piaget and having as base his ideas about moral judgment, we observed and interviewed 20 male street children, from seven to thirteen years old, who often stay in a shelter located in the city of Jaboticabal (SP). The data were analyzed and classified according to the trends of moral development and notions of justice proposed by Piaget. The results showed that the children, under a situation of assault, exhibit more self-serving cognitive distortion characteristics in their responses. The notions of justice constrict in rewarding and distributing ones. We can conclude that the assault is an embedded characteristic in the moral formation of the street child, and that affects directly the child's development. Once the learned pattern to solve problems in the child's life context is the assault , it is in that that the he or she rests to resolve his or her everyday conflicts.

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Yes / Peoples’ judgments and decisions often change when made in their foreign language. Existing research testing this foreign language effect has predominantly used text-based stimuli with little research focusing on the impact of listening to audio stimuli on the effect. The only existing study on this topic found shifts in people’s moral decisions only in the audio modality. Firstly, by reanalyzing the data from this previous study and by collecting data in an additional experiment, we found no consistent effects of using foreign language on moral judgments. Secondly, in both datasets we found no significant language by modality interaction. Overall, our results highlight the need for more robust testing of the foreign language effect, and its boundary conditions. However, modality of presentation does not appear to be a candidate for explaining its variability. Data and materials for this experiment are available at https://osf.io/qbjxn/.