Ethical behavior and moral judgment are fundamental issues facing the accounting profession today. Changes in the ethical culture of accounting have brought about a crisis of ethical misconduct in the profession. External forces for better ethics in accounting, represented by Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation, and internal forces, represented by increased educational coverage encouraged by state societies and the AACSB, are attempts to influence the current crisis. Research in the field of ethics and moral judgment in the accounting profession continues as researchers continue to examine factors influencing the ethical reasoning abilities of accountants and accounting students. The results of these studies may assist accounting schools and the accounting profession in controlling and improving the ethical orientation of the accounting profession. This study examines the possible relationship of ethics education and moral reasoning of undergraduate and graduate accounting students. Limited previous research on these two variables has provided mixed results. This study examined undergraduate and graduate accounting students at six colleges and universities in the upper mid-west and southern region of the United States. The variable of ethics was measured with Rest's DIT-2 instrument and ethical education by completed ethics courses. The results of this study demonstrate a significant relationship between ethics education and the moral reasoning of accounting students. However, the results were not in the expected direction, with the accounting students completing ethics education having a significant lower level than the accounting students without ethics education. In addition, this research found that accounting students who are 22 years of age or younger possess higher levels of ethical reasoning than accounting students who are older than 22 years of age. However, the findings show that there are no significant differences in the ethical maturity levels of accounting students when grouped by gender and education level. These findings support the need for further research into determining factors influencing moral judgment in undergraduate and graduate accounting students.

Hospitals today focus on creating a culture of patient safety and reducing error. Registered nurses are mandated by the American Nurses Association's Code of Ethics to advocate for the patient at all times and to act accountably to ensure patient safety. There is a paucity of literature relating to how nurses' values and ethical ideology may affect their decision to act accountably. This study tested two hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 predicted that registered nurses who demonstrated a low relativistic ethical ideology would score higher on a measure of professional values than would registered nurses who demonstrate a high relativistic ethical ideology. Hypothesis 2 predicted an order of ethical ideology (absolutists then exceptionists, subjectivists and situationists) in scores on a measure of accountability. A descriptive non experimental design was used. Registered nurses (n=215) employed on the west coast of Florida completed a demographic form, Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ), Nurses Professional Values Scale Revised (NPVSR) and an investigator developed accountability instrument. A median split on the scores of the relativism and idealism scales on the EPQ formed the four groups of ethical ideology; absolutists, exceptionists, subjectivists and situationists. The accountability instrument consisted of 2 hypothetical clinical vignettes involving a late antibiotic administration. Using a Likert type scale, the participants answered three questions regarding how likely they would be to record the actual time of medication administration, call the physician and complete an incident report. Hypothesis I was not supported. Idealism (p=.001) not relativism had a significant effect on professional values. Hypothesis II was not supported. Absolutists scored highest on measures of accountability followed by exceptionists, situationists and subjectivists. When controlling for age, idealism not relativism had a significant effect on completing an incident report (p = .03). This is the first study to examine the effect of ethical ideology on professional values and a registered nurse's intention to act accountably. Previous studies described values held but did not link the descriptions to intentions to act. The information may be useful to hospitals as they build a culture of patient safety and develop a workforce that is accountable for its actions and decisions.

Society and technology are advancing, in which morality is being artificially implemented into machines, often known as artificial moral agency. Along with this implementation, knowledge about the underpinnings of morality, such as the neurocognitive and ethical basis are an important matter. Human moral judgment has been speculated to be a function for survival, as it favors altruism and prosocial behavior. The neural correlates of moral judgment stem from several structures of the human brain that control cognitive and affective functions such as decision making, cognitive control, theory of mind (ToM) and empathy. In relation to these, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) has been widely linked to moral behavior such as ToM and moral judgment. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has been linked to regulation of conflict and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) to remain cognitive control, which both have strong correlations to moral behavior. Damage to areas such as the vmPFC and ACC have demonstrated abnormal response to guilt, ToM, empathy, risky behavior as well as sociopathic tendencies, which emphasizes the importance of these structures for human morality. By investigating research in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, moral psychology and machine ethics, this thesis aims at seeking out the importance of cognitive neuroscience for the development of artificial moral agency and to furthermore discuss the necessity of emotions in artificial moral agents, which naturally lack the affective part of moral judgment. Lastly, this thesis will cover some of the main dilemmas with this integration and some future implications.

The present investigation was designed to increase the moral judgment and simultaneous role-taking skills of institutionalized male juvenile delinquents and investigated possible effects of affect on the subjects' responses to treatment.

With this dissertation I developed a new theory and measure of ethical work climate (EWC). Currently, there exists one dominant theory and measure of EWC developed by Victor and Cullen (1988, 1987). Even though researchers have identified problems with this theory, such as inconsistencies with regard to its limited theoretical scope and troubling psychometric properties, it is the most widely utilized framework for conceptualizing and testing EWC. Therefore, I propose to develop an improved theory and measure of EWC, one capable of addressing some of the principle shortcomings of earlier efforts. Building on Rest's (1986, 1979) "Four-Component" model of individual-level ethical decision-making and behavior, I specify four dimensions of EWC necessary for the emergence of ethical behavior: collective moral sensitivity, collective moral judgment, collective moral motivation, and collective moral character. I developed a multidimensional instrument capable of capturing each of these dimensions at the climate level. I anticipate that this theory and instrument will allow researchers to understand EWCs and their impact on attitudes and behaviors more effectively than previous approaches. Chapter 1 reviews the organizational climate and culture literatures, so as to gain a comprehensive understanding of the organizational climate construct in general and how it differs from organizational culture in particular. Chapter 2 includes a review and evaluation the EWC literature. This helped to identify opportunities and suggestions for a new theory and measure of EWC. Chapter 3 describes the development of the new theory of EWCs, the Psychological Process Model, with propositions for future research. Chapter 4 informs about the development of the Ethical Climate Index, the measure used to assess the new theory of EWCs. It describes 3 studies that were used to construct the Ethical Climate Index to measure the ethical work climate dimensions of collective moral sensitivity (12-items), collective moral judgment (10-items), collective moral motivation (8-items), and collective moral character (6-items). Study 1 and 2 resulted in parsimonious and reliable scales for each one of the four dimensions. Results of the 3rd study support convergent and discriminant validity for each one of the scales and suggest that the ECI is a valid and reliable predictor of ethical and unethical behavior. Implications and suggestions for the use of this measure in future research is discussed.

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Violent content in film has been extensively debated from a myriad of different perspectives, and both within and across a number of different disciplines. Oftentimes, the more violent the content that a film contains, the more likely such content is considered to negatively detract from the value of the work in question. However, this dissertation provides an argument to the contrary with respect to a specific set of cinematic examples and a particular way in which violent content is represented within them. In what follows, I argue that there are grounds to believe in the philosophical value of engaging with works that “morally shock” their audiences through the representation of violent content. First, by analyzing a combination of works ranging from the more conservative American classic Deliverance (1972) to the more controversial French avant-garde Irréversible (2002), I provide a case for reclassifying violent films into different genres, only one of which contains films which elicit a particular kind of response that I single out for further examination. In considering the implications of our responses to these “morally shocking” films, I provide a foundation against which such films can be considered to have a distinct kind of philosophical value by exploring their significance with respect to: (1) issues of interpretation and value in the philosophy of film, (2) recent developments in research on moral judgment, and (3) arguments both for and against the idea that film can be thought of as a kind of philosophy. Ultimately, I argue that our response of moral shock to the content of these films has the subversive effect of destabilizing our moral orientation and consequently motivating philosophical reflection in innovative ways. / Philosophy

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business Schools (AACSB) requires the attainment of ethics education accreditation standards by its member institutions (AACSB International, 2018). The AACSB does not specify any courses or program template for assessing and meeting these requirements. While ample research has been conducted on the higher educational impact on the students’ ethical development, the issue that this study addressed was to examine the moral education effects of a minimally studied segment. To deal with this problem, the purpose of this study was to examine whether classes of first year MBA/MS students and undergraduate seniors in core and capstone marketing courses, respectively, measurably exhibited positive changes in moral judgment from having participated in an individual marketing ethics simulation game as compared to classes not assigned any ethics instruction. This research used a quantitative, quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group design with marketing students at a large, private, urban university in the U.S. Northeast as subjects. The Defining Issues Test-2 (DIT-2), measuring a subject’s moral judgment, was used for the pre-test and the post-test. Analysis of the change in the DIT-2 scores showed a significant improvement in the treatment groups as compared to the control groups. The potential implications from this study included suggesting approaches by which business schools can start to develop embedded ethics modules that may prepare students to become more ethical business professionals. Keywords: Moral judgment, schema, ethics, dilemmas, assessment, accreditation, DIT-2, stakeholders, Kohlberg, moral cognitive development theory, AACSB, business scandals, business education, marketing, simulation games, experiential learning, mixed ANOVA / Educational Administration

Yes / The nature of moral action versus moral judgment has been extensively debated in numerous disciplines. We introduce Virtual Reality (VR) moral paradigms examining the action individuals take in a high emotionally arousing, direct action-focused, moral scenario. In two studies involving qualitatively different populations, we found a greater endorsement of utilitarian responses±killing one in order to save many others±when action was required in moral virtual dilemmas compared to their judgment counterparts. Heart rate in virtual moral dilemmas was significantly increased when compared to both judgment counterparts and control virtual tasks. Our research suggests that moral action may be viewed as an independent construct to moral judgment, with VR methods delivering new prospects for investigating and assessing moral behaviour. / Plymouth University and Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN-604764)