Can moral reasoning be modeled in an experiment?

Abstract

A review of the literature on moral issues indicates that none of the empirical approaches to moral reasoning proposes an experimental approach which controls for such object-related experimental variables as: knowledge, motivation, acceptance of moral norms and consequences of human behavior in moral situations in a single research procedure. A unique element of the proposed experimental method is a multi-stage model determining morality indicators. In the two-phase design experiment, psychology students were asked to create model ethical stories and then conduct an overall assessment of each of these stories. As a result, a base of ethical stories was created with empirical moral indicators (positive, negative, neutral). The patterns in the moral evaluation of ethical stories were determined by identifying three processes (selection, differentiation and integration). The final result is a confirmed design of the experiment and a set of formulas that can be used in education and research on morality reasoning.