By Ashley Welch, Scientific American Anyone who has ever devoured a triple-chocolate brownie after an intense workout knows how tempting it can be to indulge after behaving virtuously. A new study suggests, however, that we often apply this thought process to inappropriate scenarios, giving ourselves...

From New Scientist WHY do we sometimes wrestle with moral dilemmas? A twist on a classic psychology experiment suggests that our minds have two parallel moral systems, and they don't always agree. In the trolley experiment, participants are told that a runaway tram trolley could kill five people...

By Tiffanny O'Callaghan, in The New Scientist Disgust can be a bewildering emotion. In her new book, That's Disgusting, research psychologist Rachel Herz points out that our tendency to react by pulling away is based on a combination of self-preservation and learned behaviour. When we are grossed...

By Ferris Jabr, Scientific American An excerpt: The English language is not especially kind to rats. We say we "smell a rat" when something doesn't feel right, refer to stressful competition as the "rat race," and scorn traitors who "rat on" friends. But rats don't...

By Colin Allen, New York Times A robot walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a screwdriver.” A bad joke, indeed. But even less funny if the robot says “Give me what’s in your cash register.” The fictional theme of robots turning against humans is older than the word itself, which first appeared in the...

From Science Daily Imagine a runaway boxcar heading toward five people who can't escape its path. Now imagine you had the power to reroute the boxcar onto different tracks with only one person along that route. Would you do it? That's the moral dilemma posed by a team of Michigan State University...

By Jonathan Haidt, Reason Magazine From a rational perspective, joining a protest rally is like voting—a complete waste of time. The odds that your voice or your protest sign will make a difference are no better than the odds that your vote will change an election. And yet, people do join protests and...

The Vexing Mental Tug-of-War Called Morality By Kristin Ohlson, Discover magazine Would you kill a crying baby to save yourself and others from hostile soldiers outside? Neuroscience offers new ways to approach such moral questions, allowing logic to triumph over deep-rooted instinct. You arrive at the...

From TPM (The Philosopher's Magazine) In this activity you will be presented with 19 different scenarios. In each case, you will be asked to make a judgment about what is the morally right thing to do. When you have answered all the questions, you will be presented with an analysis of your responses...

Video from The Science Network Patricia Churchland is one of the most interesting public intellectuals of our time. Since the publication in 1986 of her seminal book “Neurophilosophy”, which began to explain the neural underpinnings of an enormous tradition of philosophy, Churchland has been a major...

The Mismeasure of Morals: Antisocial Personality Traits Predict Utilitarian Responses to Moral Dilemmas By Daniel M. Bartels and David A. Pizzaro Researchers have recently argued that utilitarianism is the appropriate framework by which to evaluate moral judgment, and that individuals who endorse non...

By Weichun Zhu, Ronald E. Riggio, Bruce J. Avolio & John J. Sosik The goal of this article is to study the effects of transformational versus transactional leadership behavior on how followers report their level of moral identity. Using field survey data (n = 672) and experimental data (n = 225)...

By Chen Lai Abstract: This essay focuses on the unity of several virtues in pre-Qin Confucians. Confucius maintains the proper application and coherence of such virtues as benevolence, wisdom, trustworthiness, straightforwardness, courage, and firmness. Further, Confucius takes benevolence and nobility...

By Gregory R. Peterson, Michael Spezio, James Van Slyke, Kevin Reimer and Warren Brown This paper argues that consideration of moral exemplars may provide a means for integrating insights across philosophical ethics, theological ethics, and the scientific study of moral cognition. Key to this endeavor...

By Anne Dewitt This article situates Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters, serialized in Cornhill Magazine between 1864 and 1866, in the context of contemporary periodical articles that represent natural history as a moral endeavor and that depict men of science as moral exemplars. Gaskell thematizes...

By Laurence B. McCullough There are persistent tendencies in the bioethics literature to be imprecise about what “enhancement” means, to treat genetic enhancement as ethically sui generis . “Enhancement” in general means the improvement of human anatomy and therefore human appearance and of human physiology...

"Who are scientists? What kind of people are they? What capacities and virtues are thought to stand behind their considerable authority? They are experts—indeed, highly respected experts—authorized to describe and interpret the natural world and widely trusted to help transform knowledge into power...

Abstract: Ethics in engineering and science has become a hot topic not only on the agendas of academic institutions and funding agencies, but also among scientists and engineers themselves and the general public. Analysis of misconduct cases shows that fundamental issues concerning proper methodology...