MORAL EMOTIONS AND SELF-MONITORING

Moral emotions and moral behavior.

Moral emotions represent a key element of our human moral apparatus, influencing the link between moral standards and moral behavior. This chapter reviews current theory and research on moral emotions. We first focus on a triad of negatively valenced "self-conscious" emotions-shame, guilt, and embarrassment. As in previous decades, much research remains focused on shame and guilt. We review cur...

Moral emotions

Moral emotions have been badly neglected by philosophical ethics. In my view to the detriment of this discipline because they are not only important for the moral evaluation of persons but also for value theory and thus also for a theory of morally right actions. This paper outlines my account of moral emotions. Emotions such as regret or shame are sometimes but not always moral emotions. I wil...

Moral Judgment and Emotions

Self-conscious Emotions Shame and Guilt Are Not Equally " Moral " or Psychologically Adaptive Emotions

All human emotions are, in a loose sense, " self-relevant. " Emotions arise when something self-relevant happens or is about to happen. In the language of appraisal theory (Lazarus, 1966), we experience emotions when we judge that events have positive or negative significance for our well-being. The specific type of emotional response is shaped both by such primary appraisals of events' positiv...

The Moral Emotions

Morality dignifies and elevates. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, God said "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil" (Gen. 3:22). In many of the world's religious traditions, the good go up, to heaven or a higher rebirth, and the bad go down, to hell or a lower rebirth. Even among secular people, moral motives are spoken of as the "highest" and "noblest" motives,...