Key Words: Darcia Narvaez, moral psychology, moral development, four-component model, triune ethics, tacit knowledge, implicit processing, moral intuitionism, Michael Polanyi. This review essay offers an overview of Darcia Narvaez's work in moral psychology based on a representative selection of essays published over roughly the last decade. I trace the roots of her work in post-Kohlbergian mor...

Moral sensitivity is the first component of the 4-component moral action process (J. R. Rest, 1986). The author reviews moral sensitivity operationalization and measurement across multiple samples and domains. She reviews 3 definitions of the construct (i.e., recognition and affective response, recognition, and recognition and ascription of importance) and measurement instruments based on these...

The chairman of the Patients Association, a British advocacy group, responds to Roger C. Sider and Colleen D. Clements' essay in this issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics on a patient's moral obligation to preserve his or her health. She rejects their implication that, because of this obligation to oneself, there also is an obligation to follow the advice of one's doctor. Agreeing that soci...

A plausible philosophical characterization of moral reasoning need not be an oracle for the resolution of difficult moral questions for it to be a significant influence in how a person deliberates about such questions. Reflection upon a particular account may, for instance, have consequences for a person’s standing judgments concerning the kinds of consideration that are relevant for thinking a...

In this issue of the journal Ms Jennifer Jackson continues her defence of her thesis that whereas 'we all have a strict duty not to lie, we are not all under a duty of this kind not to deceive intentionally in ways that do not involve lying' (1). In her original paper (2) she argued against the 'common view' that deception that did not involve lying was morally no different from deception that ...

linda zagzebski presents a new kind of foundational moral theory in her exemplarist virtue theory which exemplary persons have considered as the foundation. in this theory all of the basic moral concepts such as good ends and right acts are defined by direct reference to paradigmatically good person. one of the most important consequences of this theory is that moral propositions are a posterio...

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...

An especially dynamic area of discussion within nursing ethics is the philosophy of caring. The work on moral development by Harvard educator Carol Gilligan in her book, In a Different Voice, is pivotal in this discussion (see IV B, Cooper 1989). Jean Watson, a nurse at the University of Colorado Center for Human Caring, also has written extensively on the philosophy of caring. She states that ...

This paper examines the position in moral philosophy that Harry Frankfurt calls the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP). The paper first describes the principle as articulated by A.J. Ayer. Subsequently, the paper examines Frankfurt’s critique and proposed revision of the principle and argues that Frankfurt’s proposal relies on an excessively simplistic account of practical reasoning, wh...

Carol Gilligan is associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her 1982 book, In a Different Voice, presents a theory of moral development which claims that women tend to think and speak in a different way than men when they confront ethical dilemmas. Gilligan contrasts a feminine ethic of care with a masculine ethic of justice. She believes that these gender di...