Definition
A person’s ability to notice when actions or situations threaten others’ welfare, or could violate ethical standards or values.
Function of Moral Sensitivity
Coined in 1979 by John McDowell, the term moral sensitivity commonly denotes the ability of a person to notice an ethical issue or problem, i.e., when actions or situations threaten others’ welfare, could violate ethical standards or values (Katsarov 2021). As an ability, moral sensitivity is distinct from a state of mind, where someone is aware of an ethical issue or perceives a situation as ethically meaningful (Reynolds and Miller 2015). Thus, moral awareness and moral perception may be the outcome of a person’s ability to notice ethical problems autonomously – they could have also been brought to people’s attention through others, though.
Forming part of James Rest’s influential four-component model,...
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Katsarov, J. (2023). Moral Sensitivity. In: Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_347-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_347-1
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