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Science and Morality

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Alliances; Condemnation; Fairness; Morality

Definition

The scientific study of morality has increasingly revealed its underlying psychological processes and features.

Introduction

Presently, there is no unified definition of morality (Krebs 2011). From a lay perspective, morality is one’s sense of the difference between right and wrong. It is a system of personal attitudes and beliefs about what actions are socially permissible, which behaviors should be morally condemned, and what degree of punishment is appropriate for various social transgressions; it is a collection of conventional rules that guide how individuals navigate and solve ethical dilemmas. In lieu of offering definitions of morality, current scientific research on morality attempts to identify the underlying psychology of moral intuitions by organizing aspects of morality into universal processes or features (Graham et al. 2013; Haidt and Joseph 2004); identifying the evolved, mechanistic design of moral...

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Correspondence to Justin K. Mogilski .

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Mogilski, J.K. (2016). Science and Morality. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_453-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_453-1

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