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Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics pp 1–6Cite as

Altruism’s Moral Heuristics

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Synonyms

Compassion; Empathy; Eusociality; Moral motivation; Moral reasoning; Prosocial behavior; Virtue

Introduction

The salience of moral reasoning with respect to altruistic motivation and behavior has become increasingly evident as a number of measurement scales have succeeded in distinguishing traditional moral frames. There remains, however, ongoing debates as to (1) whether perceived altruism ever counts as genuine altruism given the motivational power of the “warm glow” agents feel from their altruistic actions; (2) whether ordinary agents – as opposed to moral experts – ever truly act for philosophical reasons, as opposed to purely emotive ones; and (3) the extent to which traditional moral frames can be accurately measured and distinguished through heuristic means. Despite these debates, there is mounting empirical evidence in favor of all three suppositions. (1) The warm glow may not be the sole motivator and may be eclipsed by greater sacrifices made, (2) traditional moral...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Julian Friedland

Authors
  1. Julian Friedland
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julian Friedland .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Deborah C Poff

  2. Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Alex C. Michalos

Section Editor information

  1. Past President, Brandon University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Deborah Poff CM, PhD

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Friedland, J. (2021). Altruism’s Moral Heuristics. In: Poff, D.C., Michalos, A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_1271-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_1271-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1

  • eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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