Causes and Consequences of Moral Judgment

The papers in this symposium integrate research examining two important questions: (1) How do people make moral judgments? and (2) What are the consequences of these moral judgments for organizations and beyond? First, Zlatev, Kim, & Miller present evidence of a two- dimensional view of moral judgments, arguing that the morality of doing a behavior and the immorality of not doing it are independent of each other. Uhlmann, Zhu, and Tannenbaum assert that people don’t just make judgments about the morality of individual actions, but also naturally make assess others’ overall moral character. Levine examines deception in the context of healthcare, finding asymmetric moral judgments of the acceptability of lying among doctors and patients. Finally, Ruttan and DeCelles test a construal-based method of increasing compassion that people who have overcome a distressing situation feel towards someone currently facing that same situation. These papers provide important steps towards answering and integrating the tw...