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Universality and Cultural Diversity in Moral Reasoning and Judgment

Many theories have shaped the concept of morality and its development by anchoring it in the realm of the social systems and values of each culture. This review discusses the current formulation of moral theories that attempt to explain cultural factors affecting moral judgment and reasoning. It aim...

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Autores principales: Bentahila, Lina, Fontaine, Roger, Pennequin, Valérie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8710723/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34966326
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.764360
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author Bentahila, Lina
Fontaine, Roger
Pennequin, Valérie
author_facet Bentahila, Lina
Fontaine, Roger
Pennequin, Valérie
author_sort Bentahila, Lina
collection PubMed
description Many theories have shaped the concept of morality and its development by anchoring it in the realm of the social systems and values of each culture. This review discusses the current formulation of moral theories that attempt to explain cultural factors affecting moral judgment and reasoning. It aims to survey key criticisms that emerged in the past decades. In both cases, we highlight examples of cultural differences in morality, to show that there are cultural patterns of moral cognition in Westerners’ individualistic culture and Easterners’ collectivist culture. It suggests a paradigmatic change in this field by proposing pluralist “moralities” thought to be universal and rooted in the human evolutionary past. Notwithstanding, cultures vary substantially in their promotion and transmission of a multitude of moral reasonings and judgments. Depending on history, religious beliefs, social ecology, and institutional regulations (e.g., kinship structure and economic markets), each society develops a moral system emphasizing several moral orientations. This variability raises questions for normative theories of morality from a cross-cultural perspective. Consequently, we shed light on future descriptive work on morality to identify the cultural characteristics likely to impact the expression or development of reasoning, justification, argumentation, and moral judgment in Westerners’ individualistic culture and Easterners’ collectivist culture.
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spelling pubmed-87107232021-12-28 Universality and Cultural Diversity in Moral Reasoning and Judgment Bentahila, Lina Fontaine, Roger Pennequin, Valérie Front Psychol Psychology Many theories have shaped the concept of morality and its development by anchoring it in the realm of the social systems and values of each culture. This review discusses the current formulation of moral theories that attempt to explain cultural factors affecting moral judgment and reasoning. It aims to survey key criticisms that emerged in the past decades. In both cases, we highlight examples of cultural differences in morality, to show that there are cultural patterns of moral cognition in Westerners’ individualistic culture and Easterners’ collectivist culture. It suggests a paradigmatic change in this field by proposing pluralist “moralities” thought to be universal and rooted in the human evolutionary past. Notwithstanding, cultures vary substantially in their promotion and transmission of a multitude of moral reasonings and judgments. Depending on history, religious beliefs, social ecology, and institutional regulations (e.g., kinship structure and economic markets), each society develops a moral system emphasizing several moral orientations. This variability raises questions for normative theories of morality from a cross-cultural perspective. Consequently, we shed light on future descriptive work on morality to identify the cultural characteristics likely to impact the expression or development of reasoning, justification, argumentation, and moral judgment in Westerners’ individualistic culture and Easterners’ collectivist culture. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-12-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8710723/ /pubmed/34966326 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.764360 Text en Copyright © 2021 Bentahila, Fontaine and Pennequin. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Bentahila, Lina
Fontaine, Roger
Pennequin, Valérie
Universality and Cultural Diversity in Moral Reasoning and Judgment
title Universality and Cultural Diversity in Moral Reasoning and Judgment
title_full Universality and Cultural Diversity in Moral Reasoning and Judgment
title_fullStr Universality and Cultural Diversity in Moral Reasoning and Judgment
title_full_unstemmed Universality and Cultural Diversity in Moral Reasoning and Judgment
title_short Universality and Cultural Diversity in Moral Reasoning and Judgment
title_sort universality and cultural diversity in moral reasoning and judgment
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8710723/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34966326
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.764360
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