Moral decisions often involve dilemmas: cases of conflict between competing obligations. In two studies (N = 204), we ask whether children appreciate that reasoning through dilemmas involves acknowledging that there is no single, simple solution. In Study 1, 5- to 8-year-old US children were randomly assigned to a Moral Dilemma condition, in which…

Young children show remarkably sophisticated abilities to evaluate others. Yet their abilities to engage in proportional moral evaluation undergoes protracted development. Namely, young children evaluate someone who shares "absolutely" more as being "nicer" than someone who shares "proportionally" more (e.g., sharing…

This paper provides a retrospective and prospective overview of TU Delft's approach to engineering ethics education. For over twenty years, the Ethics and Philosophy of Technology Section at TU Delft has been at the forefront of engineering ethics education, offering education to a wide range of engineering and design students. The approach…

What does it take know a moral truth or principle? Although testimony is an undisputed source of empirical knowledge of contingent facts, it is less clear whether it is possible to acquire "second-hand moral knowledge" (Jones, 1999; Wolff, 1998). In the present studies, 3- to 5-year-old Chinese (N = 124) and U.S. American (N = 90)…

The integration of decision-making competence or comparable constructs into science education has been strongly enforced during the last twenty years. Germany captured the tendency with the introduction of national standards for science education that included a domain that refers to decision-making competence. This domain--"evaluation and…

The purpose of this study is to investigate relevant factors in adolescents' decision-making when presented with opportunities to participate in civic and political activities. Sixty-one CA high school seniors were presented with hypothetical scenarios in which a young person is asked to give up time to participate in activities to address issues…

This study examined undergraduate information technology (IT) students' (N = 122) level of ethical reasoning and decision making at a Midwestern university. The purpose was to determine whether IT students' level of ethical reasoning provided information about the degree of their ethical decision making. The Defining Issues Test-2 (DIT-2) was used…

Although it is often useful to accept students' value statements nonjudgmentally, values clarification theory recommends that teachers go beyond moral leadership and help students learn to think through their personal values and understand what it takes to live a value-directed life. Methods to promote and clarify our "heritage of moral values"…

People can use a variety of different strategies to perform tasks and these strategies all have two characteristics in common. First, they can be evaluated in comparison with either an absolute or a relative standard. Second, they can be used at varying levels of consistency. In the present article, the authors develop a general theory of task…

Failure to separate judicial reasoning (the application of rules) from legislative reasoning (the justification of rules) in earlier studies is claimed to invalidate most previous developmental research using moral dilemma interviews. Two studies used a novel method of scoring moral dilemma interviews that separates judicial from legislative…

The role of narrative and dramatic processes in mediating and shaping both moral judgment and moral action, two processes central to moral development, is examined. The notion of the "moral audience," in which individuals seem to rehearse, review, and redefine their moral actions, is proposed and illustrated. (LB)

A study examined the effect of attitude toward capital punishment on the evaluation of evidence and the determination of guilt. Subjects were 224 undergraduate students who read a description of a murder. They then received two, four, or six items of evidence relevant to the defendant's guilt. Subjects were asked to determine a verdict and…

Presents results of a study of English children's ability to consider the relevance of planning with regard to both good and bad deeds. Shows evidence that children are more likely to consider a reward for planning when judging good than bad deeds, reflecting children's experience of adults' views of relevance of planning. (DK)

Suggests that attempts to segregate social-conventional reasoning from the moral domain may represent an artificial division ignoring major philosophic and psychological traditions. Discusses the individual, social, and relational dimensions of morality and the cultural context of moral development. Calls for continuing narrative and…

Given the moral nature of public schools and the numerous moral dilemmas faced by school administrators, training in ethics should be included in administrator preparation curricula. After discussing the public school as a moral institution, this document explains normative ethics and outlines the differences between moral and nonmoral judgments.…