Personality Structure and Moral Development: Exploring the Interface
MAIS special topics course inter-disciplinary between psychology and
philosophy
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines moral psychology as follows
Moral psychology investigates human functioning in moral contexts, and asks how these
results may impact debate in ethical theory. This work is necessarily interdisciplinary,
drawing on both the empirical resources of the human sciences and the conceptual
resources of philosophical ethics.
(Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, downloaded April 3rd, 2008)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-psych-emp
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Proposed Course Description:
There are many theories of personality but scattered within these theories are only
occasional glimmers of the connections between personality and personal morality. Yet,
intriguing relationships are just waiting to be discovered. Terms deeply embedded in our
lexicon speak to the same issue but with very different meanings. A moralist, for
example, might see a capable but low productivity person as lazy or lacking in will power
whereas a psychologist might see the same person as fearing failure, ‘a-motivational’ due
to brain damage, as a victim of a familial pattern of hopelessness and defeat reaching
back generations or as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder to the point where he
or she can only feel safe when not engaged in the world in a meaningfully focused
manner.
There are many other examples which could be looked at from an inter-disciplinary
perspective. Are insecure people, those who perhaps have not received the nurturing
they needed at a vulnerable age, more likely to be greedy about food or sex or
possessions than others? What about gossip? Is gossiping a free choice, an ethical issue,
or a pre-programmed and thus pre-determined response, a psychological issue?
Psychology in general has been less interested in looking at value-laden terms and trying
to make sense of them than philosophy. Terms like ‘morality’ and ‘character’, for
example, might seem difficult or impossible to analyze in psychological language.
However, it might be possible to deconstruct less global terms and concepts in such a
way as to render them psychologically meaningful. For example, one might examine
questions such as the following: Why are some people jealous and envious while others
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are not? Who would steal or lie and under what circumstances? Why are some of us
proud and self-righteous while others are humble and generous of spirit, and do those
‘character’ sets always go together? Why, in essence, is it easier for each of us to adhere
to certain parts of our chosen moral code (e.g. the 10 commandments; the moral system
of Islam) than others?
Students in this course will approach these issues and others in an inter-disciplinary
manner but from a psychological perspective. Moral Psychology as an area of study has
been approached independently by Philosophy and Psychology. Studies in ethics and
how to live the right life go back as far as Aristotle with his musings on character, and
beyond. By contrast, psychologists only began to consider moral development as a
potentially separate area of study in the 20th century (stages of moral development:
Piaget, 1929; Kohlberg, 1958). And it was only when Stanley Milgram’s social
psychology experiments of the 1960’s and 1970’s were published that the field really
began to develop.
Course Requirements:
In order to benefit from this course, students will need a solid, undergraduate background
in relevant areas of psychology (e.g. abnormal; developmental) or philosophy (e.g. ethics,
epistemology). Ideally, the student should have some formal exposure to both areas.
However, that will not always be the case.
To ensure a common knowledge base, students will begin by doing in-depth reviews of
both of the core texts, worth 20% for each one.
They will then focus on one other assignment chosen by them (and approved) or taken
from the list and will search the available literature on this from both fields of study to
produce a truly inter-disciplinary research paper. (value – 60%)
The ultimate goal will be to determine how effectively material from both disciplines can
be interwoven to enhance and further develop an understanding of a particular moral
issue.
Following are some sample questions that might be explored in essay format with
material that crosses over both disciplines:
I. Is the parent who loves his/her children too much really a covert narcissist? What is
‘love’ anyway?
2. Is laziness a psychological problem rooted in fear of failure, or a character defect
rooted in lack of “willpower”, or both at different times and in different situations?
3. Is malicious gossip (slander), i.e. speaking ill of others behind their backs, rooted in
1. lack of assertiveness/fear of confrontation
2. low self-esteem and the need to put others down in order to put oneself up?
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3. laziness; the ‘idle tongues’ phenomenon?
4. a ‘mean’, ‘spiteful’, ‘jealous’ ‘nature’?
5. all of the above?
4. When does love of power become immoral? Does “power corrupt and absolute
power corrupt absolutely”? One might start by reading Plato’s ‘Republic’.
5. Students will also be encouraged to come up with their own moral questions to pursue
(following instructor approval)
Course Materials:
Main Texts:
Deigh, John (1992) Ethics and Personality: Essays in Moral Psychology.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Doris, John M. (2002) Lack of Character: Personality, Moral Behavior.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(John Doris is a philosopher and John Deigh is a psychologist)
Pivato, Emma. (2008) Personality Structure and Moral Development: Exploring the Interface. In
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, Volume 3, Issue 9, pp. 195-200.
Supplementary Reading List:
Arpaly, Nomy (2004) Unprincipled Virtue: An Inquiry Into Moral Agency. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Nichols, Shaun. (2007) Sentimental Rules: On the Natural Foundations of Moral
Judgment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jesse Prinz (2007) The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. (Ed.) (2007-08) Moral Psychology: Volumes 1-3
Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press (Bradford Books)
Volume 1 - The Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness
Volume 2 - The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity
Volume 3 – The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders and
Development.
Tancredi, Laurence (2005) Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Reveals about
Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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