Course description

This course surveys recent scientific research about the psychology of moral judgment. Moral psychology examines how people make judgments of appropriate behavior. Many scientific disciplines inform this domain, including social psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, ethology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, robotics & artificial intelligence, and brain science. This is not a course about religion, nor is it a course about the philosophy of ethics. This course is about the psychological mechanisms of moral judgment as it is, not a course about what correct judgments ought to be.

Required readings

This is a readings-and-discussion course. Each day focuses on specific book chapters or articles. Students are expected to actively discuss the readings in class. The list of readings is presented in the schedule, below. Some of the readings address sensitive topics involving violence, sexuality, or disgust, and there are no alternative readings or assignments. If you are not willing to read about and discuss such topics, please do not enroll in the course.

Please purchase these books:

  • Haidt (2012): The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion.

  • Tomasello (2016): A natural history of human morality.

  • Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions.

All required articles will be posted in Canvas.

The required readings have changed from from year to year. A list of readings accumulated across previous years is shown at the end of this document.

Schedule of topics and readings

The schedule below is the plan as of Jan 04, 2022. The exact dates or readings may change as the semester progresses. Any changes will be announced in class and on Canvas.

Week Day What
1 Tu Welcome and course overview. Moral judgment in everyday life: the case of offensive comedy. WWYD video. The Atlantic article.
1 Th Quiz. Chaurand & Brauer (2008): What determines social control? people’s reactions to counternormative behaviors in urban environments.
2 Tu Quiz. Haidt (2012): The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion: Intro., 1, 2.
There are many Haidt videos online, here are two. Haidt talks about part II of the book, especially starting at 25 minutes. Haidt talks about part III of the book.
2 Th Quiz. Haidt (2012): The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion: 3, 4.
3 Tu Quiz. Haidt (2012): The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion: 5, 6.
3 Th Quiz. Haidt (2012): The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion: 7, 8.
4 Tu Quiz. Haidt (2012): The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion: 9, 10.
4 Th Quiz. Haidt (2012): The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion: 11, 12, Conclusion.
5 Tu Quiz. Janoff-Bulman & Carnes (2013b): Surveying the moral landscape: moral motives and group-based moralities.
Janoff-Bulman talks about MMM and politics.
5 Th Review.
6 Tu Exam.
6 Th Quiz. Tomasello (2016): A natural history of human morality: Preface and 1.
Tomasello summarizes the book. See also Tomasello (2018a): Precis of a natural history of human morality, and Tomasello (2018b): Response to commentators.
7 Tu Quiz. Tomasello (2016): A natural history of human morality: 2.
7 Th Quiz. Tomasello (2016): A natural history of human morality: 3.
8 Tu Quiz. Tomasello (2016): A natural history of human morality: 4.
8 Th Quiz. Tomasello (2016): A natural history of human morality: 5, Conclusion.
9 Tu Quiz. Lahti (2013): Twelve (more) things about the evolution of morality that make people nauseous.
Lahti talks about this essay. Also today: Review.
9 Th Exam.
Break
10 Tu Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: Intro, Part 1 intro, 1, 2, 3.
See also the Ethics Unwrapped website.
10 Th Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 4, 5, 6.
11 Tu Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 7, 8.
11 Th Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 9, 10.
12 Tu Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 11. Also: Rai & Fiske (2011): Moral psychology is relationship regulation: moral motives for unity, hierarchy, equality, and proportionality.
12 Th Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 12, 13.
13 Tu Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 14, 15.
13 Th Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 16, 17.
14 Tu Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 18, 19.
14 Th Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 20, 21.
15 Tu Quiz. Biasucci & Prentice (2021): Behavioral ethics in practice: why we sometimes make the wrong decisions: 22, 23.
15 Th Review and Overview.
Finals Final Exam, see registrar info for date and time

Learning Objectives

The items below do not exhaust everything to learn from this course, but here are at least a few key points.

  • Be able to identify, define, describe, and explain the central ideas, including:
    • What is human morality for? What are the many competing obligations involved?
    • What psychological mechanisms (emotional and cognitive) have evolved to support those functions?
  • Be able to apply, analyze, and evaluate those ideas for specific applied cases (e.g., public reprimands, corporate cover ups, charitable giving, etc.).
    • What are some ways to “improve” moral behavior?
    • What are some ways to reduce moralistic disagreements?

Grading procedure

Quizzes

Most classes begin with a short quiz about that day’s reading. The purpose of the quiz is to motivate you to prepare for in-class discussion and to recognize your preparation. Each day’s quiz consists of a small number of short-answer or multiple choice questions relevant to that day’s reading. The quiz starts promptly at the beginning of class. Each quiz is worth up to 10 points.

Your lowest 4 quiz scores will be dropped. Thus, if you must miss a day because of illness or personal reasons, that day simply counts as a zero and will be one of your 4 dropped scores. There are no make-up quizzes for missed days. The only way that a make-up for a missed quiz could be considered is if you had to miss more than 4 quiz days for reasons beyond your control, in which case notify Prof. Kruschke as soon as possible.

Exams

There are 3 exams. The purpose of the exams is to help you retrospectively synthesize the readings. Each exam will focus mostly on material from the immediately preceding part of the course, but there will be some questions that comprehensively integrate across all previous material. Each exam is worth 100 points, for 300 points total. All exams are mandatory. Make-up exams are given only if you had to miss an exam for reasons beyond your control, in which case you must notify Prof. Kruschke immediately and in advance if possible.

Research proposal

Graduate students enrolled in P640, but not undergraduates in P484, will compose a research proposal based on the course readings. The proposal should include an introduction that explains how the course readings motivate the proposed research and what novel contribution would be provided by the research. The proposal should explain the methods and procedures of the proposed research, and how they relate to the course readings. The proposal should also explain anticipated results and what type of statistical procedures might be used. The proposal does not need to include simulated (or actual) data or statistical analyzes. The proposal should not exceed 5,000 words. The proposal will count as 15% of the final course grade.

Course grade

Letter grades in P484 are based on your total points, as a percentile relative to other students in the course. Percentiles are established for P484 separately from P640. There are no pre-set point cutoffs for specific letter grades, nor is there a pre-set quota for how many students can receive A’s or B’s, etc. Past experience suggests that there will be approximately 30% A’s, 40% B’s, 25% C’s, and 5% D’s. For P640, grades will be assigned as is typical for a graduate readings course.

Information online: Canvas

Our online hub for the course is IU Canvas (https://canvas.iu.edu/). If you do not have access to Canvas, please notify Prof. Kruschke immediately. All announcements and discussion will be consolidated into the P484 Canvas site, therefore students who are enrolled in P640 will be given access to the P484 Canvas site.

Contact

Instructor

Prof. John Kruschke, . Office hours by appointment; please do ask. Meetings may be held via Zoom.

Assistant

Please see info in Canvas.

Disclaimer

All information in this document is subject to change. Changes will be announced in class.

University Policies

Academic Integrity

As a student at IU, you are expected to adhere to the standards detailed in the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct (Code). Academic misconduct is defined as any activity that tends to undermine the academic integrity of the institution. Violations include: cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, interference, violation of course rules, and facilitating academic dishonesty. When you submit an assignment with your name on it, you are signifying that the work contained therein is yours, unless otherwise cited or referenced. Any ideas or materials taken from another source for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged. All suspected violations of the Code will be reported to the Dean of Students and handled according to University policies. Sanctions for academic misconduct may include a failing grade on the assignment, reduction in your final course grade, and a failing grade in the course, among other possibilities. If you are unsure about the expectations for completing an assignment or taking a test or exam, be sure to seek clarification from your instructor in advance.

Note Selling (Don’t)

Several commercial services have approached students regarding selling class notes/study guides to their classmates. Selling the instructor’s notes/study guides in this course is not permitted. Violations of this policy will be reported to the Dean of Students as academic misconduct (violation of course rules). Sanctions for academic misconduct may include a failing grade on the assignment for which the notes/study guides are being sold, a reduction in your final course grade, or a failing grade in the course, among other possibilities. Additionally, you should know that selling a faculty member’s notes/study guides individually or on behalf of one of these services using IU email, or via Canvas may also constitute a violation of IU information technology and IU intellectual property policies; additional consequences may result.

Online Course Materials

The faculty member teaching this course holds the exclusive right to distribute, modify, post, and reproduce course materials, including all written materials, study guides, lectures, assignments, exercises, and exams. While you are permitted to take notes on the online materials and lectures posted for this course for your personal use, you are not permitted to re-post in another forum, distribute, or reproduce content from this course without the express written permission of the faculty member. Any violation of this course rule will be reported to the appropriate university offices and officials, including to the Dean of Students as academic misconduct.

Cumulative list of readings 2015-present

Allen, C., Wallach, W., & Smit, I. (2006). Why machine ethics? IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(4), 12–17. https://doi.org/10.1109/MIS.2006.83
Bartels, D. M., Bauman, C. W., Cushman, F. A., Pizarro, D. A., & McGraw, A. P. (2015). Moral judgment and decision making. The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making, 63, 478–515.
Batson, C. D. (2011). What’s wrong with morality? Emotion Review, 3(3), 230–236.
Batson, C. D. (2016). What’s wrong with morality? Oxford University Press.
Biasucci, C., & Prentice, R. (2021). Behavioral ethics in practice: Why we sometimes make the wrong decisions. Routledge.
Bloom, P. (2013). Just babies: The origins of good and evil. Broadway Books.
Celestin, B. D., & Kruschke, J. K. (2019). Lay evaluations of police and civilian use of force: Action severity scales. Law and Human Behavior, 43(3), 290.
Chaurand, N., & Brauer, M. (2008). What determines social control? People’s reactions to counternormative behaviors in urban environments. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(7), 1689–1715. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00365.x
Chudek, M., & Henrich, J. (2011). Culture-gene coevolution, norm psychology and the emergence of human prosociality. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(5), 218–226.
Cushman, F., Dreber, A., Wang, Y., & Costa, J. (2009). Accidental outcomes guide punishment in a “trembling hand” game. PloS One, 4(8), e6699.
DeScioli, P., & Kurzban, R. (2013). A solution to the mysteries of morality. Psychological Bulletin, 139(2), 477–496.
Fiske, A. P. (2002). Socio-moral emotions motivate action to sustain relationships. Self and Identity, 1(2), 169–175.
Fiske, A. P., & Rai, T. S. (2015). Virtuous violence. Cambridge University Press.
Giessner, S., & Van Quaquebeke, N. (2010). Using a relational models perspective to understand normatively appropriate conduct in ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(1), 43–55.
Gigerenzer, G. (2010). Moral satisficing: Rethinking moral behavior as bounded rationality. Topics in Cognitive Science, 2(3), 528–554.
Goodwin, G. P. (2015). Moral character in person perception. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(1), 38–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414550709
Graham, J. (2013). Mapping the moral maps: From alternate taxonomies to competing predictions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17(3), 237–241.
Graham, J., Haidt, J., & Nosek, B. A. (2009). Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(5), 1029.
Gray, K., Schein, C., & Ward, A. F. (2014). The myth of harmless wrongs in moral cognition: Automatic dyadic completion from sin to suffering. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(4), 1600–1615.
Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Pantheon.
Haidt, J., & Kesebir, S. (2010). Morality. In S. Fiske, D. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology, 5th edition (pp. 797–832). Wiley.
Hamlin, J. K. (2013). Failed attempts to help and harm: Intention versus outcome in preverbal infants’ social evaluations. Cognition, 128(3), 451–474.
Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K., Bloom, P., & Mahajan, N. (2011). How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(50), 19931–19936.
Herrmann, E., Call, J., Hernández-Lloreda, M. V., Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Humans have evolved specialized skills of social cognition: The cultural intelligence hypothesis. Science, 317(5843), 1360–1366.
Hofmann, W., Wisneski, D. C., Brandt, M. J., & Skitka, L. J. (2014). Morality in everyday life. Science, 345(6202), 1340–1343. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1251560
Huebner, B., Dwyer, S., & Hauser, M. (2009). The role of emotion in moral psychology. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.09.006
Janoff-Bulman, R., & Carnes, N. C. (2013a). Moral context matters: A reply to graham. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17(3), 242–247.
Janoff-Bulman, R., & Carnes, N. C. (2013b). Surveying the moral landscape: Moral motives and group-based moralities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17(3), 219–236.
Janoff-Bulman, R., & Carnes, N. C. (2016). Social justice and social order: Binding moralities across the political spectrum. PloS One, 11(3), e0152479.
Keupp, S., Behne, T., & Rakoczy, H. (2013). Why do children overimitate? Normativity is crucial. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116(2), 392–406.
Lahti, D. C. (2013). Twelve (more) things about the evolution of morality that make people nauseous. In K. Summers & B. Crespi (Eds.), Human social evolution: The foundational works of Richard D. Alexander (pp. 307–325).
Lahti, D. C., & Weinstein, B. S. (2005). The better angels of our nature: Group stability and the evolution of moral tension. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26(1), 47–63.
Landy, J. F., & Uhlmann, E. L. (2018). Morality is personal. In K. Gray & J. Graham (Eds.), Atlas of moral psychology (pp. 121–132). Guilford Press.
Liddell, T. M., & Kruschke, J. K. (2014). Ostracism and fines in a public goods game with accidental contributions: The importance of punishment type. Judgment and Decision Making, 9(6), 523–547. https://sjdm.org/journal/14/14721a/jdm14721a.pdf
Malle, B. F., & Scheutz, M. (2014). Moral competence in social robots. 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Science, Technology and Engineering, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1109/ETHICS.2014.6893446
McCullough, M. E., Kurzban, R., & Tabak, B. A. (2013). Cognitive systems for revenge and forgiveness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36, 1–15.
Rai, T. S., & Fiske, A. P. (2011). Moral psychology is relationship regulation: Moral motives for unity, hierarchy, equality, and proportionality. Psychological Review, 118(1), 57–75. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021867
Rakoczy, H., & Schmidt, M. F. H. (2013). The early ontogeny of social norms. Child Development Perspectives, 7(1), 17–21.
Sloane, S., Baillargeon, R., & Premack, D. (2012). Do infants have a sense of fairness? Psychological Science, 23(2), 196–204.
Sloman, S. A., Fernbach, P. M., & Ewing, S. (2009). Causal models: The representational infrastructure for moral judgment. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 50, 1–26.
Sripada, C. S., & Stich, S. (2006). A framework for the psychology of norms. In P. Carruthers, S. Laurence, & S. Stich (Eds.), The innate mind, vol. 2: Culture and cognition (pp. 280–301). Oxford University Press.
Tomasello, M. (2016). A natural history of human morality. Harvard University Press.
Tomasello, M. (2018a). Precis of a natural history of human morality. Philosophical Psychology, 31(5), 661–668. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2018.1486605
Tomasello, M. (2018b). Response to commentators. Philosophical Psychology, 31(5), 817–829. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2018.1486604
Uhlmann, E. L., Pizarro, D. A., & Diermeier, D. (2015). A person-centered approach to moral judgment. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(1), 72–81.
Uttich, K., & Lombrozo, T. (2010). Norms inform mental state ascriptions: A rational explanation for the side-effect effect. Cognition, 116(1), 87–100.
Waldmann, M. R., Nagel, J., & Wiegmann, A. (2012). Moral judgment. In K. J. Holyoak & R. G. Morrison (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of thinking and reasoning (pp. 364–389). Oxford University Press.
Wegner, D. M., & Gray, K. (2016). The mind club: Who thinks, what feels, and why it matters. Penguin Books.
Wilson, D. S. (2015). Does altruism exist? Yale University Press.