Moral judgment: A theoretical perspective of the concept

Pages: 2056-2060
Harprit Kaur (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab)
Swati (Scientist C, Naval Selection Board Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh)

Morality involves right or wrong actions. Moral judgment is defined as the evaluation of one’s action pertaining to the existing norms of the society for example not stealing and being honest citizen. Most theorists advocate that cognitive processing plays an important role in moral decision making (e.g., Greene, 2009; Haidt & Joseph, 2007; Lapsley, 2010; Kohlberg, 1971). Psychological research on moral judgment for a long time has been dominated by the moral development approach that studies the maturation of moral principles and role of conscious and rational reasoning processes. Opposite to this contemporary models emphasize the role of unconscious and intuitive processes in moral judgment (Haidt, 2007). These social intuitionist models suggest that fast and automatic intuitions are the chief source of moral judgments whereas the conscious deliberations are used as justifications for the judgment which has already been given. This review is an attempt to understand various perspectives on moral judgement.