Social cognitive theory of moral thought and action.

Abstract

Principles Skeletonized abstract principles do not provide much guidance for judgment or action until they are fleshed out with relevant details of concrete situations that are inevitably laden with evaluative biases. For purposes of illustration, consider the example given by Peters (1971) on judging what is just payment for service rendered under a given set of circumstances. The abstract principle of justness does not yield a uniform answer. For instance, what is a just fee for a surgeon? Different people can arrive at different judgments from the same principle of justness, depending on what factors they consider relevant and how they weight them: such as the amount and expense of past training required, operating costs, the price of malpractice insurance, the effort and risks involved, the surgeon's financial needs, the benefits to patients, the patients' financial status, and the like. The judgmental thicket becomes even more ensnarled if social comparative information of remuner...