Moral conduct and moral character: A psychological perspective.

Abstract

This paper deals with two specific issues: the explanation of moral conduct and the structure of moral character.The purpose of the paper is to describe a new psychological perspective on moral conduct, and to discuss some empirical findings which follow from this perspective.Morality is regarded here as a natural phenomenon which considers understanding of moral behavior to be dependent on knowledge of man's biological and psychological nature.The irrplied assumption is that an evaluative tendency is an integral part of social conduct and, moreover, that moral conduct is social conduct.Definitions are provided for irorality, moral behavior, and moral character.Five important aspects of character development that are pertinent to the explanation of moral behavior are: moral kncwledge, socialization, empathy, the ethics of conscience vs. the ethics ot responsibility, and autonomy.Each of these dimensions is defined in terms of a specific assessment device, and the relationships among the scales are examined.