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What’s Wrong with Morality?
Abstract
Why do moral people so often fail to act morally? Standard scientific answers point to poor moral judgment (based on deficient character development, reason, or intuition) or to situational pressure. I consider a third possibility: a relative lack of truly moral motivation and emotion. What has been taken for moral motivation is often instead a subtle form of egoism. Recent research provides considerable evidence for moral hypocrisy—motivation to appear moral while, if possible, avoid the cost of actually being moral—but very little evidence for moral integrity—motivation to actually be moral. The lack of truly moral motivation may, in turn, be linked to a lack of truly moral emotion, at least in response to violation of certain moral standards.
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“Specifically, moral outrage typically arises from perceived intentional moral violations involving harm or injustice (Ginther et al., 2021;Haidt, 2003), whereas empathetic anger is more likely to be triggered by harm inflicted on others with whom one has a personal connection with or cares about (Batson, 2011;Hechler & Kessler, 2018).”
From Distinguishing Moral Outrage and Empathetic Anger: Advancing the Triadic Appraisal Framework of Situational Crisis Communication Theory (2026) · cites this paper as Batson, 2011
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Citations
Cites
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Bandura, A. (1999) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0303_3 · Cited by 4,228
Moral Emotions and Moral Behavior
Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. J. (2007) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145 · Cited by 3,222
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“…approach the problem from a social-influence perspective are likely to blame situational pressures—orders from a higher authority (Milgram, 1974), pluralistic ignorance (Latané & Darley, 1968), diffusion of responsibility (Darley & Latané, 1968), organizational norms (Darley, 1992), and the like.”
BackgroundTetlock, P. E., Kristel, O. V., Elson, S. B., Green, M. C., & Lerner, J. S. (2000) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.78.5.853 · Cited by 1,400
Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies.
Latane, B., & Darley, J. M. (1968) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0026570 · Cited by 1,252 · cited 1×
“…approach the problem from a social-influence perspective are likely to blame situational pressures—orders from a higher authority (Milgram, 1974), pluralistic ignorance (Latané & Darley, 1968), diffusion of responsibility (Darley & Latané, 1968), organizational norms (Darley, 1992), and the like.”
BackgroundIn a very different voice: Unmasking moral hypocrisy.
Batson, C. D., Kobrynowicz, D., Dinnerstein, J. L., Kampf, H. C., & Wilson, A. D. (1997) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.72.6.1335 · Cited by 317 · cited 2×
“Batson et al. (1997) used this simple dilemma to unmask the nature of moral motivation by introducing ambiguity (wiggle room) into the link between moral appearance and reality, allowing individuals to pursue self-interest without having to look selfish (Snyder, Kleck, Strenta, & Mentzer, 1979).”
MethodSelf-citation
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Cited by
Does moral identity effectively predict moral behavior?: A meta-analysis
Hertz, S. G., & Krettenauer, T. (2016) · Review of General Psychology · doi:10.1037/gpr0000062 · Cited by 401
Horberg, E. J., Oveis, C., & Keltner, D. (2011) · Emotion Review · doi:10.1177/1754073911402384 · Cited by 339
Niu, R., Eng, N., & Jin, Y. (2026) · Journal of Public Relations Research · doi:10.1080/1062726x.2026.2667179 · Cited by 2
Metadata
- Authors
- Batson, C. D.
- Affiliations
- Knoxville, Tennessee, USA,
- Venue
- Emotion Review
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2011-06-28
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 230-236
- ISSN
- 1754-0739
- 1754-0747
- Cited by
- 61
- References
- 7
- Language
- en
- Licence
- journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
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