Is It Good to Be Good? Judging the Relation Between Morality and Self-Interest

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 1:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Moral and Character Education Across Diverse Contexts (Table 10)

Abstract

When morality conflicts with self-interest, is doing what is moral good for oneself? Using semi-structured interviews, this study examined how adolescents, younger adults and older adults perceive the relation between morality and self-interest, both in general and in concrete situations. Preliminary data suggested that most participants across different ages judged that there is congruence between morality and self-interest, but their judgments were sensitive to a) the nature of the moral act (prosocial vs. prohibitive), b) the magnitude of person cost incurred by acting morally, and c) the moral significance of the act.

Author

• Yi Zhou, University of California - Berkeley