Graham Jesse, Waytz Adam, Meindl Peter, Iyer Ravi, Young Liane
University of Southern California, United States.
Northwestern University, United States.
Cognition. 2017 Oct;167:58-65. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.12.001. Epub 2016 Dec 19.
The idea of the moral circle pictures the self in the center, surrounded by concentric circles encompassing increasingly distant possible targets of moral concern, including family, local community, nation, all humans, all mammals, all living things including plants, and all things including inanimate objects. The authors develop the idea of two opposing forces in people's moral circles, with centripetal forces pulling inward, urging greater concern for close others than for distant others, and centrifugal forces pushing outward, resisting "drawing the line" anywhere as a form of prejudice and urging egalitarian concern for all regardless of social distance. Review of the developmental literature shows very early emergence of both moral forces, suggesting at least partly intuitive bases for each. Moral education approaches favoring one force over the other are compared, to show how these forces can provide constraints on moral learning. Finally, the centripetal/centrifugal forces view is applied to current moral debates about empathy and about politics. The authors argue that this view helps us see how intercultural and interpersonal disagreements about morality are based in intrapersonal conflicts shared by all people.
道德圈的概念将自我置于中心位置，周围环绕着同心圆，这些同心圆包含了道德关怀对象的范围逐渐扩大，包括家庭、当地社区、国家、全人类、所有哺乳动物、所有生物（包括植物）以及所有事物（包括无生命物体）。作者提出了人们道德圈中两种对立力量的观点，向心力向内拉，促使人们更关心亲近的人而非疏远的人，离心力向外推，抵制在任何地方“划界”这种偏见形式，并促使对所有人不论社会距离给予平等关怀。对发展文献的回顾表明这两种道德力量很早就出现了，这表明它们至少部分基于直觉。比较了偏袒一种力量而非另一种力量的道德教育方法，以展示这些力量如何对道德学习形成制约。最后，向心力/离心力观点被应用于当前关于同理心和政治的道德辩论。作者认为这种观点有助于我们理解关于道德的跨文化和人际分歧是如何基于所有人共有的个人内心冲突的。
