The Silver Legion of America , commonly known as the Silver Shirts , was an American fascist and pro- Nazi organization which was founded by William Dudley Pelley and headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina .
124-545: Pelley was a former journalist, novelist and screenwriter turned spiritualist who began to promote antisemitic views by 1931, including the belief that Jews were possessed by demons . He formed the Silver Legion with the goal of bringing about a "spiritual and political renewal", inspired by the success of Adolf Hitler 's Nazi movement in Germany. A nationalist , fascist group, the paramilitary Silver Legion wore
248-556: A code of conduct from a particular philosophy , religion or culture , or it can derive from a standard that is understood to be universal . Morality may also be specifically synonymous with " goodness ", "appropriateness" or "rightness". Moral philosophy includes meta-ethics , which studies abstract issues such as moral ontology and moral epistemology , and normative ethics , which studies more concrete systems of moral decision-making such as deontological ethics and consequentialism . An example of normative ethical philosophy
372-576: A materialist orientation and rejected organized religion. In 1854 the utopian socialist Robert Owen was converted to spiritualism after "sittings" with the American medium Maria B. Hayden (credited with introducing spiritualism to England); Owen made a public profession of his new faith in his publication The Rational Quarterly Review and later wrote a pamphlet, "The future of the Human race; or great glorious and future revolution to be effected through
496-497: A superstitious piety and devotion; Hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere." Religious value-systems can be used to justify acts that are contrary to general contemporary morality, such as massacres , misogyny and slavery . For example, Simon Blackburn states that "apologists for Hinduism defend or explain away its involvement with
620-562: A career out of painting the dead or "spirit portraits". Mina Crandon (1888–1941), a spiritualist medium in the 1920s, was known for producing an ectoplasm hand during her séances. The hand was later exposed as a trick when biologists found it to be made from a piece of carved animal liver. In 1934, the psychical researcher Walter Franklin Prince described the Crandon case as "the most ingenious, persistent, and fantastic complex of fraud in
744-476: A certain degree others such as Sikhism and Zoroastrianism , define right and wrong by the laws and rules as set forth by their respective scriptures and as interpreted by religious leaders within each respective faith. Other religions spanning pantheistic to nontheistic tend to be less absolute. For example, within Buddhism , the intention of the individual and the circumstances should be accounted for in
868-559: A dubious Marie Curie . Thomas Edison wanted to develop a "spirit phone", an ethereal device that would summon to the living the voices of the dead and record them for posterity. The claims of spiritualists and others as to the reality of spirits were investigated by the Society for Psychical Research , founded in London in 1882. The society set up a Committee on Haunted Houses. Prominent investigators who exposed cases of fraud came from
992-525: A group may depend on widespread conformity to codes of morality; an inability to adjust moral codes in response to new challenges is sometimes credited with the demise of a community (a positive example would be the function of Cistercian reform in reviving monasticism; a negative example would be the role of the Dowager Empress in the subjugation of China to European interests). Within nationalist movements, there has been some tendency to feel that
1116-523: A house believed to be haunted by the ghosts of three murder victims seeking revenge against their killer's son, who was eventually driven insane. Many families, "having no faith in ghosts", thereafter moved into the house, but all soon moved out again. In the 1920s many "psychic" books were published of varied quality. Such books were often based on excursions initiated by the use of Ouija boards . A few of these popular books displayed unorganized spiritualism, though most were less insightful. The movement
1240-591: A long history of exposing the fraudulent methods of mediumship. During the 1920s, professional magician Harry Houdini undertook a well-publicised campaign to expose fraudulent mediums; he was adamant that "Up to the present time everything that I have investigated has been the result of deluded brains." Other magician or magic-author debunkers of spiritualist mediumship have included Chung Ling Soo , Henry Evans , Julien Proskauer , Fulton Oursler , Joseph Dunninger , and Joseph Rinn . In February 1921 Thomas Lynn Bradford , in an experiment designed to ascertain
1364-548: A moral judgment. According to such investigations, TMS did not disrupt participants' ability to make any moral judgment. On the contrary, moral judgments of intentional harms and non-harms were unaffected by TMS to either the RTPJ or the control site; presumably, however, people typically make moral judgments of intentional harms by considering not only the action's harmful outcome but the agent's intentions and beliefs. So why were moral judgments of intentional harms not affected by TMS to
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#17327727456701488-414: A moral judgment. Moral reasoning is controlled and less affective than moral intuition. When making moral judgments, humans perform moral reasoning to support their initial intuitive feeling. However, there are three ways humans can override their immediate intuitive response. The first way is conscious verbal reasoning (for example, examining costs and benefits). The second way is reframing a situation to see
1612-470: A nation will not survive or prosper without acknowledging one common morality, regardless of its content. Political morality is also relevant to the behavior internationally of national governments, and to the support they receive from their host population. The Sentience Institute , co-founded by Jacy Reese Anthis , analyzes the trajectory of moral progress in society via the framework of an expanding moral circle. Noam Chomsky states that ... if we adopt
1736-424: A new perspective or consequence, which triggers a different intuition. Finally, one can talk to other people which illuminates new arguments. In fact, interacting with other people is the cause of most moral change. The brain areas that are consistently involved when humans reason about moral issues have been investigated by multiple quantitative large-scale meta-analyses of the brain activity changes reported in
1860-417: A religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides." Within the wide range of moral traditions, religious value-systems co-exist with contemporary secular frameworks such as consequentialism , freethought , humanism , utilitarianism , and others. There are many types of religious value-systems. Modern monotheistic religions, such as Islam , Judaism , Christianity , and to
1984-447: A sense of fairness. In related work, it has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts. They also possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social politics prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip and reputation management . Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized that the incremental development of moral complexity throughout hominid evolution
2108-460: A series of intense mystical experiences, dreams, and visions, claiming that he had been called by God to reform Christianity and introduce a new church." Mesmer did not contribute religious beliefs, but he brought a technique, later known as hypnotism , that it was claimed could induce trances and cause subjects to report contact with supernatural beings. There was a great deal of professional showmanship inherent to demonstrations of Mesmerism , and
2232-642: A series of séances at Duncan's house and took flash photographs of Duncan and her alleged "materialization" spirits, including her spirit guide "Peggy". The photographs revealed the "spirits" to have been fraudulently produced, using dolls made from painted papier-mâché masks, draped in old sheets. Duncan was later tested by Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research ; photographs revealed Duncan's ectoplasm to be made from cheesecloth , rubber gloves, and cut-out heads from magazine covers. Spiritualists reacted with an uncertainty to
2356-407: A shared neural network for both tasks. The results of this meta-analysis, however, also demonstrated that the processing of moral input is affected by task demands. Regarding the issues of morality in video games, some scholars believe that because players appear in video games as actors, they maintain a distance between their sense of self and the role of the game in terms of imagination. Therefore,
2480-403: A shocking moral violation may involve quick, affect-laden processes. Nonetheless, certain cognitive skills such as being able to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions to oneself, and others is a common feature of a broad range of prototypical situations. In line with this, a meta-analysis found overlapping activity between moral emotion and moral reasoning tasks, suggesting
2604-405: A significant number of individuals (not necessarily all) in a society. It does not connote objective claims of right or wrong, but only refers to claims of right and wrong that are seen to be made and to conflicts between different claims made. Descriptive ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. In its normative sense, "morality" refers to whatever (if anything)
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#17327727456702728-519: A single Heaven, but rather a series of higher and lower heavens and hells; second, that spirits are intermediates between God and humans, so that the divine sometimes uses them as a means of communication. Although Swedenborg warned against seeking out spirit contact, his works seem to have inspired in others the desire to do so. Swedenborg was formerly a highly regarded inventor and scientist, achieving several engineering innovations and studying physiology and anatomy. Then, "in 1741, he also began to have
2852-616: A study of Indian ghosts in seances: Undoubtedly, on some level spiritualists recognized the Indian spectres that appeared at seances as a symbol of the sins and subsequent guilt of the United States in its dealings with Native Americans. Spiritualists were literally haunted by the presence of Indians. But for many that guilt was not assuaged: rather, in order to confront the haunting and rectify it, they were galvanized into action. The political activism of spiritualists on behalf of Indians
2976-568: A type of séance in which spirits were said to communicate with people seated around a table by tilting and rotating the table. By 1897, spiritualism was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe, mostly drawn from the middle and upper classes . Spiritualism was mainly a middle- and upper-class movement, and especially popular with women. American spiritualists would meet in private homes for séances, at lecture halls for trance lectures, at state or national conventions, and at summer camps attended by thousands. Among
3100-496: A uniform modeled after the Nazi's brown shirts (SA), consisting of a silver shirt with a blue tie, along with a campaign hat and blue corduroy trousers with leggings . The uniform shirts bore a scarlet letter L over the heart, which according to Pelley was "standing for Love, Loyalty, and Liberation." The blocky slab serif L -emblem was in a typeface similar to the present-day Rockwell Extra Bold . The organizational flag
3224-843: A variety of backgrounds, including professional researchers such as Frank Podmore of the Society for Psychical Research and Harry Price of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research , and professional conjurers such as John Nevil Maskelyne . Maskelyne exposed the Davenport brothers by appearing in the audience during their shows and explaining how the trick was done. The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington exposed fraudulent mediums' tricks, such as those used in slate-writing, table-turning , trumpet mediumship, materializations, sealed-letter reading, and spirit photography . The skeptic Joseph McCabe , in his book Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? (1920), documented many fraudulent mediums and their tricks. Magicians and writers on magic have
3348-438: Is actually right or wrong, which may be independent of the values or mores held by any particular peoples or cultures. Normative ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. Philosophical theories on the nature and origins of morality (that is, theories of meta-ethics ) are broadly divided into two classes: Some forms of non-cognitivism and ethical subjectivism , while considered anti-realist in
3472-1070: Is a process closely tied to sociocultural evolution . Some evolutionary biologists , particularly sociobiologists , believe that morality is a product of evolutionary forces acting at an individual level and also at the group level through group selection (although to what degree this actually occurs is a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Some sociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitute morality evolved largely because they provided possible survival or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success). Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelings of empathy or guilt, in response to these moral behaviors. On this understanding, moralities are sets of self-perpetuating and biologically driven behaviors which encourage human cooperation . Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining immediate selfishness in order to improve their evolutionary fitness. Human morality, although sophisticated and complex relative to
3596-619: Is also helpful at the individual level for the passing on of one's genes. For example, a mother who favors her own children more highly than the children of other people will give greater resources to her children than she will to strangers', thus heightening her children's chances of survival and her own gene's chances of being perpetuated. Due to this, within a population, there is substantial selection pressure exerted toward this kind of self-interest, such that eventually, all parents wind up favoring their own children (the in-group) over other children (the out-group). Peterson and Seligman approach
3720-439: Is an illusion. Lastly, the authors explain a basic psychological mechanism that uses two well-established phenomena (distorted exposure to information and distorted memory of information) to cause the illusion of moral decline. The authors present studies that validate some of the predictions about the circumstances in which the perception of moral decline is attenuated, eliminated, or reversed (e.g., when participants are asked about
3844-596: Is best known as a chronicler of the movement's spread, especially in her 1884 Nineteenth Century Miracles: Spirits and Their Work in Every Country of the Earth , and her 1870 Modern American Spiritualism , a detailed account of claims and investigations of mediumship beginning with the earliest days of the movement. William Stainton Moses (1839–92) was an Anglican clergyman who, in the period from 1872 to 1883, filled 24 notebooks with automatic writing, much of which
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3968-445: Is degraded or unavailable, moral judgments are shifted toward other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). For intentional harms and non-harms, however, the outcome suggests the same moral judgment as to the intention. Thus, the researchers suggest that TMS to the RTPJ disrupted the processing of negative beliefs for both intentional harms and attempted harms, but the current design allowed the investigators to detect this effect only in
4092-554: Is morally acceptable in one culture may be taboo in another. They further contend that no moral virtue can objectively be proven right or wrong Critics of moral relativism point to historical atrocities such as infanticide, slavery, or genocide as counter arguments, noting the difficulty in accepting these actions simply through cultural lenses. Fons Trompenaars , author of Did the Pedestrian Die? , tested members of different cultures with various moral dilemmas . One of these
4216-635: Is not a single cognitive faculty dedicated exclusively to moral cognition, characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes to moral behavior is a critical scientific endeavor to understand how morality works and how it can be improved. Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists investigate the inputs to these cognitive processes and their interactions, as well as how these contribute to moral behavior by running controlled experiments. In these experiments putatively moral versus nonmoral stimuli are compared to each other, while controlling for other variables such as content or working memory load. Often,
4340-471: Is not always absolute, contending that moral issues often differ along cultural lines. A 2014 PEW research study among several nations illuminates significant cultural differences among issues commonly related to morality, including divorce, extramarital affairs, homosexuality, gambling, abortion, alcohol use, contraceptive use, and premarital sex. Each of the 40 countries in this study has a range of percentages according to what percentage of each country believes
4464-436: Is one of the defining characteristics of psychopathy , and this would appear to lend support to Decety's view. Recently, drawing on empirical research in evolutionary theory , developmental psychology , social neuroscience , and psychopathy, Jean Decety argued that empathy and morality are neither systematically opposed to one another, nor inevitably complementary. An essential, shared component of moral judgment involves
4588-512: Is possible, and that spirits may dwell on a higher plane—lead to a third belief, that spirits can provide knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about God and the afterlife. Many believers therefore speak of " spirit guides "—specific spirits, often contacted, and relied upon for worldly and spiritual guidance. According to spiritualists, anyone may receive spirit messages, but formal communication sessions ( séances ) are held by mediums, who claim thereby to receive information about
4712-557: Is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow. Religion and morality are not synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion although for some this is "an almost automatic assumption". According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics , religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and
4836-468: Is the Golden Rule , which states: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself." Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e., opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any particular set of moral standards or principles. Ethics (also known as moral philosophy)
4960-553: Is the aspect of Hinduism most difficult to understand". Religions provide different ways of dealing with moral dilemmas. For example, Hinduism lacks any absolute prohibition on killing, recognizing that it "may be inevitable and indeed necessary" in certain circumstances. Monotheistic traditions view certain acts—such as abortion or divorce —in more absolute terms. Religion is not always positively associated with morality. Philosopher David Hume stated that "the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with
5084-451: Is the branch of philosophy which addresses questions of morality. The word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality' ... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." Likewise, certain types of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics , sometimes distinguish between ethics and morality. Philosopher Simon Blackburn writes that "Although
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5208-498: Is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, some vampire bats fail to feed on prey some nights while others manage to consume a surplus. Bats that did eat will then regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other group members to return
5332-466: The European Journal of Personality , found that moral foundations have significant genetic bases. Another study, conducted by Smith and Hatemi, similarly found significant evidence in support of moral heritability by looking at and comparing the answers of moral dilemmas between twins. Genetics play a role in influencing prosocial behaviors and moral decision-making. Genetics contribute to
5456-517: The 1936 presidential election on a third-party ticket under the Christian Party banner. Pelley hoped to seize power in a "silver revolution" and set himself up as the dictator of the United States. He would be called "the Chief", a title which would be just like the titles used by other fascist leaders, such as "Der Führer " for Adolf Hitler and "Il Duce " for Benito Mussolini . However,
5580-677: The Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt handily won the reelection, and Pelley failed to figure among the top four. By around 1937, the Silver Legion's membership had declined to about 5,000. In 1936, a small Silver Shirt office was established in downtown Spokane . About 200 members participated before the group's end. When the Silver Shirts tried to hold a rally at the Elks Club in Minneapolis ,
5704-563: The Spiritualist , attempted to view spiritualist phenomena from a scientific perspective, eschewing discussion on both theological and reform issues. Books on the supernatural were published for the growing middle class, such as 1852's Mysteries , by Charles Elliott, which contains "sketches of spirits and spiritual things", including accounts of the Salem witch trials , the Lane ghost, and
5828-467: The abolition of slavery and women's suffrage . By the late 1880s the credibility of the informal movement had weakened due to accusations of fraud perpetrated by mediums, and formal spiritualist organizations began to appear. Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational spiritualist churches in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. Spiritualists believe in
5952-429: The caste system , and apologists for Islam defend or explain away its harsh penal code or its attitude to women and infidels". In regard to Christianity, he states that the " Bible can be read as giving us a carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits, and elderly women", and notes morally-suspect themes in
6076-507: The maternal bond is selected for because it improves the survival of offspring; the Westermarck effect , where close proximity during early years reduces mutual sexual attraction, underpins taboos against incest because it decreases the likelihood of genetically risky behaviour such as inbreeding . The phenomenon of reciprocity in nature is seen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its function
6200-441: The spirit world "at a rate more rapid and under conditions more favourable to growth" than encountered on earth. Morality Morality (from Latin moralitas 'manner, character , proper behavior') is the categorization of intentions , decisions and actions into those that are proper, or right , and those that are improper, or wrong . Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from
6324-508: The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a region involved in valuation, while intuitive reactions to situations containing implicit moral issues activates the temporoparietal junction area, a region that plays a key role in understanding intentions and beliefs. Stimulation of the VMPC by transcranial magnetic stimulation , or neurological lesion, has been shown to inhibit the ability of human subjects to take into account intent when forming
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#17327727456706448-663: The 1840s in the " Burned-over District " of upstate New York , where earlier religious movements such as Millerism and Mormonism had emerged during the Second Great Awakening , although Millerism and Mormonism did not associate themselves with spiritualism. This region of New York State was an environment in which many thought direct communication with God or angels was possible, and that God would not behave harshly—for example, that God would not condemn unbaptised infants to an eternity in Hell. In this environment,
6572-537: The American Civil War was Cora L. V. Scott (1840–1923). Young and beautiful, her appearance on stage fascinated men. Her audiences were struck by the contrast between her physical girlishness and the eloquence with which she spoke of spiritual matters, and found in that contrast support for the notion that spirits were speaking through her. Cora married four times, and on each occasion adopted her husband's last name. During her period of greatest activity, she
6696-683: The Bible's New Testament as well. Elizabeth Anderson likewise holds that "the Bible contains both good and evil teachings", and it is "morally inconsistent". Christian apologists address Blackburn's viewpoints and construe that Jewish laws in the Hebrew Bible showed the evolution of moral standards towards protecting the vulnerable, imposing a death penalty on those pursuing slavery and treating slaves as persons and not as property. Humanists like Paul Kurtz believe that we can identify moral values across cultures, even if we do not appeal to
6820-505: The Civil War was Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875), a man of mixed race, who also played a part in the abolitionist movement. Nevertheless, many abolitionists and reformers held themselves aloof from the spiritualist movement; among the skeptics was abolitionist Frederick Douglass . Another social reform movement with significant spiritualist involvement was the effort to improve conditions of Native Americans. Kathryn Troy writes in
6944-516: The Fox sisters became a sensation. As the first celebrity mediums, the sisters quickly became famous for their public séances in New York. However, in 1888 the Fox sisters admitted that this contact with the spirit was a hoax, though shortly afterward they recanted that admission. Amy and Isaac Post , Hicksite Quakers from Rochester , New York, had long been acquainted with the Fox family, and took
7068-637: The London Spiritualist Alliance, which published a newspaper called The Light , featuring articles such as "Evenings at Home in Spiritual Séance", "Ghosts in Africa" and "Chronicles of Spirit Photography", advertisements for " mesmerists " and patent medicines , and letters from readers about personal contact with ghosts. In Britain, by 1853, invitations to tea among the prosperous and fashionable often included table-turning,
7192-881: The NSA in October 1909, at a convention in Rochester, New York . Then, in October 1944, a ninth principle was adopted by the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, at a convention in St. Louis, Missouri. In the UK, the main organization representing spiritualism is the Spiritualists' National Union (SNU) , whose teachings are based on the Seven Principles. Spiritualism first appeared in
7316-552: The RTPJ? One possibility is that moral judgments typically reflect a weighted function of any morally relevant information that is available at the time. Based on this view, when information concerning the agent's belief is unavailable or degraded, the resulting moral judgment simply reflects a higher weighting of other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). Alternatively, following TMS to the RTPJ, moral judgments might be made via an abnormal processing route that does not take belief into account. On either account, when belief information
7440-531: The Rochester rappings. The Night Side of Nature , by Catherine Crowe, published in 1853, provided definitions and accounts of wraiths, doppelgängers, apparitions and haunted houses. Mainstream newspapers treated stories of ghosts and haunting as they would any other news story. An account in the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1891, "sufficiently bloody to suit the most fastidious taste", tells of
7564-661: The United States, Russia and Poland. Palladino was said by believers to perform spiritualist phenomena in the dark: levitating tables, producing apports, and materializing spirits. On investigation, all these things were found to be products of trickery. The British medium William Eglinton (1857–1933) claimed to perform spiritualist phenomena such as movement of objects and materializations . All of his feats were exposed as tricks. The Bangs Sisters , Mary "May" E. Bangs (1862–1917) and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Snow Bangs (1859–1920), were two spiritualist mediums based in Chicago, who made
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#17327727456707688-552: The afterlife. As an informal movement, spiritualism does not have a defined set of rules, but various spiritualist organizations within the United States have adopted variations on some or all of a "Declaration of Principles" developed between 1899 and 1944. In October 1899, a six article "Declaration of Principles" was adopted by the National Spiritualist Association (NSA) at a convention in Chicago, Illinois. An additional two principles were added by
7812-706: The agency of departed spirits of good and superior men and women". A number of scientists who investigated the phenomenon also became converts. They included chemist and physicist William Crookes (1832–1919), evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) and physicist Sir Oliver Lodge. Nobel laureate Pierre Curie was impressed by the mediumistic performances of Eusapia Palladino and advocated their scientific study. Other prominent adherents included journalist and pacifist William T. Stead (1849–1912) and physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930). Doyle, who lost his son Kingsley in World War I,
7936-460: The anthropological view looking across cultures, geo-cultural areas and across millennia. They conclude that certain virtues have prevailed in all cultures they examined. The major virtues they identified include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity ; justice; temperance; and transcendence . Each of these include several divisions. For instance humanity includes love , kindness , and social intelligence . Still, others theorize that morality
8060-455: The beginning of their movement. On that date, Kate and Margaret Fox , of Hydesville , New York, reported that they had made contact with a spirit that was later claimed to be the spirit of a murdered peddler whose body was found in the house, though no record of such a person was ever found. The spirit was said to have communicated through rapping noises, audible to onlookers. The evidence of the senses appealed to practically minded Americans, and
8184-423: The belief that morality is deteriorating continuously, and this conviction has been present for the last 70 years. Subsequently, they indicate that people ascribe this decay to the declining morality of individuals as they age and the succeeding generations. Thirdly, the authors demonstrate that people's evaluations of the morality of their peers have not decreased over time, indicating that the belief in moral decline
8308-486: The capacity to detect morally salient content within a given social context. Recent research implicated the salience network in this initial detection of moral content. The salience network responds to behaviorally salient events and may be critical to modulate downstream default and frontal control network interactions in the service of complex moral reasoning and decision-making processes. The explicit making of moral right and wrong judgments coincides with activation in
8432-399: The case of attempted harms, in which the neutral outcomes did not afford harsh moral judgments on their own. Similarly, individuals with a lesion of the VMPC judge an action purely on its outcome and are unable to take into account the intent of that action. Moral intuitions may have genetic bases. A 2022 study conducted by scholars Michael Zakharin and Timothy C. Bates , and published by
8556-586: The collective on the individual. These norms will be arbitrary, culturally dependent and 'flexible', whereas territorial morality aims at rules which are universal and absolute, such as Kant 's ' categorical imperative ' and Geisler 's graded absolutism . Green relates the development of territorial morality to the rise of the concept of private property, and the ascendancy of contract over status. Some observers hold that individuals apply distinct sets of moral rules to people depending on their membership of an " in-group " (the individual and those they believe to be of
8680-422: The common moral issues are acceptable, unacceptable, or not moral issues at all. Each percentage regarding the significance of the moral issue varies greatly on the culture in which the moral issue is presented. Advocates of a theory known as moral relativism subscribe to the notion that moral virtues are right or wrong only within the context of a certain standpoint (e.g., cultural community). In other words, what
8804-430: The common perception of a decline in morality in societies worldwide and throughout history. Adam M. Mastroianni and Daniel T. Gilbert present a series of studies indicating that the perception of moral decline is an illusion and easily produced, with implications for misallocation of resources, underuse of social support, and social influence. To begin with, the authors demonstrate that people in no less than 60 nations hold
8928-542: The consequences brought about in the situation (Consequences-component, C). This, implies that various inputs of the situation a person encounters affect moral cognition. Jonathan Haidt distinguishes between two types of moral cognition: moral intuition and moral reasoning. Moral intuition involves the fast, automatic, and affective processes that result in an evaluative feeling of good-bad or like-dislike, without awareness of going through any steps. Conversely, moral reasoning does involve conscious mental activity to reach
9052-450: The court found that during that period, Pelley had published false and libelous statements, published inaccurate reports and advertising, and supported a secret military organization. Notes Further reading Spiritualism (movement) Spiritualism is a social religious movement popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, according to which an individual's awareness persists after death and may be contacted by
9176-452: The cultural mix is greater, thus requiring more liberalism. Group morality develops from shared concepts and beliefs and is often codified to regulate behavior within a culture or community. Various defined actions come to be called moral or immoral. Individuals who choose moral action are popularly held to possess "moral fiber", whereas those who indulge in immoral behavior may be labeled as socially degenerate. The continued existence of
9300-419: The decision-making and moral behavior of players in the game are not representing player's Moral dogma. It has been recently found that moral judgment consists in concurrent evaluations of three different components that align with precepts from three dominant moral theories (virtue ethics, deontology , and consequentialism): the character of a person (Agent-component, A); their actions (Deed-component, D); and
9424-452: The development and expression of certain traits and behaviors, including those related to morality. However, it is important to note that while genetics play a role in shaping certain aspects of moral behavior, morality itself is a multifaceted concept that encompasses cultural, societal, and personal influences as well. If morality is the answer to the question 'how ought we to live' at the individual level, politics can be seen as addressing
9548-448: The development of a self-identity that is defined by moral purposes: this moral self-identity leads to a sense of responsibility to pursue such purposes. Of historical interest in psychology are the theories of psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud , who believe that moral development is the product of aspects of the super-ego as guilt-shame avoidance. Theories of moral development therefore tend to regard it as positive moral development:
9672-905: The development of morals, usually going through stages of different morals. Lawrence Kohlberg , Jean Piaget , and Elliot Turiel have cognitive-developmental approaches to moral development ; to these theorists morality forms in a series of constructive stages or domains. In the Ethics of care approach established by Carol Gilligan , moral development occurs in the context of caring, mutually responsive relationships which are based on interdependence , particularly in parenting but also in social relationships generally. Social psychologists such as Martin Hoffman and Jonathan Haidt emphasize social and emotional development based on biology, such as empathy . Moral identity theorists, such as William Damon and Mordechai Nisan , see moral commitment as arising from
9796-400: The differential neural response to specifically moral statements or scenes, are examined using functional neuroimaging experiments. Critically, the specific cognitive processes that are involved depend on the prototypical situation that a person encounters. For instance, while situations that require an active decision on a moral dilemma may require active reasoning, an immediate reaction to
9920-460: The early nineteenth century. Spiritualist camp meetings were located most densely in New England, but were also established across the upper Midwest. Cassadaga, Florida , is the most notable spiritualist camp meeting in the southern states. A number of spiritualist periodicals appeared in the nineteenth century, and these did much to hold the movement together. Among the most important were
10044-402: The edicts of a god or the hypothetical decrees of a perfectly rational being, respectively. Practical reason is necessary for the moral agency but it is not a sufficient condition for moral agency. Real life issues that need solutions do need both rationality and emotion to be sufficiently moral. One uses rationality as a pathway to the ultimate decision, but the environment and emotions towards
10168-437: The environment at the moment must be a factor for the result to be truly moral, as morality is subject to culture. Something can only be morally acceptable if the culture as a whole has accepted this to be true. Both practical reason and relevant emotional factors are acknowledged as significant in determining the morality of a decision. Celia Green made a distinction between tribal and territorial morality. She characterizes
10292-520: The existence of an afterlife, committed suicide in his apartment by blowing out the pilot light on his heater and turning on the gas. After that date, no further communication from him was received by an associate whom he had recruited for the purpose. The movement quickly spread throughout the world; though only in the United Kingdom did it become as widespread as in the United States. Spiritualist organizations were formed in America and Europe, such as
10416-541: The father of spiritualism. The movement developed and reached its largest following from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in English-speaking countries . It flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining cohesion through periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums . Many prominent spiritualists were women, and like most spiritualists, supported causes such as
10540-514: The favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984) Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality is a suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammals living in complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants, dolphins, rats, chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviors includes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and
10664-504: The form of merit , to determine if an action is termed right or wrong. Barbara Stoler Miller points out a further disparity between the values of religious traditions, stating that in Hinduism , "practically, right and wrong are decided according to the categories of social rank, kinship, and stages of life. For modern Westerners, who have been raised on ideals of universality and egalitarianism , this relativity of values and obligations
10788-486: The higher stages are morally higher, though this, naturally, involves a circular argument. The higher stages are better because they are higher, but the better higher because they are better. As an alternative to viewing morality as an individual trait, some sociologists as well as social- and discursive psychologists have taken upon themselves to study the in-vivo aspects of morality by examining how persons conduct themselves in social interaction. A new study analyses
10912-514: The history of psychic research." The American voice medium Etta Wriedt (1859–1942) was exposed as a fraud by the physicist Kristian Birkeland when he discovered that the noises produced by her trumpet were caused by chemical explosions induced by potassium and water and in other cases by lycopodium powder. Another well-known medium was the Scottish materialization medium Helen Duncan (1897–1956). In 1928 photographer Harvey Metcalfe attended
11036-399: The in-group and irrational hostility towards the out-group. Gary R. Johnson and V.S. Falger have argued that nationalism and patriotism are forms of this in-group/out-group boundary. Jonathan Haidt has noted that experimental observation indicating an in-group criterion provides one moral foundation substantially used by conservatives , but far less so by liberals . In-group preference
11160-409: The latter as predominantly negative and proscriptive: it defines a person's territory, including his or her property and dependents, which is not to be damaged or interfered with. Apart from these proscriptions, territorial morality is permissive, allowing the individual whatever behaviour does not interfere with the territory of another. By contrast, tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of
11284-549: The living . The afterlife, or the " spirit world ", is seen by spiritualists not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to interact and evolve. These two beliefs—that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans—lead spiritualists to the belief that spirits are capable of advising the living on moral and ethical issues and the nature of God . Some spiritualists follow " spirit guides "—specific spirits relied upon for spiritual direction. Emanuel Swedenborg has some claim to be
11408-533: The loss of her son, organized séances in the White House which were attended by her husband, President Abraham Lincoln . The surge of Spiritualism during this time, and later during World War I , was a direct response to those massive battlefield casualties. In addition, the movement appealed to reformers, who fortuitously found that the spirits favoured such causes du jour as abolition of slavery, and equal rights for women. It also appealed to some who had
11532-619: The meeting was interrupted by senior local Jewish-American organized crime figure David Berman . Pelley disbanded the organization soon after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor . On January 20, 1942, Pelley was sentenced to serve two to three years in prison by Superior Court Judge F. Don Phillips, in Asheville, North Carolina, for violating terms of probation of a 1935 conviction for violating North Carolina security laws. The same sentence had been suspended pending good behavior, but
11656-474: The moral neuroscience literature. The neural network underlying moral decisions overlaps with the network pertaining to representing others' intentions (i.e., theory of mind) and the network pertaining to representing others' (vicariously experienced) emotional states (i.e., empathy). This supports the notion that moral reasoning is related to both seeing things from other persons' points of view and to grasping others' feelings. These results provide evidence that
11780-407: The moralities of other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism that could undermine a group's cohesion and thereby reducing the individuals' fitness. On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided survival and reproduction ( inclusive fitness ). Examples:
11904-592: The morality of people and their ethics amounts to the same thing, there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that of Immanuel Kant , based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles of conduct, reserving ethics for the more Aristotelian approach to practical reasoning, based on the notion of a virtue , and generally avoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from other practical considerations." In its descriptive sense, "morality" refers to personal or cultural values , codes of conduct or social mores that are observed to be accepted by
12028-402: The morality of people closest to them or people who lived before they were born). Moral cognition refers to cognitive processes implicated in moral judgment and decision making, and moral action. It consists of several domain-general cognitive processes, ranging from perception of a morally salient stimulus to reasoning when faced with a moral dilemma. While it is important to mention that there
12152-405: The more mainstream churches because those churches did little to fight slavery and even less to advance the cause of women's rights . Such links with reform movements, often radically socialist, had already been prepared in the 1840s, as the example of Andrew Jackson Davis shows. After 1848, many socialists became ardent spiritualists or occultists. The most popular trance lecturer prior to
12276-758: The most significant of the camp meetings were Camp Etna, in Etna, Maine ; Onset Bay Grove, in Onset, Massachusetts ; Lily Dale , in western New York State; Camp Chesterfield , in Indiana; the Wonewoc Spiritualist Camp , in Wonewoc, Wisconsin ; and Lake Pleasant , in Montague, Massachusetts . In founding camp meetings , the spiritualists appropriated a form developed by U.S. Protestant denominations in
12400-476: The neural network underlying moral decisions is probably domain-global (i.e., there might be no such things as a "moral module" in the human brain) and might be dissociable into cognitive and affective sub-systems. Cognitive neuroscientist Jean Decety thinks that the ability to recognize and vicariously experience what another individual is undergoing was a key step forward in the evolution of social behavior, and ultimately, morality. The inability to feel empathy
12524-482: The possibility of communication with the spirits of dead people, whom they regard as "discarnate humans". They believe that spirit mediums are gifted to carry on such communication, but that anyone may become a medium through study and practice. They believe that spirits are capable of growth and perfection, progressing through higher spheres or planes, and that the afterlife is not a static state, but one in which spirits evolve. The two beliefs—that contact with spirits
12648-466: The practitioners who lectured in mid-19th-century North America sought to entertain their audiences as well as to demonstrate methods for personal contact with the divine. Perhaps the best known of those who combined Swedenborg and Mesmer in a peculiarly North American synthesis was Andrew Jackson Davis , who called his system the "harmonial philosophy". Davis was a practising Mesmerist , faith healer and clairvoyant from Blooming Grove, New York . He
12772-434: The principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others—more stringent ones, in fact—plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil. In fact, one of them, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles
12896-486: The publicity of fraud accusations and partly through the appeal of religious movements such as Christian science , the Spiritualist Church was organised. This church can claim to be the main vestige of the movement left today in the United States. London-born Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–99) moved to the United States in 1855 and was active in spiritualist circles as a trance lecturer and organiser. She
13020-423: The ranks of its adherents were those grieving the death of a loved one. Many families during the time of the American Civil War had seen their men go off and never return, and images of the battlefield, produced through the new medium of photography, demonstrated that their loved ones had not only died in overwhelmingly huge numbers, but horribly as well. One well known case is that of Mary Todd Lincoln who, grieving
13144-411: The remaining three values more. Both groups gave care the highest over-all weighting, but conservatives valued fairness the lowest, whereas liberals valued purity the lowest. Haidt also hypothesizes that the origin of this division in the United States can be traced to geo-historical factors, with conservatism strongest in closely knit, ethnically homogeneous communities, in contrast to port -cities, where
13268-408: The robust sense used here, are considered realist in the sense synonymous with moral universalism . For example, universal prescriptivism is a universalist form of non-cognitivism which claims that morality is derived from reasoning about implied imperatives, and divine command theory and ideal observer theory are universalist forms of ethical subjectivism which claim that morality is derived from
13392-421: The same group) or an "out-group" (people not entitled to be treated according to the same rules). Some biologists, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believe this in-group/out-group discrimination has evolved because it enhances group survival. This belief has been confirmed by simple computational models of evolution. In simulations this discrimination can result in both unexpected cooperation towards
13516-604: The same question at the social level, though the political sphere raises additional problems and challenges. It is therefore unsurprising that evidence has been found of a relationship between attitudes in morality and politics. Moral foundations theory , authored by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues, has been used to study the differences between liberals and conservatives , in this regard. Haidt found that Americans who identified as liberals tended to value care and fairness higher than loyalty, respect and purity. Self-identified conservative Americans valued care and fairness less and
13640-717: The theories of evolution in the late 19th and early 20th century. Broadly speaking the concept of evolution fitted the spiritualist thought of the progressive development of humanity. At the same time, however, the belief in the animal origins of humanity threatened the foundation of the immortality of the spirit , for if humans had not been created by God, it was scarcely plausible that they would be specially endowed with spirits. This led to spiritualists embracing spiritual evolution . The spiritualists' view of evolution did not stop at death. Spiritualism taught that after death spirits progressed to spiritual states in new spheres of existence. According to spiritualists, evolution occurred in
13764-422: The two girls into their home in the late spring of 1848. Immediately convinced of the veracity of the sisters' communications, they became early converts and introduced the young mediums to their circle of radical Quaker friends. Consequently, many early participants in spiritualism were radical Quakers and others involved in the mid-nineteenth-century reforming movement . These reformers were uncomfortable with
13888-471: The visible, audible, and tangible evidence of spirits escalated as mediums competed for paying audiences. As independent investigating commissions repeatedly established, most notably the 1887 report of the Seybert Commission , fraud was widespread, and some of these cases were prosecuted in the courts. Despite numerous instances of chicanery, the appeal of spiritualism was strong. Prominent in
14012-777: The weeklies the Banner of Light (Boston), the Religio-Philosophical Journal (Chicago), Mind and Matter (Philadelphia), the Spiritualist (London), and the Medium (London). Other influential periodicals were the Revue Spirite (France), Le Messager (Belgium), Annali dello Spiritismo (Italy), El Criterio Espiritista (Spain), and the Harbinger of Light (Australia). By 1880, there were about three dozen monthly spiritualist periodicals published around
14136-482: The world. These periodicals differed a great deal from one another, reflecting the great differences among spiritualists. Some, such as the British Spiritual Magazine were Christian and conservative, openly rejecting the reform currents so strong within spiritualism. Others, such as Human Nature , were pointedly non-Christian and supportive of socialism and reform efforts. Still others, such as
14260-409: The writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) and the teachings of Franz Mesmer (1734–1815) provided an example for those seeking direct personal knowledge of the afterlife. Swedenborg, who claimed to communicate with spirits while awake, described the structure of the spirit world. Two features of his view particularly resonated with the early spiritualists: first, that there is not a single Hell and
14384-604: Was a plain silver field with a red L in the canton on the upper left hand corner. By 1934, the Legion claimed that it had 15,000 members. Legion leader Pelley called for the establishment of a "Christian Commonwealth" in America, a government that would combine the principles of fascism, theocracy , and socialism , along with the exclusion of Jews and non-whites . He claimed he would save America from Jewish communists just as "Mussolini and his Black Shirts saved Italy and as Hitler and his Brown Shirts saved Germany." Pelley ran in
14508-473: Was also a member of the Ghost Club . Founded in London in 1862, its focus was the scientific study of alleged paranormal activities in order to prove (or refute) the existence of paranormal phenomena. Members of the club included Charles Dickens , Sir William Crookes, Sir William F. Barrett , and Harry Price . The Paris séances of Eusapia Palladino were attended by an enthusiastic Pierre Curie and
14632-428: Was also strongly influenced by the socialist theories of Fourierism . His 1847 book, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind , dictated to a friend while in a trance state, eventually became the nearest thing to a canonical work in a spiritualist movement whose extreme individualism precluded the development of a single coherent worldview. Spiritualists often set March 31, 1848, as
14756-445: Was due to the increasing need to avoid disputes and injuries in moving to open savanna and developing stone weapons. Other theories are that increasing complexity was simply a correlate of increasing group size and brain size, and in particular the development of theory of mind abilities. In modern moral psychology , morality is sometimes considered to change through personal development. Several psychologists have produced theories on
14880-433: Was extremely individualistic, with each person relying on his or her own experiences and reading to discern the nature of the afterlife. Organisation was therefore slow to appear, and when it did it was resisted by mediums and trance lecturers. Most members were content to attend Christian churches, and particularly universalist churches harboured many spiritualists. As the spiritualism movement began to fade, partly through
15004-532: Was known as Cora Hatch. Another spiritualist was Achsa W. Sprague , who was born November 17, 1827, in Plymouth Notch , Vermont. At the age of 20, she became ill with rheumatic fever and credited her eventual recovery to intercession by spirits. An extremely popular trance lecturer, she traveled about the United States until her death in 1861. Sprague was an abolitionist and an advocate of women's rights. Another spiritualist and trance medium prior to
15128-436: Was said to describe conditions in the spirit world. However, Frank Podmore was skeptical of his alleged ability to communicate with spirits and Joseph McCabe described Moses as a "deliberate impostor", suggesting his apports and all of his feats were the result of trickery. Eusapia Palladino (1854–1918) was an Italian spiritualist medium from the slums of Naples who made a career touring Italy, France, Germany, Britain,
15252-518: Was thus the result of combining white guilt and fear of divine judgment with a new sense of purpose and responsibility. In the years following the sensation that greeted the Fox sisters, demonstrations of mediumship (séances and automatic writing , for example) proved to be a profitable venture, and soon became popular forms of entertainment and spiritual catharsis. The Fox sisters earned a living this way and others followed their lead. Showmanship became an increasingly important part of spiritualism, and
15376-845: Was whether the driver of a car would have his friend, a passenger riding in the car, lie in order to protect the driver from the consequences of driving too fast and hitting a pedestrian. Trompenaars found that different cultures had quite different expectations, from none to definite. Anthropologists from Oxford's Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology (part of the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography) analysed ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, comprising over 600,000 words from over 600 sources and discovered what they believe to be seven universal moral rules: help your family, help your group, return favours, be brave, defer to superiors, divide resources fairly, and respect others' property. The development of modern morality
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