Moral Emotions

Moral emotions are emotions linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or, at least, of persons other than the individual expressing such emotions. These emotions serve as affective signals of prosocial behaviour and play a central role in influencing group-oriented thoughts and attitudes. To identify moral emotions, Rudolph and colleagues provide a list of emotions which have been discussed in relation to morality by at least one philosopher or life scientist. These are, in alphabetical order: admiration, anger, awe, contempt, disgust, elevation, embarrassment, empathy, envy, gratitude, guilt, indignation, jealousy, pity, pride, rage, regret, remorse, resentment, respect (including self-respect), schadenfreude (i.e., the feeling of satisfaction when something bad happens to another person), scorn, shame, and sympathy. Others include fear and anxiety in the list.

These emotions are ‘moral’ only when they are linked to the well-being of society or other people, not just to the well-being or concerns of the individual expressing those feelings himself. Two factors can help us recognise moral emotions: disinterested elicitors and prosocial action tendencies.

If a person feels angry because someone caused problems to him, that anger, in principle, isn't considered a moral emotion. (In this case, we say that the elicitor of the emotion is not disinterested.) However, if his anger arises from an injustice towards others or a violation of a general moral code, the emotion can be called moral. As such, the more an emotion tends to be triggered by disinterested elicitors, the more it can be seen as a typical moral emotion. Emotions also motivate some kind of action. Actions that benefit others or the community, that is, represent prosocial tendencies, are more likely to be driven by moral emotions.

FURTHER READING

Haidt, J. (2003). The moral emotions. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 852–870). Oxford University Press.

Halperin, E., & Schori-Eyal, N. (2019). Moral emotions in political decision making. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.922

Hareli, S., Moran-Amir, O., David, S., & Hess, U. (2013). Emotions as signals of normative conduct. Cognition and Emotion, 27(8), 1395–1404. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.791615

Rudolph, U., Schulz, K., & Tscharaktschiew, N. (2013). Moral emotions: An analysis guided by Heider’s naive action analysis. International Journal of Advances in Psychology, 2(2), 69-92.

Turner, J.H., Stets, J.E. (2006). Moral Emotions. In: Stets, J.E., Turner, J.H. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30715-2_24