Introduction to the special issue: Research in morality as an integrated, interdisciplinary domain of inquiry

ABSTRACT

Increasing divisiveness and prejudicial conflict in Western societies has accelerated interest in convincing moral knowledge. Although social science is a natural place to seek answers, these sciences are hindered by academic siloing. Moral education has also been distant from most research on morality, limiting both groups’ contributions. The new Network for Research on Morality (NRM) addresses these needs by cultivating a cohesive, cumulative body of interdisciplinary research and pursuing a natural partnership with the Association for Moral Education (AME). This special issue explores three emergent NRM themes and begins bridge-building with the AME. The themes are exploring: 1) how morality research can support and inform moral education, 2) how best to promote interdisciplinary research on morality, and 3) the extent to which recognizing researchers’ moral commitments requires a revision of research on morality. These papers simply begin the lively discussions for which these topics so strongly call rather than reporting consensual answers.

KEYWORDS:

• Morality
• interdisciplinary
• moral education

We live in a time that has been characterized as ‘post-truth’ and ‘post-morality’. Moreover, moral questions seem to have been increasingly relativized to individual and narrow group interests, which has been accompanied by disunity, divisiveness, and prejudicial conflict. These factors render the ever-present need for convincing moral knowledge and well-founded understandings of decency and the common good even more urgent. We often look to science when we seek well-founded knowledge, but many, perhaps most social scientists relegate questions of human morality to the domain of subjective belief and opinion, perhaps systematized by philosophy or religion (Fowers et al., 2020; Gorski, 2013; Richardson et al., 1999). However, some scholars have been studying human morality empirically with fascinating results (e.g., Krettenauer, 2020; Morgan et al., 2017; Ng & Tay, 2020). A key difficulty in these efforts is that these scientists tend to be isolated within academic silos and typically have scant opportunity to work together to develop a cohesive and cumulative body of research.

The articles in this special issue began as presentations at a Moral Science Symposium at the University of Miami in April, 2019. The authors gathered to initiate a Network for Research on Morality (NRM) to address the isolation and general absence of collaboration in this research domain. We sought to publish this special issue in the Journal of Moral Education because we see many areas of overlap between research and practice in moral education and multidisciplinary research on morality. In fact, Krettenauer (2020) recently called for greater collaboration among moral educators and researchers on morality to recoup what could be a ‘lost opportunity’ without such efforts. Indeed, the memberships of the Association for Moral Education (AME) and the NRM overlap significantly.

This special issue has two purposes. One is to present initial explorations of three primary themes at the nexus of moral education and the research found among scholars in the NRM: 1) To explore how morality research can support and guide moral education at all levels of education, 2) To promote the systematic and cumulative study of human morality, and 3) To examine the extent to which a recognition of researchers’ moral commitments requires a reinterpretation of research on morality. The second purpose is to introduce the recently organized Network for Research on Morality to readers of JME.

Three themes at the nexus of moral education and the NRM

The primary purpose of this special issue is to provide an initial exploration of the three key themes that have engaged scholars in moral education and in the NRM. The first theme regards how research in morality can contribute to moral education. Each paper in the special issue addresses ways in which research can support, underwrite, and guide moral education in secondary, undergraduate, and graduate science education, including psychological, sociological, and philosophical perspectives.

The second theme is an exploration of how to systematically study important topics of human morality. The first two papers present insights and guidance on the content of morality research in sociology (Walker), and philosophy (Snow). Walker examines how a sociological approach to understanding morality can inform research on morality and how it can guide educational practice through the concepts of sociological habitus and philosophical hexeis (Ignatow, 2009; Kristjánsson, 2015). These concepts refer, respectively, to the shaping of dispositions through social positioning and the shape of moral character. He argues that situating morality research sociologically is necessary for a mature science of morality. Walker’s discussion of habitus as the social legacy that helps to form individual habits, preferences, and outlooks is valuable in clarifying how habitus is both an asset and a liability. Above all, he clarifies that particular forms of life give rise to variations in habitus and hexeis, with varying messages and resources, all of which have implications for moral development. He advocates including the concepts of habitus and hexeis into character education programs to facilitate questioning social norms that may impede character development. He also details the challenges of altering habitus even when that is in the service of choiceworthy aims.

Snow investigates how philosophers and psychologists can fruitfully work together to study morality and how some have already begun this collaboration (e.g., Morgan et al., 2017; Wright et al., 2020). She highlights six pitfalls that can lead philosophers to overinterpret psychological results. This leads Snow to discuss ongoing and fruitful ways that psychologists and philosophers are collaborating on developing systematic approaches to measurement and research on virtues. She concludes by discussing how her discussion of pitfalls and collaboration can enhance philosophy education, especially how recent collaborative research endeavors have clarified the necessity, as well as the feasibility, of interdisciplinary research. She provides an example of an interdisciplinary graduate training program that has seen success in breaking down disciplinary silos separating philosophers and social scientists.

The third theme is to clarify the extent to which recognizing researchers’ moral commitments may require a revision of standard social science education and practice, wherein facts and values are strictly separated (Brinkmann, 2011; Gorski, 2013; Richardson et al., 1999). Although many readers of JME have abandoned the fact-value dichotomy, the kind of focused, specific investigations of what might be needed to adequately address the relations of facts and values remain relatively rare in the social sciences.

In this special issue, Michalski discusses science itself as a moral community with norms, moral boundaries, and guiding ideals. He explores key sociological factors that shape scientific bias and justifications, especially the question of partisanship (how researchers’ theoretical and moral commitments lead to a confirmation bias in their research). This is vital because the norms governing knowledge validation are central to science, and biases are systematic impediments to knowledge development (Fanelli et al., 2017; West et al., 2012). He argues that unrecognized bias is as much a social phenomenon as it is a cognitive matter, playing out in the realm of scientific status seeking within specific social locations. Michalski provides an extensive case example of partisanship and bias that emerge from social location and status seeking. He concludes by advocating that science education in secondary and higher education include the sociological understanding of the practice of science and its pitfalls.

Fowers adopts an Aristotelian perspective to analyze the intimate co-occurrence of facts and values through an examination of the structure of the standard research report in psychological science (Fowers, 2005, 2012). He argues that scientific values are apparent in epistemic values, the aims of science (both practical aims and the goal of abstract knowledge), and that the attempt to sanitize psychological science from the ‘taint’ of values has only served to ensconce those values as unacknowledged commitments (Richardson et al., 1999; Taylor, 1985). He concludes that science itself is a thoroughly moral enterprise and that examination of the relationships between facts and values should replace the failed attempt to dichotomize facts and values. Fowers then advocates including an understanding of the vital role of values and ideals in science education in secondary and post-secondary education to make it possible to examine these vital sources of scientific activity. This focus on the values of science can improve support and interest in science by non-scientists and help scientists become more reflective and accountable. He concludes by suggesting that science education be centered on the love of knowledge rather than an outmoded objectivism.

Schwartz discusses the inextricable intellectual virtues of science, including practical wisdom, honesty, fair-mindedness, and humility (Ferrari & Kim, 2019; Schwartz & Sharpe, 2010). He advocates that the historical importance of higher education can be reclaimed by focusing on how a university education can cultivate these intellectual virtues in unique and valuable ways, thereby making graduates better citizens and contributors to the common good. Schwartz clarifies that the cultivation of intellectual virtues is the ‘added value’ that higher education can readily offer and is a worthier aim than occupational training, which has both narrow benefits and a short shelf-life.

The network for research on morality

The purposes of the NRM are to provide a forum for moral scientists to interact, collaborate, contribute resources and findings, and construct a more cohesive, cumulative, interdisciplinary, and international domain of research on morality. Already, over 170 scholars have signed on from many disciplines, including psychology, philosophy, sociology, education, law, medicine, business, architecture, history, and more. The authors in the special issue represent three of these disciplines: psychology, sociology, and philosophy.¹

Researchers in many academic disciplines (including multiple sciences, humanities, and professions) are currently investigating moral concerns, such as the virtues, well-being, compassion, and public goods (e.g., Tomasello, 2019; Walker et al., 2015; Wright et al., 2020). These scholars are generally convinced that humans have a natural inclination to morality, knowledge of which can guide and enhance education and civic relations. For example, the political factionalism that so afflicts humans across the globe is fully explicable and remedies are available (e.g., Crocker et al., 2017; Fowers, 2015). Yet these efforts have been hamstrung on the scholarly side in two ways. First, most research occurs in disciplinary and topical silos, limiting how widely this work is recognized and can cumulate into cohesive knowledge. Second, morality has been separated from science (broadly conceived) based on the idea that facts and values form an unbridgeable dichotomy. This dichotomizing leaves scientists ambivalent, at best, about the moral value of their work and fosters the division of knowledge about facts from supposedly subjective choices about moral or value concerns. On the one hand, although facts and values must be distinguished, many eminent scholars have argued cogently against the dichotomy and clarified how scientifically studying human values can be quite illuminating (e.g., Gorski, 2013; Richardson et al., 1999; Taylor, 1985). On the other hand, there remain staunch defenders of the fact-value dichotomy (e.g., Huesmann, 1993; Kimble, 1989). The authors of this special issue demonstrate that the disagreement about how to address the fact-value distinction is a topic of ongoing discussion rather than a settled consensus.

Our vision of moral scholarship is of international, multidisciplinary research that includes disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and the professions. We envision a ‘big tent’ field of study that incorporates multiple perspectives and disciplines, seeks connections among them, fosters truly interdisciplinary research to tackle complex problems related to morality, incorporates innovative approaches and technologies, and leads to practical applications that can guide improvements in individual lives as well as in community and societal relations. Research on morality includes topics such as other-benefitting behavior, well-being, inclusion, the common good, ecology, and the moral capacities of animals.

As a group, the NRM takes both research and morality quite seriously, with explicit, intentional investigation of moral questions through the many scientific and conceptual methods (broadly conceived) available in the various disciplines. Although research ethics is important to its members, the focus of the NRM is in studying human morality itself, which includes, but entirely transcends the value of efforts to conduct ethical research. The study of morality, writ small, is already underway within many disciplines, such as research on prosocial or other-benefiting behavior in psychology (Crocker et al., 2017; Hare, 2017), in moral philosophers’ increasing interest in empirical science (Cokelet & Fowers, 2019; Kristjánsson, 2018; Wright et al., 2020), and in character education (Arthur et al., 2017). We seek to link these disciplinary investigations of morality into an overarching scholarly initiative. There are also a few sustained but scattered interdisciplinary research collaborations, such as the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue at Birmingham University, the Institute for Human Flourishing at the University of Oklahoma, the Center for Practical Wisdom at the University of Chicago, and the Honesty Project at Wake Forest University. We aim to provide an organization to link, strengthen, replicate, and increase the impact of these interdisciplinary efforts.

Development of the network for research on morality

This Network has begun to unfold by identifying and recruiting researchers who are or want to be involved in interdisciplinary research on morality. Our hope is to build an active network of active moral scholars, who exemplify interdisciplinary research and practice. This process is ongoing, and we anticipate substantial growth in the Network. We have formed an international, interdisciplinary Steering Committee to develop the initiative. The Steering Committee met in April, 2019 in Miami, Florida to map out the development of the initiative. This Committee has continued to meet since that time to cultivate the Network. The papers in this special issue were written by five members of the Steering Committee. We have developed a working listserv for sharing research proposals and results, have begun to organize forums such as an inaugural conference in May, 2021, a website, a speaker series in the first four months of 2021, and scholarly and lay publications. We plan to expand the NRM’s presence in various social media outlets. The conference scheduled for May, 2021 will be constituted by a series of invited presentations by groups from the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue, the Institute for Human Flourishing, and the Honesty Project.

The effort to make the NRM a welcoming, interdisciplinary organization has been present from the outset. The naming of the Network is a good example of this. It was initially titled ‘The Moral Science Initiative’, but the Steering Committee recognized that, although the term ‘science’ is apt and prestigious in several ways, it may be perceived as exclusionary to serious scholars in the humanities and professions who do not see their work in terms of what is generally considered science. The Steering Committee has been very keen on the inclusion of philosophers, professionals, and other applied moral researchers. Following a lengthy discussion by the Steering Committee and the membership of the Network as a whole, the group was named the Network for Research on Morality.

An NRM website (moralityresearch.org) is being developed to include information about the Network, news, and profiles of affiliated researchers and their work. The web site will also feature applications of this research for individuals and community leaders. We plan to provide resources for researchers and institutions on how to cultivate and support interdisciplinary collaborations that are widely available through the NRM website. These intellectual resources will include topics such as addressing the fact-value dichotomy, the practical applications of moral science in education and civic relations, and interdisciplinary research methods.

It is our hope to regularize NRM conferences on either an annual or biennial basis to support the interdisciplinary study of morality. In the future, a newsletter will be published monthly through the NRM web site that will feature the work of scholars of morality and those applying it. We hope to initiate a book series on moral research topics with a major publisher.

Growth beyond these conference and publication outlets must involve training for undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral trainees in interdisciplinary moral research. This training for future researchers of morality is necessary to create a self-sustaining scholarly endeavor, which the NRM will strive to support.

We seek to actively link basic and applied research with practical applications to provide useful resources to educators, mental health professionals, and leaders of organizations and communities. Active outreach to practicing professionals is a key to success for moral scholarship through disseminating knowledge and fostering research-informed practices. Public outreach activities will enhance current work in six domains: assisting higher education in fully recapturing its historic mission to educate flourishing moral beings and good citizens, character education in K-12 schools, professional education in moral purpose, civic moral education, coordinating the work of existing centers focused on virtue research, and a public lecture series to disseminate the growing knowledge from moral science.

Conclusion

Our overall aims in this special issue are to begin exploring the possibilities for an interdisciplinary domain of research on morality and to set out some of the questions and topics that need examination by morality researchers and moral educators. At this point, consensus has not been reached on many of these questions, and the scholarly terrain is mostly uncharted. Therefore, it is important to avoid the temptation to see these papers as statements of consensus or well-accepted research guidelines. The authors of these papers are simply beginning the exploration of difficult but vital topics. We also want to begin to address the fragmented state of contemporary morality in Western societies within and across academic disciplines and we seek remedies to this confusion and discord. We make no claims to provide easy, simple answers to questions about morality research, but we are enthusiastic in beginning this vital and public exploration. We eagerly anticipate the lively discussions these topics so richly merit.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Blaine J. Fowers

Blaine J. Fowers, Ph.D. is Professor of Counseling Psychology at the University of Miami. He conducts theoretical and empirical investigations of virtue and flourishing. Fowers has written or co-written five books, including Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations (2017, APA), The Evolution of Ethics: Human Sociality and the Emergence of Ethical Mindedness (2015, Palgrave Macmillan), Virtue and Psychology (2005, APA), Beyond the Myth of Marital Happiness (2000, Jossey Bass), and Re-Envisioning Psychology (1999, Jossey Bass). He and his research team study virtues, higher order goals, and their links to choiceworthy goods and human flourishing. Fowers has published over 100 peer reviewed articles, books, and book chapters. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Birmingham, England in 2016. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a recipient of the Joseph B. Gittler Award for Contributions to the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology.

Notes

1. More information about the NRM is available on its website: http://moralityresearch.org.