Harmful transgressions qua moral transgressions: A deflationary view

One important issue in moral psychology concerns the proper characterization of the folk understanding of the relationship between harmful transgressions and moral transgressions. Psychologist Elliot Turiel and associates have claimed with a broad range of supporting evidence that harmful transgressions are understood as transgressions that are authority independent and general in scope, which, according to them, characterizes these transgressions as moral transgressions. Recently, many researchers questioned the position advocated by the Turiel tradition with some new evidence. We entered this debate proposing an original, deflationary view in which perceptions of basic-rights violation and injustice are fundamental for the folk understanding of harmful transgressions as moral transgressions in Turiel’s sense. In this article, we elaborate and refine our deflationary view, while reviewing the debate, addressing various criticisms raised against our perspective, showing how our perspective explains the existent evidence, and suggesting new lines of inquiry.

Ethnic Segregation, Moral Panics and Social Class: A Comparative Study of the Experiences and Perspectives of Working Class and Middle Class Children in Belfast

This paper begins by describing the moral panics that have tended to emerge sporadically in Northern Ireland over the last few years with regard to young people’s involvement in sectarian violence in Belfast. Within this, while these young people have been cast in the traditional role of folk devils, the paper will show how younger children also tend to be explicitly identified and named in an ambiguous way through such moral panics; playing a deviant role as participators, and sometimes instigators, of sectarian violence but also carrying the symbolic responsibility of representing Belfast’s future. It will be shown that it is because of this ambiguous position that it is adults rather than the children themselves that tend to be held responsible for their actions; either as rioters using the children as political pawns or as parents guilty of neglect. With this as a starting point the paper then explores the perspectives and experiences of two groups of 10-11 year old children living in Belfast and the impact of these moral panics on them. One group of children, living in affluent middle class areas were found to be appropriating and re-working these broader moral panics into more general discourses of derision that tended to pathologize working class children and communities more generally. For the other group of children, living in economically deprived areas with high levels of sectarian tensions and violence, their experiences of such violence and their participation in it are discussed. It will be shown that for these children, the broader moral panics that exist tend to have the effect of reinforcing the processes that tend to segregate and exclude them.

Moral asymmetries in judgments of agency withstand ludicrous causal deviance

Americans have been shown to attribute greater intentionality to immoral than to amoral actions in cases of causal deviance, that is, cases where a goal is satisfied in a way that deviates from initially planned means (e.g., a gunman wants to hit a target and his hand slips, but the bullet ricochets off a rock into the target). However, past research has yet to assess whether this asymmetry persists in cases of extreme causal deviance. Here, we manipulated the level of mild to extreme causal deviance of an immoral versus amoral act. The asymmetry in attributions of intentionality was observed at all but the
most extreme level of causal deviance, and, as we hypothesized, was mediated by attributions of Blame/credit and judgments of action performance. These findings are discussed as they support a multiple-concepts interpretation of the asymmetry, wherein blame renders a naïve concept of intentional action (the outcome matches the intention) more salient than a composite concept (the outcome matches the intention and was brought about by planned means), and in terms of their implications for cross-cultural research on judgments of agency.

Are there different moral domains? Evidence from Mongolia

In this paper we report a study conducted in Mongolia on the scope of morality, that is, the extent to which people moralize different social domains. Following Turiel’s moral-conventional task, we characterized moral transgressions (in contrast to conventional transgressions) in terms of two dimensions: authority independence
and generality of scope. Different moral domains are then defined by grouping such moral transgressions in terms of their content (following Haidt’s classification of morally relevant domains). There are four main results of the study. First, since all five Haidtian domains were moralized by the Mongolian participants, the study provides
evidence in favour of pluralism about moral domains. However, the study also suggests that the domain of harm can be reduced to the fairness domain. Furthermore, although the strong claim about reduction of all moral domains to the domain of fairness seems not to hold, a significant number of participants did indicate considerations of fairness across domains. Finally, a significant amount of participants moralized conventional transgressions a la Turiel, but it did not reach a statistical significance.

Desenvolvimento de um sistema idiossincrático de apoio à identificação de múltiplos critérios e ao cálculo de trade-offs na avaliação do risco de crédito a pequenas e médias empresas (PMEs)

Dissertação, Mestrado, Contabilidade e Finanças, Instituto Politécnico de Santarém, Escola Superior de Gestão e Tecnologia, 2014

Estruturação de um modelo de avaliação global difuso na análise do risco de investimento em bens imóveis residenciais (residential real estate)

Dissertação, Mestrado, Contabilidade e Finanças, Instituto Politécnico de Santarém, Escola Superior de Gestão e Tecnologia, 2014

Os alunos de risco no 2º ciclo da Escola Básica 2, 3 Ana de Castro Osório, no ano lectivo 2004/2005: um estudo de caso

O presente estudo aborda a problemática dos alunos de risco no 2° Ciclo da E.B. 2,3 Ana de Castro Osório, no ano letivo 2004/2005. Na dimensão teórica são referenciadas algumas questões de Organização Escolar (escola reflexiva, autonomia de escola, gestores intermédios e supervisão escolar, o papel do Diretor de Turma, o Projeto Curricular de Escola, algumas linhas orientadoras da política educativa portuguesa, no período em que decorre a elaboração desta investigação) e abordados alguns aspetos gerais dos pré-adolescentes, diversos conceitos de risco, a ação de diversas entidades com competência na área da infância e juventude, o papel da família e a relação desta com a escola. Foi utilizada a metodologia do “Estudo Caso”, no decurso da qual foram analisados documentos internos da escola e elaborados instrumentos de recolha de dados (questionários aplicados aos Alunos e aos seus Diretores de Turma). No tratamento das informações de natureza quantitativa, utilizou-se o programa informático Excel, enquanto nas questões abertas procedeu-se à análise de conteúdo. Em síntese, concluiu-se que: a) um terço dos alunos que frequentava o 2° Ciclo do Ensino Básico, foi sinalizado como “aluno de risco”. Cerca de 75% era do 5° Ano de Escolaridade. Os fatores de risco que mais se destacam são: assiduidade irregular, desmotivação/desinteresse/apatia, défice de atenção e concentração, indisciplina e retenções sucessivas no seu percurso escolar. A família é pouco participativa. b) a resposta curricular dá-se essencialmente dentro da sala de aula; c) a resposta organizacional assenta essencialmente nalgumas medidas previstas nos documentos legislativos. Na última parte do trabalho deixamos expressas as conclusões do estudo mais pormenorizadas, bem como algumas recomendações/sugestões que eventualmente, poderão orientar posteriores investigações. /ABSTRACT - The risk students on a 2nd Cycle of classroom of the E.B. 2, 3 Ana de Castro Osório, during academic year of 2004/2005: A Case study The present study attempts to assess risk students on a 2nd Cycle (Sth and 6th grades) classroom of the “E.B. 2, 3 Ana de Castro Osório” Public School during the academic year of 2004/2005. On a theoretical scale, are assessed some questions about the Classroom Organization (reflexive school, school autonomy, intermediate directors and school supervision, the role of the Class Tutor, the School Curricular Project, some guidelines about the Portuguese education policy during the period when this study took place), and was also assessed some general aspects of preadolescents, risk concepts, and actions taken by various organizations specialized in the areas of childhood and youth, the role of the family and the interrelation between the family and the school. It was used a “Case Study” methodology during which was assessed school documents of this particularly school, and data collecting instruments (Student-applied and Class Tutor-applied questionnaires). On dealing with quantitative data, it was used the Excel application, while for the open questions was assessed by its contents. In brief, it was concluded that: a) a third of students that attended the 2nd Cycle Basic Education schools revealed to be “risk students”. Around 75% of them were 5th grade students. Among the most important risk factors are: irregular attendance, unmotivated/aloofness /apathy, lack of attention and concentration, indiscipline and successive retentions during their education pathway. The family is scarcely participative. b) The curricular response is normally given within the classroom; c) the organizational response lies mostly on some measures included in government documents. On the last part of the paper, we focus on more detailed conclusions, as well as give recommendations/suggestions which may eventually be of guidance to future studies.

Acesso aos Cuidados de Saúde: um direito em risco?. Relatório Primavera 2015

Em Portugal a saúde tem a dignidade de ser considerada na Constituição da República (CR), no capítulo dos direitos e deveres sociais (Capítulo II). Aí se afirma que “todos têm direito à proteção da saúde e o dever de a defender e promover” (CR, artº 64, nº 1), balanceando-se assim as responsabilidades do Estado, através do dever de proteção, com as responsabilidades individuais, através do dever de defender e promover a saúde. O Estado assume o seu dever garantindo “o acesso de todos os cidadãos, independentemente da sua condição económica” (CR, artº 64, nº3, al. a). O acesso aos cuidados de saúde constitui-se assim como a forma de o Estado garantir aos cidadãos o direito à saúde.