Empirical evidence for the expressive-collaborative model of morality and its implications for healthcare ethics consultation

Abstract

With the hopes of guiding the future development of HCEC, this paper attempts to better understand the nature of morality by integrating moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt's theory of human functioning in moral contexts with Margaret Urban Walker's work in moral philosophy. First, I present Margaret Urban Walker's two contrasting philosophical views of morality: the theoretical-juridical model (TJM) of morality and the expressive-collaborative model (ECM) of morality. Second, I present evidence suggesting that traditional models of how people make moral judgments overestimate the causal role of reasoning and underestimate the causal role of emotions. Third, I present a model of moral judgment that I believe meets these two criteria: Jonathan Haidt's social intuitionist model (SIM) of moral judgment. Finally, I discuss how the SIM can be applied to HCEC to guide practice.