Does “Could” Lead to Good? On the Road to Moral Insight

Abstract

Dilemmas featuring competing moral imperatives are prevalent in organizations and are difficult to resolve. Whereas prior research has focused on how individuals adjudicate among these moral imperatives, we study the factors that influence when individuals find solutions that fall outside of the salient options presented. In particular, we study moral insight, or the discovery of solutions, other than selecting one of the competing moral imperatives over another, that honor both competing imperatives or resolve the tension among them. Although individuals intuitively consider the question "What should I do?" when contemplating moral dilemmas, we find that prompting people to consider "What could I do?" helps them generate moral insight. Together, these studies point toward the conditions that enable moral insight and important practical implications.

Powered by compassion: The effect of loving-kindness meditation on entrepreneurs' sustainable decision-making

“…Subsequently, participants were exposed to a situation in which they were confronted with a realistic entrepreneurial decision problem involving an ethical dilemma with environmental consequences. Adapted from May and Pauli (2002), this decision-making scenario was designed to typify a difficult dilemma where there is no one correct answer and the solution necessitates a tradeoff among various morals and values (see also Zhang et al, 2018). Finally, we conducted a debrief session where we confirmed with the participants that the scenario was realistic and informed them about the actual purpose of the study.…”

“…Because this supplier is crucial for the survival of their venture, a decision to stop production and avoid environmental pollution represents an ethical dilemma. Hence, this scenario was designed to not have a single "right" answer so that it represents the thorny ethical decisions that entrepreneurs actually face in the field (Zhang et al, 2018). Sustainable decisions of this kind can also be seen as a binary in that one either prevents environmental harm or not.…”

“…adverse impact on the ecological environment but risking bankruptcy vs. continuing the relationship as is and risking responsibility for environmental harm) represents an ethical dilemma of the "right vs. right" kind (Zhang et al, 2018).…”

What Goes Down When Advice Goes Up: Younger Advisers Underestimate Their Impact

“…Based on the consensual assessment technique (Amabile, 1982; Zhang, Gino, & Margolis, 2018), participants rated five randomly selected pieces of advice intended for their age demographic (Milkman et al, 2009). For example, 125 raters between the ages of 31 and 35 were randomly assigned five different pieces of advice that were randomly selected from the pool of 56 pieces of advice intended for the target age group.…”

Everyday dilemmas: New directions on the judgment and resolution of benevolence–integrity dilemmas

“…Despite the frequency with which benevolence–integrity dilemmas are encountered in everyday life, they are surprisingly understudied. Instead, existing research primarily examines conflicts between moral values and self‐interest (for a review, see T. Zhang, Gino, & Margolis, ), or among deontological and utilitarian impulses (Conway & Gawronski, ; Duke & Bègue, ; Greene et al, ; Waldmann & Dieterich, ). For example, myriad papers in the past twenty years feature “sacrificial dilemmas” (Bartels & Pizarro, ) like the trolley problem (Foot, ; Thomson, ), which involve fantastical situations with high stakes.…”