Moral Values in Moral Psychology

What values do moral psychologists espouse with regard to what humans should be like? Taking cues from social psychologists concerning the importance of implicit biases in behavior, from theoretical and philosophical psychologists concerning the importance of uncovering and analyzing philosophical assumptions that undergird all empirical and theoretical work, and from anthropologists about the critical role of reflexivity in scholarly analyses, this investigation engages with moral assumptions that lie at the root of the psychological study of morality. Textual analyses of moral psychology's literature include content analyses and cultural discourse analyses of value themes. These findings illuminate particularly pervasive values, namely, that researchers adhere to the value-free ideal (itself a value) while privileging Western moral values regarding particular moral problems and moral goods that ought to be sought after. It is clear that these pervasive values influence research in important ways at various levels. We argue that it is not possible (nor desirable) to eliminate assumed values from moral psychological research and that a simple epistemic/nonepistemic value distinction is inadequate for deciding which values are appropriate. We rather argue for a deeper degree of reflexivity or "value disclosure" as a mode of best practice in psychological research on morality and ethics.