Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development01:19

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

1.4K
Kohlberg's theory of moral development uses the Heinz dilemma — a thought experiment in which a man, Heinz, must decide whether to steal an unaffordable drug to save his dying wife — to illustrate the evolution of moral reasoning. This framework, divided into three levels with two stages, highlights how individuals' understanding of right and wrong becomes increasingly complex.
Pre-Conventional Level
At the pre-conventional level, morality is primarily driven by personal...
1.4K
Obedience01:08

Obedience

35.7K
According to obedience research, we may harm others under the forceful pressures of an authority figure (Milgram, 1974). How about if the inappropriate orders were delivered with less force? The increasing interdependence between nurses and physicians compelled Hofling and his colleagues to explore nurses’ reactions to a potentially harmful medical request made by the perceived authority figure, the doctor (Hofling, Brotzman, Dalrymple, Graves, & Pierce, 1966). In this situation,...
35.7K
Milgram's Obedience to Authority02:20

Milgram's Obedience to Authority

7.7K
Obedience to authority is classically demonstrated in a more famous series of social psychology experiments performed by Stanley Milgram. He was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.”
7.7K
Fundamental Attribution Error01:14

Fundamental Attribution Error

14.1K
According to some social psychologists, people tend to overemphasize internal factors as explanations—or attributions—for the behavior of other people. They tend to assume that the behavior of another person is a trait of that person, and to underestimate the power of the situation on the behavior of others. They tend to fail to recognize when the behavior of another is due to situational variables, and thus to the person’s state. This erroneous assumption is...
14.1K
Ethical Issues01:27

Ethical Issues

2.5K
Nurses are essential in patient care, upholding the ethical principles of their profession and effectively navigating ethical dilemmas. Neglecting ethical issues can lead to inadequate patient care, compromised therapeutic relationships, and moral distress among healthcare workers.
Ethical Concerns in Healthcare:
2.5K
Egoism and Altruism01:55

Egoism and Altruism

94.5K
Voluntary behavior with the intent to help other people is called prosocial behavior. Why do people help other people? Is personal benefit such as feeling good about oneself the only reason people help one another?
94.5K

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Decision-making preferences for intuition, deliberation, friends or crowds in independent and interdependent societies.

Proceedings. Biological sciences·2025
Same author

People accept breaks in the causal chain between crime and punishment.

Memory & cognition·2024
Same author

Probability and intentional action.

Cognitive psychology·2023
Same author

Actual knowledge.

The Behavioral and brain sciences·2021
Same author

Visual Self-Motion Feedback Affects the Sense of Self in Virtual Reality.

Multisensory research·2021
Same author

Natural Compatibilism, Indeterminism, and Intrusive Metaphysics.

Cognitive science·2020

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 5, 2026

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task
06:08

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task

Published on: July 22, 2025

1.1K

Inability and Obligation in Moral Judgment.

Wesley Buckwalter1, John Turri2

  • 1Department of Philosophy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Plos One
|August 22, 2015
PubMed
Summary

Commonsense morality does not follow the "ought implies can" principle. Moral obligations are judged independently of ability, though blame is sensitive to it.

More Related Videos

The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies
08:24

The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies

Published on: August 25, 2023

1.3K
Assessment of Mouse Judgment Bias through an Olfactory Digging Task
12:10

Assessment of Mouse Judgment Bias through an Olfactory Digging Task

Published on: March 4, 2022

3.2K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Apr 5, 2026

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task
06:08

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task

Published on: July 22, 2025

1.1K
The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies
08:24

The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies

Published on: August 25, 2023

1.3K
Assessment of Mouse Judgment Bias through an Olfactory Digging Task
12:10

Assessment of Mouse Judgment Bias through an Olfactory Digging Task

Published on: March 4, 2022

3.2K

Area of Science:

  • Moral philosophy
  • Cognitive psychology
  • Experimental ethics

Background:

  • The principle of

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between moral obligations and an individual's ability to act.
  • To empirically test the

Main Methods:

  • Eight experiments were conducted using various moral vocabulary and scenarios.
  • Participants
  • Main_Results': [

Main Results:

  • Moral obligations were attributed irrespective of an individual's inability.
  • Judgments of moral obligation remained consistent across different types, durations, and scopes of inability.
  • Moral obligation judgments were unaffected by the seriousness of consequences for inaction.
  • Ability did not influence judgments of moral obligation, unlike evaluations of non-moral obligations.
  • Judgments of blame, however, were sensitive to considerations of ability.

Conclusions:

  • Commonsense morality rejects the notion that