To what extent do definitions of morality and moral reasoning depend on cultural and religious worldviews? Developmental psychology has been focused on uncovering a universal moral domain and moral reasons shared by all humans. This chapter, however, addresses the questions from a cultural-developmental vantage point. This chapter compares nonreligious, liberal religious, and conservative religious Finnish adolescents on how they define and reason about morality. The adolescents evaluated and reasoned about acts, such as stealing, that are generally regarded as morally wrong in Finland and that developmental theory has deemed to fall within the moral domain. They also evaluate “controversial” issues, such as cohabitation prior to marriage and keeping shops open on Sundays, that are characterized by differences of opinion in Finland and that developmental theory has typically deemed conventional rather than moral. The adolescents took part in in-depth interviews, and in this chapter I analyze and discuss their moral evaluations and reasoning in both quantitative and qualitative ways.
My focus is on adolescence because in many ways it is a significant phase in the development of moral reasoning. Adolescents often gain greater autonomy and responsibility in deciding about their lives. It is also a period when individuals begin forming personal ideologies and worldviews (Arnett, Reference Arnett1997; Arnett, Ramos, & Jensen, Reference Arnett, Ramos and Jensen2001), in part as a result of increasing awareness of the larger community, political institutions, and social issues (Flanagan & Levine, Reference Flanagan and Levine2010). Furthermore, according to the cultural-developmental theory of moral reasoning (Jensen, Reference Jensen2008, Reference Jensen2011, and Chapters 1 and 8, this volume), adolescence constitutes a key developmental period in many cultures for the emergence of substantial and self-generated moral reasoning focused on religion and spirituality.
I start by reviewing the cultural and developmental literature that undergird my study. This includes attention to research specifically focused on the relation between religion and moral reasoning. Then, I provide a description of the cultural contexts of the present adolescents: how they all are coming of age within a Nordic welfare state and how they also differ markedly in terms of religious affiliation.
Culture and morality
The development of moral reasoning can take very different paths depending on cultural and religious environments (Guerra & Giner-Sorolla, Chapter 6, this volume; Jensen, Chapter 8, this volume; Trommsdorff, Reference Trommsdorff, Trommsdorff and Chen2012, Reference Trommsdorff and Jensen2015). According to Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, and Park (Reference Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, Park, Brandt and Rozin1997), cultural explanations and daily practices modify in a fundamental way the development of individuals' moral reasoning. Specifically, they suggest that people in different cultures vary in the extent to which they reason in terms of the three Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity. They also suggest that each of these ethics is based on different definitions of personhood, humanity, and society (see also Shweder & Miller, Reference Shweder, Miller, Gergen and Davis1985). The Ethic of Autonomy is based on the ideal of a free individual, and therefore the purpose of society is to promote individual autonomy and rights. The Ethic of Community is based on the concept of interdependence between people and is associated with a commitment to the harmony of the community. The Ethic of Divinity focuses on individuals as divine entities and seeks to maintain and protect this divine quality. The Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity are not mutually exclusive, and many individuals use a mixture of them. However, since the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity promote different “goods,” they can conflict with each other, and therefore individuals usually emphasize one ethic more than others.
Research has shown that people from different countries differ on their relative use of ethics. For example, people in the United States use the Ethic of Autonomy more than do people in Brazil, India, and the Philippines (Haidt, Koller, & Dias, Reference Haidt, Koller and Diaz1993; Jensen, Reference Jensen1995; Kapadia & Bhangaokar, Chapter 4, this volume; Vasquez, Keltner, Ebenbach, et al., Reference Vasquez, Keltner, Ebenbach and Banaszynski2001). Moreover, research has demonstrated that the ethical orientation varies within countries. For example, a preference for the Ethic of Autonomy has been associated with emerging adulthood (Jensen, Reference Jensen2011), a liberal religious worldview (Jensen, Reference Jensen1997a, Reference Jensen1997b, Reference Jensen2006), a liberal or left-wing political orientation (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, Reference Graham, Haidt and Nosek2009), and higher socioeconomic status (Haidt, Koller, & Dias, Reference Haidt, Koller and Diaz1993).
Apart from encompassing different kinds of moral reasons, the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity are also characterized by different definitions of morality. Previous studies applying the “domain” model of sociomoral development (e.g., Nucci, Reference Nucci and Harding1985, Reference Nucci2001; Turiel, Reference Turiel1983) have examined how individuals distinguish between the domains of morality and social convention on the basis of criterion questions, namely, whether the extent to which an issue is regarded as right or wrong is perceived to be alterable by the relevant authorities, contingent on God's word, and generalizable to other countries. Moral issues are regarded as nonalterable by authorities, not contingent on God's word, and generalizable to other countries, whereas social conventions are regarded as alterable by authorities, contingent on God's word, and not generalizable to other countries. Shweder, Mahapatra, and Miller (Reference Shweder, Mahapatra, Miller, Kagan and Lamb1987) found that individuals who predominantly use the Ethic of Autonomy make a distinction between universally binding and nonalterable moral issues, on one hand, and context-dependent and alterable social conventional issues, on the other. In other words, these individuals judge issues in accordance with domain theory. In contrast, however, individuals who use the Ethic of Community or Divinity do not make such a distinction. Instead, they differentiate between universal moral issues and context-dependent moral issues that are perceived as nonalterable but morally binding within one's own community (see also Vasquez, Keltner, & Ebenbach, et al., Reference Vasquez, Keltner, Ebenbach and Banaszynski2001). Both issues, however, are regarded as moral.
Religion and morality
There is a dearth of research on moral development and religious socialization from a cultural perspective, including in adolescence, which may be a key time for the intersection of morality and religion in development (Trommsdorff, Reference Trommsdorff, Trommsdorff and Chen2012). Previous research on the association between religious socialization and morality has focused on either moral reasoning or criterion judgments. Research pertaining to individuals' moral reasoning has demonstrated that religious socialization and the development of moral reasoning are closely intertwined. For example, we know that individuals' religious socialization is associated with their use of the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity (Jensen, Reference Jensen1998; Padilla-Walker & Nelson, Chapter 5, this volume). This was found in a comparative study of conservative religious and liberal religious individuals' moral reasoning in India and the United States (Jensen, Reference Jensen1998). In both countries, the liberal religious individuals used the Ethic of Autonomy more than the conservative religious individuals, who in turn used the Ethic of Divinity more than liberal religious individuals. Conservative and liberal religious individuals in the two countries did not differ on their use of the Ethic of Community. Moreover, in both countries the conservative religious individuals focused on God as a creator of human beings and society, whereas the liberal religious individuals perceived society as a social system.
Research focusing on criterion judgments and religion has revealed that religious socialization shapes the conceptualization of the moral domain in many ways. First, it has been found that among the members of some religious communities, personal autonomy is perceived as part of – rather than separate from – the moral domain. Four studies conducted by Cohen and Rozin (Reference Cohen and Rozin2001) in the United States found that Protestant Christian adults made an intrinsic connection between believing in something and acting according to that belief, whereas Jewish adults did not. Although the Jewish and Protestant participants rated such things as dishonoring one's parents, having a sexual affair, and harming an animal as moral issues, these groups differed in the moral importance they attributed to thinking about engaging in these behaviors. Protestant participants rated a person having such thoughts more negatively than Jewish participants did. These differences were partially mediated by the Protestants' beliefs that individuals' thoughts are likely to lead to action. Among the Protestant participants, such beliefs predicted statements that thoughts about morally wrong behaviors are themselves morally wrong.
Research has also indicated that many religious communities evaluate their own religious rules as context-dependent moral obligations because they are perceived as not being alterable by authorities (moral criterion) and not generalizable outside their own community (social conventional criterion). Moreover, these studies suggest that many conservative religious persons perceive morality as contingent on God's word. For example, in a study conducted by Nucci (Reference Nucci and Harding1985), members of the Amish community in the United States were found to consider their religious rules prohibiting abortion, homosexuality, and pornography as nonalterable by their religious authorities, and they did not generalize the evaluation of these religious rules outside their own religious community. Similarly, in a study by Nucci and Turiel (Reference Nucci and Turiel1993), Conservative and Orthodox Jewish participants did not perceive their religious rules such as those regulating the day of worship and work on the Sabbath as alterable by their religious authorities but only applicable to their own religious community. Glicksman (Reference Glicksman1997), in a study of Orthodox Jewish participants' evaluations of moral rules and religious rules such as prohibition against cooking on the Sabbath and eating pork, demonstrated that religious rules are conceptually different from nonreligious moral and conventional rules.
As a whole, previous studies have analyzed religious moral socialization from multiple perspectives. Those focusing on moral reasoning have found that liberal religious and conservative religious individuals give different degrees of emphasis to the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity. Studies focusing on criterion judgments have found that, in religious contexts, individuals evaluate moral rules to be qualitatively different from nonreligious rules. In addition, these findings indicate that the perception of the moral domain is shaped by the religious context, such as the specific kind of interpretation of God's word endorsed in religious communities, the moral status of religious authorities, and the exclusive perception of one's own religious community. In other words, studies on religious contexts suggest that both aspects of morality – reasoning and criterion judgments – accommodate the specific cultural and religious contexts of individuals. Next, I discuss how the Finnish welfare state and Finnish religious cultures function as contexts for moral development.
The Finnish welfare state
Finland is one of the five Nordic countries (the others being Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), which are small, relatively wealthy, and culturally homogenous states located in northern Europe. They are also characterized by the Nordic welfare state model. This model is morally relevant in many ways since the countries' social policies explicitly promote certain moral values (see Jensen, Reference Jensen2011), and exposure to such policies is likely to affect the moral attitudes and behaviors of individuals (Ervasti, Fridberg, Hjerm, et al., Reference Ervasti, Fridberg, Hjerm, Kangas, Ringdal and Ervasti2008). According to Ervasti and colleagues, the Nordic model emphasizes collective welfare and the role of the state in maintaining it. The welfare state is usually defined as a political system where the state (and not the individual or the local community) assumes the primary responsibility for the individual and for the social welfare of citizens (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2012). Although the welfare state may take many forms, the Nordic model emphasizes both the reduction of socioeconomic differences and the enhancement of individual autonomy through extensive public care services (Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen, Esping-Andersen, Gallie, Hemerijck and Myles2002; Repo, Reference Repo2004).
The Nordic countries are characterized by public policies that protect individuals from harm to self and others (Mäkelä & Österberg, Reference Mäkelä and Österberg2009). For example, certain alcoholic beverages are sold only in state monopoly outlets in Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Norway. Few studies have examined individuals' moral reasoning as shaped by the welfare state concept. Studies conducted by Arnett and Jensen (Reference Arnett and Jensen1994) in Denmark and by Scarr (Reference Scarr1996) in Sweden suggest that individuals in the Nordic welfare states combine the notion of individual rights with the notion of collective responsibility.
The idea that the state is responsible for protecting the welfare of its citizens is a very recent historical occurrence (Jiggens, Reference Jiggens1995). According to many scholars, modern welfare states should be interpreted as the heirs of religious values (Casanova, Reference Casanova1994; Opielka, Reference Opielka, Oorschot, Opielka and Pfau-Effinger2008; Rokkan, Reference Rokkan1999). Rozin (Reference Rozin, Brandt and Rozin1997, Reference Rozin1999), for instance, has made a distinction between Protestant (e.g., Lutheran) and Catholic cultures. For example, from the perspective of morality, the values of self-discipline and self-control are regarded as moral virtues in Protestant, but not Catholic, cultures (Rozin, Reference Rozin, Brandt and Rozin1997, Reference Rozin1999). The connection between religious values and the welfare state also means that taking care of citizens' welfare is organized differently in Catholic and Protestant countries. Whereas earlier the welfare of individuals was tended to by the church in both Catholic and Protestant countries, in the Nordic countries this role has been assumed by the secular state. This Nordic model has been explained by the consensual relationship between the state and the Lutheran Church in these countries. For example, although the transition from religious to secular institutions taking care of the poor and sick was rather smooth in the Lutheran countries, in Catholic countries it led to conflict between the state and the church (Kahl, Reference Kahl2005). Such a distinction exists even today.
Religion in Finland
As mentioned above, the adolescents in this study were nonreligious, religiously liberal, and religiously conservative. The nonreligious adolescents were not members of a religious community and described themselves as nonreligious. Such adolescents are common in Finland. According to Statistics Finland (2011), approximately 20 percent of the population identify themselves as having no religious affiliation.
The liberal religious adolescents identified themselves as Evangelical Lutheran. About 77 percent of Finns belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Statistics Finland, 2011), one of the two state churches in the country, the other being the Finnish Orthodox Church. State church status means that the church has a significant influence on laws relating to marriage, divorce, and religious instruction in schools. However, at the level of personal beliefs, Finland is one of the most nonreligious countries in the world (Zuckerman, Reference Zuckerman and Martin2007). For example, in a study conducted with Finnish university students, religious believers associated God with omnipotence, whereas agnostics and “averagely religious” people associated God with nature (Lindeman, Pyysiäinen, & Saariluoma, Reference Lindeman, Pyysiäinen and Saariluoma2002). Membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church is granted soon after birth since the choice is made by the parents, not the children. At the age of 15 years, however, Finnish adolescents have the right to decide for themselves about their church membership. Yet despite the fact that for a long while it has been easy to withdraw from the church, very few do so. This pattern characterizes the religious life of not only Finns but also other Nordic populations (Heino, Reference Heino1997).
The conservative religious adolescents were recruited from the Conservative Laestadian movement. This revivalist movement was founded in the 1840s within the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Laestadian movement still exists within the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and many Evangelical Lutheran priests are from the Conservative Laestadian community. The community does not keep a register of its members, but it has been estimated that at least 2 percent of the Finnish population belong to this denomination (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, 2013). Conservative Laestadians emphasize the unique and special status of their community in the eyes of God. Currently, they prohibit television watching, birth control, divorce, and alcohol and drugs (Larsen, Reference Larsen1993; Pyysiäinen, Reference Pyysiäinen2005). The Conservative Laestadian interpretation of the Bible is based on the Finnish translation by A. W. Ingman from the year 1859 (Nuorteva, Reference Nuorteva1992). For this reason, the authority of the Bible has a high moral status for Laestadians. Despite the exclusive nature of this religious community, the Conservative Laestadians are fully integrated into Finnish society in the sense that they study in the same schools and universities and work in occupations similar to those of other Finns (excluding the performing arts and professional sports). At the same time, the selective use of mass media, along with their choice of friends and active religious moral education within the community, keeps Conservative Laestadian adolescents well tied to their community.
The present study
Research hypotheses
On the basis of findings from previous studies, I tested three hypotheses. The first pertained to criterion judgments. I hypothesized that the groups would differ on the “controversial” issues, but not on the “typical” issues (Shweder, Mahapatra, & Miller, Reference Shweder, Mahapatra, Miller, Kagan and Lamb1987; Vasquez, Keltner, Ebenbach, et al., Reference Vasquez, Keltner, Ebenbach and Banaszynski2001).
The other two hypotheses addressed moral reasoning. One hypothesis was that nonreligious and liberal religious adolescents would reason more in terms of the Ethic of Autonomy and less in terms of the Ethic of Divinity as compared with conservative religious adolescents (Jensen, Reference Jensen1998). It was also hypothesized that because the Finnish welfare state policy emphasizes the state's responsibility for its citizens' well-being, the groups of adolescents would not differ on their use the Ethic of Community (Arnett & Jensen, Reference Arnett and Jensen1994; Scarr, Reference Scarr1996).
Participants
Adolescents in their second year of higher secondary education who lived in the city of Oulu were recruited for interviews. The interviewees were from two schools, both mainstream. Written consent was given by the principals of the schools. As the adolescents were older than 15 years of age, their recruitment was based on their own informed consent, and parental consent was not needed.
The researcher contacted teachers, who agreed to announce the study in their classes in order to find volunteers who identified themselves as Evangelical Lutheran or Conservative Laestadian or who did not confess a religion, who were about 17 years of age, and who were studying in their second year of upper secondary school. The participants were selected at random from among these volunteers. The sample (N = 30) consisted of three groups of 10 participants. Each group included an equal number of both genders, and the mean age of the participants was 17.03 years (SD = 0.18). All participants were Finnish-speaking and of Finnish origin.
The participants completed a questionnaire measuring religiosity, designed for the purposes of the study. It included items about upholding religious beliefs, participating in activities organized by a religious community, and private religious behavior. They were asked to answer items on a five-point scale ranging from 1 to 5. The mean score of all 15 items had a satisfactory reliability (α = 0.97). An ANOVA with planned contrasts (Helmert) indicated that the conservative religious adolescents (M = 3.91, SD = 0.23) were more religious than the other adolescents (M = 1.80, SD = 0.68), F(1, 27) = 194.91, p = 0.000. Moreover, liberal religious adolescents (M = 2.31, SD = 0.31) were more religious than nonreligious adolescents (M = 1.30, SD = 0.55), F(1, 18) = 25.37, p = 0.000.
Interviews
The interviews were semistructured. The participants were asked questions about three “typical” moral issues (stealing, religion-based discrimination, and gender-based discrimination) as well as seven “controversial” moral issues (making the current moral education in schools nonreligious, allowing the use and sale of marijuana, relaxing the censorship of TV and video programs, allowing shops to be open on Sundays, making the legal status of cohabitation equal to marriage, allowing the sale of wine in food shops, and making contraceptive pills prescription-free if their use does not involve health risks).
For each of these issues the interviewer asked two questions about alterability, one about contingency and one about generalizability. These criterion questions have also been used in previous studies examining individuals' criterion judgments of conventional and moral issues (e.g., Nucci, Reference Nucci and Harding1985, Reference Nucci2001; Nucci & Turiel, Reference Nucci and Turiel1993; Shweder, Mahapatra, & Miller, Reference Shweder, Mahapatra, Miller, Kagan and Lamb1987; Turiel, Reference Turiel1983). The criterion questions were as follows:
1. Alterability/government authority: “If the Finnish government removes the law about the issue, would this then be right or wrong?”
2. Alterability/religious authority: “If the Evangelical Lutheran Church [for the liberal religious and the nonreligious adolescents] or the religious leaders of the Conservative Laestadian community [for the conservative religious adolescents] remove the rule about the issue, would this then be right or wrong?”
3. Contingency on the perception of God's word: “If there was nothing written in the Bible about the issue, would this then be right or wrong?”
4. Generalizability: “If there is no law about the issue in another country, would this then be right or wrong?”
In addition, participants were asked to provide their reasons for their views on the issues. They were asked: “Why would the issue then be right or wrong?” or “Why, in your opinion, is this criterion important when thinking about this issue?”
Because the interview questions about moral issues could potentially be stressful to the participants (see Miller, Goyal, & Wice, Reference Miller, Goyal, Wice and Jensen2015), the researcher emphasized that if the participants did not want to continue the interview for any reason, they were free to stop and the tape was destroyed (this happened only once). At no point did the researcher ask the names of the participants, although the confessional group to which each participant belonged was known because some interview questions had to be adapted to apply to the participant's religious community. For purposes of debriefing, the researcher asked each participant about her or his feelings about the interview.
The interviews were carried out in empty classrooms or in the school library during school hours, and only the interviewer and interviewee were present. The same person (the author) conducted every interview, which ranged in length from 30 to 90 minutes. The researcher emphasized to the participants that there were no right or wrong answers to the interview questions. All interviews (except debriefings) were tape-recorded and transcribed.
Analyses
For the purposes of testing the hypotheses, ANOVAs with a priori Helmert contrasts were used for comparing religious conservatives to the other two groups combined and for comparing the nonreligious to liberal religious groups.
With respect to coding, participants' criterion judgments were coded as follows: a value of 1 was assigned to the response “the issue is right,” a value of 2 indicated a judgment of both right and wrong, and a value of 3 indicated a judgment that “the issue is wrong.”
Moral reasoning was coded following the coding manual developed by Jensen (Reference Jensen, Arnett, Feldman and Cauffman2004). The manual consists of a description of the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity, elaborated further into thirteen to sixteen subcodes (see Appendix A in this book). One code only was assigned to each reason. The participants could provide more than one reason, and each reason was assigned a code. Following the guidelines, the reasons were coded in terms of a subcode within one of the three ethics. Altogether 424 reasons were coded; on average, each participant provided 14 reasons (SD = 2.26).
Reliability coding was carried out by a trained coder familiar with the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity model. Five randomly selected interviews were coded for the reliability. The selected interviews consisted of seventy-two reasons that were underlined by the author. The coding reliability was checked at the level of each ethic and the category “Other.” (The number of categories was four.) The reliability between the coders was 78 percent. All disagreement was resolved through discussion.
The structure of the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity was validated by means of a hierarchical cluster analysis using the Ward method, which usually provides a good fit with the real cluster structure of the data (StatSoft, 2013). The results can be said to be valid if a similar cluster structure emerges with another sample of individuals (Everitt, Landau, Leese, et al., Reference Everitt, Landau, Leese and Stahl2011). Each subcode belonging to the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity (N = 34 in total) was entered as a variable in the analysis. The results produced a clear three-cluster structure and revealed clear “nested” differences between the initial and the final five levels of clusters. Three main clusters emerged within a short distance of each other, the next partitions taking place much later. According to Everitt and colleagues (2011), when deciding the appropriate numbers of clusters, large changes in fusion levels in the dendrogram indicate a particular number of clusters. The dendrogram here revealed that justifications reflecting autonomy and rights were grouped in the first cluster that corresponded to the Ethic of Autonomy. This cluster also included justifications emphasizing social order concerns, which could also have been grouped under the Ethic of Community. The second cluster corresponding to the Ethic of Community emphasized social duties, others’ needs, and the maintenance of social stability, social relationships, authority, and tradition. The third cluster was religious in nature, including justifications referring to God's word, the Bible, and faith; it was named the Ethic of Divinity. In sum, the hierarchical cluster analysis supported the Three Ethics model.
How culture relates to adolescents’ moral definitions and reasons
How religious culture relates to definitions of morality
The analysis of criterion judgments revealed that the three groups held similar definitions of the typical moral issues, but not of the controversial ones as hypothesized. The quantitative analysis of the three typical moral issues showed almost no differences between the groups. These issues were evaluated as not alterable by the government or church, as not contingent on God's word, and as generalizable to other countries (see Tables 3.1 and 3.2).
Table 3.1 Criterion judgments of nonreligious, liberal religious, and conservative religious adolescents
The first line shows means, and the second line shows standard deviations (in italics).
| Nonreligious | Liberal religious | Conservative religious | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issue | Government | Church | God's word | Other country | Government | Church | God's word | Other country | Government | Church | God's word | Other country |
| Stealing | 2.90 | 2.90 | 2.90 | 2.70 | 3.00 | 2.90 | 2.80 | 2.70 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.80 |
| 0.32 | 0.32 | 0.32 | 0.48 | 0.00 | 0.32 | 0.42 | 0.48 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.71 | 0.63 | |
| Religion-based discrimination | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.80 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.90 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.60 | 3.00 |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.42 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.32 | 0.00 | 0.00 | .052 | 0.00 | |
| Gender-based discrimination | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.70 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.80 | 3.00 | 2.60 | 2.60 | 2.50 | 2.60 |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.68 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.63 | 0.00 | 0.84 | 0.84 | 0.85 | 0.84 | |
| Nonreligious moral education | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.60 | 1.80 | 1.60 | 1.70 | 2.90 | 2.90 | 2.20 | 2.20 |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.70 | 0.79 | 0.70 | 0.82 | 0.32 | 0.32 | 0.79 | 0.63 | |
| Censorship | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.10 | 1.70 | 2.00 | 1.80 | 1.60 | 2.90 | 2.90 | 2.30 | 2.60 |
| 0.85 | 0.85 | 0.85 | 0.32 | 0.82 | 0.94 | 0.92 | 0.84 | 0.32 | 0.32 | 0.82 | 0.84 | |
| Shops open on Sundays | 1.50 | 1.60 | 1.50 | 1.20 | 1.60 | 2.10 | 1.70 | 1.20 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 1.70 | 2.20 |
| 0.85 | 0.84 | 0.85 | 0.63 | 0.84 | 0.99 | 0.82 | 0.63 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.95 | 0.92 | |
| Cohabitation | 1.10 | 1.10 | 1.10 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 2.30 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 1.40 | 2.20 |
| 0.32 | 0.32 | 0.32 | 0.00 | 0.94 | 0.95 | 0.85 | 0.94 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.84 | 0.92 | |
| Wine sold in shops | 1.20 | 1.40 | 1.20 | 1.20 | 1.80 | 1.80 | 1.80 | 1.70 | 2.90 | 3.00 | 1.90 | 2.30 |
| 0.63 | 0.84 | 0.63 | 0.63 | 0.92 | 0.92 | 0.92 | 0.95 | 0.32 | 0.00 | 0.99 | 0.82 | |
| Contraceptive pills | 1.40 | 1.40 | 1.40 | 1.40 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.90 | 2.80 | 2.80 | 2.00 | 2.40 |
| 0.70 | 0.70 | 0.70 | 0.70 | 1.05 | 1.05 | 1.05 | 0.99 | 0.63 | 0.63 | 0.82 | 0.84 | |
| Marijuana | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.80 | 2.70 | 2.80 | 2.50 | 2.30 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.10 | 2.50 |
| 0.94 | 0.94 | 0.94 | 0.92 | 0.68 | 0.63 | 0.85 | 0.95 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.74 | 0.85 | |
Table 3.2 Results of planned contrasts (Helmert) on criterion judgments between conservative religious (CR) vs. other participants, F (1, 28), and nonreligious (NR) vs. liberal religious (LR) participants, F (1, 18)
| Government | Church | God's word | Other country | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issue | Contrast type | F | p | F | p | F | p | F | p |
| Stealing | CR vs. others | 0.49 | 0.489 | 1.04 | .317 | 3.24 | 0.082 | 0.24 | 0.629 |
| NR vs. LR | 1.00 | 0.331 | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.36 | 0.556 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
| Religion-based discrimination | CR vs. others | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.00 | 1.000 | 12.44 | 0.001 | 1.65 | 0.21 |
| NR vs. LR | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.36 | 0.556 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
| Gender-based discrimination | CR vs. others | 4.67 | 0.039 | 4.67 | 0.039 | 2.90 | 0.100 | 1.07 | 0.311 |
| NR vs. LR | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.00 | 1.000 | 1.00 | 0.331 | 1.98 | 0.177 | |
| Nonreligious moral education | CR vs. others | 67.31 | 0.000 | 43.30 | 0.000 | 12.81 | 0.001 | 11.10 | 0.002 |
| NR vs. LR | 7.36 | 0.014 | 10.29 | 0.005 | 7.36 | 0.014 | 7.23 | 0.015 | |
| Censorship | CR vs. others | 23.03 | 0.000 | 14.83 | 0.001 | 3.82 | 0.061 | 19.51 | 0.000 |
| NR vs. LR | 0.29 | 0.600 | 1.55 | 0.229 | 0.57 | 0.458 | 3.08 | 0.096 | |
| Shops open on Sundays | CR vs. others | 30.31 | 0.000 | 14.92 | 0.001 | 0.09 | 0.767 | 12.61 | 0.001 |
| NR vs. LR | 0.07 | 0.795 | 1.47 | 0.241 | 0.29 | 0.600 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
| Cohabitation | CR vs. others | 30.31 | 0.000 | 19.47 | 0.000 | 0.13 | 0.723 | 4.44 | 0.044 |
| NR vs. LR | 8.19 | 0.010 | 14.40 | 0.001 | 1.95 | 0.180 | 11.25 | 0.004 | |
| Wine sold in shops | CR vs. others | 26.32 | 0.000 | 24.72 | 0.000 | 1.36 | 0.253 | 7.08 | 0.013 |
| NR vs. LR | 2.89 | 0.106 | 1.03 | 0.324 | 2.89 | 0.106 | 1.92 | 0.182 | |
| Contraceptive pills | CR vs. others | 11.41 | 0.002 | 11.41 | 0.002 | 0.76 | 0.392 | 5.01 | 0.033 |
| NR vs. LR | 2.25 | 0.151 | 2.25 | 0.151 | 2.25 | 0.151 | 1.69 | 0.210 | |
| Marijuana | CR vs. others | 5.42 | 0.027 | 4.54 | 0.042 | 0.20 | 0.655 | 1.61 | 0.215 |
| NR vs. LR | 3.65 | 0.072 | 4.97 | 0.039 | 1.55 | 0.229 | 1.43 | 0.247 | |
Some conservative religious adolescents, however, stated that women's and men's different treatment is legitimate because God created them as different, and therefore the criterion judgments associated with gender-based discrimination yielded some statistically significant differences between conservative religious and other participants (Table 3.2). Here is an example of a conservative religious adolescent explaining his view of the legitimacy of gender inequality:
A: It is strange why men cannot give birth. In practice, equality is not possible in any way, because a man and a woman are different, so how could they be equal. How can a bear and a fox be equal when they have totally different skills, thoughts and instincts?
With respect to criterion judgments of the controversial issues, however, there were many statistically significant differences between the conservative groups and other two groups as expected (Table 3.2). Unlike the other adolescents, conservative religious adolescents evaluated these issues as not alterable by the government or church and generalizable to other countries. However, they perceived most controversial issues as contingent on God's word. Almost no significant differences between the nonreligious and liberal religious groups were found. These findings indicate that nonreligious and liberal religious groups considered controversial issues as social conventions, whereas conservative religious participants considered them as context-dependent moral issues. Moreover, this finding fits well with the notion by Shweder, Mahapatra, and Miller (Reference Shweder, Mahapatra, Miller, Kagan and Lamb1987) that culture is associated with the perception of controversial moral issues more than with the perception of typical moral issues.
How religious culture relates to moral reasoning: Ethic of Divinity
Conservative participants (M = 8.90, SD = 3.80 in the entire interview) used the Ethic of Divinity significantly more than the other groups (M = 1.65, SD = 1.39), F(1, 28) = 145.47, p = 0.000. On the other hand, there was essentially no difference in the use of Divinity between liberal religious (M = 2.00, SD = 1.56 in the entire interview) and nonreligious participants (M = 1.30, SD = 1.16), F(1, 18) = 1.29, p = 0.270. In fact, conservative religious adolescents used the Ethic of Divinity more than the other groups for every single issue, typical and controversial (see Tables 3.3 and 3.4).
Table 3.3 Nonreligious, liberal religious, and conservative religious adolescents' use of the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity
The first line shows means, and the second line shows standard deviations (in italics).
| Nonreligious | Liberal religious | Conservative religious | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issue | Autonomy | Community | Divinity | Autonomy | Community | Divinity | Autonomy | Community | Divinity |
| Stealing | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.20 | 0.60 | 1.50 | 0.40 | 0.20 | 0.40 | 0.70 |
| 0.63 | 0.63 | 0.42 | 0.70 | 0.71 | 0.52 | 0.42 | 0.52 | 0.48 | |
| Religion-based discrimination | 1.00 | 0.40 | 0.20 | 1.10 | 0.40 | 0.10 | 0.70 | 0.00 | 0.60 |
| 0.47 | 0.52 | 0.42 | 0.57 | 0.52 | 0.32 | 0.48 | 0.00 | 0.52 | |
| Gender-based discrimination | 0.80 | 0.30 | 0.10 | 1.00 | 0.30 | 0.10 | 0.60 | 0.00 | 0.50 |
| 0.32 | 0.48 | 0.32 | 0.47 | 0.48 | 0.32 | 0.52 | 0.00 | 0.53 | |
| Nonreligious moral education | 0.90 | 0.30 | 0.00 | 0.60 | 0.40 | 0.20 | 0.00 | 0.50 | 0.90 |
| 0.32 | 0.48 | 0.00 | 0.52 | 0.52 | 0.42 | 0.00 | 0.53 | 0.32 | |
| Censorship | 0.80 | 0.40 | 0.00 | 0.90 | 0.40 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.30 | 1.20 |
| 0.42 | 0.52 | 0.00 | 0.57 | 0.70 | 0.00 | 0.32 | 0.48 | 0.42 | |
| Shops open on Sundays | 0.40 | 0.50 | 0.40 | 0.70 | 0.50 | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1.00 |
| 0.52 | 0.53 | 0.52 | 0.68 | 0.53 | 0.71 | 0.00 | 0.32 | 0.00 | |
| Cohabitation | 0.80 | 0.30 | 0.10 | 0.30 | 0.60 | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.10 |
| 0.42 | 0.48 | 0.32 | 0.48 | 0.70 | 0.53 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.32 | |
| Wine sold in shops | 0.50 | 0.50 | 0.10 | 0.70 | 0.40 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.40 | 1.00 |
| 0.53 | 0.53 | 0.32 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.52 | 0.47 | |
| Contraceptive pills | 0.30 | 0.80 | 0.00 | 0.70 | 0.60 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.30 | 0.90 |
| 0.48 | 0.64 | 0.00 | 0.68 | 0.84 | 0.00 | 0.32 | 0.48 | 0.32 | |
| Marijuana | 0.30 | 1.10 | 0.20 | 0.30 | 1.10 | 0.20 | 0.10 | 0.30 | 1.00 |
| 0.48 | 0.74 | 0.42 | 0.48 | 0.88 | 0.42 | 0.32 | 0.48 | 0.47 | |
Table 3.4 Results of planned contrasts (Helmert) on use of the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity: conservative religious (CR) vs. other participants, F (1, 28), and nonreligious (NR) vs. liberal religious (LR) participants, F (1, 18)
| Ethic of Autonomy | Ethic of Community | Ethic of Divinity | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issue | Contrast type | F | p | F | p | F | p |
| Stealing | CR vs. others | 4.76 | 0.038 | 8.11 | 0.008 | 4.74 | 0.038 |
| NR vs. LR | 0.45 | 0.511 | 5.44 | 0.031 | 0.90 | 0.355 | |
| Religion-based discrimination | CR vs. others | 3.24 | 0.082 | 6.22 | 0.019 | 7.64 | 0.010 |
| NR vs. LR | 0.18 | 0.673 | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.36 | 0.556 | |
| Gender-based discrimination | CR vs. others | 2.71 | 0.111 | 4.00 | 0.055 | 6.95 | 0.014 |
| NR vs. LR | 1.00 | 0.331 | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
| Nonreligious moral education | CR vs. others | 28.00 | 0.000 | 0.60 | 0.447 | 44.25 | 0.000 |
| NR vs. LR | 2.46 | 0.135 | 0.20 | 0.660 | 2.25 | 0.151 | |
| Censorship | CR vs. others | 19.27 | 0.000 | 0.21 | 0.651 | 168.00 | 0.000 |
| NR vs. LR | 0.20 | 0.660 | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
| Shops open on Sundays | CR vs. others | 8.13 | 0.008 | 5.06 | 0.032 | 8.13 | 0.008 |
| NR vs. LR | 1.25 | 0.279 | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.13 | 0.722 | |
| Cohabitation | CR vs. others | 11.41 | 0.002 | 5.44 | 0.027 | 23.43 | 0.000 |
| NR vs. LR | 6.08 | 0.024 | 1.25 | 0.279 | 4.24 | 0.054 | |
| Wine sold to shops | CR vs. others | 14.00 | 0.001 | 0.06 | 0.803 | 57.11 | 0.000 |
| NR vs. LR | 0.78 | 0.388 | 0.18 | 0.673 | 1.00 | 0.331 | |
| Contraceptive pills | CR vs. others | 3.78 | 0.062 | 2.43 | 0.130 | 168.00 | 0.000 |
| NR vs. LR | 2.32 | 0.145 | 0.36 | 0.556 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
| Marijuana | CR vs. others | 1.46 | 0.236 | 8.60 | 0.007 | 22.97 | 0.000 |
| NR vs. LR | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.00 | 1.000 | 0.00 | 1.000 | |
The qualitative analysis of moral reasoning furthermore revealed that the Ethic of Divinity rhetoric used by conservative religious participants was different from liberal religious and nonreligious participants' Divinity rhetoric. When nonreligious participants used the Ethic of Divinity (which was quite rare), they referred to notions of what is “natural” as well as to the duty of the Evangelical Lutheran Church to follow the principles of Christianity.
Conservative religious participants instead focused on concepts such as “living according to God's word,” “following one's God-given conscience,” and “maintaining the moral purity of the soul.” In addition, conservative religious adolescents emphasized the exclusive nature of their own religious community. In the following excerpt, a conservative religious adolescent explains why stealing is morally wrong, even if the government hypothetically did not prohibit it:
A: Conscience, I feel that it says that do the right thing, or when there is another voice that calms me down, saying “you can do it, it is not a bad thing.”
Q: What is that other voice?
A: I don't know, could be maybe from Satan or Evil or the enemy of God or something like that?
Q: And what is conscience?
A: It's something like God's voice inside. If a human being does something wrong, God says that “now you've done wrong.”
Q: What is the purpose of conscience?
A: To make a human being understand that he has committed a sin and that he should do the right thing.
In this excerpt, the conservative religious adolescent was referring to morality in general. He described how thoughts represent a conversation between two “voices”: between one's conscience that represents “God's word” and an “other voice” that represents “the enemy of God.”
For the conservative religious participants, God's word represented an important moral authority. Many of them said that God's word is binding on all human beings irrespective of their belief in God. In the following excerpt, a conservative religious adolescent using the Ethic of Divinity describes the basis of her moral reasoning:
Q: What would be the case if you hadn't heard of God's word?
A: I would have a totally different opinion of everything. If someone doesn't have faith, he uses his own brains and you know where you go when you do only that.
In this excerpt, a conservative religious adolescent explains that her moral reasoning is based on God's word. With the expression “you know where you go” (meaning hell), she implies that in order to be moral, people need faith and that people are not able to be moral by themselves.
The Ethic of Divinity used by conservative religious adolescents emphasized the concept of “providence.” In the next excerpt, a conservative religious adolescent states that God is also responsible for global problems, such as overpopulation:
Q: What do you think about introducing prescription-free contraceptive pills in the developing countries?
A: I understand fully what they are doing and that overpopulation is a fact and has a purpose. But God reigns and we don't have to take care of it.
Q: Do you mean that overpopulation has a purpose?
A: Yes, he knows what he is doing. I don't have to care about it.
This conservative religious adolescent explained that because God has planned everything, people have limited responsibility with regard to solving global problems.
The conservative religious adolescents objected to some of the interviewer's questions that framed references to God as a contingency. For example, they expressed hesitance toward imagining that God had not said anything about stealing:
A: It would be a totally impossible idea that God had not said so. In my opinion it is very stupid to even think that God would change his own word. It is always the same.
In this excerpt, a conservative religious adolescent described that, although morality for her was contingent upon God's word, God's word was unchangeable. Some conservative religious participants expressed the view that God does not change his word because it is based on justice. Moreover, such thoughts appeared to have moral significance for these adolescents (see also Cohen & Rozin, Reference Cohen and Rozin2001):
How religious culture relates to moral reasoning: Ethic of Autonomy
Nonreligious and liberal adolescents (M = 6.75, SD = 2.07) used the Ethic of Autonomy significantly more than conservative adolescents (M = 1.80, SD = 1.03), F(1, 28) = 50.07, p = 0.000. As shown in Tables 3.3 and 3.4, this difference in Autonomy reasoning was found for most of the controversial issues. There was no overall difference in the use of the Ethic of Autonomy between liberal religious (M = 6.90, SD = 2.33 in the entire interview) and nonreligious participants (M = 6.60, SD = 1.90), F(1, 18) = 0.10, p = 0.756, and essentially no significant differences on individual issues either (see Table 3.4). The qualitative analysis of the interviews suggested that all three groups emphasized individual rights, physical harm, psychological harm, and respect for individual property when speaking about the typical issues. For example, in the following excerpt a liberal religious adolescent describes why gender-based discrimination is wrong, not alterable by the government or church, not contingent on God's word, and generalizable to other countries:
A: Because in my opinion every human is equal and this also applies to both genders. Nobody can decide that someone is better than others because that person is a man or a woman.
In contrast to conservatives, nonreligious and liberal adolescents also spoke in terms of the Ethic of Autonomy to support the alterability, contingency, and context dependence of “controversial” moral issues. Here is an example of how a nonreligious adolescent explained why contraceptive pills should be sold without prescriptions as long as there is no risk of physical harm to individuals:
How culture relates to moral reasoning: Ethic of Community
Although the Ethic of Community was quite commonly used by all participants (see Table 3.3), nonreligious and liberal religious adolescents (M = 5.80, SD = 2.84 in the entire interview) overall used this ethic more than conservative religious adolescents (M = 2.30, SD = 1.83), F(1, 28) = 12.48, p = 0.001, which was unexpected. Analyses for the individual issues showed that this was the case for a couple of the typical issues and a few of the controversial ones as well (see Table 3.4).
A qualitative examination of responses indicates that conservative religious adolescents to some extent combined the Ethics of Divinity and Community. In these cases, the Community concepts pertaining to social order and societal harmony were used, but society was defined as being based on religious values. As an example, in the following excerpt a conservative religious adolescent explains why moral education in Finnish schools should be based on Evangelical Lutheran religious instruction:
A: It provides a better foundation for the morality of the nation. Not all parents necessarily teach their children anything, they do not belong to any church and for this reason it leads to a moral decay.
Here a conservative religious adolescent presents his view that Evangelical Lutheran moral education in schools provides “morality for the nation,” implying that morality should be based on religion (Ethic of Divinity), which in turn protects the nation from “moral decay” (Ethic of Community). In general, conservative religious adolescents emphasized the importance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as the state church of Finland, in maintaining societal stability and moral values.
The most common types of Community reasons used by nonreligious and liberal religious adolescents included common attitudes, habits, and majority opinion in the society, as in this example where a nonreligious adolescent explained why shops should be open on Sundays:
A: I must say that real, religious consecration of Sunday is so rare among people that it really does not make any difference nowadays.
Moreover, all groups of adolescents frequently used a discourse that reflected the moral ideals promoted by the Nordic welfare state. This discourse combined the Ethics of Community and Autonomy justifying why the state should limit the freedom of individuals to act in ways that are harmful to them. More specifically, the welfare state was depicted as responsible for protecting individuals from alcohol addiction, diseases, and the negative health effects of medicines (Table 3.3). In the following excerpt a liberal religious adolescent explains why contraceptive pills should not be sold without a doctor's prescription:
A: The Parliament would make a wrong decision because contraceptive pills have many risks so I do not see any sense in making them prescription-free.
Q: If they were proven to be safe?
Conclusion: moral cultures in Finland
This chapter analyzed how the Finnish adolescents' definitions of morality and moral reasoning reflect the moral codes of a religious culture and of the Nordic welfare state. The results revealed that the moral rhetoric used by nonreligious and liberal religious adolescents combined the Ethics of Autonomy and Community, in other words, the values of individual autonomy and state responsibility for protecting individuals from self-harm. Similar findings have been obtained in Denmark (Arnett & Jensen, Reference Arnett and Jensen1994) and Sweden (Scarr, Reference Scarr1996), suggesting that such moral rhetoric is characteristic of Nordic moral rhetoric.
In contrast, the conservative religious adolescents' reasoning emphasized the Ethic of Divinity. Their moral concepts focused on living according to God's word, following one's conscience and maintaining the moral purity of the soul. Such rhetoric has also been identified in previous studies examining conservative religious moral reasoning in countries such as India and the United States (Jensen, Reference Jensen1998). The conservative religious adolescents' reasoning according to the Ethic of Divinity revealed a broad scope of morality that extended into the domain of one's own thoughts (see also Cohen & Rozin, Reference Cohen and Rozin2001).
Moreover, the definitions of morality given by nonreligious and liberal religious adolescents distinguished between nonalterable, noncontingent, universal moral issues and alterable, contingent, and context-dependent conventional social issues. In contrast, the moral criterion judgments and rhetoric of the conservative religious adolescents made no such distinction. Their constellation of morality was dependent on God's word and applied most strictly to one's own religious community.
The Finnish welfare state emphasizes the state's responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. However, the concepts of individual autonomy and state responsibility can conflict with each other: state responsibility can mean limited individual autonomy. The adolescents described the question of personal responsibility for one's own health as a controversial issue: those who supported the state control of alcohol, marijuana, and contraceptive pills described personal autonomy as something negative that threatened individuals' welfare, whereas those who opposed state regulation in such matters spoke in favor of increased personal autonomy and responsibility. Jensen, Arnett, Feldman, and Cauffman (Reference Jensen, Arnett, Feldman and Cauffman2004) showed that during adolescence the perception of personal autonomy is heightened in cultures that endorse individualism, such as in the United States. Finnish adolescents' moral rhetoric that endorses limited personal autonomy reveals how the development of moral reasoning is influenced by national cultural values. The Finnish (or Nordic) welfare state can be said to provide a special kind of context for moral development, incorporating the moral ideas of personal autonomy, equality, and state (or shared) responsibility.
This study included only adolescents. Future studies comparing the moral reasoning of children, adolescents, and adults are needed to better understand how universal developmental patterns accommodate to the Nordic cultural context. For example, they could focus on the issues of how the moral concepts associated with the Nordic welfare state emerge and develop in individuals' thinking and how these are culturally transmitted and legitimized. They could also examine the legitimation of public services, such as those that aim at increasing the autonomy of individuals during different phases of life, such as old age, or those that aim at promoting equality, such as public day care facilitating women working outside the home (Repo, Reference Repo2004).
Moreover, at least two important issues that can potentially affect the moral cultures of the Nordic welfare states need to be addressed in future research. The first is multiculturalism and increasing immigration in these countries. Since many individuals today are in contact with multiple moral cultures, such as ones that endorse (religious) conservatism and others that endorse (secular) liberalism, future research could examine how this is shaping the moral development of these individuals and how they resolve the apparent tensions between religious and secular moralities (see also Glicksman, Reference Glicksman1997; Jensen, Reference Jensen2011). Second, research could examine how global environmental problems, such as climate change, are affecting the moral domains of individuals (Mäkiniemi & Vainio, Reference Mäkiniemi and Vainio2013). It has been suggested that the resolution of environmental problems may fundamentally diminish the endorsement of individual freedoms (the Ethic of Autonomy), giving rise to a new ecological morality that emphasizes a collective sense of responsibility and self-control (the Ethics of Community and Divinity) (see Dobson, Reference Dobson2003).
Whereas for a long while research on morality has been a theoretically driven search for universal similarities, there is now a need for research that pays particular attention to difference, uniqueness, and exceptionality in our moral lives and development. The cultural-developmental template model aims at accommodating developmental trajectories to cultural differences. In this chapter, I have provided an account of definitions of morality and moral reasoning of Finnish adolescents. It is a cultural landscape where adolescents come of age sharing a commitment to the welfare state, but where religiously conservative adolescents also differ markedly from nonreligious and liberal religious adolescents by encompassing a wider array of behaviors within the moral domain and by placing an Ethic of Divinity ahead of other ethics.
