ABSTRACT
Evidence frommany studies in the context of moral domain theory indicates that children, adolescents, and adults make judgements in the moral domain that are distinct from their judgements in other domains (Helwig, Tisak, & Turiel, 1990; Nucci, 2001; Smetana, 1995; Tisak, 1995; Turiel, 1983, 2008). Moral prescriptions stemming from the need to avoid harm, inequality and unfairness are judged as universal and not contingent on rules or authority. Consistently, justifications are based on avoiding harm and ensuring justice, rights andwelfare.
Alternatively, non-moral prescriptions are judged not to be universal and are contingent on rules and authority, whereas justifications emphasize the necessity of preserving social organization and improving interactions for conventional matters (Turiel, 2008) or the legitimacy of an actor’s choice, preferences and prerogatives for personal matters. These criteria become particularly relevant with respect to the notable evidence that individuals make different judgements of identical events because of cultural (Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997) or intergenerational (Smetana & Asquith, 1994) differences. Moreover, some studies have shown that aggressive and deviant individuals tend to give more salience to non-moral features of an event than moral ones (Blair, Monson, & Frederickson, 2001; Guerra, Nucci, & Huesmann, 1994; Leenders & Brugman, 2005).
