THE PROBLEM OF DIFFERENTIATION OF MORAL JUDGMENTS IN THE CONCEPT OF ELLIOT TURIEL

Abstract

The article discusses the normative ethics of Elliot Turiel. The modern American thinker presented his understanding of the moral sphere not only as a result of studying the process of moralization of actions, but also as an empirical hypothesis about the types of moral judgments and offenses. He proposed a definition of morality, according to which the content of moral actions included harm, injustice and violation of rights. The empirical part of his concept contains a questionnaire (test) that was designed to explore the boundaries of the moral sphere, including offenses that cause obvious harm. The peculiarity of Turiel’s ethics is that he does not simply record the results of his empirical research, but deduces from them the idea of the moral domain. He argues that the analysis of the misconduct of the participants in the experiment makes it possible to identify the degree of differentiation of moral (criterion) and social (conventional) norms and the moral content of actions and situations.