Moral Values, Behaviour, and the Self: An empirical and conceptual analysis

This thesis develops a critique on a prominent approach to conceptualize and measure people’s morality within empirical studies, namely in terms of general and static moral values (e.g., Moral Foundations Theory). My empirical and conceptual investigations link the empirically found minimal effect of general moral measures (e.g., Moral Foundations Questionnaire) on behaviour to a rigid and underdeveloped concept of moral self that empirical moral value theories assume. With recourse to Paul Ricoeur’s concept of the narrative moral self, a more viable concept of self is proposed that can serve as a foundation for empirical approaches to moral behaviour. One that implies that the relation between one’s general moral values and behaviour is dynamic instead of static and is characterized by interpretation rather than causal determination. This narrative notion of the moral self is further validated as an important fundament for the study of moral behaviour in the extreme context of the perpetration of international crimes. Additionally, methodological suggestions are made on how to incorporate this notion of self in the empirical study of moral behaviour.