Moral emotions
Feelings tied to the interests or welfare of others or society.
What it means
Moral emotions are affective responses linked to the interests or welfare of people beyond the self, or of society as a whole, that motivate moral behavior and enforce moral standards. They are commonly grouped into self-conscious emotions (guilt, shame, embarrassment, pride), other-condemning emotions (anger, contempt, disgust), other-suffering emotions (compassion, sympathy), and other-praising emotions (gratitude, elevation, awe). Triggered by perceived rightness or wrongness rather than by direct self-interest, they serve as a rapid, intuitive guide to social life and underwrite cooperation and punishment. Social-intuitionist accounts argue these emotions usually drive moral judgment first, with reasoning following to justify the verdict. They are central to understanding why moral cognition is so often hot rather than coldly deliberative.
Examples
Witnessing a stranger humiliate a waiter, you feel a flash of indignation on the waiter's behalf and the urge to intervene.
Realising you let a teammate's idea pass as your own in a meeting, guilt keeps you awake half the night and has you correcting the record before the next morning's stand-up.
A neighbour clears the snow from your path without being asked. The gratitude that follows makes you notice their bins on Tuesday and wheel them out unprompted.
First described in Synthesized by Jonathan Haidt (2003); social intuitionist model.