On Genetic Modification

On Genetic Modification 

To be able to perform prenatal diagnostics and to alter the genotype of offspring is a surging field in the world of genetics. With this new field comes, arguably, a potential for a means to greater good but such a greater good is naturally mirrored with the potential for what is not good. Good here is meant in the Aristotelian sense and, in this case, the alteration of the genotype is means by which we may promote the well-being, happiness, and an opportunity for an individual to live well. As to whether prenatal gene editing will be a force for good or not depends on the person and questions posed. In a sample population, there was a tendency to show concern about the health of the offspring receiving genetic editing; the sample also tended to not feel confident in the accuracy of prenatal genetic testing (Cécile and Cameron, 2016). However, as cultural norms and technology are likely to change and improve, we may find that the average person will find genetic editing to be normal. A different poll suggested that the American public is nearly split in half in terms of supporting the idea of genetic enhancements to improve physical and intellectual capabilities (Suter, 2007).  

The advancement in gene-editing technology will likely be developed with the intention to prevent detrimental genotypes and neurological disorders—Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, depression, Lupus, ataxia, and so on. As time progresses, there will then be a debate amongst the public, ethicists, geneticists, and others as to what the moral and ethical limits of genetic editing and enhancement are to be. Some fear that the development of gene-editing and enhancements could tempt the government into adopting another eugenics-like policy. Further development may provide a means for the government to, itself, further encroach into the daily lives of the individual by allowing the government to decide what may or may not be acceptable regarding gene-editing. Does the government have right to, say, mandate you to genetically modify your offspring in a certain way? Should government be allowed to sponsor public education that favors genetic modification—reminiscent of the classic eugenics era? These sorts of questions bring forth many answers. Some would prefer government to not interfere with the free market and matters of procreation; others would prefer that government is involved with how genetic modification is used and what the limits are so to protect the “welfare of unborn children” (Resnik and Vorhaus, 2006). There are even those who would argue that genetic modification should not be allowed on the basis that such modification violates “human freedom and dignity” which, if allowed, would bring forth “social, political, and biological disaster” (Resnik and Vorhaus, 2006). This is given some credibility depending on how strong genetic determinism may be; if for instance a fetus was genetically modified to where it carries a gene that increases the likelihood of it growing up to be a musician, then is this not violating freedom and dignity? There are also arguments that would state that this genetic modification objectifies children as a commodity, chides at authenticity, uniqueness, and such. These are questions and arguments to deal with in the approaching future.  

As of right now however, there is an international group of 11 academic genetic organizations that have come together to suggest a recommendation as to how genetic modification should proceed in the future. Given the amount of questions genetic modification raises, it would seem best to first tackle genetic diseases as it may be an issue wherein the public would support; any more than the treatment of genetic diseases may take time to be allowed for until society decides its stance. So, the 11 organizations agreed on certain statements such as the inappropriateness of performing “germline gene editing that culminates in human pregnancy” and allowing for limited in vitro genetic research (Ormond et al., 2017). The organizations and the Genetics and Public Policy Center suggested that there should be circumstances under which any future genetic modification research should operate under; both agree that discussions on genetic modification “must include the public” and experts (Lanphier E., Urnov F., Haecker S.E., Werner M., and Smolenski J., 2015; Ormand et al., 2017). I myself, Dr. H.M.B, serve as a sort of intermediary between the public and experts by the very nature of my work. I assist people in genetic counseling and so I am able to hear what ordinary people may think about genetic modification and prenatal diagnostics. From experience, I would say that most ordinary people are in favor of genetic editing for therapeutic purposes; however, most disagree with any sort of genetic enhancement. The percentage of patients I come across who support genetic editing for therapeutic and or for enhancement mirrors a poll suggesting that 65 percent of the public is in favor of therapeutic genetic editing; only about 26 percent of the public would for genetic editing that allowed for some enhancement and 51 percent were against (Hewings-Martin, 2017). Interestingly, the poll shows that who are not very religious are more likely to favor or accept both therapeutic genetic editing as well as enhancement via genetic editing (Hewings-Martin, 2017). Meanwhile, the polled professionals are mostly against genetic editing for enhancement. This could be due to the professionals worrying for an opportunity for eugenics to come about again as well as the unknown risks that may be caused by performing enhancements instead performing therapeutic genetic editing.  

So, given the input from the public and professionals in their respective fields, it seems very clear that are in favor for, at least, therapeutic genetic editing. There seems to be very little qualms about the repercussions of doing so. Genetic editing for the purpose of enhancement, however, does not seem to have enough public and professional support as of yet. Allowing for genetic enhancement would require all of society to resolve their issues and concerns about what would come of genetic enhancement. Potentially, the most feared outcome would be another socially and or government supported eugenic movement. Those with money would be able to design their children the way they want to. This again causes more issues such as objectifying the children and the carrier of the child if it is to be born in a womb. For those future children born without having been genetically edited, will there be discrimination given to them? Is there any ethical justification to allow for genetic enhancements? As of right now, there seems to be too many unanswered questions revolving around whether we should allow for enhancements. Society requires more time and more information before coming to an answer about this; a lot of the questions posed by this new technology may only be resolved democratically due to the subjective nature of what is good and right for what we do to our children.   

References 

Hewings-Martin [Internet] 2017 Oct 2017 [cited 2017 Nov 1]. Is gene editing ethical? Available from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319817.php 

Lanphier E., Urnov F., Haecker S.E., Werner M., and Smolenski J. [Internet] 2015 March 12 [cited 2017 Oct 3]. Don’t edit the human germ line. Available from http://kcsschmidt.com/BME2016/Nature-Don'tEdit.pdf  

Ormond KE., Mortlock D., Scholes D., Bombard Y., Brody L., Faucett W., Garrison N., Hercher L., Isasi R., Middleton A., Musunuru K., Shringer D., Virani A., Young C., 2017 Aug 3 [cited 2017 Oct 3] ASHG position statement on human germline genome editing. The American Journal of Human Genetics. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.06.012. 

Muller, C., & Cameron, L. D., 2016. It's complicated - Factors predicting decisional conflict in prenatal diagnostic testing. Health Expectations: An International Journal Of Public Participation In Health Care And Health Policy, 19(2), 388-402. doi:10.1111/hex.12363 

Resnik, D.B, and Vorhaus D.B., 2006. Genetic modification and genetic determinism. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 1: 9. PMC. Web. 4 Oct. 2017. 

Suter, S.M., 2007. A brave new world of designer babies? Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 22(2), 897-969.  

Arousal’s Influence on Moral Condemnation

Arousal’s Influence on Moral Condemnation 

  

Abstract 

Moral condemnation, how much one thinks another should be punished for a crime and how wrong the crime is, has been suggested to be under the influence of one’s arousal. Some studies have suggested that a main effect of low arousal on moral condemnation is likely. Other studies suggest that only high arousal states have a main effect on moral condemnation. Participants in this study were assigned to a high, control, and low arousal conditions to investigate the main effect of arousal and crime severity on moral condemnation as well as any interaction of arousal X crime severity. The severity of crime did have a main effect of more moral condemnation but none of the high arousal conditions were found to have a main effect on moral condemnation.  

Arousal’s Influence on Moral Condemnation 

On a daily basis, people make moral judgements based on what they think is right or wrong. Sometimes these decisions are made without much effort or introspection and without a thought as to why they may feel as if some moral-violator deserves some level of punishment. What some researchers are attempting to investigate is if and how arousal contributes to someone’s decision on how wrong a moral violation is and the severity of punishment one feels is fitting for that violation. 

In one study, it was found that anger has some influence on reporting a higher level of permissibility for a moral violation (Ugazio, Lamm, & Singer, 2012). They induced disgust or anger in the participants to find whether these induced emotions would affect their moral judgement by having the participants write essays on controversial topics. Following the induction of an emotion, the participants were required to read moral scenarios as a way to measure the effects on moral judgement. After the analysis of variance, it was found that both disgust and anger have an influence on moral judgement and anger was found to have more of a stronger positive influence than disgust. In one of the scenarios that were given, the participant was asked if it was permissible for the participant to push someone else off a bridge. As anger increased permissibility, it was more likely for the participant to in the anger condition to find that hypothetical as permissible. This trend is also found in impersonal scenarios. Disgust, though less than anger, also followed this trend.  This supports the argument that emotions and arousal do have an influence on moral judgement as will be tested. Both disgust and anger are high arousal states. Anger is a state that is more aroused than disgust and we used a high arousal condition to examine its influence on moral condemnation.  

A similar study by Wheatley and Haidt (2005) used two experiments that were used to measure induced disgust and severity of moral judgement. The participants were hypnotized and induced into feeling disgusted when reading a moral scenario. Afterwards, they were to make judgements related to the scenario. The result suggested that the high arousal condition of disgust increases the severity of judgement. This further aligns with the previous study’s results.  

The previous two articles investigated high arousal states and their influence on moral judgements. Cho, Barnes, and Guanara (2016) investigated how sleep deprivation, a low arousal condition, increased severity of sentences given out by judges. These researchers sought to determine if there is a main effect of less sleep from losing an hour after daylight savings on the length of sentences. The conclusion suggested that, indeed, sleep-deprived judges gave sentences that were 5% longer than average. We also used a low arousal condition in attempt to replicate the results here as well.  

Cho and colleagues (2016) findings run, however, contrary to the findings of Cheng, Otatti, and Price (2013). In this study, the high arousal condition was found to increase a greater amount of moral condemnation reported in the moral scenarios than the low arousal condition did. Similar to our study, the high arousal condition induced both high arousal and low arousal by having the participants listen to fast tempo music and slow tempo music respectively.  

Further, Chen et al., (2013) sought to find if their study’s results would support either the emotion-specificity hypotheses or arousal hypothesis by manipulating participants’ arousal and emotion and having them make moral judgements on vignettes describing moral scenarios. The emotion-specificity hypotheses suggest that due to some elements of humanity’s evolutionary history, the feeling of disgust (high arousal) would elicit a higher and increased level of moral condemnation than most other feelings. An alternative to disgust eliciting the highest exacerbator in moral condemnation, there is the hypothesis that suggests that the effect of an emotion depends on the sort of moral violation someone is judging. The arousal hypothesis suggests that states of arousal increase moral condemnation. Their study’s results did not support the disgust-specificity hypothesis or the second emotion-specificity hypothesis. Their findings did however support the arousal hypothesis by having their high arousal condition eliciting greater moral condemnation than the other conditions. Although their low arousal condition was not found to elicit more moral condemnation, our study attempted to investigate if a low arousal and high arousal condition has a significant main effect on moral condemnation.  

In order to further test the claim that arousal can indeed have an influence on moral judgement, our experiment will build upon the research and experimentation of previous studies. Participants older than 18 and capable of moderate physical activity were assigned randomly to a low, control, and high arousal conditions which most of the previous studies have not completely attempted in one experiment. What has not also been attempted is to investigate whether there is a linear trend of moral condemnation found among the low, control, and high arousal conditions. Our high arousal condition consisted of having participants stepping on a nine-inch step stool to the beat of a metronome at 55 beats per minute for seven minutes. The control condition only required the participants to fill out a packet that is given to everyone in the study regardless of arousal condition. The packet includes a demographic form, a PANAS, and vignettes detailing four misdemeanors and four felonies. Participants were to rate how severe the punishment should be for each crime detailed and how wrong those crimes were. In the low arousal condition, participants were given a pair of headphones to listen to relaxing music (meditationrelaxclub, 2012) for seven minutes before filling out the packet.  

Our prediction made was that both the low arousal condition (Cho et al., 2016) and high arousal condition (Chen et al., 2013) would have a main effect on moral condemnation to where both increase moral condemnation and that the control condition would serve as an intermediate between the two. No interaction between arousal and crime severity was expected.  

Method 

Participants 

In total, there were 299 participants and 35 experimenters. Experimenters gathered a convenient sample and their participants were eligible if physically capable of moderate exercise and eighteen years old and above. If a participant was a psychology major at the university, then they were given one extra credit point for their psychology courses. Any other compensation would have been at the discretion of the experimenter. Participants were run individually by one experimenters and in private areas.  

Design 

Moral condemnation (how wrong a crime is and how severe the punishment should be) are the dependent variables. High arousal levels were induced by having participants step on a nine-inch step stool along with a 55 beat per minute metronome. This sort of activity was found to significantly increase arousal levels (Sanbonmatsu, & Kardes, 1998). The crime severity (misdemeanor or felony) detailed in the vignettes are independent variables making this a 2x3 design between-subjects design.  

Materials 

This study included participants to either listen to calming music (meditationrelaxclub, 2012) with headphones for seven minutes (low arousal) before completing the survey, step on a nine-inch stool according to the beat of a metronome (high arousal), or simply complete the survey as an experimental control for experimentally induced arousal. To measure the rating of moral condemnation, participants read over moral scenarios presented in vignettes. For example, “Jake gets into an argument with a girlfriend of his and threatens to kill her if she does not stop seeing a friend of hers.” The participant would rate on the scale of 1-7 (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) how morally wrong were Jake’s actions and on a scale of 1-7 (1 = lenient; 7 = severe) how extreme Jake’s punishment should be. For example, “Jake is in his apartment with his girlfriend, Emma. They get into an argument about one of Emma’s male friends. Jake threatens to kill Emma if she does not stop seeing her friend. Emma is frightened and calls the police. Jake is arrested and charged with simple assault. This is a misdemeanor offense and Jake can face up to one year in jail.” 

How wrong were Jake’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Jake? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe). For a felony example, the scenario was like so, “Sam walks into a well-established electronics store. He walks around for a while, then decides to take a few expensive electronics without paying for them. He ends up stealing about $1,200 worth of items. The theft is documented on the security camera and Sam is caught. He is charged with grand theft, which is a felony and can result in up to five years in jail. 

How wrong were Sam’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Sam? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe)  

Further, for all conditions, participants completed a PANAS (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) questionnaire so that we could measure their arousal. The PANAS used a scale of 1-5 to rate how the participant was feeling at the time (1 = very slightly or not at all; 3 = moderately; 5 = extremely). Examples of that inventory included how afraid, active, hostile, upset, and distressed the participant felt after their treatment condition and rating their read vignettes. Participants also signed a confidentiality agreement, a consent form, and filled out a demographic form that recorded the ages and ethnicities of participants.  

Procedure 

Once a participant verbally agreed to participating in the study, they were brought to a private and quiet area to sign a consent form. Afterwards, they were given the packet that included the demographic form, consent form, confidentiality form, PANAS questionnaire, and vignettes describing moral scenarios. Crime severity described in the vignettes were randomly assigned as well to participants. The experimenter then read the protocol aloud, stating what the survey entails, how the participant must be 18 or older, and able to partake in moderate physical activity before asking the participant to sign the consent form. After signing the consent form, the participant was then put in the high, control, or low arousal condition. For the high arousal condition, the experimenter puts the metronome, demonstrated how to complete the activity (by moving one foot per beat), and told the participant to do the task for seven minutes. If the participant was put in the control condition, then they had to only give their moral judgements for the scenarios, fill out the PANAS, and complete the rest of the packet. In the low arousal condition, participants were given headphones to listen to a particular melodic and calming song for seven minutes before filling out the packet. Conditions were assigned randomly before finding participants. It took no more than twenty minutes per participant to go through the experiment. Debriefing was conducted by email, so long as the participants wrote their email addresses on the consent form. A debriefing was conducted because participants were initially told that the study they were participating in was about music and person perception when in reality the study was about the effect of arousal on moral condemnation.  

Results 

 To examine the influence of arousal and moral condemnation, a 2 (crime severity: misdemeanor vs felony) X 3 (arousal condition: low, control, or high) between-subjects ANOVA was used. A manipulation check found reported arousal to be reliable. The reported arousal being the active, alert, attentive, and strong scores from the PANAS. There was not a significant main effect of crime severity on reported arousal which was composed of aggregating participants’ active, alert, attentive, and strong scores on the PANAS, F (1, 293) = 0.71, p = .07, pη2 = 0.01. Crime severity (M = 2.94, SD = 0.88) in the high arousal condition did not significantly differ from the crime severity (M = 2.91, SD = 0.83) in the control condition. The crime severity in the high arousal condition did not significantly differ from the crime severity in the low arousal condition (M = 2.60, SD = 0.89). The crime severity in the control condition did not also significantly differ from the low arousal condition (refer to figure 1). There was a significant main effect of arousal condition on reported arousal, F (2. 293) = 4.77, p < .01, pη2 = .03, the participants in the high arousal condition (M = 2.94, SD = 0.88) were no more or less aroused from those in the control arousal condition (M = 2.91, SD = 0.83). The participants in the low arousal condition (M = 2.60, SD = .89) were significantly less aroused than those in high and control arousal condition. No significant arousal condition X crime severity interaction was found, F (2, 293) = 0.40, p = .67, pη2 = .003. 

Calculation of reliability for both DV 2 and 3 is not possible due to how the vignettes described various crimes, thus a consistent response throughout the vignettes is not expected. This second dependent variable was created by averaging participants’ responses as to how much punishment was warranted for a crime. Reported arousal had no significant main effect on how strong a punishment (refer to figure 2) was given in the scenarios, F (2, 293) = .03, p = .12, pη2 = 0.01. The crime severity did however have a significant main effect, F (1, 293) = 39.45, p <.001, pη2 = 0.20. Participants significantly rated felons (M = 4.97, SD = 0.87) to have a harsher punishment than misdemeanors (M = 3.92, SD = 1.17). No significant arousal condition X crime severity interaction was found, F (2, 293) = 0.37, p = .69. All of the means and standard deviation for the variables can be found on table 1.  

How wrong a crime was rated by participants was the third dependent variable created by averaging the participants’ responses as to how wrong the person is by committing a crime within the vignettes. The arousal conditions did not have a main effect on how wrong (refer to figure 3; table 3) participants rated a scenario, F (2, 293) = 0.03, p = .97, pη2 = 0.00. Crime severity did have a significant main effect on how wrong a scenario was rated, F (1, 293) = 39.50, p < .001, pη2 = 0.12. Scenarios that detailed felonies (M = 5.55, SD = 0.79), received a higher score of wrongness than the misdemeanor scenarios (M = 4.93, SD = 0.90). No significant arousal condition X crime severity interaction was found, F (2, 293) = 1.60, p = .20, pη2 = 0.01.  

The values corresponding with how much punishment a crime should receive along with how wrong the crime was found to have a 0.61 correlation.  

Discussion 

As the ANOVAs suggest, we were able to manipulate arousal as Sanbonmatsu, and Kardes (1998) had previously done with the arousal conditions as well as Ugazio et al. (2012), Chen et al. (2013), and Cho et al. (2016). This time, however, we did not find a significant main effect between the high arousal and control arousal conditions on reported arousal and thus did not establish an intermediate condition between the high and low conditions. We were not able to replicate the findings of Cho et al. (2016) where low arousal contributed to harsher punishment. Instead, our findings support none of the studies in relation to finding arousal to have a main effect on moral condemnation. If this hold true in the real world, then one could reasonably make the same moral judgements regardless of their arousal level and that judges could give out sentences while tired without a deviation from their average sentencing while not tired. The severity of crime did have a main effect of more moral condemnation however and the correlation suggests this as well as the ANOVAs. There was a positive correlation between crime severity and suggested punishment and sense of how wrong that crime or wrong-doer was. Both the ANOVAs and the correlation suggest this.  

Perhaps participants should be prompted to do more physical activity in the high arousal condition or those in the control condition should be controlled for previous residual physical activity done before participating. Further, arousal was not found to have a significant main effect on reported moral condemnation (both reported levels of punishment and wrongness). Other studies have, however, suggested that arousal does have a significant main effect on moral condemnation. More research into this is warranted. 

References 

Cheng, J. S., Ottati, V.C., & Price, E. D. (2013). The arousal model of moral condemnation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(6), 1012-1018.  

Cho, K., Barnes, C.M., & Guanara, C.L., (2017) Sleepy punishers are harsh punishers: Daylight saving time and legal sentences. Psychological Science, 28(2), 242-247. 

Meditationrelaxclub. “Sleep Music Delta Waves: Relaxing Music to Help You Sleep, Deep Sleep, Inner Peace.” YouTube, YouTube, 16 Nov. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ6xgDI7Whc. 

Sanbonmatsu, D., & Kardes, F. (1988). The Effects of Physiological Arousal on Information Processing and Persuasion, Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 15, Issue 3, 378-385.  

Ugazio, G., Lamm, C., & Singer, T. (2012). The role of emotions for moral judgments depends on the type of emotion and moral scenario. Emotion, 12(3), 579-590. doi:10.1037/a0024611 

Wheatley, T., & Haidt, J. (2005). Hypnotic disgust makes moral judgments more severe. Psychological Science, (10), 780. 

Watson, D., Clark., L.A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development & Validation of Brief Measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063-1070.  

Figure 1 

Bar Graph of Reported Arousal by Arousal Condition and Arousal X Crime Severity Interaction 

 

Note. n = 299Page Break 

Figure 2  

Bar Graph of Reported Wrongness by Arousal Condition and Arousal X Crime Severity Interaction 

Note. n = 299 

Page Break 

Figure 3 

Bar Graph of Reported Level of Punishment by Arousal Condition and Arousal X Crime Severity Interaction 

 

Note. n = 299Page Break 

Table 1 

Descriptive Statistics of Three Tependent Variables, Arousal, Punishment, and Wrongness Means and Standard Deviations 

DV		Mean	SD
Arousal	2.81		0.88
Punishment	4.42		1.16
Wrongness	5.22		0.9

Appendix 

Person Perception Task 

Sam walks into a well-established electronics store. He walks around for a while, then decides to take a few expensive electronics without paying for them. He ends up stealing about $1,200 worth of items. The theft is documented on the security camera and Sam is caught. He is charged with grand theft, which is a felony and can result in up to five years in jail. 

How wrong were Sam’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Sam? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe)  

Alex is arguing with a stranger in a parking lot. Alex is angry because the person took his parking spot. The argument escalates very quickly and after a few minutes, Alex pulls a knife out of his pocket and stabs the person in the stomach. A witness calls the police and Alex is arrested and charged with aggravated battery. This is a felony offense and Alex can face up to 20 years in prison. 

How wrong were Alex’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Alex? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe)  

Peter is caught with 16 ounces of marijuana in his possession. He lives in a state were marijuana is illegal and he is arrested. Peter is charged with possession of marijuana, which is a felony in his state due to the amount that was found. He can face up to 10 years in prison.  

How wrong were Peter’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Peter? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe) 

Jake is in his apartment with his girlfriend, Emma. They get into an argument about one of Emma’s male friends. Jake grabs his gun and threatens to kill Emma if she does not stop seeing her friend. Emma is frightened and calls the police. Jake is arrested and charged with aggravated assault. This is a felony offense and Jake can face up to 20 years in prison. 

How wrong were Jake’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Jake? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe)  

Jake is in his apartment with his girlfriend, Emma. They get into an argument about one of Emma’s male friends. Jake threatens to kill Emma if she does not stop seeing her friend. Emma is frightened and calls the police. Jake is arrested and charged with simple assault. This is a misdemeanor offense and Jake can face up to one year in jail.  

How wrong were Jake’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Jake? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe)  

Peter is caught with less than one ounce of marijuana in his possession. He lives in a state were marijuana is illegal and he is arrested. Peter is charged with possession of marijuana, which is a misdemeanor in his state due to the amount that was found. He can face up to one year in prison. 

How wrong were Peter’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Peter? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe)  

Alex is arguing with a stranger in a parking lot. Alex is angry because the person took his parking spot. The argument escalates very quickly and after a few minutes, Alex punches the person in the stomach. A witness calls the police and Alex is arrested and charged with simple battery. This is a misdemeanor offense and Alex can face up to one year in jail. 

How wrong were Alex’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Alex? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe)  

Sam walks into a well-established electronics store. He walks around for a while, then decides to take a few inexpensive electronics without paying for them. He ends up stealing about $200 worth of items. The theft is documented on the security camera and Sam is caught. He is charged with petty theft, which is a misdemeanor and can result in up to a year in jail.  

How wrong were Sam’s actions? _____ (1 = not at all morally wrong; 7 = extremely morally wrong) 

How extreme should the punishment be for Sam? _____ (1 = lenient; 7 = severe)