Moral Foundations as Ethical Codes in a Brazilian Context ; Los fundamentos morales como códigos éticos en un contexto brasileño ; Fundamentos morais como códigos éticos no contexto brasileiro

We present a survey of Brazilians on their adoption of a set of ethical rules, the moral foundations. The aim of the study is to characterize the profiles of a sample of adults in terms of their reliance on moral foundations, under the assumption that each moral foundation represents an ethical code, considering social variables such as gender, schooling level, and religion. Ethical rules consist in associations of evaluative assessments with systems of practices concerning social relationships, while ethical codes are those rules legitimated by communities’ conventions. We administered an adapted version ofthe Moral Foundations Questionnaire to 936 adults inpublic places. Results from cluster analysis revealedthe existence of two broad response patterns that weinterpreted as ethical codes, a liberal ethic that prioritizes the individual, associated with higher educational levels, and a pluralistic code that values both individual and group relations, linked to lower schooling. Brazil’s history of inequity and authoritarian relationships explains apparent contradictions in the individualizing pattern, the modernization of the pluralistic code, and their ideological conflict. The discussion focuses onpossible interpretations of the identified codes, commenting on the specificity of the study and limitations of usual survey strategies. ; El estudio presenta una encuesta con brasileños sobre la adopción de un conjunto de reglas éticas, los fundamentos morales. El objetivo del estudio fue caracterizar los perfiles de una muestra de adultos en cuanto a su dependencia de fundamentos morales, bajo el supuesto de que cada fundamento moral representa un código ético, teniendo en cuenta variables sociales como género, nivel de escolaridad y religión. Las reglas éticas son asociaciones de evaluaciones valorativas con sistemas de prácticas concernientes a las relaciones sociales, mientras que los códigos éticos son reglas legitimadas por las comunidades mediante convenciones. Se administró una versión adaptada del ...