The Consortium on Moral Decision-Making is seeking proposals for seed grants to support interdisciplinary research related to the conceptual and empirical study of human morality and ethical decision-making. How do people decide whether to help or harm others, whom to trust and cooperate with, and how much to assign punishment and blame for transgressions? How do these trade offs play out in light of current events, including the pandemic, human-AI interaction, climate change, and the political landscape? Understanding human morality and ethics requires drawing upon insights from a diverse range of disciplines, and the current request for proposals aims to motivate scholars to find such connections in exploring the nature of human morality. The goal of the Consortium, which is funded generously through College of Liberal Arts, Social Science Research Institute, Rock Ethics Institute, the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, the Philosophy Department, and Psychology Department, is to cultivate new projects that bring together people in projects such as these. As one example, we recently hosted the Moral Psychology Research Group with many social scientists and philosophers (videos here: https://moralconsortium.psu.edu/events/).
To learn more about the Consortium, see the press release (https://www.psu.edu/news/social-science-research-institute/story/consortium-moral-decision-making-celebrates-successful) about this past year along with the Consortium website (https://moralconsortium.psu.edu/). The Consortium was also supported through an additional SSRI Level 4 Interdisciplinary Research Initiative grant to facilitate the long-term growth of the group and the training of early career researchers. You can see last year’s funded projects here:https://moralconsortium.psu.edu/funding-opportunities/.
This call is open to faculty-led teams at Penn State, with an ideal focus on interdisciplinary teams from within the Consortium’s faculty members. Graduate student collaborators are welcome as part of application teams as well, but there should be a faculty PI. Collaborators from outside Penn State are allowed, but the lead PI should be based at one of the Penn State campuses.
Although the seed grants are ideally suited for applicants who propose to apply empirical study to human morality and ethics (e.g., through data collection, narrative review of data), we also welcome applications for projects that are more conceptual in nature. Interdisciplinary projects are encouraged.
Applicants may request anywhere from $500-$1000, and funds can be put toward participant recruitment, workshops or reading groups, and other support for the research project. We anticipate making about 10 awards. Ideally, these awards will support the seeking of external support and/or efforts to publish research. All awardees will be expected to attend an in-person half-day conference at the end of spring 2025 in which they will present their in-progress research ideas and/or results to members of the Rock Ethics community. Furthermore, awardees must use these funds during the fiscal year which they are awarded, through June 2025.
Proposals should have the following:
- A one-page summary of the proposed work, outlining the justification, background, and proposed work and use of funds, as well as a clear explanation of the connection to moral decision-making and the fit with the interdisciplinary mission of the Consortium
- Budget request and justification
- CV’s for all team members
- A short 3-4 sentence abstract that we would use to publicly describe the funded projects
Send questions and applications to Daryl Cameron (cdc49@psu.edu).
The deadline for submissions is by midnight EST on Friday, January 10, 2025, and a number of proposals will be awarded, based on review by a small team of Consortium members, by the end of January at the latest.