In a grad-level philosophy we discussed on the book "Experiments in Ethics" by Kwame Anthony Appiah. In this book there experiments on ethical dilemmas. One of the conclusions we get was, although I cannot remember exactly, people can be heavily influenced by contextual factors when they engage in ethical judgements, for instance the subjects were less likely to (consent to) kill a person for the sake of saving many lives, if they were given the choice of personally pushing a person from a bridge, in contrast to the stiuation they were provided a button which activates a mechanism that kills the person. I do not know whether this is what you meant but, I think it would be useful to refer this book.

Hansika, it seems to be a mix of both. Recent research suggests that moral attitudes might be heritable because they promote group survival (Brandt & Wetherell, 2012, SPPS). On the other hand, an impressive number of experimental studies that show that people can switch easily from construing an issue in moral terms to construing it in non-moral terms (e.g., van Bavel et al., 2012, PLoS one; Täuber & van Zomeren, 2012, 2013). Thus, here you already have indicators for both trait and state qualities of morality. Moreover, relating to the moral foundations you mention, there is a cultural dimension attached to them, for which you can consult the works by Jonathan Haidt. So now we have trait, state, and culture. Finally, the process of moralization (e.g., Rozin, 1999) suggests that there is a historical dimension to morality: Issues that were completely acceptable (such as slavery) decades ago are now completely unacceptable, thus they are fully moralized. There is way more research out there which I can't be giving credit to - there seems to be no easy answer to your question. But you can see that it is a very good question, because it has stimulated so much research so far :-)

Thanks for the reference Cinar. I'm acquainted with the trolley problem and other such dilemmas, but looking at moral relativism from a philosophical angle should shed more light on my query.

Much appreciation for your response Susanne. I've read some of Haidt's work and find it terribly interesting - especially the cultural lens through which morality and moral decisions are viewed. And as I was reviewing the theory, it came to me that some of my moral foundations are more stable than others, i.e. I would be willing to 'act immorally' when the action pertains to one of the foundations more than another. Thus, the question that arose was Do within-individual differences in moral foundations exist? Are some foundations bound to be more stable than others, and do we value some more than others? And if we do, how do we decide?

Several questions I know, but thanks for the references. I'll be sure to read them up soon :)

This is really interesting, and I am not aware of research on this (so go ahead! and be sure to fill me in if you know more!). There is a lot out there on moral licensing, moral compromising, etc. where they show that people use one moral deed as a free-ride to be less moral in the following deed. Not sure whether this is informative for your question, though - if it is, I will dig out the references!

Haha, thanks for the vote of confidence :) That kind of work will help I think, since it'll shed some light on whether we deceive ourselves into being more moral in one foundation, so that we can be immoral in another, weaker foundation. Related to this, there's the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale (Graham & Haidt, 2011), which asks people how much they'd have to be paid to perform immoral acts (like slapping your own father). But do send me the references on moral compromising; it'll be a huge help. Thanks!

Ok, there you are, but this is just a snapshot, no claim of being an exhaustive list. Keep in mind that none of these - I believe - has tied their research to the moral foundations, so I still think your thoughts on that are very innovative:

-Kouchaki, M. (2011). Vicarious moral licensing: The influence of others' past moral actions on moral behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101(4), 702.

-Sachdeva, S., Iliev, R., & Medin, D. L. (2009). Sinning Saints and Saintly Sinners The Paradox of Moral Self-Regulation. Psychological science, 20(4), 523-528.

-Merritt, A. C., Effron, D. A., & Monin, B. (2010). Moral Self‐Licensing: When Being Good Frees Us to Be Bad. Social and personality psychology compass, 4(5), 344-357.

-Zhong, C. B., Liljenquist, K. A., & Cain, D. M. (2009). Moral self-regulation. Psychological perspectives on ethical behavior and decision making, 75.

-Jordan, J., Mullen, E., & Murnighan, J. K. (2011). Striving for the moral self: The effects of recalling past moral actions on future moral behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(5), 701-713.

I hope the sun shines where you are, then you can go to the park with a stack of papers ;-)

I think forgiveness has something to do with the domain of morality. The following reference would be relevant for this discussion. The authors distinguish state and trait forgiveness. I believe there will emerge more studies on individual difference characteristics like forgiveness. Here is the reference: Eaton, J., Struthers, C. W., & Santelli, A. G. Dispositional and state forgiveness: The role of self-esteem, need for structure, and narcissism. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, (2), 371–380.

I realize that I miscredited Appiah's work as only a "trolleyology" investigation in my previous comment, but it has many original contributions on those dilemmas.

@Susanne: Oh brilliant! Unfortunately it's rainy and dreary here, but will make do with some papers and coffee. Thanks so much. I'll keep posting queries here as and when I come by them. Thanks again!

@Cinar: Thanks for the reference. Forgiveness in what sense though? Maybe if I do something immoral and can be forgiven for it, I'll be more likely to do it? Or does it imply the absence of external sanctions, like law or governance? Do elaborate, it seems intriguing :)

I simply thought of forgiveness as a good start to your investigation. And distinction is all about being a forgiving person in general as a personality trait, vs. actually forgiving in specific occasions. I think you can go on by analyzing the articles of the measurement tools of the state and trait forgiveness for further disambiguation. I thought that forgiveness has an altruistic compound and just this fact may be a reason for me to share on the context of your question. Of course your point still open for investigations. This distinction is still mainly a behavioral and psychological distinction, not an ethical inquiry. Interesting issue, good luck!

Thanks for shedding some more light on what you meant. I'll definitely look at it from that angle too :)

The term Morality,itself is so fluid that its attributes shift from nation to nation,in groups of nations,amongst religious groups,amongst regional groups etc.The ethical code defined by united nations is still not acceptable universally. Unless Morality has trait like characteristics its measurement will remain faulty.Different scales will remain confined to different frames of references and not applicable universally.

Agreed, which is why the question. Theories like MFT propose that there are standard foundations of morality, whose manifestations differ according to regional, religious, national groups, like you said. Therefore, some attributes of morality may be relativist and others idealist. But I'm questioning whether morality, and consequently its attributes, are trait- or state-based. Measurement of states can be an inaccurate science; ergo, are all measures of morality really trait-based?

Measurement of state is a function of construct with its dimentions. And measurement of trait involves cognitive conflict which is reproducible.But State based attributes can also be manipulated to mimicker and refect like 'trait', therefore the resulution of this complex appears to be difficult but not impossible.

Morality can therefore be fixed by law through its 'Greenbook' but cannot be built on 'Ethics' for fear of its inaccurate assessment.

In classical physics there is no basic difference between trait-like and state-like.