What a really good question! 

Looking at the hierarchy, I do not think there is a relationship because whilst some aspects clearly imply a selective moral dimension (e.g. morality, respect, security, friendship), others are more conditional (I can only eat if I take someone else's food, mutual conditions for establishing intimacy or love, etc.).  If we take e.g. your example of religious ethics:  a monk may give up all his worldly possessions (and appear to be on the lowest tier), but his objective need is to undertake not only altruistic acts for others, but also to make himself a better person in the context of his religious beliefs and ideals. So, we have created a 'moral' debate about where the monks true objectives lie, and shown that you can achieve some higher order needs, without some of the lower order needs.

I think the hierarchy was designed to illustrate human need, but I am not convinced it is actually a compartmentalised hierarchy at all (even though its triangle appearance implies it is that way). For example, I can be happy, self-assured, respected and loved by my family, but still be living in a war zone, suffering a shortage of food etc.  If I had all of the aspects mentioned, then I might be pretty content, but if I do not have all of the aspects, that does not mean I don't have everything I require for a proportionately happy or contented life. Whether this is enough for 'me' can only be answered by the individual, and in an individual context. Therefore, I am not to be seen to be on a 'lesser level'. 

What I think the hierarchy does represent is that most people need  to build on one level, in order to achieve the 'needs' of the next. Some things are more obvious than others (i.e. no food, no health). This is however not a prescriptive requirement, and we all construct our lives differently.

Philosophically we could go round the houses linking any of the theories you mention to aspects featured in the hierarchy, so in this regard there is a selective relationship. For me though, there is no clear, intentional and continuous relationship between the hierarchy as a whole and moral philosophy.

What a really good question! 

Looking at the hierarchy, I do not think there is a relationship because whilst some aspects clearly imply a selective moral dimension (e.g. morality, respect, security, friendship), others are more conditional (I can only eat if I take someone else's food, mutual conditions for establishing intimacy or love, etc.).  If we take e.g. your example of religious ethics:  a monk may give up all his worldly possessions (and appear to be on the lowest tier), but his objective need is to undertake not only altruistic acts for others, but also to make himself a better person in the context of his religious beliefs and ideals. So, we have created a 'moral' debate about where the monks true objectives lie, and shown that you can achieve some higher order needs, without some of the lower order needs.

I think the hierarchy was designed to illustrate human need, but I am not convinced it is actually a compartmentalised hierarchy at all (even though its triangle appearance implies it is that way). For example, I can be happy, self-assured, respected and loved by my family, but still be living in a war zone, suffering a shortage of food etc.  If I had all of the aspects mentioned, then I might be pretty content, but if I do not have all of the aspects, that does not mean I don't have everything I require for a proportionately happy or contented life. Whether this is enough for 'me' can only be answered by the individual, and in an individual context. Therefore, I am not to be seen to be on a 'lesser level'. 

What I think the hierarchy does represent is that most people need  to build on one level, in order to achieve the 'needs' of the next. Some things are more obvious than others (i.e. no food, no health). This is however not a prescriptive requirement, and we all construct our lives differently.

Philosophically we could go round the houses linking any of the theories you mention to aspects featured in the hierarchy, so in this regard there is a selective relationship. For me though, there is no clear, intentional and continuous relationship between the hierarchy as a whole and moral philosophy.

It could be a great research topic indeed! Before connecting the ethical dimension of human behavior to the Need theory, may I refer to the two schools of thought on ethics? At one end, it is proposed that there are universally accepted set of ethics where individuals, irrespective of their race, country or religion, has a common global understanding about what behavior if performed by all would lead to havoc, thus defining this as immoral act. If everybody starts stealing or other acts of agression, it would create chaos, thus define such acts as immoral (Immanuel Kant). This are some kind of golden rules that Kant viewed as independent of time, person and place. At the other end, there is the relativist school of thought who proposes that ethics and morality is defined by perspective, and definition can change over time depending on how people at certain time and place interpret such act. 

Now the challenge is to see how people at a particular time and place view themselves as either belonging to school one, or school two, consciously or unconsciously. I think people belonging to the first type of ethical belief paradigm would act in a consistent manner whether he/she is at physiological need level or at the self-actualization need level. The example of monk that Nicholas gave is an excellent one. The need level does not have substantial impact on his/her ethical paradigm. (We also practically see news reports where poor bus driver trying to find the owner of a bag left with big amount of cash). On the other hand, if some people subcribe to school two, then probably their adoption of ethical standard and definition might evolve over time. How would you define tax evaders giving a lot of money in charity? 

I would say the challenge is to find out the ethical paradigm that individuals live in. This is just a hypothesis, I have no proof to say that school one is indifferent to need level, whereas school two is influenced by the need level. Could be an interesting research!

It is a very great idea to look for a correspondence between Maslow's hierarchy of needs and types of moral philosophy.Bertolt Brecht already said: "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral." (Food comes first, then morality .)

I would have kind of an intermediate step: asking if there is plausible correspondence between Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Kohlberg's taxonomy of moral development. This questions is probably eaysier to operationalize.

I won't really answer your question but I might provide some food for thought.

1. It might be worth looking into Maslow's later writings as he wrote about aesthetics, sense of life etc. This might provide a way to incorporate ethics into this model. E.g. Koltko-Rivera paper here seems to point to some things to consider when answering this: http://academic.udayton.edu/jackbauer/Readings%20595/Koltko-Rivera%2006%20trans%20self-act%20copy.pdf

2. One obvious thing to look at for me is extreme deprivation and morality. Obvious example is WWII concentration camps. There is good philosophical and sociological account in polish-language literature but to my knowledge not as much in English, although I am sure there is something about the camps in far east. I found this book doing quick google search -> http://www.amazon.com/Facing-The-Extreme-Moral-Concentration/dp/0805042644 might be interesting read in this context. You might want to look at psychiatric literature from 1950-1960's on KZ-syndrome which was PTSD precursor diagnosed in former inmates. I found this recent reprint of a paper from 1970's on this: http://www.archivespp.pl/uploads/images/2008_10_4/76__p__Archives_4_08.pdf and there is much more on peculiarities of ethics of former inmates.

3. It might help to elaborate the research question. Dow e ask on populational level or personal level? Which way on the hierarchy is the person / are the persons moving towards? Gaining more resources might (or might not) open possibilities of moral development and it might not, but is the effect of loosing access to resources just opposite? I wouldn't think so as you can easily find clear examples of people following quite sophisticated ethical thinking in times of extreme deprivation. Maybe populational level is more adequate? But then this "direction question' remains in place.

I hope this helps somehow.

FWIW I have made a link between Maslow's hierarchy and Aristotle's notion of human flourishing - see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274728806_Aristotle_Hume_and_the_goals_of_medicine thus advocating Virtue based ethics as a relevant model in whatever human condition

Article Aristotle, Hume and the goals of medicine