Research on moral development and behavior has traditionally emphasized person related variables such as level or stage of moral reasoning, individual differences in moral traits and dispositions, or past reinforcement history. The effects of context on moral action and decision, in contrast, have received relatively little attention. It is therefore not surprising that little systematic effort has been made to provide a theoretically meaningful account of situation variables, and that even less has been done on accounting for the conjoint effects of both types of variables. This paper describes an approach to moral decision making derived from a rule governed perspective, intended to provide a conceptual framework for accounting for both person and situation effects on moral decision making. According to this approach, moral decisions are influenced by both individual differences in the use of moral rules and principles and complex contextual cues that include type and attributes of situations. Several lines of research supporting this view are described. (Author)