The Means/Side-Effect Distinction in Moral Cognition: A Meta-Analysis

Experimental research suggests that people draw a moral distinction between bad outcomes brought about as a means versus a side effect (or byproduct). Such findings have informed multiple psychological and philosophical debates about moral cognition, including its computational structure, its sensitivity to the famous Doctrine of Double Effect, its reliability, and its status as a universal and innate mental module akin to universal grammar. But some studies have failed to replicate the means/byproduct effect especially in the absence of other factors, such as personal contact. So we aimed to determine how robust the means/byproduct effect is by conducting a meta-analysis of both published and unpublished studies (k = 101; 24,058 participants). We found that while there is an overall small difference between moral judgments of means and byproducts (standardized mean difference = 0.87, 95% CI 0.67 – 1.06; standardized mean change = 0.57, 95% CI 0.44 – 0.69; log odds ratio = 1.59, 95% CI 1.15 – 2.02), the mean effect size is primarily moderated by whether the outcome is brought about by personal contact, which typically involves the use of personal force

Ethical and cognitive challenges in the COVID-19 emergency

Abstract: The global emergency caused by the spread of COVID-19 raises critical challenges for individuals and communities on many different levels. In particular, politicians, scientists, physicians, and other professionals may face new ethical dilemmas and cognitive constraints as they make critical decisions in extraordinary circumstances. Philosophers and cognitive scientists have long analyzed and discussed such issues. An example is the debate on moral decision making in imaginary scenarios, such as the famous “Trolley Problem”. Similarly, dramatic and consequential decisions are realized daily in the current crisis. Focusing on Italy, we discuss the clinical ethical guidelines proposed by the Italian Society of Anesthesiology, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care (SIAARTI), highlighting some crucial ethical and cognitive concerns surrounding emergency decision making in the current situation.Keywords: Moral Dilemmas; Cognition; Rationality; Bias; Clinical Decision Making; COVID-19 Problemi etici e cognitivi nell’emergenza COVID-19Riassunto: L’emergenza globale causata dal COVID-19 solleva problemi cruciali, sia per gli individui sia per le comunità, a molti livelli diversi. In particolare, politici, scienziati, medici e altri professionisti si trovano ad affrontare dilemmi etici e limitazioni cognitive legate a decisioni critiche in circostanze straordinarie. Sia i filosofi sia gli scienziati cognitivi hanno a lungo analizzato e discusso questi problemi. Un esempio è il dibattito sul ragionamento e le decisioni morali in scenari immaginari, come il famoso “problema del carrello”. Nella crisi attuale, dilemmi drammatici di questo tipo sono all’ordine del giorno. Concentrandoci sull’Italia, discutiamo le linee guida proposte dalla Società Italiana di Anestesiologia, Analgesia, Rianimazione e Terapia Intensiva (SIAARTI), evidenziando alcuni aspetti critici, sia etici sia cognitivi, del processo decisionale in una situazione di emergenza come quella attuale.Parole chiave: Dilemmi morali; Cognizione; Razionalità; Bias; Decisioni cliniche; COVID-1

A multimodal investigation of moral decision making in harmful contexts

Since the two landmark publications in moral psychology (Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Haidt, 2001), the field has experienced an affective revolution that has put emotions at the center of the stage. Although work on exploring role of emotions in assessing morality of various types of moral acts (impure, unfair, etc.; Haidt, 2007) abounds, studying its role in harmful behaviors presents a unique challenge. The aversion to harming others is an integral part of the foundations of human moral sense and it presents itself in the form of deeply ingrained moral intuitions (Haidt, 2007). Since creating laboratory situations to investigate harm aversion raises ethical issues, research has primarily relied on studying hypothetical cases. In the current thesis, we utilize hypothetical vignettes to explore role of emotions in both moral judgment and behavior in harmful contexts, both when harm is carried out intentionally or produced accidentally. Study 1 investigates the role of emotion in motivating utilitarian behavior in moral dilemmas when presented in contextually salient virtual reality format as compared to judgment about the same cases for their textual versions. Study 2 investigates divergent contributions of two different sources of affect, one stemming from self-focused distress and the other focused on other-oriented concern, on utilitarian moral judgments in autistics. Study 3 investigates the role of empathic arousal in condemning agents involved in unintentional harms and why harmful outcomes have a greater bearing on blame as compared to acceptability judgments

If you’re going to do wrong, at least do it right: The surprising effect of considering two moral dilemmas at the same time

We study how people reconcile conflicting moral intuitions by juxtaposing two versions of classic moral problems: the trolley problem and the footbridge problem. When viewed separately, most people favor action in the former and disapprove of action in the latter, despite identical consequences. The difference is often explained in terms of the intention principle – whether the consequences are intended or incidental. Our results suggest that when the two problems are considered together, a different judgment emerges: participants reject the intention principle and embrace either the principle of utilitarianism, which favors action in both problems, or the action principle, which rejects action in both problems. In subsequent studies, we find that when required to choose between two harmful actions, people prefer the action that saves more lives, despite its being more aversive. Our findings shed light on the formation of moral judgment under normative conflict, the conditions for preference reversal, and the potential polarization of moral judgment under joint evaluation. Organizational implications are discussed

Reproducibility of empirical findings: experiments in philosophy and beyond

The field of experimental philosophy has received considerable attention, essentially for producing results that seem highly counter-intuitive and at the same time question some of the fundamental methods used in philosophy. A substantial part of this attention has focused on the role of intuitions in philosophical methodology. One of the major contributions of experimental philosophy on this topic has been concrete evidence in support of intuitional diversity; the idea that intuitions vary systematically depending on variables such as ethnicity, socioeconomic background, or gender. Because of the important implications, these findings have been the subject of extensive debate. Despite the seeming significance of the findings and despite all the debates that the experimental philosophy movement has prompted, what has not been examined systematically is the reproducibility of the results. Instead, the reported findings have been simply accepted as established facts. We set out to replicate a wide range of experiments and surprisingly failed to reproduce many of the reported findings, some of which are from the most cited and attention grabbing papers of the field. We draw two conclusions from our findings. The first is that the instability of intuitions has been exaggerated by experimental philosophers. Intuitions appear to be more uniform across different demographic groups. The argument that intuitions need to be discarded because they depend on arbitrary factors such as ethnicity, socioeconomic background, or gender does not seem tenable anymore. The second conclusion is that experimental philosophy needs a better system to ensure the reproducibility of published findings. The current research-publication system of various empirical fields, especially those employing statistical methods, leads to an overproduction of false-positive findings in the published literature. Unless changes are made to the current research-publication system, this overproduction is likely to continue, in experimental philosophy as well as other disciplines

Essays on Behavioral Economics: Empirical Studies on Risk, Morality and Framing

This cumulative dissertation comprises three empirical studies on matters of risk taking, morality and framing. The first deals with endowment history and prior outcomes in risky contexts. In a seminal contribution, Thaler and Johnson (1990) detected the existence of a house money effect which is defined as an increase in risk tolerance after previous gains resulting from a risky activity. Subsequent studies used the term house money effect also in case of windfall gains, i.e., easily acquired money like show-up fees or initial endowments in experiments which does not result from a risky investment. The present study is to the best of our knowledge the first that disentangles the house money effect and windfall gains. We find a clear and systematic pattern that windfall gains increase risk tolerance. In contrast, the house money effect is far less ubiquitous and seems to require skewed lotteries and/or a large number of rounds played. We, therefore, conclude that a careful distinction between windfall gains and the house money effect is warranted in future research. The second contribution employs a multitude of probabilistic versions of two iconic variants of the trolley dilemma. In four studies, subjects rated moral permissibility of action in the bystander case – where one can divert a train, letting one person die instead of five – and the footbridge case – where one can sacrifice one person to save the five – with outcome probabilities being changed systematically. Results show that decreasing attractiveness of intervention yields a decreasing perceived moral permissibility of the intervention. Furthermore, a constant ratio of expected outcomes leaves moral permissibility ratings unchanged on aggregate if outcome probabilities are identical, whereas they display the emergence of a common ratio effect in the bystander, but not in the footbridge situation in case of asymmetric probabilities if these are manipulated intrapersonally. Additionally, probability framing does not seem to be of major importance and previous findings that moral permissibility of intervention is denoted higher in the bystander case are confirmed. The third essay employs four variants of the standard sender-receiver game by Gneezy (2005), with outcome valence being varied systematically. Depending on the frame of the game, a deceptive message, if acted upon, resulted in a higher gain for the sender and a lower gain for the receiver, a lower loss for the sender and a lower gain for the receiver, a higher gain for the sender and a higher loss for the receiver or a lower loss for the sender and a higher loss for the receiver. Results show that framing has no effect on senders’ decisions to lie on aggregate. Analyses with respect to gender point towards female and male subjects being influenced differently by the framing manipulation. Women show a higher propensity to lie to avoid a higher loss and behave less deceptively if doing so increases the receiver’s loss, with this pattern being reversed for me

Lay Theories of Morality in the Lives of Moral Exemplars

Psychological research on moral exemplars presents them as near perfect, focusing on their impeccable character and accomplishments. However, just like anybody else, they also have imperfections that are usually unrecognized by psychological research. The aim of this dissertation is to examine the implications of studying moral exemplars as if they are perfect. I will argue that focusing only on the positive qualities of moral exemplars, and ignoring the important ways that failures may have contributed to their development, imply an entity theory of morality where only certain perfect people possess unchangeable moral traits. In Chapter I, I provide an overview of psychological research on morality and moral exemplars, showing how they imply an entity theory of morality, and explore the potential consequences of this implication. In Chapter II, I present the results of series of studies that examine how individual react when they find out about the failures of their moral exemplars. Throughout six experiments, the results show that whereas finding out about the failure of a moral exemplar undermines them as a moral model, participants are inspired by the moral exemplar if the failure leads to growth and learning. In Chapter III, I propose four studies that aim to demonstrate that imperfect exemplars may also be important in applied educational settings. Specifically, I propose using imperfect exemplars in a sexual assault prevention leadership training program, arguing that imperfect exemplars may be particularly inspiring for participants who confront their past failures