Rationality and Moral Judgment:A view from moral psychology

Simon LahamUniversity of Melbourne

Heart and Head

Effective altruism: Heart and headMoral psychology: Heart and head

System 1 and System 2 processes

Dual process morality

(Greene et al., 2001; Greene, 2007)(cf. Kahane et al., 2015)

The head is less important than you may think

MJDM is driven by a variety of factors:– Emotions (e.g., Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2006)– Values (e.g., Crone & Laham, 2015)– Relational and group membership concerns (e.g., Cikara et al., 2010)

Across a wide range of studies, a majority of people do not consistently apply abstract moral principles– Moral judgments are not decontextualized,

depersonalized and asocial (i.e., not System 2)

Another concern…

Not only do people inconsistently apply rationality in moral judgments, many reject the idea that consequentialist rationality should have any place in the moral domain

Appeals to consequentialist logic may backfire (Kreps and Monin, 2014)– People who give consequentialist justifications for their

moral positions are viewed as less committed and less authentic

Another route to an effective EAIs trying to change people’s minds the best way to expand the EA movement?

Moral judgment is subject to a variety of contextual effects

Knowledge of such effects can be used to ‘nudge’ people towards utilitarianism (see Thaler & Sunstein, 2008)

Trolleys

Other contextual factors:– Temporarily accessible rules (Broeders et al., 2011)

– Wording (Petrinovich & O’Neill, 1996)

– Order effects (e.g., Schwitzgebel & Cushman, 2012)

– …

Beyond trolleys

Identifiable victim effect (Small & Loewenstein, 2003)

Single vs. joint evaluation and preference reversals (Kogut & Ritov, 2005)

vs

Decision framing and the moral circle

Moral circle as psychological categoryMalleable? Consequences?Decision framing and set reduction– Inclusion vs. exclusion mindsets

Moral circle demarcation asset reduction

Laham (2009). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Mindset, circle size and consequences Mindset

Inclusion Exclusion

Study 1a (N = 30) 65 82 t(28) = 3.08, p < 0.01, d = 1.13.

Study 1b (N = 65) 55 81 t(63) = 4.33, p < 0.01, d = 1.07.

Study 2 (N = 49) 68 82 t(47) = 3.56, p < 0.01, d = 1.02.

Condition1=Exc.0=Inc.

Set-size

Obligation to Outgroups

0.46** 0.32*

0.40**(0.25+)

Laham (2009). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Ease of retrieval and the moral circleAvailability heuristic (Tversky and Kahneman,1973)

“ease with which instances or associations come to mind”

Declarative vs. experientialEase vs. difficulty of retrieval (Schwarz et al., 1991)

Moral circle and subjective ease

Laham (2013). Social Psychology

‘Practical’ take-home

Things beside rationality matter in morality People believe that things beside rationality should matterSo:– (a) present EA in a manner that does not trade

utilitarian options off against deeply held values, identities, or emotions

– (b) use decision framing techniques to ‘nudge’ people towards utilitarian choices