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What Dilemma? Moral Evaluation Shapes Factual Belief
Brittany S. Liu and Peter H. Ditto
Social Psychological and Personality Science published online 15 August 2012
http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/08/13/1948550612456045
While individuals can and do appeal to principle in some cases to support their moral positions, we argue that this is a difficult stance psychologically because it conflicts with well-rehearsed economic intuitions urging that the most rational course of action is the one that produces the most favorable cost–benefit ratio. Our research suggests that people resolve such dilemmas by bringing cost–benefit beliefs into line with moral evaluations, such that the right course of action morally becomes the right course of action practically as well. Study 3 provides experimental confirmation of a pattern implied by both our own and others’ correlational research (e.g., Kahan, 2010): People shape their descriptive understanding of the world to fit their prescriptive understanding of it. Our findings contribute to a growing body of research demonstrating that moral evaluations affect nonmoral judgments such as assessments of cause (Alicke, 2000; Cushman & Young, 2011), intention (Knobe, 2003, 2010), and control (Young & Phillips, 2011). At the broadest level, all these examples represent a tendency, long noted by philosophers, for people to have trouble maintaining clear conceptual boundaries between what is and what ought to be (Davis, 1978; Hume, 1740/1985).
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More generally, the partisan battles that dominate contemporary American politics are fueled not just by well documented differences in liberals’ and conservatives’ moral sensibilities (e.g., Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009) but also by huge discrepancies in factual beliefs. Resolving differences of moral opinion is challenging enough, but when these differences align themselves with differing perceptions of fact, fruitful negotiation becomes considerably more difficult. Moreover, it should be particularly disheartening for fans of political compromise that the tendency to recruit facts in support of moral positions is likely to be most pronounced in individuals with strong moral convictions and high opinions about how informed they are about the issues—a reasonable characterization of the psychological state of the political elites who most affect policy decisions.
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Our results challenge simple conceptual distinctions between deontological and consequentialist judgment. Moral intuitionism suggests that rather than reasoning their way to moral conclusions using either deontological or consequentialist logic, people’s moral justifications are guided by visceral reactions about the rightness or wrongness of the action in question (Haidt, 2001). As such, people should be inclined to embrace any justification that coheres with their moral intuitions, whether that justification is a broad deontological rule, information about consequences, or both.
Brittany S. Liu and Peter H. Ditto
Social Psychological and Personality Science published online 15 August 2012
http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/08/13/1948550612456045
While individuals can and do appeal to principle in some cases to support their moral positions, we argue that this is a difficult stance psychologically because it conflicts with well-rehearsed economic intuitions urging that the most rational course of action is the one that produces the most favorable cost–benefit ratio. Our research suggests that people resolve such dilemmas by bringing cost–benefit beliefs into line with moral evaluations, such that the right course of action morally becomes the right course of action practically as well. Study 3 provides experimental confirmation of a pattern implied by both our own and others’ correlational research (e.g., Kahan, 2010): People shape their descriptive understanding of the world to fit their prescriptive understanding of it. Our findings contribute to a growing body of research demonstrating that moral evaluations affect nonmoral judgments such as assessments of cause (Alicke, 2000; Cushman & Young, 2011), intention (Knobe, 2003, 2010), and control (Young & Phillips, 2011). At the broadest level, all these examples represent a tendency, long noted by philosophers, for people to have trouble maintaining clear conceptual boundaries between what is and what ought to be (Davis, 1978; Hume, 1740/1985).
[..]
More generally, the partisan battles that dominate contemporary American politics are fueled not just by well documented differences in liberals’ and conservatives’ moral sensibilities (e.g., Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009) but also by huge discrepancies in factual beliefs. Resolving differences of moral opinion is challenging enough, but when these differences align themselves with differing perceptions of fact, fruitful negotiation becomes considerably more difficult. Moreover, it should be particularly disheartening for fans of political compromise that the tendency to recruit facts in support of moral positions is likely to be most pronounced in individuals with strong moral convictions and high opinions about how informed they are about the issues—a reasonable characterization of the psychological state of the political elites who most affect policy decisions.
[..]
Our results challenge simple conceptual distinctions between deontological and consequentialist judgment. Moral intuitionism suggests that rather than reasoning their way to moral conclusions using either deontological or consequentialist logic, people’s moral justifications are guided by visceral reactions about the rightness or wrongness of the action in question (Haidt, 2001). As such, people should be inclined to embrace any justification that coheres with their moral intuitions, whether that justification is a broad deontological rule, information about consequences, or both.