scholarly journals EXPRESS: Reliability of Moral Decision Making: Evidence from the Trolley Dilemma

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110015
Author(s):  
Corentin J Gosling ◽  
Bastien Trémolière
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Framing Effects ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Equivalence Tests ◽  
Trolley Dilemma

The application of framing effects in the field of moral judgment has offered a golden opportunity to assess the reliability of people’s moral judgments and decisions. To date, however, these studies are still scarce and they suffer from multiple methodological issues. Therefore, the present study aims to provide further insights into the reliability of moral judgments while fixing these methodological shortcomings. In the current study, we employed the classic trolley dilemma moral decision-making paradigm to determine the extent to which moral decisions are susceptible to framing effects. A total of 1040 participants were included in the study. The data revealed that choices of participants did not significantly differ between the two frames. Equivalence tests confirmed that the associated effect size was very small. Further exploratory analyses revealed an unplanned interaction between the framing effect and the target of the framing manipulation. This result became from marginally statistically significant to insignificant following different sensitivity analyses. The implications and limitations of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

scholarly journals Reliability of Moral Decision Making: Evidence from the Trolley Dilemma

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastien Trémolière ◽  
Corentin J Gosling
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Framing Effects ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Equivalence Tests ◽  
Trolley Dilemma

The application of framing effects in the field of moral judgment has offered a golden opportunity to assess the reliability of people’s moral judgments and decisions. To date, however, these studies are still scarce and they suffer from multiple methodological issues. Therefore, the present study aims to provide further insights into the reliability of moral judgments while fixing these methodological shortcomings. In the current study, we employed the classic trolley dilemma moral decision-making paradigm to determine the extent to which moral decisions are susceptible to framing effects. A total of 1040 participants were included in the study. The data revealed that choices of participants did not significantly differ between the two frames. Equivalence tests confirmed that the associated effect size was very small. Further exploratory analyses revealed an unplanned interaction between the framing effect and the target of the framing manipulation. This result became from marginally statistically significant to insignificant following different sensitivity analyses. The implications and limitations of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

scholarly journals Political Dogma Stroll’s non political moral decision making

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 33-44
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Noorani ◽  
Khurram Shakir ◽  
Muddasir Hussain
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Affective Responses ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Decisions

Ethical enigma kernelling concerns about actions against concerns about consequences have been dealt by philosophers and psychologists to measure “universal” moral intuitions. Although these enigmas contain no evident political content, we decipher that liberals are more likely than conservatives to be concerned about consequences, whereas conservatives are more likely than liberals to be concerned about actions. This denouement is exhibited in two large, heterogeneous samples and across several different moral dilemmas. In addition, manipulations of dilemma averseness and order of presentation suggest that this political difference is due in part to different sensitivities to emotional reactions in moral decision-making: Conservatives are very much inclined to “go with the gut” and let affective responses guide moral judgments, while liberals are more likely to deliberate about optimal consequences. In this article, extracting a sample from Western Europe, we report evidence that political differences can be found in moral decisions about issues that have no evident political content. In particular, we find that conservatives are more likely than liberals to attend to the action itself when deciding whether something is right or wrong, whereas liberals are more likely than conservatives to attend to the consequences of the action. Further, we report preliminary evidence that this is partly explained by the kernel of truth from the parodies – conservatives are more likely than liberals to “go with the gut” by using their affective responses to guide moral judgment.

Framing Morality: How Antecedent-Focused Strategies Can Shape Moral Judgments

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Kappes ◽  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Process Dissociation ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
First Response ◽  
High Conflict

From moral philosophy to programming driverless cars, scholars have long been interested in how to shape moral decision-making. We examine how framing can impact moral judgments either by shaping which emotional reactions are evoked in a situation (antecedent-focused) or by changing how people respond to their emotional reactions (response-focused). In three experiments, we manipulated the framing of a moral decision-making task before participants judged a series of moral dilemmas. Participants encouraged to go “with their first” response beforehand favored emotion-driven judgments on high-conflict moral dilemmas. In contrast, participants who were instructed to give a “thoughtful” response beforehand or who did not receive instructions on how to approach the dilemmas favored reason-driven judgments. There was no difference in response-focused control during moral judgements. Process-dissociation confirmed that people instructed to go with their first response had stronger emotion-driven intuitions than other conditions. Our results suggest that task framing can alter moral intuitions.

scholarly journals Famine, Affluence, and Amorality

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Sackris
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
First Person ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Distinct Kind ◽  
Ordinary Case ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

I argue that the debate concerning the nature of first-person moral judgment, namely, whether such moral judgments are inherently motivating (internalism) or whether moral judgments can be made in the absence of motivation (externalism), may be founded on a faulty assumption: that moral judgments form a distinct kind that must have some shared, essential features in regards to motivation to act. I argue that there is little reason to suppose that first-person moral judgments form a homogenous class in this respect by considering an ordinary case: student readers of Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”. Neither internalists nor externalists can provide a satisfying account as to why our students fail to act in this particular case, but are motivated to act by their moral judgments in most cases. I argue that the inability to provide a satisfying account is rooted in this shared assumption about the nature of moral judgments. Once we consider rejecting the notion that first-person moral decision- making forms a distinct kind in the way it is typically assumed, the internalist/externalist debate may be rendered moot.

Fear Deciding Fate: How Fear Influences Moral Decision-Making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sophia Strojny
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Thinking Styles ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Choice ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
The Impact

<p>Moral dilemmas require individuals to make a life-altering choice. Due to the severity of the choice, we argue that there is a degree of fear in moral decision-making. We aimed to see how prevailing fears in each individual predicts moral decision-making habits. We looked into the emotional and physical divisions of fear to deem which dimension of fear is more dominant in each participant. Then analysed these results against reported deontological or utilitarian moral inclinations to see if higher reports of fear impact moral decision-making. Additionally, we included two secondary variables that are most prevalent in fear research (gender and thinking styles) as well as the impact of burden on moral choice. We found that our research was supported; fear tendencies are linked to individual behaviours and burden of moral decisions was influenced by what we fear and affected moral choices.</p>

scholarly journals Human decision-making biases in the moral dilemmas of autonomous vehicles

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Darius-Aurel Frank ◽  
Polymeros Chrysochou ◽  
Panagiotis Mitkidis ◽  
Dan Ariely
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Personal Perspective ◽  
Moral Code ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Human Decision

Abstract The development of artificial intelligence has led researchers to study the ethical principles that should guide machine behavior. The challenge in building machine morality based on people’s moral decisions, however, is accounting for the biases in human moral decision-making. In seven studies, this paper investigates how people’s personal perspectives and decision-making modes affect their decisions in the moral dilemmas faced by autonomous vehicles. Moreover, it determines the variations in people’s moral decisions that can be attributed to the situational factors of the dilemmas. The reported studies demonstrate that people’s moral decisions, regardless of the presented dilemma, are biased by their decision-making mode and personal perspective. Under intuitive moral decisions, participants shift more towards a deontological doctrine by sacrificing the passenger instead of the pedestrian. In addition, once the personal perspective is made salient participants preserve the lives of that perspective, i.e. the passenger shifts towards sacrificing the pedestrian, and vice versa. These biases in people’s moral decisions underline the social challenge in the design of a universal moral code for autonomous vehicles. We discuss the implications of our findings and provide directions for future research.

scholarly journals Education for Loneliness as a Consequence of Moral Decision-Making: An Issue of Moral Virtues

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 591-605
Author(s):  
Jarosław Horowski
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Evil ◽  
Character Traits ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Cardinal Virtues ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Point Of Interest ◽  
Moral Decisions

Abstract The direct reference point for these analyses is the process of making moral decisions, but a particular point of interest is the difficulty associated with making decisions when acting subjects are aware that their choice of moral good can lead to the breakdown of relationships with those close to them (family members or friends) or to their exclusion from the group(s) that have been most important to them so far in their lives, consequently causing them to experience loneliness. This difficulty is a challenge for education, which in supporting the moral development of a maturing person should prepare her/him for choosing moral good even if this requires personal sacrifices. In these analyses, assuming that knowledge of moral good is not sufficient for morally good actions, I refer mainly to the virtues of character that facilitate making morally good decisions and I seek the answer to the question: what character traits (moral virtues) should be shaped in maturing persons, so that as adults they can resist moral evil, even when this will clearly lead to the experience of loneliness? I propose these character traits as expressing moral virtues—especially the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude (neo-Thomistic approach). In this way, I join in the discussion relating to the teleology of education. I do not touch on the methodology of education, however. The argument is presented in two parts. In the first, I introduce the problem of decision-making implying consent to loneliness. In the second, I reflect on the characteristics of a person who is capable of making such a decision.

Humanity Educating Philosophy

1998 ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Jeffrey W. Bulger
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Equilibrium Model ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Theory Model ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Systems ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
New Discovery

This treatise is a contribution towards the understanding of why humankind cannot agree on the foundation of morality and why moral pluralism is the logical constitution of moral reality. The synergistic-reflective-equilibrium model is the model that will describe how persons can make moral decisions as pluralistic agents. If this model is correct, then it will not be a new discovery, rather, it will be a new description of how pluralistic agents do in fact make moral decisions. This synergistic-reflective-equilibrium description should then be useful not only in giving a fuller understanding of how moral decisions ought to be made, but also how moral philosophy can be united into a pluralistic collective whole. The first part of this paper defines the synergistic-reflective-equilibrium mode. It briefly explains how it is a combination of both the theory model of moral decision-making and the intuition model of moral decision-making. The second part of this paper defines mid-level principles and explains how they are a natural development of the synergistic-reflective-equilibrium method. It will then be shown that both Mill and Kant used this method in their own moral theories. Lastly, it will be shown how "weighing and balancing" and "specification" are integral components in this model and were also practiced by Mill and Kant in their moral systems.

scholarly journals Moral judgment is important in COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (05) ◽  
pp. 615-617
Author(s):  
Turki Abualait ◽  
Shahid Bashir
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Practical Concern

The nature of moral judgment is not only of longstanding philosophical interest, but also it is a matter of immediate practical concern. Currently, when the information, the advice, even the science and the sequela of the pandemic COVID-19 are all consistently and rapidly changing, it creates inconsistency in our decision making. Nevertheless, we lack of a detailed scientific understanding of how people make moral decisions. The letter is an effort aimed at understanding moral decision-making during the present pandemic of COVID-19.

scholarly journals MORAL DECISION-MAKING DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

2020 ◽  
pp. 22-43
Author(s):  
Sergey N. Enikolopov ◽  
Tatina I. Medvedeva ◽  
Olga M. Boyko ◽  
Oksana Yu. Vorontsova ◽  
Olga Yu. Kazmina
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Psychopathological Symptoms ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
High Level

Relevance. The COVID-19 pandemic reveals the problem of moral choices for a large number of people: who should be treated first; who can be considered as a subject for urgent vaccines and drugs testing; choice between personal convenience and observation of restrictions for the sake of the “common good.” The objective of the study was to evaluate whether the stress experienced by people during the COVID-19 pandemic can change moral decision making. Materials and methods. The data of an online survey conducted from March 30 to May 31 (311 people) were analyzed. The survey included sociodemographic questions, questions about assessing one’s current condition, the Simptom Check List-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), and the Moral Dilemmas Test, consisting of 30 dilemmas. The relationship of a number of utilitarian choices in personal moral dilemmas with sociodemographic characteristics, respondents’ assessments of their state and psychopathological characteristics was analyzed. Solving personal moral dilemmas was considered within subgroups of respondents with a high level of somatization and a high level of psychopathological symptoms and it was reviewed separately. Results. The results showed a high level of distress throughout the survey and an increase of utilitarian choices in personal moral dilemmas by the end of the survey. The number of choices in personal dilemmas was lower among older respondents, higher among men, and positively correlated with psychopathological symptoms. In the subgroup with a high level of somatization, personal choices slightly decreased by the end of the survey. On the contrary, in the subgroup with high levels of psychopathological symptoms, the number of personal choices significantly increased. Conclusions. Against the background of quarantine, assessments of moral standards change. The level of stress ambiguously affects moral decisions. A high level of somatization leads to a decrease in utilitarian personal choices, and a higher level of psychopathological symptoms leads to an increase in utilitarianш choices. Utilitarian personal choices are more often made by men and younger people

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