scholarly journals The Asymmetry of Population Ethics: Experimental Social Choice and Dual-Process Moral Reasoning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Spears
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
The Asymmetry

scholarly journals The Asymmetry of population ethics: experimental social choice and dual-process moral reasoning

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-454
Author(s):  
Dean Spears
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Population Ethics ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
The Asymmetry

AbstractPopulation ethics is widely considered to be exceptionally important and exceptionally difficult. One key source of difficulty is the conflict between certain moral intuitions and analytical results identifying requirements for rational (in the sense of complete and transitive) social choice over possible populations. One prominent such intuition is the Asymmetry, which jointly proposes that the fact that a possible child’s quality of life would be bad is a normative reason not to create the child, but the fact that a child’s quality of life would be good is not a reason to create the child. This paper reports a set of questionnaire experiments about the Asymmetry in the spirit of economists’ empirical social choice. Few survey respondents show support for the Asymmetry; instead respondents report that expectations of a good quality of life are relevant. Each experiment shows evidence (among at least some participants) of dual-process moral reasoning, in which cognitive reflection is statistically associated with reporting expected good quality of life to be normatively relevant. The paper discusses possible implications of these results for the economics of population-sensitive social welfare and for the conflict between moral mathematics and population intuition.

On Larry Temkin’s Rethinking the Good

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 414-427
Author(s):  
Leo Katz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Logical Consistency ◽  
Intimate Connection

This essay offers a critique of Larry Temkin’s seminal new book, Rethinking the Good, at the heart of which is the highly counterintuitive claim that all things considered judgments are not transitive. I evaluate Temkin’s claims through the lens of social choice theory, pursue some of its larger implications and applications, and conclude with a very general worry having to do with the intimate connection between transitivity and logical consistency, namely whether, if Temkin is right, this would not bring all moral reasoning to an abrupt halt.

scholarly journals Does autonomous moral reasoning favor consequentialism?

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caner Turan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Innocent Person ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Innocent People ◽  
Normative Power ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Joshua Greene ◽  
Personal Harm

This paper addresses an important issue that has been commonly debated in moral psychology, namely the normative and metaethical implications of our differing intuitive responses to morally indistinguishable dilemmas. The prominent example of the asymmetry in our responses is that people often intuitively accept pulling a switch and deny pushing as a morally permissible way of sacrificing an innocent person to save more innocent people. Joshua Greene traces our negative responses to actions involving “up close and personal” harm back to our evolutionary past and argues that this undermines the normative power of deontological judgments. I reject Greene’s argument by arguing that our theoretical moral intuitions, as opposed to concrete and mid-level ones, are independent of direct evolutionary influence because they are the product of autonomous (gene-independent) moral reasoning. I then explain how both consequentialist and deontological theoretical intuitions, which enable us to make important moral distinctions and grasp objective moral facts, are produced by the exercise of autonomous moral reasoning and the process of cultural evolution. My conclusion will be that Greene is not justified in his claim that deontology is normatively inferior to consequentialism.

Dual Models Argumentative Theory and Moral Reasoning

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Roger Fontaine ◽  
Valérie Pennequin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Ecological Validity ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Darwinian Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Dual Models

The idea of the existence of duality in the functioning of the human mind is very old: for some psychologists, this is due to the existence of two types of cognitive process, heuristic and analytic. The former is influenced by the individual's beliefs, and the latter analyzes the validity of arguments and justifications. This chapter examines this duality from a critical perspective by exploring its ecological validity. Thus, the duality will be examined in relation to the principles of the Darwinian theory of evolution and presented the advantages of the alternative model of argumentative theory. Authors present in more detail recent models of moral reasoning to illustrate what they believe are the limitations of the dual-process models of cognition.

Reliable and Unreliable Judgments About Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitrin Donovan ◽  
Cordelia Fine ◽  
Jeanette Kennett
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Moral Deliberation ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Process Theories ◽  
Dual Process Theories ◽  
Critical Overview ◽  
Social Level

The new skepticism about practical reason is predicated upon empirical findings which challenge the primacy traditionally afforded to reasoning in contexts of normative deliberation. These findings, which are associated with dual-process theories of cognition, are taken to support two skeptical claims: our reasons for action are not what we take them to be, and reasoning is an unreliable means for arriving at reliable judgments. After providing a critical overview of empirically based skepticism and its implications, we argue that skeptics underestimate the role that reasoning processes play in moral deliberation. We then canvass ways in which threats to the reliability of individual-level moral reasoning can be countenanced by social-level practices such as “nudging,” inter-agent reasoning, and testimonial expertise.

A Defence of the Asymmetry in Population Ethics

Res Publica ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-157
Author(s):  
Per Algander
Keyword(s):  
Population Ethics ◽  
The Asymmetry

scholarly journals Morality, Normativity, and the Good System 2 Fallacy

Diametros ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Wim De Neys
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Probabilistic Reasoning ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Dual Process Model ◽  
Good System ◽  
System 2

In this commentary, I warn against a possible dual process misconception that might lead people to conclude that utilitarian judgments are normatively correct. I clarify how the misconception builds on (1) the association between System 2 and normativity in the dual process literature on logical/probabilistic reasoning, and (2) the classification of utilitarian judgments as resulting from System 2 processing in the dual process model of moral reasoning. I present theoretical and empirical evidence against both premises.  

Moral reasoning is the process of asking moral questions and answering them

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Alfano
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Dependent Process ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
Path Dependent Process ◽  
Moral Questions

Abstract Reasoning is the iterative, path-dependent process of asking questions and answering them. Moral reasoning is a species of such reasoning, so it is a matter of asking and answering moral questions, which requires both creativity and curiosity. As such, interventions and practices that help people ask more and better moral questions promise to improve moral reasoning.

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