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Evidence for Dual Process Theories

1. Ethical judgements are explained by a dual-process theory, which distinguishes faster from slower processes.

2. Faster processes are unreliable in unfamiliar* situations.

3. Therefore, we should not rely on faster process in unfamiliar* situations.

4. When philosophers rely on not-justified-inferentially premises, they are relying on faster processes.

5. We have reason to suspect that the moral scenarios and principles philosophers consider involve unfamiliar* situations.

6. Therefore, not-justified-inferentially premises about particular moral scenarios, and debatable principles, cannot be used in ethical arguments where the aim is knowledge.

I am ignoring the neuroscience, which could eventually be important but which I do not find terribly persuasive as things stand.

Evidence Greene (2014) cites includes:

  • Suter & Hertwig (2011)
  • Trémolière & Bonnefon (2014)
  • Conway & Gawronski (2013)

aux. hypothesis: only the slow process ever flexibly and rapidly takes into account differences in the more distal outcomes of an action

Outcome is just a state of affairs that follows from an action. E.g. the death of a person is an outcome. But so is the movement of a lever.
Outcomes can be partially ordered as cause–effect; the lower in the ordering, the more distal you are.

Prediction 1: limiting the time available to make a decision will reduce the influence of distal outcomes.

Suter & Hertwig, 2011 figure 1

caption: ‘Fig. 1. Average proportion of deontological responses separately for conditions and type of moral dilemma (high- versus low-conflict personal and impersonal dilemmas) with data combined across the fast (i.e., time-pressure and self-paced-intuition) and slow conditions (no-time-pressure and self-paced-deliberation) in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Error bars represent standard errors. Only responses to high-conflict dilemmas differed significantly between the conditions’
‘we selected 10 moral dilemmas (five personal and five impersonal ones) that about equally likely gave rise to both yes and no responses, respectively’ (Suter & Hertwig, 2011, p. 465).
‘We distinguished personal dilemmas according to whether harm caused was depicted as a side-effect (low-conflict) or as intended as the means to an end (high-conflict)’ (Suter & Hertwig, 2011, p. 465).
[Ignore the impersonal, but if you want to know ...]
‘a distinction between personal and impersonal moral dilemmas, whereby the crucial difference between the two lies in the emotional response that they trigger or fail to trigger and in the associated judgments. Personal dilemmas—for instance, picture an overcrowded lifeboat in which a crew member throws someone out to keep it afloat—tend to engage emotional processing to a greater extent than dilemmas necessitating less personal agency (e.g., the crew member only needs to hit a switch to remove the passenger).’ (Suter & Hertwig, 2011, p. 455).

‘participants in the time-pressure condition, relative to the no-time-pressure condition, were more likely to give ‘‘no’’ responses in high-conflict dilemmas’

(Suter & Hertwig, 2011, p. 456).

Good start.

But it would be even better if the outcomes were varied.

aux. hypothesis: only the slow process ever flexibly and rapidly takes into account differences in the more distal outcomes of an action

Prediction 1: limiting the time available to make a decision will reduce the influence of distal outcomes.

Evidence Greene (2014) cites includes:

  • Suter & Hertwig (2011)
  • Trémolière & Bonnefon (2014)
  • Conway & Gawronski (2013)
another time pressure study

aux. hypothesis: only the slow process ever flexibly and rapidly takes into account differences in the more distal outcomes of an action

Prediction 2: Limiting the time available to make a decision will reduce consequentialist responses.

time pressure study

Trémolière and Bonnefon, 2014 figure 4

‘The model detected a significant effect of time pressure, p = .03 (see Table 1), suggesting that the slope of utilitarian responses was steeper for participants under time pressure. As is visually clear in Figure 4, participants under time pressure gave less utilitarian responses than control par- ticipants to scenarios featuring low kill–save ratios, but reached the same rates of utilitarian responses for the highest kill–save ratios.’ (Trémolière & Bonnefon, 2014, p. 927)
\textbf{*todo*} [save for later, more drama: [also mention (Gawronski, Conway, Armstrong, Friesdorf, & Hütter, 2018) p.~1006 ‘reinterpreation’ and p.~992 descriptive vs mechanistsic]] Gawronski & Beer (2017, p. 669) argue for an alternative interpretation: The central findings of Trémolière & Bonnefon (2014) ‘show that outcomes did influence moral judgments, but only when participants were under cognitive load or time pressure (i.e., the white bars do not significantly differ from the gray bars within the low load and no time pressure condi- tions, but they do significantly differ within the high load and time pressure conditions). Thus, a more appro- priate interpretation of these data is that cognitive load and time pressure increased utilitarian responding, which stands in stark contrast to the widespread assumption that utilitarian judgments are the result of effortful cognitive processes (Greene et al., 2008; Suter & Hertwig, 2011).

aux. hypothesis: only the slow process ever flexibly and rapidly takes into account differences in the more distal outcomes of an action

Prediction 2: Limiting the time available to make a decision will reduce consequentialist responses.

Prediction 2*: Limiting the time available to make a decision will reduce sensitivity to outcomes.

‘the dual-process theory [...] makes the empirical claim that ordinary people’s utilitarian judgments are typically the products of deliberate, aggregate cost-benefit reasoning (Greene et al., 2001, 2004, 2013). Consistent with this claim, people’s judgments are sensitive to aggregate consequences: People who endorse killing one to save five typically do not endorse killing five to save one, or killing one to save zero’ (Conway, Goldstein-Greenwood, Polacek, & Greene, 2018, p. 243).
time pressure study

Trémolière & Bonnefon (2014, p. figure 4)

You can see this more clearly by looking at a different graph of the same data ...

Prediction 2*: Limiting the time available to make a decision will reduce sensitivity to outcomes.

Gawronski & Beer (2017, p. figure 1); data from Trémolière & Bonnefon (2014)

Prediction 2*: Limiting the time available to make a decision will reduce sensitivity to outcomes.

Critique is consistent with Trémolière & Bonnefon (2014)’s own report; but not Greene (2014)’s use of the evidence.
Please be sure you understand

Evidence Greene (2014) cites includes:

  • Suter & Hertwig (2011)
  • Trémolière & Bonnefon (2014)
  • Conway & Gawronski (2013)
Seems equivocal at best.

aux. hypothesis: only the slow process ever flexibly and rapidly takes into account differences in the more distal outcomes of an action

Prediction 3: higher cognitive load will reduce the dominance of the more outcome-sensitive process.

[Might need to watch the recording if you want to know about this.]

Conway & Gawronsky 2013, figure 1

Note that if we just provide ‘incongruent’ dilemmas, we cannot distinguish all the different possibilities.
This is why varying the outcomes (which we do between congruent and incongruent dilemmas) is so important.
‘incongruent dilemma’ : kill one to save five lives (consequentialism says yes, deontology says no)
‘congruent dilemma’ : kill one to prevent a paint bomb from going off (consequentialism and deontology both say no)

Conway & Gawronsky 2013, figure 3

Evidence Greene (2014) cites includes:

  • Suter & Hertwig (2011)
  • Trémolière & Bonnefon (2014)
  • Conway & Gawronski (2013)

1. Ethical judgements are explained by a dual-process theory, which distinguishes faster from slower processes.

2. Faster processes are unreliable in unfamiliar* situations.

3. Therefore, we should not rely on faster process in unfamiliar* situations.

4. When philosophers rely on not-justified-inferentially premises, they are relying on faster processes.

5. We have reason to suspect that the moral scenarios and principles philosophers consider involve unfamiliar* situations.

6. Therefore, not-justified-inferentially premises about particular moral scenarios, and debatable principles, cannot be used in ethical arguments where the aim is knowledge.

evidence against?