Does emotion influence moral judgment or merely motivate morally relevant action? (Reprise)

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Does emotion influence moral judgment or merely motivate morally relevant action? (Reprise)

Start with the easy one ...

puzzle

Why do feelings of disgust influence moral intuitions?

(And why do we feel disgust in response to moral transgressions?)

puzzle

Why are moral judgements sometimes, but not always, a consequence of reasoning from known principles?

This is what moral disengagement shows (sometimes).

This is what dumbfounding shows (not always).

The explanation for why reason does not play a big role is just that the fast process can influence judgements,

and the reason this does not always happen is that sometimes the slow process dominates.

This is not entirely satisfactory. Further questions: how does the fast process influence judgements (via heuristics is my guess)?; and under what conditions can we predict a fast process dominated response (not simply a matter of time pressure *after* reading a dilemma)?

puzzle

Why do feelings of disgust influence moral intuitions?

(And why do we feel disgust in response to moral transgressions?)

puzzle

Why are moral judgements sometimes, but not always, a consequence of reasoning from known principles?

Does manipulating participants’ feelings influence their moral judgements?

Tracy, Steckler, & Heltzel (2019) : yes

Chapman & Anderson (2013) : yes

Conway & Gawronski (2013, p. study 3) : yes

I didn’t mention this before: In Conway & Gawronski (2013, p. study 3), they manipulated empathy and found an increase in the Deontological Parameter.

‘we exposed half of the participants in Study 3 to a photograph of the victim who would be harmed in case participants judge harmful action as acceptable.

The rationale for this manipulation was that photographs identify victims, thereby evoking increased empathy and more emotional distress’

(Conway & Gawronski, 2013, p. 226)

prediction: higher empathy will increase the dominance of the less consequentialist process

Conway & Gawronsky 2013, figure 3

important consequence: if manipulating emotion can selectively influence one of two ethical processes, doesn’t this count as indirect evidence against the causal models on which emotion does not ‘influence’ judgement?

[The idea that manipulating emotion has a selective effect on one process supports the claim that emotion is not affecting (A) scenario analysis, (B) interpretation of question or (C) strength of pre-made judgement. After all, no such hypothesis predicts the selective effect.]

[Also: (Gawronski, Conway, Armstrong, Friesdorf, & Hütter, 2018): ‘(a) sensitivity to consequences, (b) sensitivity to moral norms, or (c) general preference for inaction versus action regardless of consequences and moral norms (or some combination of the three). Our results suggest that incidental happiness influences moral dilemma judgments by reducing sensitivity to moral norms’ (p. 1003).]

Two levels: (1) could do this in principle; (2) let’s see what disgust does to the different factors

Further research:

‘Our results suggest that incidental happiness influences moral dilemma judgments by reducing sensitivity to moral norms.’

(Gawronski et al., 2018, p. 1003)

Does manipulating participants’ feelings influence their moral judgements?

Tracy et al. (2019) : yes

Chapman & Anderson (2013) : yes

Conway & Gawronski (2013, p. study 3) : yes

I didn’t mention this before: In Conway & Gawronski (2013, p. study 3), they manipulated empathy and found an increase in the Deontological Parameter.

But the effects are probably small (Landy & Goodwin, 2015).

Q: What do adult humans compute that enables their moral intuitions to track moral attributes (such as wrongness)?

Hypothesis:

They rely on the ‘affect heuristic’: ‘if thinking about an act [...] makes you feel bad [...], then judge that it is morally wrong’.

(Sinnott-Armstrong, Young, & Cushman, 2010)

Objection:

The effects of feeling on moral judgement are small (Landy & Goodwin, 2015).

Aside: Evidence for the role of emotion in moral judgement is weak compared to evidence for its role in judgements of risk (e.g. Slovic, Finucane, Peters, & MacGregor, 2007).

How could emotion influence moral judgement?

Return to the parallel with physical cognition ...

Why was it that people untrained in physics so often predicted a spiral, even though they could not have seen such a thing (because it’s physically impossible)?

McCloskey, Caramazza, & Green (1980, p. figure 2D)

why?

because fast processes make it appear so
(Kozhevnikov & Hegarty, 2001)

So does the fast process directly influence the slow judgement?

No. (Or not significantly.)

fast process

-> representational momentum

-> phenomenology of experience

-> thinking about experience

-> (tacit) belief in principles

-> explicit judgement

The fast process provides phenomenal material for slow judgement.

How is this relevant to moral judgement and emotion?

Affect Heuristic

‘if thinking about an act [...] makes you feel bad [...], then judge that it is morally wrong’ (Sinnott-Armstrong et al., 2010).

The emotion influences judgement *at the time it is made*.

prediction: manipulating emotion will influence judgement

puzzle

Why do feelings of disgust influence moral intuitions?

(And why do we feel disgust in response to moral transgressions?)

puzzle

Why are moral judgements sometimes, but not always, a consequence of reasoning from known principles?

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Does emotion influence moral judgment or merely motivate morally relevant action? (Reprise)

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