Emotions and Moral Decision-Making

Florian Cova
Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences
 Outline

 Introduction to the study of emotions

 Emotions and moral judgment

 Emotions and moral decision-making

 Emotions

 Emotions are occurent mental states.

 According to philosophers and psychologists, they
are characterized by:

 A distinctive phenomenology.
 Particular reactions of the autonomic nervous
system.
 Particular motor reactions.
 Particular action tendencies (or motivations)
 Particular cognitive evaluation (what is evaluated
is the intentional object, and the value ascribed is
the formal object, core relational theme).
 The peripheralist view

 James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9,

188-205.
 Lange, C. (1885). The mechanism of the emotions.
 The peripheralist view

Phenomenology
=
Emotion itself

perception of

causes
Bodily / Motor
External stimuli
reactions
The peripheralist view
The peripheralist view
The facial feedback hypothesis
Cognitive accounts of emotions
Cognitive accounts of emotions
 Appraisal theory

 Moors, 2009:
 Basic Emotions

 Ekman & Friesen, 1971:

 Emotion and moral judgment

 What is the role of emotions in the formation of

moral judgment? Do they have a constructive
role, or are they just a bias?
 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 1) Correlation between emotions and moral

judgment:
 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 2) Emotion induction impact moral judgment:

 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 2) Emotion induction impact moral judgment:

 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 But…
 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 But…
 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 3) Reasoning do not explain moral judgment…

 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 3) Reasoning do not explain moral judgment…

 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 3) Reasoning do not explain moral judgment…

 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 3) Reasoning do not explain moral judgment…

 Evidence for sentimentalism?

 3) Reasoning do not explain moral judgment…

 Emotions and Moral Judgment

 Rozin et al, 1999: the contempt–anger– disgust

(CAD) model of moral emotions.
 Each type of moral emotion is elicited by the
violation of a specific type of norms:

• Anger is elicited by appraised violations of

autonomy (i.e. violations of individual rights)
• Disgust is elicited by appraised violations related
to divinity (i.e. violations of purity–sanctity)
• Contempt is elicited by appraised violations related
to community (i.e. violation of communal codes).
 Emotions and Moral Judgment

 Rozin et al, 1999: the contempt–anger– disgust

(CAD) model of moral emotions.
Emotions and Moral Judgment
Emotions and Moral Judgment
Emotions and Moral Judgment
Emotions and Moral Judgment
Dissociating moral decision-making
from moral judgment
Dissociating moral decision-making
from moral judgment
The trolley problem
The trolley problem
 The trolley problem

 Joshua Greene has advanced a “dual-process” theory of

moral cognition. According to him, answers in trolley
problems are the result of a conflict between two kinds of
responses: a utilitarian and a deontological response.
 According to him, the utilitarian response is the product of
high-level conscious cognition and thus the product of
moral reasoning.
 On the opposite, the deontological response is supposed to
be the expression of an emotional reaction.
 When people have to divert the train, the emotional
reaction is weak, thus higher cognition takes the advantage
and most people give an utilitarian answer. On the
contrary, when a person is pushed, emotional reactions are
strong and do not let room for moral reasoning, thus
leading to utilitarian answers.
 Evidence, 1

 In a first fMRI study, Greene et al. (2001)

Have scanned people making decesions about
personal moral dilemmas (=killing someone
as a means) and impersonal moral dilemmas
(=killing someone as a side-effect). They
observed that brain areas supposedly linked
to emotions showed greater activity for
personal moral dilemmas, while brain areas
linked to working memory were more
activated for impersonal moral dilemmas.
Evidence, 1
 Evidence, 2

 In the same study, reaction times, showed that utilitarian

judgments took longer than deontological judgment for
personal moral dilemmas only. Greene interprets this as the
time taken to inhibit a strong emotional reactions to reach
an utilitarian conclusion.
 Evidence, 3

 In another study, Greene and his colleagues (2008) found that

cognitive load made utilitarian (and only utilitarian) judgments
slower, but only for personal moral dilemmas.
Evidence, 4
Evidence, 4
Evidence, 4
But…
But…
But…
But…
 Conclusion

 Emotions certainly play a major role in moral

judgment and moral decision-making.
 People with emotional deficits seem to be different
in both moral judgment and moral decision making.
 Though it is hard to say whether they are deficient.
 Most models of moral decision-making (and moral
judgment) are dual, and just modernize the
traditional opposition emotions VS reason.
 But maybe we now need more complex models.
 References

 Ekman, P. and Friesen, W. (1971). Constants across

cultures in the face and emotion. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 17, 124-129.
 *Greene, J., Sommerville, R., Nystrom, L., Darley, J. and
Cohen, J. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional
engagement in moral Judgment. Science, 293, 2105-2108.
 Greene, J., Morelli, S., Lowenberg, K., Nystrom, L. and
Cohen, J. (2008). Cognitive load selectively interferes with
utilitarian moral judgment. Cognition, 107, 1144-1154.
 Moors, A. (2009). Theories of emotion causation: A review.
Cognition & Emotion, 23, 625-662.
 Rozin, P., Lowery, L., Imada, S., and Haidt, J. (1999). The
CAD Triad Hypothesis: A mapping between three moral
emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes
(community, authority, divinity). Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 76, 574-586.