Absolutely Right and Relatively Good: Consequentialists See Bioethical Disagreement in a Relativist Light

Background Contemporary societies are rife with moral disagreement, resulting in recalcitrant disputes on matters of public policy. In the context ongoing bioethical controversies, uncompromising attitudes rooted beliefs about nature truth?Methods To answer this question, we conducted both exploratory and confirmatory studies, a convenience nationally representative sample (total N = 1501), investigating link between people’s truth (their metaethics) their value normative ethics).Results Across various issues (e.g., medically-assisted death, vaccine hesitancy, surrogacy, mandatory organ conscription, or genetically modified crops), consequentialist were associated weaker an objective truth. This association was not explained by domain-general reflectivity, theism, personality, uncertainty, subjective knowledge.Conclusions We find robust way people characterize prescriptive disagreements sensibility to consequences. addition, societal consensus personal conviction contribute objectivist beliefs, but these effects appear be asymmetric, i.e., stronger for opposition than approval.