We propose Knobe’s explanation of his cases encounters a dilemma: Either his explanation works and, counterintuitively, morality is not at the heart of these effects; or morality is at the heart of the effects and Knobe’s explanation does not succeed. This dilemma is then used to temper the use of the Knobe paradigm for discovering moral norms. Knobe presents two kinds of theories that compete ...

Based on the frameworks of dual-process theories, we examined the interplay between intuitive and controlled cognitive processes related to moral and social judgments. In a virtual reality (VR) setting we performed an experiment investigating the progression from fast, automatic decisions towards more controlled decisions over multiple trials in the context of a sacrificing scenario. We repeate...

Moral dilemma is an effective approach to the investigation of neural mechanisms underlying moral judgment. A typical dilemma (e.g., the “footbridge dilemma”) describes a hypothetical situation in which a protagonist is faced with two exclusive options: killing one person to save more lives (a “utilitarian” judgment to maximize the utility), or doing nothing and watching those people die (a deo...

Many moral psychologists have proposed that the difference between people’s moral judgments about the Trolley and Footbridge dilemmas can be explained by their differing emotional responses to the dilemmas. In two experiments, we tested this explanation by presenting the dilemmas and measuring participants’ reactions using a self-report emotion measure (PANAS-X). As might be expected, participa...

Nurses are increasingly confronted with situations of moral difficulty, such as not to feed terminally ill patients, whistle blowing, or participation in termination of pregnancy. Most of these moral dilemmas are often analyzed using the principle-based approach which applies the four moral principles of justice, autonomy, beneficence, and non-malificence. In some instances, consequentialism is...

Two groups of agents, G1 and G2, face a moral conflict if G1 has a moral obligation and G2 has a moral obligation, such that these obligations cannot both be fulfilled. We study moral conflicts using a multi-agent deontic logic devised to represent reasoning about sentences like ‘In the interest of group F of agents, group G of agents ought to see to it that φ’. We provide a formal language and...

Faced with a moral dilemma, conflict arises between a cognitive controlled response aimed at maximizing welfare, i.e. the utilitarian judgment, and an emotional aversion to harm, i.e. the deontological judgment. In the present study, we investigated moral judgment in adult individuals with high functioning autism/Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS), a clinical population characterized by impairments in ...

Moral dilemma tasks have been a much appreciated experimental paradigm in empirical studies on moral cognition for decades and have, more recently, also become a preferred paradigm in the field of cognitive neuroscience of moral decision-making. Yet, studies using moral dilemmas suffer from two main shortcomings: they lack methodological homogeneity which impedes reliable comparisons of results...

Previous research has identified a set of core factors that influence moral judgments. The present study addresses the interplay between moral judgments and four factors: (a) incidental affects, (b) sociocultural context, (c) type of dilemma, and (d) participant's sex. We asked participants in two different countries (Colombia and Spain) to judge the acceptability of actions in response to pers...