Sixty-nine Midwestern middle-class children and adolescents were tested on justice and care orientations when reasoning abstract and interpersonal moral dilemmas. Nona Lyons" ("Two Perspectives on Self, Relationships and Morality," Harvard Educational Review, 1983, 53,125-145) scoring method was used to score subjects" responses. A 2(sex) × 2(age) analysis of variance run on the total justice a...

We introduce a new computational model of moral decision making, drawing on a recent theory of commonsense moral learning via social dynamics. Our model describes moral dilemmas as utility function that computes trade-offs in values over abstract moral dimensions, which provide interpretable parameter values when implemented in machineled ethical decision-making. Moreover, characterizing the so...

It is well known that analogy plays an important role in the process of decision making. However, this role has not yet been systematically examined in the domain of moral decision making. This paper investigates the role of cultural narratives in understanding novel moral situations. We examine whether the processes by which core cultural narratives are applied in people’s lives follow the pri...

Many online marketplaces enjoy great success. Buyers and sellers in successful markets carry out cooperative transactions even if they do not know each other in advance and a moral hazard exists. An indispensable component that enables cooperation in such social dilemma situations is the reputation system. Under the reputation system, a buyer can avoid transacting with a seller with a bad reput...

Psychopathy is a personality disorder frequently associated with immoral behaviors. Previous behavioral studies on the influence of psychopathy on moral decision have yielded contradictory results, possibly because they focused either on judgment (abstract evaluation) or on choice of hypothetical action, two processes that may rely on different mechanisms. In this study, we explored the influen...

David Shoemaker argues from (A) psychopaths’ emotional deficiency, to (B) their insensitivity to moral reasons, to (C) their lack of criminal responsibility. This response observes three important ambiguities in this argument, involving the interpretation of (1) psychopaths’ emotional deficit, (2) their insensitivity to reasons, and (3) their moral judgements. Resolving these ambiguities presen...

We extend the standard model of general equilibrium with incomplete markets to allow for default and punishment. The equilibrating variables include expected delivery rates, along with the usual prices of assets and commodities. By reinterpreting the variables, our model encompasses a broad range of adverse selection, and signalling phenomena (including the Akerlof lemons model and Rothschild—S...

This paper theoretically studies the consequences of heterogeneity on self-governance, cooperation, and trust in large communities. I consider a game model where players belong to a large population and are randomly matched. Players interact with each other infrequently and, when matched, play a prisoners’ dilemma. There exists an institution that can convey information on play histories. Playe...