Alejandro Rosas

Beyond “utilitarianism”: Maximizing the clinical impact of moral judgment research

The use of hypothetical moral dilemmas—which pit utilitarian considerations of welfare maximization against emotionally aversive “personal” harms—has become a widespread approach for studying the neuropsychological correlates of moral judgment in healthy subjects, as well as in clinical populations with social, cognitive, and affective deficits. In this article, we propose that a refinement of the standard stimulus set could provide an opportunity to more precisely identify the psychological factors underlying performance on this task, and thereby enhance the utility of this paradigm for clinical research. To test this proposal, we performed a re-analysis of previously published moral judgment data from two clinical populations: neurological patients with prefrontal brain damage and psychopathic criminals. The results provide intriguing preliminary support for further development of this assessment paradigm.

Evolutionary game theory meets social science: is there a unifying rule for human cooperation?

Evolutionary game theory has shown that human cooperation thrives in different types of social interactions with a PD structure. Models treat the cooperative strategies within the different frameworks as discrete entities and sometimes even as contenders. Whereas strong reciprocity was acclaimed as superior to classic reciprocity for its ability to defeat defectors in public goods games, recent experiments and simulations show that costly punishment fails to promote cooperation in the IR and DR games, where classic reciprocity succeeds. My aim is to show that cooperative strategies across frameworks are capable of a unified treatment, for they are governed by a common underlying rule or norm. An analysis of the reputation and action rules that govern some representative cooperative strategies both in models and in economic experiments confirms that the different frameworks share a conditional action rule and several reputation rules. The common conditional rule contains an option between costly punishment and withholding benefits that provides alternative enforcement methods against defectors. Depending on the framework, individuals can switch to the appropriate strategy and method of enforcement. The stability of human cooperation looks more promising if one mechanism controls successful strategies across frameworks.

Hot utilitarianism and cold deontology: Insights from a response patterns approach to sacrificial and real world dilemmas

ABSTRACT Research on moral judgment with moral dilemmas suggests that “utilitarian” responses (UR) to sacrificial high-conflict dilemmas are due to decreased harm aversion, not only in individuals with clinical conditions, but also in healthy participants with high scores in antisocial personality traits. We investigated the patterns of responses to different dilemma types in healthy participants and present evidence that some URs to sacrificial dilemmas are morally motivated, as indicated by their empathic concern (EC) or primary psychopathy (PP) scores. In study 1 (N = 230) we tested students with four categories of sacrificial dilemmas featuring innocent victims. In study 2 (N = 590) we tested students with two categories of sacrificial dilemmas and two “real-world” moral dilemmas, where the agent can improve the lot of strangers by making a personal sacrifice. Results in both studies showed no decreased harm aversion in a pattern where the only UR is to the sacrificial dilemma where the number of saved people is very high, and significantly lower harm aversion only in the pattern of all-deontological respondents in Study 2. The analysis by response patterns allowed a better discrimination of the moral motivations of participants and showed that at least some of them express moral concerns in their URs.

Towards a unified theory of reciprocity.

In a unified theory of human reciprocity, the strong and weak forms are similar because neither is biologically altruistic and both require normative motivation to support cooperation. However, strong reciprocity is necessary to support cooperation in public goods games. It involves inflicting costs on defectors; and though the costs for punishers are recouped, recouping costs requires complex institutions that would not have emerged if weak reciprocity had been enough.

Is a bad will a weak will? Cognitive dispositions modulate folk attributions of weakness of will

In line with recent efforts to empirically study the folk concept of weakness of will, we examine two issues in this paper: (1) How is weakness of will attribution (WWA) influenced by an agent’s violations of best judgment and/or resolution, and by the moral valence of the agent’s action? (2) Do any of these influences depend on the cognitive dispositions of the judging individual? We implemented a factorial 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design with judgment violation, resolution violation, and action valence as independent variables, and measured participants’ cognitive dispositions using Frederick’s Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). We conclude that intuitive and reflective individuals have two different concepts of weakness of will. The study supports this claim by showing that: (1) the WWA of intuitive subjects is influenced by the action’s (and probably also the commitment’s) moral valence, while the WWA of reflective subjects is not; (2) judgment violation plays a small role in the WWA of intuitive subjects, while reflective subjects treat resolution violation as the only relevant trait. Data were collected among students at two different universities. All subjects (N = 710) answered the CRT. A three-way ANOVA was first conducted on the whole sample and then on the intuitive and reflective groups separately. This study suggests that differences in cognitive dispositions can significantly impact the folk understanding of philosophical concepts and thus suggests that analysis of folk concepts should take cognitive dispositions into account.

On the Cognitive (Neuro)science of Moral Cognition: Utilitarianism, Deontology, and the “Fragmentation of Value”

Scientific explanations of human higher capacities, traditionally denied to other animals, attract the attention of philosophers and other workers in the humanities. They are often viewed with suspicion and skepticism. Against this background, I critically examine the dual-process theory of moral judgment proposed by Greene and collaborators and the normative consequences drawn from that theory. I believe normative consequences are warranted, in principle, but I propose an alternative dual-process model of moral cognition that leads to a different normative consequence, which I dub “the fragmentation of value” (Nagel. Mortal questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1979). This alternative model abandons the neat overlap between the deontological/utilitarian and the intuitive/reflective divides. Instead, we have both utilitarian and deontological intuitions as equally fundamental and partially in tension. Cognitive control is sometimes engaged during a conflict between intuitions. When it is engaged, the result of control is not always utilitarian; sometimes it is deontological. I describe in some detail how this version is consistent with evidence reported by many studies and what could be done to find more evidence to support it.

Rationality and Deceit: Why Rational Egoism Cannot Make Us Moral

In this paper I claim that social preferences are necessary mechanisms for cooperation. Social preferences include altruistic ones, and these imply a non-instrumental interest in the welfare of other agents. This claim challenges a view common among economists and game theorists, according to which rational egoism is sufficient for cooperation and explains it in humans. Since evidence has been mounting in experimental economics that humans do have social preferences, the question arises: what does the existence of such preferences imply for the view of classical economists and game theorists? Three views are briefly described assuming that humans have been designed for cooperation because it is important for survival: (1) social preferences function as backup mechanisms in case rational egoism contingently fails; (2) cooperation is the rational move in repeated Prisoner’s Dilemmas, but rationality in humans is imperfect by design and requires the presence of social preferences to remedy human imperfection; (3) cooperation is not the rational move for rational egoists when they lack social preferences, because deceit and coercion offer better payoffs. I argue that this third view is the correct one. Morality requires a primitive disposition to take persons as equals, in order to block the use of deception as a rational option.

Harm, Reciprocity and the Moral Domain

Can moral norms be unified under one superordinate content, such as harm? Following the discovery that children at an early age distinguish between moral and conventional norms, this question has been the focus of a recent interdisciplinary debate. Influential critics of the moral-conventional distinction have argued that the moral domain is pluri-dimensional and perhaps not even formally unified. Taking the five foundations theory proposed by Haidt and collaborators as guiding thread, I criticize two influential experiments against the unifying role of harm and point to new evidence from psychopathology and cognitive psychology supporting the hypothesis that harming innocent people is a core concern of norms identified as moral independently of cultural settings.

El efecto knobe: asimetrías en la atribuición de intencionalidad y sus causas

En este articulo proponemos una explicacion novedosa del efecto Knobe. El efecto Knobe es una asimetria peculiar en la atribucion de intencionalidad a un agente con relacion a los efectos colaterales previstos de su accion, dependiendo solo de la valoracion moral del efecto y sin que nada mas cambie en la situacion juzgada: los efectos colaterales malos, pero no los buenos, se consideran intencionalmente producidos. Nos enfocamos aqui en la pregunta por la explicacion de esa peculiar asimetria ?basta la valencia moral del efecto colateral para explicarla? Hacemos un analisis sistematico de una gran variedad de vinetas presentes en los estudios experimentales y de sus resultados. Intentamos asi aislar los factores explicativos. Proponemos que la asimetria se explica por concordancia o discordancia entre la valencia moral del efecto colateral y la actitud moral del agente, juzgada por los espectadores.