There exists psychological evidence that consumers do not consider all available items in the market, which can lead to the “more-is-less” effect, a phenomenon where having more options causes a welfare reduction (Llears et al. in J Econ Theory 170:70–85, 2017). Under this more-is-less effect, we face a dilemma that adding new opportunities may both improve and worsen individual well-being. This study proposes a hypothesis that “more is always better,” which implies that adding new opportunities cannot worsen individual well-being, is (...) a bias to which moral heuristics leads. A satisfactory resolution of this dilemma is act-consequentialism over menus, which is an ex-post and third-party evaluation of opportunity sets. We provide an axiomatic foundation for act-consequentialism over menus and apply it to policymakers’ menu-providing policies. (shrink)

In this paper I propose to question the Joshua Greene’s neuroethical thesis about the essentially emotional character of so-called “deontological moral judgments”. Frist, I focus on the dual process theory of moral judgment and I criticize that they are considered only and mainly intuitive and non reflective. Se condly, I question that the “utilitarian judgment” is linked to mathematical calculation and the deontological judgment is exclusively reduced to non-reflective factor of emotion. The main objection to Greene’s naturalism raised by me (...) is trying to eliminate the philosophical justification about the moral validity defended by Kant’s deontologism; meanwhile Greene reduces “deontological moral judgment” to exclusively psychological and neurophysiological factors associated with emotion. (shrink)

There is indeed extensive evidence that people perform fairly poorly in reasoning tasks and that they often construct arguments for intuitively cued responses. Mercier & Sperber (M&S) may also be right to claim that reasoning evolved primarily as argumentation. However, if it did, the facility became exapted to the function of supporting uniquely human abilities for reflective thinking and consequential decision making.

Originally identified by Hume, the validity of is–ought inference is much debated in the meta-ethics literature. Our work shows that inference from is to ought typically proceeds from contextualised, value-laden causal utility conditional, bridging into a deontic conclusion. Such conditional statements tell us what actions are needed to achieve or avoid consequences that are good or bad. Psychological research has established that people generally reason fluently and easily with utility conditionals. Our own research also has shown that people’s reasoning from (...) is to ought is pragmatically sensitive and adapted to achieving the individual’s goals. But how do we acquire the necessary deontic rules? In this paper, we provide a rationale for this facility linked to Evans’s framework of dual mind rationality. People have an old mind which derives its rationality by repeating what has worked in the past, mostly by experiential learning. New mind rationality, in contrast, is evolutionarily recent, uniquely developed in humans, and draws on our ability to mentally simulate hypothetical events removed in time and place. We contend that the new mind achieves its goals by inducing and applying deontic rules and that a mechanism of deontic introduction evolved for this purpose. (shrink)

Individual differences on a variety of framing and conjunction problems were examined in light of Slovic and Tversky's (1974) understanding/acceptance principle-that more reflective and skilled reasoners are more likely to affirm the axioms that define normative reasoning and to endorse the task construals of informed experts. The predictions derived from the principle were confirmed for the much discussed framing effect in the Disease Problem and for the conjunction fallacy on the Linda Problem. Subjects of higher cognitive ability were disproportionately likely (...) to avoid each fallacy. Other framing problems produced much more modest levels of empirical support. It is conjectured that the varying patterns of individual differences are best explained by two-process theories of reasoning (e.g. Evans, 1984, 1996; Sloman, 1996) conjoined with the assumption that the two processes differentially reflect interactional and analytic intelligence. (shrink)

Metaethics, understood as a distinct branch of ethics, is often traced to G. E. Moore's 1903 classic, Principia Ethica. Whereas normative ethics is concerned to answer first order moral questions about what is good and bad, right and wrong, metaethics is concerned to answer second order non-moral questions about the semantics, metaphysics, and epistemology of moral thought and discourse. Moore has continued to exert a powerful influence, and the sixteen essays here represent the most up-to-date work in metaethics after, and (...) in some cases directly inspired by, the work of Moore. (shrink)

Moral psychology investigates human functioning in moral contexts, and asks how these results may impact debate in ethical theory. This work is necessarily interdisciplinary, drawing on both the empirical resources of the human sciences and the conceptual resources of philosophical ethics. The present article discusses several topics that illustrate this type of inquiry: thought experiments, responsibility, character, egoism v . altruism, and moral disagreement.

This chapter discusses the philosophical relevance of empirical research on moral cognition. It distinguishes three central aims of normative ethical theory: understanding the nature of moral agency, identifying morally right actions, and determining the justification of moral beliefs. For each of these aims, the chapter considers and rejects arguments against employing cognitive scientific research in normative inquiry. It concludes by suggesting that, whichever of the central aims one begins from, normative ethics is improved by engaging with the science of moral (...) cognition. (shrink)

A common method of making a theory more understandable is to compare it to another theory that has been better developed. Radical interpretation is a theory that attempts to explain how communication has meaning. Radical interpretation is treated as another time-dependent theory and compared to the time-dependent theory of biological evolution. The main reason for doing this is to find the nature of the time dependence; producing analogs between the two theories is a necessary prerequisite to this and brings up (...) many problems. When the nature of the time dependence is better known it might allow the underlying mechanism to be uncovered. Several similarities and differences are uncovered, and there appear to be more differences than similarities. (shrink)