Academic literature on the topic 'Utilitarian moral reasoning'
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Journal articles on the topic "Utilitarian moral reasoning"
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AGAR, NICHOLAS. "Moral Bioenhancement and the Utilitarian Catastrophe." Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24, no. 1 (December 4, 2014): 37–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0963180114000280.
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Abstract:This article challenges recent calls for moral bioenhancement—the use of biomedical means, including pharmacological and genetic methods, to increase the moral value of our actions or characters. It responds to those who take a practical interest in moral bioenhancement. I argue that moral bioenhancement is unlikely to be a good response to the extinction threats of climate change and weapons of mass destruction. Rather than alleviating those problems, it is likely to aggravate them. We should expect biomedical means to generate piecemeal enhancements of human morality. These predictably strengthen some contributors to moral judgment while leaving others comparatively unaffected. This unbalanced enhancement differs from the manner of improvement that typically results from sustained reflection. It is likely to make its subjects worse rather than better at moral reasoning.
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Thomas, Bradley C., Katie E. Croft, and Daniel Tranel. "Harming Kin to Save Strangers: Further Evidence for Abnormally Utilitarian Moral Judgments after Ventromedial Prefrontal Damage." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23, no. 9 (September 2011): 2186–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2010.21591.
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The ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) has been implicated as a critical neural substrate mediating the influence of emotion on moral reasoning. It has been shown that the vmPFC is especially important for making moral judgments about “high-conflict” moral dilemmas involving direct personal actions, that is, scenarios that pit compelling utilitarian considerations of aggregate welfare against the highly emotionally aversive act of directly causing harm to others [Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., Hauser, M., et al. Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature, 446, 908–911, 2007]. The current study was designed to elucidate further the role of the vmPFC in high-conflict moral judgments, including those that involve indirect personal actions, such as indirectly causing harm to one's kin to save a group of strangers. We found that patients with vmPFC lesions were more likely than brain-damaged and healthy comparison participants to endorse utilitarian outcomes on high-conflict dilemmas regardless of whether the dilemmas (1) entailed direct versus indirect personal harms and (2) were presented from the Self versus Other perspective. In addition, all groups were more likely to endorse utilitarian outcomes in the Other perspective as compared with the Self perspective. These results provide important extensions of previous work, and the findings align with the proposal that the vmPFC is critical for reasoning about moral dilemmas in which anticipating the social-emotional consequences of an action (e.g., guilt or remorse) is crucial for normal moral judgments [Greene, J. D. Why are VMPFC patients more utilitarian?: A dual-process theory of moral judgment explains. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 322–323, 2007; Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., Hauser, M., et al. Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature, 446, 908–911, 2007].
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Serafimova, Silviya. "Moral Challenges for Bauer’s Project of a Two-level Utilitarian AMA." Balkan Journal of Philosophy 14, no. 2 (2022): 115–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/bjp202214215.
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The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate why AI researchers’ attempts at developing projects of moral machines are a cause for concern regarding the way in which such machines can reach a certain level of morality. By comparing and contrasting Howard and Muntean’s model of a virtuous Artificial Autonomous Moral Agent (AAMA) (2017) and Bauer’s model of a two-level utilitarian Artificial Moral Agent (AMA) (2020), I draw the conclusion that both models raise, although in a different manner, some crucial issues. The latter are recognized as deriving from the complex relationships between human cognition and moral reasoning, as refracted through the lens of the idea of moral AI. In this context, special attention is paid to the complications which are triggered by the analogical thinking regarding the processes of replication of human morality in the field of machine ethics.
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Martin, Rose, Petko Kusev, Joseph Teal, Victoria Baranova, and Bruce Rigal. "Moral Decision Making: From Bentham to Veil of Ignorance via Perspective Taking Accessibility." Behavioral Sciences 11, no. 5 (May 1, 2021): 66. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs11050066.
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Making morally sensitive decisions and evaluations pervade many human everyday activities. Philosophers, economists, psychologists and behavioural scientists researching such decision-making typically explore the principles, processes and predictors that constitute human moral decision-making. Crucially, very little research has explored the theoretical and methodological development (supported by empirical evidence) of utilitarian theories of moral decision-making. Accordingly, in this critical review article, we invite the reader on a moral journey from Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism to the veil of ignorance reasoning, via a recent theoretical proposal emphasising utilitarian moral behaviour—perspective-taking accessibility (PT accessibility). PT accessibility research revealed that providing participants with access to all situational perspectives in moral scenarios, eliminates (previously reported in the literature) inconsistency between their moral judgements and choices. Moreover, in contrast to any previous theoretical and methodological accounts, moral scenarios/tasks with full PT accessibility provide the participants with unbiased even odds (neither risk averse nor risk seeking) and impartiality. We conclude that the proposed by Martin et al. PT Accessibility (a new type of veil of ignorance with even odds that do not trigger self-interest, risk related preferences or decision biases) is necessary in order to measure humans’ prosocial utilitarian behaviour and promote its societal benefits.
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Acevedo-Triana, César A., Juan Francisco Muñoz Olano, and Pablo Reyes. "Differences on Utilitarian and Moral Decision Between Male and Female." Pensamiento Psicológico 17, no. 1 (March 23, 2019): 45–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.11144/javerianacali.ppsi17-1.dumd.
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Objective. Moral judgments are based on decisions that take into account the representation of norms and law, values, functionality and situations themselves. Morality has been studied with “hypothetic moral dilemmas”, in order to identify the type of outcome and the process behind moral reasoning. But judgments by themselves are not enough to establish differences in the type of resolution or the relationship with other cognitive processes. The present paper aimed to compare performance in tasks of utility maximization, cognitive control, and moral judgments, taking into account sex and other sociodemographic variables. Method. Seventy-three university students participated (50 women, 20 men and 3 with unreported gender, the average age was 19.53 years (SD = 1.68 years). The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) was used to identify behaviors of utility maximization. In addition, we used the switch costs and the web application of moral machine tasks. Results. A difference between variables of the IGT, but no differences in the switch costs task were found. Conclusion. Regarding moral judgment, males gave more value to respect norms than females. Some variables of the IGT task support outcomes related to differences between sexes. Results are congruent with differences shown in existing literature.
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Dobrijevic, Aleksandar. ""Critique of intuitive reason"." Filozofija i drustvo, no. 26 (2005): 179–226. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/fid0526179d.
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The author displays and reexamines Hare?s "two-level theory" of normative moral thinking ("intuitive" level and "critical" level), including goals that are intended by its establishing. Given Hare?s holism, the met ethical level, considered as fundamental or the "third" level, has notable effect on process of normative reasoning, especially if it is taken as one of the determinant of the critical moral thin king. Central part of the analysis is examination of utilitarian character of the theory.
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Jaquet, François, and Florian Cova. "Beyond moral dilemmas: The role of reasoning in five categories of utilitarian judgment." Cognition 209 (April 2021): 104572. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104572.
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Huang, Karen, Joshua D. Greene, and Max Bazerman. "Veil-of-ignorance reasoning favors the greater good." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, no. 48 (November 12, 2019): 23989–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910125116.
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The “veil of ignorance” is a moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial decision making by denying decision makers access to potentially biasing information about who will benefit most or least from the available options. Veil-of-ignorance reasoning was originally applied by philosophers and economists to foundational questions concerning the overall organization of society. Here, we apply veil-of-ignorance reasoning in a more focused way to specific moral dilemmas, all of which involve a tension between the greater good and competing moral concerns. Across 7 experiments (n = 6,261), 4 preregistered, we find that veil-of-ignorance reasoning favors the greater good. Participants first engaged in veil-of-ignorance reasoning about a specific dilemma, asking themselves what they would want if they did not know who among those affected they would be. Participants then responded to a more conventional version of the same dilemma with a moral judgment, a policy preference, or an economic choice. Participants who first engaged in veil-of-ignorance reasoning subsequently made more utilitarian choices in response to a classic philosophical dilemma, a medical dilemma, a real donation decision between a more vs. less effective charity, and a policy decision concerning the social dilemma of autonomous vehicles. These effects depend on the impartial thinking induced by veil-of-ignorance reasoning and cannot be explained by anchoring, probabilistic reasoning, or generic perspective taking. These studies indicate that veil-of-ignorance reasoning may be a useful tool for decision makers who wish to make more impartial and/or socially beneficial choices.
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Nemzer, E. A., and L. G. Borodina. "Features of Relationship between Moral Judgments and Mental Model (on the Example of Adults with ASD)." Psychology and Law 12, no. 1 (2022): 180–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.17759/psylaw.2022120114.
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The deficit of theory of mind (ToM) is considered by a number of authors as one of the risk factors for involvement in criminal activity for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) (for example because of difficulties in understanding other people’s intentions). The relationship between the deficit of ToM and moral judgments is discussed. The methods of test diagnostics (“Moral dilemmas”, A-ToM) and the method of content analysis of answers to open questions on moral dilemmas were used. It is shown that individuals with ASD are less likely to give utilitarian answers to impersonal dilemmas, but regardless of the intact of ToM, there is a tendency to reduce the degree of utilitarianism from impersonal to personal dilemmas. It is also shown that individuals with ASD do not rely on the intentions of actors when reasoning about moral dilemmas, but not only individuals with ASD rely on conse-quences in such reasoning.
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Hardin, Russell. "Deterrence and Moral Theory." Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume 12 (1986): 161–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00455091.1986.10717158.
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IntroductionIssues in public policy have been challenging and remaking moral theory for two centuries. Such issues force us to question fundamental principles of ethics while they cast doubt on our ability to generalize from traditional intuitions. No issue poses more remarkable difficulties for moral theory than nuclear weapons policy. Because the consequences of their deployment and therefore possible use could be grievous beyond those of any previously conceivable human action, these weapons frame the conflict between outcome-based, especially utilitarian, and action-based deontological moral theories more acutely than perhaps any other we have faced. Just because nuclear weapons may bring about the most grievous outcome imaginable, they elevate concern with outcomes over concern with actions. More generally, they wreak havoc with the focus on the morality of individual choices and actions, set limits to the notion of intention and the doctrine of double effect, call into question the so-called just-war theory, and overwhelm the intuitionist basis of much of ethical reasoning.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Utilitarian moral reasoning"
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Kuo, Chi-Ting, and 郭紀廷. "The study of college students’ moral reasoning on utilitarian v. justice dilemmas and exploration of its correlates." Thesis, 2016. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/60442342944260221509.
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碩士國立臺南大學
教育學系測驗統計碩博士班
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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of utilitarian v. justice scale, and assess the current status of the moral reasoning of students on utilitarian and justice dilemmas based on daily life scenarios. In addition, the consistency of moral judgments made from different standpoints including impartial and situated conditions will also be evaluated. Furthermore, the effect of different background variables on the scores of utilitarian v. justice scale will also be explored. The principle of utilitarianism is to maximize the collective utility so that the differences between benefits and costs are optimized. By contrast, the principle of justice emphasizes that the basic rights of individuals should be protected even in face of tremendous majority utility. The empirical data revealed that college students in general tend to be more utilitarian-oriented in terms of overall performance on the utilitarian v. justice scale. Whether subjects will make utilitarian or justice response may depend on the scale and amount of utility and the nature of basic rights involved in the dilemmas. Subjects tended to make more justice-oriented response when they are in the impartial or objective condition. In contrast, subjects tended to make more utilitarian-oriented response when they are situated in the standpoint of decision makers. Gender, education, partisan orientation, and engagement in civil activities were the important background variables which are significantly correlated with the scores on the utilitarian v. justice scale.
Books on the topic "Utilitarian moral reasoning"
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van Prooijen, Jan-Willem. Reason or Intuition? Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190609979.003.0003.
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This chapter pits the motives described in Chapter 2 against each other. If people pursue punishment, are they mainly driven by utilitarian or retributive motives? The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that retributive motives trump utilitarian motives. Sometimes people do use rational reasoning when punishing, but while emotion tends to increase punishment, reason tends to decrease punishment. At the same time, the chapter takes issue with authors who have positioned behavioral control as a “happy byproduct” of moral punishment. In the evolutionary history of our species, we evolved a moral punishment instinct because it was adaptive in controlling the behavior of selfish group members. Put differently, the power to control behavior is the very reason why humans evolved a punishment instinct as part of their intuitive moral psychology.
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Besson, Samantha. Human Rights in Relation. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198795957.003.0002.
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Human rights must sometimes be restricted to further social interests or the rights of others. Yet, we like to think that human rights are not reducible to interests like security and cannot be weighed and balanced against them. This position holds a middle ground between Kantian absolutism and prioritization of rights and utilitarian consequentialism and weighing and balancing of rights. It reflects the sheer theoretical difficulty of accounting for moral trade-offs that are not quantitative. This ambivalence is also echoed in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR): restrictions to human rights are usually hard to justify or even excluded in some cases. This chapter proposes an interpretation that comes close to a form of qualitative balancing of human rights by reference to their egalitarian dimension. It also accounts for seemingly contradictory elements in the ECtHR’s reasoning: the ‘proportionality’ test and the reference to ‘absolute’ rights.
Book chapters on the topic "Utilitarian moral reasoning"
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Gerrits, Jeroen. "Conflicting Modes of Moral Reasoning; The Case of 24." In 24 heures chrono, naissance du genre sécuritaire ? Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.53984/philoseries08299.
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In this article I will argue that 24 can be seen as a variation of the tendency towards “narrative complexity” in current US TV series. Its straight-jacketed adherence to chronological time may not allow for fundamental disturbances of the discourse characteristic of many of its cinematic and televised contemporaries, but 24 distinguishes itself by shifting complexity from conceptual and narratological levels to the realm of morality. By analyzing two episodes from different seasons, both closely related to actual political developments in the US War on Terror at the time, I will outline how the show hovers between (and plays with our expectations of) deontological and consequentialist (utilitarian) forms of moral reasoning.
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Salvano-Pardieu, Veronique, Leïla Oubrahim, and Steve Kilpatrick. "Cognitive Structure of Moral Reasoning, Development, and Evolution With Age and Pathology." In Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies, 30–57. IGI Global, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1811-3.ch002.
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This chapter presents research on moral judgment from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. First, the authors will present the contribution of Piaget and Kohlberg's work on moral development from childhood to adulthood as well as the work of Gilligan on moral orientation and the difference observed between men and women. Then, the authors will analyze underlying structures of moral judgment in the light of the Dual Process Theory with two systems: system 1: quick, deontological, emotional, intuitive, automatic, and system 2: slow, utilitarian, rational, controlled, involved in human reasoning. Finally, the model of Dual Process Theory will be confronted with data from moral judgment experiments, run on elderly adults with Alzheimer's disease, teenagers with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and children and teenagers with intellectual disability in order to understand how cognitive impairment affects the structures and components of moral judgment.
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Postema, Gerald J. "Publicity and the Development of Bentham’s Theory of Value." In Utility, Publicity, and Law, 72–93. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198793175.003.0004.
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Bentham was tempted to think of the welfare of the community as a grand composite of the pleasures and pains of individuals and he suggested that it is possible to construct a powerful ethical deliberating machine capable of churning out precise, determinate, and publicly verifiable judgments and prescriptions for all moral occasions (the “felicific calculus”). Yet, he also articulated a sophisticated critique of the assumptions on which this model rests. Although pleasure and pain must ultimately anchor all moral judgments, he insisted that the language of the ordinary business of utilitarian moral deliberation, policy making, and law making must be fully public. Despite his criticisms of the quale conception of pleasure, Bentham did not abandon rationality or the principle of utility. Proper utilitarian reasoning still, in Bentham’s view, involved “calculation”—that is, tracing out the consequences of all the options for action, laws, or institutions, consequencesassessed in terms of their impact on the welfare of all the members of the community in view. But these calculations need not fit the simple model, in fact, they must not, since the simple model cannot meet the demands of moral reasoning, in particular the demands of publicity. Bentham’s universal consequentialism took for its core theory of value concerns about expectations and interests, rather than immediate sensings of pleasure or pain.
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Frunza, Ana. "Philosophical Grounding of Ethics Expertise." In Ethical Issues in Social Work Practice, 1–17. IGI Global, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-3090-9.ch001.
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The chapter proposes to philosophically ground the ethics expertise in social work, starting from a series of ethics theories: utilitarian ethics, deontological ethics and ethics of virtues. During the foundation of ethics expertise we made conceptual distinctions between the theoretical and practical nature of expertise, between the ethical and the moral one, in order to justify the need for a new model of ethics expertise. In our approach, we debate the influence of such theories in the field of social services, which we consider to be representative in the context of the construction of a new model of ethics expertise, which underlies the constitutive values of social practice. The normativity of the ethical theories is extended to the level of certain different behavioural models and moral reasoning, summing up in practice the frameworks of the moral conduct the individuals can apply, when making an ethical decision, in social or organisational context, namely to determine whether the decision is morally acceptable or not.
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Sverdlik, Steven. "Bentham’s Chapter IV." In Bentham's An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, C4—C4P62. Oxford University Press, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190089900.003.0005.
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Abstract Chapter IV discusses the measurement of pleasure and pain, and, by implication, happiness. It also implicitly discusses the measurement of intrinsic value. The claims that Bentham makes here about decision-making are discussed in later chapters. The focus is on his conception of utilitarian reasoning. Bentham’s conception of the quantities of pleasure and pain is first explained. Next, his implicit conception of the measurement of the intrinsic value of pleasures and pains is explained. His basic mathematical assumptions are presented. For example, he assumes that amounts of intrinsic goodness are represented by positive numbers, and amounts of intrinsic badness are represented by negative numbers. Bentham’s conception of utilitarian calculations that determine the rightness of actions is also presented. It’s argued that this conforms to the picture presented in chapter 1, that is, that Bentham thinks that the right action for an agent to perform is one that would produce the most happiness.