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Dual Process Theories and Moral Deliberation

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An Integrative Model of Moral Deliberation

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Abstract

This chapter discusses the history of decision-making theory and the development of dual process theories of cognition. The two cognitive processes involved in those theories are respectively characterized as an experiential/intuitive process, largely rooted in biological and nonconscious elements but shaped by social/environmental factors (Type 1) and a reflective/analytic process that is formal, mathematical, and entirely conscious (Type 2). The character and variety of dual process theories are discussed. Attention is then given to dual process theories of moral judgment, particularly the social intuitionist model of Jonathan Haidt and the dual process model of Joshua Greene. The strengths and weaknesses of these models are argued to reside either in their too great of reliance on Type 2 cognitions or their flimsy characterizations of Type 1 cognitions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The origin of this model lies in Pascal’s development of the notion of mathematical expectation and its application to decision making. It can be seen both in his famous fragment often called ‘The Wager’ and in The Port-Royal Logic first published in 1632. See B. Pascal (1995) Pensées and Other Writings, trans. H. Levi (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 152–6; and A. Arnauld and P. Nicole (1861) The Port-Royal Logic, trans. T. S. Baynes, 5th edn (Edinburgh: James Gordon), 367.

  2. 2.

    N.-E. Sahlin, A. Wallin, and J. Persson (2010) ‘Decision Science: From Ramsey to Dual Process Theories’, Synthese, 172, 131; G. Gigerenzer (2001) ‘Decision Making: Nonrational Theories’, in N. J. Smelser and P. B. Baltes (eds) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 5 (Oxford: Elsevier), 3304; and B. Y. Hayden and M. L. Platt (2009) ‘The Mean, the Median, and the St. Petersburg Paradox’, Judgment and Decision Making, 4, 256–72.

  3. 3.

    Sahlin, ‘Decision Science’, 131.

  4. 4.

    H. A. Simon (1955) ‘A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69, 101.

  5. 5.

    D. Kahneman and A. Tversky (1979) ‘Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk’, Econometrica, 47, 263–92.

  6. 6.

    R. E. Nisbett and T. D. Wilson (1977) ‘Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes’, Psychological Review, 84, 231–95; and P. C. Wason and J. S. B. T. Evans (1975) ‘Dual Processes in Reasoning?’ Cognition, 3, 141–54.

  7. 7.

    J. S. B. T. Evans, J. L. Barston, and P. Pollard (1983) ‘On the Conflict Between Logic and Belief in Syllogistic Reasoning’, Memory and Cognition, 11, 295–306.

  8. 8.

    D. Kahneman (2003) ‘A Perspective on Judgment and Choice: Mapping Bounded Rationality’, American Psychologist, 58, 698; J. S. B. T. Evans (2012) ‘Dual-Process Theories of Deductive Reasoning: Facts and Fallacies’, in K. J. Jolyoak and R. G. Morrison (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning (New York: Oxford University Press), 115–33; and Sahlin, ‘Decision Science’, 135.

  9. 9.

    J. S. B. T. Evans and K. E. Stanovich (2013) ‘Dual-process Theories of Higher Cognition: Advancing the Debate’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 224; and J. S. B. T. Evans (2014) ‘Two Minds Rationality’, Thinking and Reasoning 20, 132.

  10. 10.

    Evans, ‘Two Minds Rationality’, 143.

  11. 11.

    A. Glöckner and C. Witteman (2010) ‘Beyond Dual Process Models: A Categorisation of Process Underlying Intuitive Judgment and Decision Making’, Thinking and Reasoning, 16, 1–25; and K. E. Stanovich (2009) ‘Distinguishing the Reflective, Algorithmic, and Autonomous Minds: Is it Time for a Tri-Process Theory’, in J. Evans and K. Frankish (eds) In Two Minds: Dual Process and Beyond (New York: Oxford University Press), 57.

  12. 12.

    Stanovich, ‘Distinguishing the Reflective, Algorithmic, and Autonomous Minds’, 59.

  13. 13.

    S. Chen and S. Chaiken (1999) ‘The Heuristic-Systematic Model in its Broader Context’, in S. Chaiken and Y. Trope (eds) Dual Process Theories in Social Psychology (New York: Guilford Press), 73–96, 74, and J. S. B. T. Evans (2008) ‘Dual-Processing Accounts of Reasoning, Judgment, and Social Cognition’, Annual Review of Psychology 59, 255–79.

  14. 14.

    Z. Kunda (1990) ‘The Case for Motivated Reasoning’, Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480–98.

  15. 15.

    D. Kahneman, (2011), Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 13, 29.

  16. 16.

    S. Elqayam and J. S. B. T. Evans (2011) ‘Subtracting “Ought” from “Is”: Descriptivism versus Normativism in the Study of Human Thinking’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34, 245.

  17. 17.

    Evans, ‘Two Minds Rationality’, 135–7.

  18. 18.

    Evans, ‘Two Minds Rationality’, 140.

  19. 19.

    G. Keren and Y. Schul (2009) ‘Two Is Not Always Better than One: A Critical Evaluation of Two-System Theories’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 544.

  20. 20.

    Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, 96–7 and 151–3.

  21. 21.

    L. Kohlberg (1981) Essays on Moral Development Vol. 1, The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers), 187–8.

  22. 22.

    R. E. Nisbett and T. D. Wilson (1977) ‘Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes’, Psychological Review, 84, 231–59; J. A. Bargh and T. L Chartrand (1999) ‘The Unbearable Automaticity of Being’, American Psychologist, 54, 462–79; and R. B. Zajonc (1980) ‘Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inferences’, American Psychologist, 35, 151–75.

  23. 23.

    Q. A. Luo, M. A. Nakic, T. B. Wheatley, R. A. Richell, A. B. Martin, and J. R. R. Blair (2006) ‘The Neural Basis of Implicit Moral Attitude—An IAT Study Using Event-Related fMRI’, Neuroimage, 30, 1449–57.

  24. 24.

    J. Haidt (2001) ‘The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment’, Psychological Review, 108, 818.

  25. 25.

    T. Wheatley and J. Haidt (2005) ‘Hypnotic Disgust Makes Moral Judgments More Severe’, Psychological Science, 16, 780–4.

  26. 26.

    S. W. Anderson, A. Bechara, H. Damasio, D. Tranel, and A. R. Damasio (1999) ‘Impairment of Social and Moral Behavior Related to Early Damage in Human Prefrontal Cortex’, Nature Neuroscience, 2, 1032–37; and A. L. Glenn, A. Raine, and R. A. Shug (2009) ‘The Neural Correlates of Moral Decision-Making in Psychopathy’, Molecular Psychiatry, 14, 5–6.

  27. 27.

    J. Haidt, F. Bjorklund, and S. Murphy (2000) Moral Dumbfounding: When Intuition Finds No Reason. Unpublished manuscript, University of Virginia. Retrieved from http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/moraljudgment.html, date accessed 10 June 2015, p. 10.

  28. 28.

    J. Haidt and F. Bjorklund (2007) ‘Social Intuitionists Answer Six Questions About Morality’, in W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.) Moral Psychology, Vol. 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), 188–9.

  29. 29.

    J. Haidt and C. Joseph (2007) ‘The Moral Mind: How Five Sets of Innate Intuitions Guide the Development of Many Culture-Specific Virtues, and Perhaps Even Modules’, in P. Carruthers, S. Laurence, and S. Stich (eds) The Innate Mind, Vol. 3, Foundations and the Future (New York: Oxford University Press), 381.

  30. 30.

    Haidt and Bjorklund, ‘Social Intuitions Answer Six Questions’, 188; and Haidt, ‘The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail’, 815.

  31. 31.

    The diagram itself also has a few problems. The emphasis is on the numbered arrows/links, which are processes. The content in the ovals are inputs or products with the exception of the ovals designated as A’s reasoning and B’s reasoning, which are processes. Consistency would demand that reasoning be also represented as links.

  32. 32.

    J. Haidt and F. Bjorklund (2007) ‘Social Intuitionists Reason, In Conversation’, in W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.) Moral Psychology, Vol. 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), 243.

  33. 33.

    Haidt and Bjorklund, ‘Social Intuitionist Reason, In Conversation’, 244.

  34. 34.

    J. Greene (2011) ‘Social Neuroscience and the Soul’s Last Stand’, in A. Todorov, S. Fiske, and D. Prentice (eds) Social Neuroscience: Toward Understanding the Underpinnings of the Social Mind (New York: Oxford University Press), 265–6.

  35. 35.

    J. D. Greene (2014) ‘Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality: Why Cognitive (Neuro)Science Matters for Ethics’, Ethics, 124, 696–7.

  36. 36.

    Greene, ‘Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality’, 698.

  37. 37.

    P. Foot (1978) Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy (Berkley, CA: University of California Press), 19–32; and J. J. Thompson (1985) ‘The Trolley Problem’, The Yale Law Journal, 94, 1395–415.

  38. 38.

    M. Hauser, F. Cushman, L. Young, R. K-X. Jin, and J. Mickhail (2007) ‘A Dissociation between Moral Judgments and Justifications’, Mind & Language, 22, 1–21; and F. Cushman, L. Young, and M. Hauser (2006) ‘The Role of Conscious Reasoning and Intuition in Moral Judgments: Testing Three Principles of Harm’, Psychological Science, 17, 1082–9.

  39. 39.

    J. D. Greene, R. B. Sommerville, L. E. Nystrom, J. M. Darley, and J. D. Cohen (2001) ‘An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment’, Science, 293, 2105–8.

  40. 40.

    J. Haidt (2003) ‘The Moral Emotions’, in R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, and H.H. Goldsmith (eds) Handbook of the Affective Sciences (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 852–70.

  41. 41.

    M. Mendez, E. Anderson, and J. Shapira (2005) ‘An Investigation of Moral Judgment in Frontotemporal Dimentia’, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, 18, 193–7.

  42. 42.

    J. D. Greene (2007) ‘The Secret Joke of Kant’s Soul’, in W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.) Moral Psychology, Vol. 3: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Disease, and Development (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), 44.

  43. 43.

    Greene, ‘Secret Joke’, 45.

  44. 44.

    Greene, ‘Secret Joke’, 39. I believe that Greene’s connection of deontology to emotion does contain an insight, but not for the reasons his models demands. This resonance between deontology and emotion is explicable in terms of the model I develop in Chap. 8. The intellectual attraction of deontological theories is because they are Type 2 conceptualizations of important aesthetic sensibilities experienced as emotions.

  45. 45.

    Greene, ‘Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality’, 701–5.

  46. 46.

    Greene, ‘Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality’, 714–8.

  47. 47.

    J. McGuire, R. Langdon, M. Coltheart, and C. Mackenziem (2009) ‘A Reanalysis of the Personal/Impersonal Distinction in Moral Psychology Research’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 577–80.

  48. 48.

    J. D. Greene (2009) ‘Dual-Process Morality and the Personal/Impersonal Distinction: A Reply to McGuire, Langdon, Coltheart, and Mackenzie’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 581–4.

  49. 49.

    H. Sauer (2012) ‘Morally Irrelevant Factors: What’s Left of the Dual Process Model of Moral Cognition’, Philosophical Psychology, 25, 789.

  50. 50.

    C. W. Bauman, A. P. McGraw, D. M. Bartels, and C. Warren (2014) ‘Revisiting External Validity: Concerns about Trolley Problems and Other Sacrificial Dilemmas in Moral Psychology’, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8/9, 536–54.

  51. 51.

    I. Patil, C. Cognoni, N. Zangrando, L. Chittaro, and G. Silani (2013) ‘Affective Basis of Judgment-Behavior Discrepancy in Virtual Experiences of Moral Dilemmas’, Social Neuroscience, 9, 94–107.

  52. 52.

    G. Kahane (2014) ‘Intuitive and Counterintuitive Morality’, in J. D’Arms and D. Jacobsons (eds) Moral Psychology and Human Agency: Philosophical Essays on the Science of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press ), 18 and 34.

  53. 53.

    Kahane, ‘Intuitive and Counterintuitive Morality’, 14.

  54. 54.

    J. M. Paxton and J. D. Greene (2010) ‘Moral Reasoning: Hints and Allegations’, Topics in Cognitive Science, 2, 13.

  55. 55.

    For a helpful description of the conflict, see M. B. Gill (2007) ‘Moral Rationalism vs. Moral Sentimentalism: Is Morality More Like Math or Beauty?’ Philosophy Compass, 2, 16–30.

  56. 56.

    Gill (2007) ‘Moral Rationalism vs. Moral Sentimentalism’, 16–30; and Haidt and Bjorklund, ‘Social Intuitionists Answer Six Questions’, 188–9.

  57. 57.

    Haidt and Bjorklund, ‘Social Intuitionists Answer Six Questions’, 189. Haidt always refers to them separately and asserts that moral judgments are ‘like’ aesthetic judgments, not that they involve the same cognitions.

  58. 58.

    S. Irvin (2010) ‘Aesthetics as a Guide to Ethics’, in R. Stecker and T. Gracyk (eds) Aesthetics Today: A Reader, (Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield, Publishers), 370–7.

  59. 59.

    Elquyam and Evans, ‘Subtracting “Ought” from “Is’”, 246.

  60. 60.

    J. Craigie (2011) ‘Thinking and Feeling: Moral Deliberation in a Dual-Process Framework’, Philosophical Psychology, 24, 55.

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  1. Wayland Baptist University, Texas Wichita Falls, Texas, USA

    J. Jeffrey Tillman

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Tillman, J.J. (2016). Dual Process Theories and Moral Deliberation. In: An Integrative Model of Moral Deliberation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49022-3_4

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