The Means/Side-Effect Distinction in Moral Cognition: A Meta-Analysis

Cognition 166 (C):314-327 (2017)
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Abstract

Experimental research suggests that people draw a moral distinction between bad outcomes brought about as a means versus a side effect (or byproduct). Such findings have informed multiple psychological and philosophical debates about moral cognition, including its computational structure, its sensitivity to the famous Doctrine of Double Effect, its reliability, and its status as a universal and innate mental module akin to universal grammar. But some studies have failed to replicate the means/byproduct effect especially in the absence of other factors, such as personal contact. So we aimed to determine how robust the means/byproduct effect is by conducting a meta-analysis of both published and unpublished studies (k = 101; 24,058 participants). We found that while there is an overall small difference between moral judgments of means and byproducts (standardized mean difference = 0.87, 95% CI 0.67 – 1.06; standardized mean change = 0.57, 95% CI 0.44 – 0.69; log odds ratio = 1.59, 95% CI 1.15 – 2.02), the mean effect size is primarily moderated by whether the outcome is brought about by personal contact, which typically involves the use of personal force.

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Author Profiles

Joshua May
University of Alabama, Birmingham
Adam Feltz
Michigan Technological University

Citations of this work

Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind.Joshua May - 2018 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Moral Rationalism on the Brain.Joshua May - 2023 - Mind and Language 38 (1):237-255.
The Neuroscience of Moral Judgment: Empirical and Philosophical Developments.Joshua May, Clifford I. Workman, Julia Haas & Hyemin Han - 2022 - In Felipe de Brigard & Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (eds.), Neuroscience and philosophy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. pp. 17-47.
How to Debunk Moral Beliefs.Victor Kumar & Joshua May - 2018 - In Jussi Suikkanen & Antti Kauppinen (eds.), Methodology and Moral Philosophy. New York: Routledge. pp. 25-48.
Moral Reasoning and Moral Progress.Victor Kumar & Joshua May - forthcoming - In David Copp & Connie Rosati (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Metaethics. Oxford University Press.

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