Research Summary
Research Summary
Moral Reasoning & Experimental Political Philosophy
Description
In this work, we demonstrate a new and morally significant effect on judgment and decision-making. This research is inspired by the work of John Rawls, widely regarded as the most important political philosopher of the 20th Century. Here we apply the central insight of his masterwork, A Theory of Justice, to a range of specific moral dilemmas. These include a classic philosophical dilemma, a biomedical dilemma, a real-stakes dilemma concerning charitable donations, and the social dilemma of autonomous vehicles. Across six experiments (N = 5,785), three pre-registered, we show that veil-of-ignorance reasoning shifts people’s judgments in favor of the greater good.
In ongoing research, we investigate third-party judgments of decision-makers who use veil-of-ignorance reasoning. Policy-makers and leaders who genuinely aim to advance policies that promote the greater good could use veil-of-ignorance reasoning to help observers understand difficult tradeoffs in decision-making.
This stream of research is fundamentally interdisciplinary, drawing inspiration from philosophy while applying experimental methods to produce results of relevance to psychology, economics, law, bioethics, political science, and artificial intelligence.