Quiz #1 Cost of Moral Intuitions

Care/harm

Protecting others, avoiding injury, compassion

Example: Helping someone in pain; not hurting an animal

Fairness/cheating

Justice, equality, reciprocity; anger at fraud or exploitation

Example: Splitting a bill fairly; condemning a cheater

Loyalty/betrayal

Standing with your group, family or nation; anger at traitors

Example: Supporting your team; condemning a backstabber

Authority/subversion

Respect for tradition, leaders, rulers; dislike of disorder

Example: Obeying a teacher’s rules; rejecting defiance

Sanctity/degradation

Purity, disgust, reverence for the sacred; aversion to contamination

Liberty/oppression

Resistance to domination, valuing autonomy and freedom

Example: Defying unfair control; protecting personal rights

Liberals and Moral Foundations

Tend to emphasize care/harm strongest, focusing on individual rights and protections

Conservatives and Moral Foundations

Tend to value all five foundations more evenly, giving more weight to loyalty, authority, and purity

Rider

Reasoning (slow, deliberate, controlled)

Elephant

Intuition (fast, automatic, emotional)

Rider vs. Elephant

Usually, the elephant leads while the rider follows

Leading with intuition, reasoning follows

Taste Bud Analogy

Humans have innate moral foundations or “taste buds” for different moral concerns (just like we have different taste buds for different flavors of food)

Cultural and individual differences shape our moral foundations and our sensitivities to moral concerns

Moral Foundations Questionnaire

Developed first as a large, diverse online sampling tool

Final version: 30 questions

Assesses both moral relevance and moral judgments

Intuitive judgement

Gut reactions are fast, automatic, and emotional

Post-hoc reasoning

Justifications follow the intuition

Social Influence

Judgements spread via discussion, gossip, and persuasion

Reasoned persuasion (limited)

Sometimes reasoning can trigger new intuitions