title: Switching Away from Utilitarianism: The Limited Role of Utility Calculations in Moral Judgment.
abstract: Our moral motivations might include a drive towards maximizing overall welfare, consistent with an ethical theory called "utilitarianism." However, people show non-utilitarian judgments in domains as diverse as healthcare decisions, income distributions, and penal laws. Rather than these being deviations from a fundamentally utilitarian psychology, we suggest that our moral judgments are generally non-utilitarian, even for cases that are typically seen as prototypically utilitarian. We show two separate deviations from utilitarianism in such cases: people do not think maximizing welfare is required (they think it is merely acceptable, in some circumstances), and people do not think that equal welfare tradeoffs are even acceptable. We end by discussing how utilitarian reasoning might play a restricted role within a non-utilitarian moral psychology.
authors: Institut Jean-Nicod CNRS UMR 8129, Institut d'Etude de la Cognition, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL Research University, Paris, France.
authors: Mark
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1277-8608
authors: M
authors: Sheskin
authors: Institut Jean-Nicod CNRS UMR 8129, Institut d'Etude de la Cognition, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL Research University, Paris, France.
authors: Nicolas
authors: N
authors: Baumard
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D028663:Ethical Theory; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D009014:Morals