Beyond Dual-Processes: The Interplay of Reason and Emotion in Moral Judgment

Abstract

Abstract A great deal of research in moral psychology has focused on the interplaybetween emotion and reason during moral judgment, characterizing the two asforcesworkinginoppositiontoinfluencejudgment.Below,recentpsychologicalresearch on morality is reviewed, with a special focus on disgust and the natureof its role in moral and political judgment. Behavioral, neuroscience, andphysiologicaldata arereviewedlooking attheroleof disgustinmoraljudgment,with a particular emphasis on the role of emotion regulation – the process ofshifting emotional responses in order to meet one’s goals. It is suggested thatdual-process theories of moral judgment are not well suited to understand therole of emotion regulation in influencing moral judgments and decisions. The-ories that emphasize the primacy of one process over another may ultimately bemissing the complexity how these processes interact to influence moraljudgment. C. Helion ( * ) • D.A. PizarroDepartment of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USAe-mail: cah298@cornell.edu; pizarro@gmail.comJ. Clausen, N. Levy (eds.), Handbook of Neuroethics,DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_160,#109Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015