Abstract
In this article, we discuss a number of challenges with the empirical study of emotion and its relation to moral judgment. We examine a case study involving the moral foreign-language effect, according to which people show an increased utilitarian response tendency in moral dilemmas when using their non-native language. One important proposed explanation for this effect is that using one’s non-native language reduces emotional arousal, and that reduced emotion is responsible for this tendency. We offer reasons to think that there is insufficient evidence for accepting this explanation at present. We argue that there are three themes that constrain our current ability to draw firm empirical conclusions: 1) the frequent use of proxies or partial measures for emotions, 2) the lack of a predictive and generalizable theory of emotion and specific emotion-types, and 3) the obscurity of a baseline level of neutrality with respect to participant emotion. These lessons apply not only to research on the moral foreign-language effect, but to empirical research in moral psychology more generally.
Highlights
In this paper, we illustrate some of the challenges with empirically investigating the influence of emotion on moral judgment
We examine a case study involving the moral foreign-language effect, according to which people show an increased utilitarian response tendency in moral dilemmas when using their non-native language
After explaining the MFLE and its relationship to the original foreign-language effect more fully, we articulate challenges to the prevailing explanation that the effect is caused by reduced emotion, and argue that these challenges apply more generally to the study of emotion and moral judgment
Summary
We illustrate some of the challenges with empirically investigating the influence of emotion on moral judgment. Ering the same dilemma in their native language, and that this difference might be due to a difference in emotional processing when using one’s non-native language.[1] After explaining the MFLE and its relationship to the original foreign-language effect (or FLE) more fully, we articulate challenges to the prevailing explanation that the effect is caused by reduced emotion, and argue that these challenges apply more generally to the study of emotion and moral judgment Many of these difficulties will perhaps be overcome in the near future, but for we argue that a certain agnosticism is the most warranted epistemic position
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