The Curious Case of the Irrational Disputant: Insights and Strategies from the Science of Moral Reasoning

Abstract

In mediation and negotiation, we sometimes encounter people who make decisions that seem to be inconsistent with what they say they care about and want, and with their alternatives to settlement. Some seemingly irrational decisions may be a result of automatic, intuitive moral judgments, which are best approached at a corresponding intuitive level. Social scientists have identified two “systems” of thinking: an automatic, quick process made outside of awareness (System 1), and an effortful, deliberate, logical, conscious one (System 2). In their social intuitionist model and moral foundations theory, Jonathan Haidt and colleagues propose that individuals make automatic, quick, intuitive moral judgments along five universal moral domains: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. These moral judgments are difficult to engage with reasoned arguments. A seemingly irrational party may be in the midst of an intuitive moral judgment that is not logic‐based. The literature on these and related lines of research explains when and why a mediator should seek to explore whether a party’s assessments may be a result of intuitive moral judgments, and if so, ways a mediator could communicate with the party on that level. This may be done most effectively by shifting the focus within or to another relevant moral domain, using moral reframing, and making liberal use of stories in communicating alternative intuitive moral perspectives. These methods engage on an intuitive level.