Consequences, norms, and inaction: A critical analysis

Gawronski, Armstrong, Conway, Friesdorf and Hütter (2017, GACFH) presented a model of choices in utilitarian moral dilemmas, those in which following a moral principle or norm (the deontological response) leads to worse consequences than violating the principle (the utilitarian response). In standard utilitarian dilemmas, the utilitarian option involves action (which causes some harm in order to prevent greater harm), and the deontological response, omission. GACFH propose that responses in such dilemmas arise in three different ways: a psychological process leading to a deontological choice, a different process leading to a utilitarian choice, or a bias toward inaction or action. GACFH attempt to separate these three processes with new dilemmas in which action and omission are switched, and dilemmas in which the utilitarian and deontological processes lead to the same choice. They conclude that utilitarian and deontological responses are indeed separable, and that past research has missed this fact by treating them as naturally opposed. We argue that a bias toward harmful inaction is best understood as an explanation of deontological responding rather than as an alternative process. It thus should be included as an explanation of deontological responding, not an alternative response type. We also argue that GACFH’s results can be largely explained in terms of subjects’ unwillingness to accept the researchers’ assumptions about which consequence is worse and which course of action is consistent with a moral norm. This problem is almost inherent in the attempt to switch act and omission while maintaining equivalent norms. We support this argument with data from experiments with new and old scenarios, in which we asked subjects to judge both norms and consequences. We also find that GACFH’s results are not as consistent as they appear to be in the paper.