Moral constraints and self-serving beliefs

Economists have formally modeled moral dispositions by directly incorporating concern for the well-being of others into utility functions. But some moral dispositions seem to be less like preferences, and more like (internal) constraints. I present a model fleshing out this distinction: if moral dispositions are internal constraints on a person’s self-interested pursuit, she will be keen to self-servingly gather, avoid, and interpret evidence so as to relax these constraints. Although the “constraints model” also assumes the agent updates beliefs Bayesianly and rationally maximizes well-defined preferences, because it assumes beliefs about harm to others enters non-linearly into the utility function, it has some implications that differ from a classical utility model. Specifically, because a person seeks to avoid information that interferes with her self interest, she will exhibit self-serving beliefs that on average let her pursue her self interest more than might be inferred from her belief-contingent behavior alone. The model also predicts greater scope for social influence than in the classical utility model: Outside parties can improve a person’s moral conduct by (a) forcing her to receive information, (b) discouraging her from (selectively) thinking about other information, or (c) encouraging her to think through moral principles before she knows where her self interest lies.