The Ethical Dangers of Deliberative Decision Making
The Ethical Dangers of Deliberative Decision Making Chen-Bo Zhong
University of Toronto
Research on ethical decision making has been heavily influenced by normative decision theories that view intelligent choices as involving conscious deliberation and analysis. Recent developments in moral psychology, however, suggest that moral functions involved in ethical decision making are metaphorical and embodied. The research presented here suggests that deliberative decision making may actually increase unethical behaviors and reduce altruistic motives when it overshadows implicit, intuitive influences on moral judgments and decisions. Three lab experiments explored the potential ethical dangers of deliberative decision making. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that deliberative decision making, activated by a math problem-solving task or by simply framing the choice as a decision rather than an intuitive reaction, increased deception in a one-shot deception game. Experiment 3—which activated systematic thinking or intuitive feeling about the choice to donate to a charity—found that deliberative decision making could also decrease altruism. These findings highlight the potential ethical downsides of a rationalistic approach toward ethical decision making and call for a better understanding of the intuitive nature of moral functioning. Corporate scandals have crowded American media for the last decade: Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and what contributed to the recent Wall Street meltdown, to name just a few. Although individuals’ unethical conduct—such as hiding corporate losses to obtain lucrative bonuses, reporting fraudulent auditing to secure a client, or giving loans to home buyers who cannot afford them—are seldom the sole cause, their decisions sit at the center of those calamities. This makes understanding how people resolve ethical dilemmas that pit self-interest against doing the right thing more important than ever. Consequently, studies on ethical decision making have
University of Toronto
Research on ethical decision making has been heavily influenced by normative decision theories that view intelligent choices as involving conscious deliberation and analysis. Recent developments in moral psychology, however, suggest that moral functions involved in ethical decision making are metaphorical and embodied. The research presented here suggests that deliberative decision making may actually increase unethical behaviors and reduce altruistic motives when it overshadows implicit, intuitive influences on moral judgments and decisions. Three lab experiments explored the potential ethical dangers of deliberative decision making. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that deliberative decision making, activated by a math problem-solving task or by simply framing the choice as a decision rather than an intuitive reaction, increased deception in a one-shot deception game. Experiment 3—which activated systematic thinking or intuitive feeling about the choice to donate to a charity—found that deliberative decision making could also decrease altruism. These findings highlight the potential ethical downsides of a rationalistic approach toward ethical decision making and call for a better understanding of the intuitive nature of moral functioning. Corporate scandals have crowded American media for the last decade: Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and what contributed to the recent Wall Street meltdown, to name just a few. Although individuals’ unethical conduct—such as hiding corporate losses to obtain lucrative bonuses, reporting fraudulent auditing to secure a client, or giving loans to home buyers who cannot afford them—are seldom the sole cause, their decisions sit at the center of those calamities. This makes understanding how people resolve ethical dilemmas that pit self-interest against doing the right thing more important than ever. Consequently, studies on ethical decision making have