EXPRESS: The Effects of Explicit Reasoning on Moral Judgments.

We report four experiments that investigate explicit reasoning and moral judgments. In each experiment, some subjects responded to the "footbridge" version of the trolley problem (which elicits stronger moral intuitions), whereas others responded to the "switch" version (which elicits weaker moral intuitions). Experiments 1-2 crossed the type of trolley problem with four reasoning conditions: control, counterattitudinal, pro-attitudinal, and mixed reasoning (both types of reasoning). Experiments 3-4 examine whether moral judgments vary based on (a) when reasoners engage in counterattitudinal reasoning, (b) when they make the moral judgment, and (c) by the type of moral dilemma. These two experiments comprised five conditions: control (judgment only), delay-only (2-minute wait then judgment), reasoning-only (reasoning then judgment), reasoning-delay (reasoning, then 2-minute delay, then judgment), and delayed-reasoning (2-minute delay, then reasoning, then judgment). These conditions were crossed with the type of trolley problem. We find that engaging in some form of counterattitudinal reasoning led to less typical judgments (regardless of when it occurs), but this effect was mostly restricted to the switch version of the dilemma (and was strongest in the reasoning-delay conditions). Furthermore, neither pro-attitudinal reasoning nor delayed judgments on their own impacted subjects' judgments. Reasoners therefore seem open to modifying their moral judgments when they consider opposing perspectives, but might be less likely to do so for dilemmas that elicit relatively strong moral intuitions.