UCLA UCLA Previously Published Works Title Theorizing Moral Cognition: Culture in Action, Situations, and Relationships Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3xm4m3mw Author Luft, Aliza Publication Date 2020 DOI 10.1177/2378023120916125 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California SRDXXX10.1177/2378023120916125SociusLuft 916125research-article2020 Original Article Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World Volume 6: 1 –15 © The Author(s) 2020 Theorizing Moral Cognition: Culture in Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Action, Situations, and Relationships DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023120916125 10.1177/2378023120916125 srd.sagepub.com Aliza Luft1 Abstract Dual-process theories of morality are approaches to moral cognition that stress the varying significance of emotion and deliberation in shaping judgments of action. Sociological research that builds on these ideas considers how cross- cultural variation alters judgments, with important consequences for what is and is not considered moral behavior. Yet lacking from these approaches is the notion that, depending on the situation and relationship, the same behavior by the same person can be considered more or less moral. The author reviews recent trends in sociological theorizing about morality and calls attention to the neglect of situational variations and social perceptions as mediating influences on judgment. She then analyzes the moral machine experiment to demonstrate how situations and relationships inform moral cognition. Finally, the author suggests that we can extend contemporary trends in the sociology of morality by connecting culture in thinking about action to culture in thinking about people. Keywords cognition, culture, morality, perception, situations Preface As I write, there are places in the world where there aren’t enough hospital beds or respirators to allow all patients to This paper is about moral judgments in challenging and receive adequate medical care. Italian doctors have been uncertain times and how social relationships shape our per- forced to weigh one life against another. Very soon, their col- ceptions of right and wrong. My original goal in writing it leagues in the United States will face such terrible responsi- was to explore a curious gap in the psychological research on bilities as well. There are no good blueprints for such morality that we often unwittingly incorporate into our soci- devastating moral decisions. One group of bioethicists pro- ological work: how situations and perceptions influence posed that, should equipment or care be rationed, the young moral cognition and, in turn, social behavior. I never could and those who are front-line health workers must have prior- have imagined how COVID-19 would collapse the distance ity (Emanuel et al. 2020). State plans in Alabama call for a between theory and practice. scheme in which “persons with severe or profound mental Today, as some 85 percent of Americans live under orders retardation, moderate to severe dementia, or catastrophic to shelter-in-place, where even the most banal social interac- neurological complications such as persistent vegetative tion could prove a link in a chain of contagion and death, these state are unlikely candidates for ventilator support.” Doctors issues feel relevant, urgent, and close. In particular, I begin the in Pennsylvania created an eight-point scale, since adopted paper with a summary of two models of moral cognition: the by hospitals around the country, to calculate a patient’s pre- social intuitionist model and the digital camera model. The lat- COVID life expectancy (given any preexisting conditions), ter is premised on what is occasionally cheekily referred to as as well as their likelihood for surviving their current hospi- “Trolleyology,” after a famous series of experiments where talization as physicians sort who will—and who will participants are confronted with life-and-death decisions. It has often been dismissed by those who claim such circum- stances—where one person is tasked with choosing who lives 1University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA and who dies—are esoteric and unrelatable. Still, as someone Corresponding Author: who studies decision-making about violence, it seemed worth Aliza Luft, University of California, Department of Sociology, 264 Haines sorting through the truths inherent in the scenario. I am devas- Hall, 375 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551, USA tated by how relevant those truths seem today. Email: [email protected] Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World not—get life-saving care (White 2020). Many facilities are explained with reference to physical violence, “when we considering adopting universal do-not-resuscitate orders for think about sticking a pin into a child’s hand, or we hear a coronavirus patients because of the risks such efforts might story about a person slapping her father, most of us have an pose to hospital staff. These heartbreaking preparations, let automatic intuitive reaction that includes a flash of negative alone the actual decisions, felt unthinkable not long ago. affect” (p. 998). Haidt’s argument is premised on a wide So, I publish this article full of emotion. As I walk my body of scholarship suggesting that fast and slow cognitive neighborhood and see lines of customers outside grocery processes underlie human cognition and that has become stores, carefully spaced and wearing whatever masks or ban- increasingly influential in sociology (e.g., Chaiken and Trope danas they might have, I think of the sociological research on 1999; Kahneman 2011; Lizardo et al. 2016; Miles, Charron- culture and crisis discussed herein. Situational disruptions Chénier, and Schleifer 2019). However, within the cognitive upend everything, large and small. We may not personally sciences, significant advances have been made in recent have to choose who will live and die, but the sociological years highlighting Haidt’s inattention to situational varia- research on categorization and classification also discussed tion—in particular, whether a dilemma is familiar—while a helps us see how, in this time of “social distancing,” we are separate body of work calls attention to the relationship actually being called on to broaden our universe of moral between affect and social perception—how unconsciously obligation (Fein 1993). Everything we do (and don’t do) now held beliefs about others shape how we feel about and subse- shapes how many of the gut-wrenching life-or-death deci- quently treat them. As a result, in this article I argue that sions doctors and nurses will have to make. The most vulner- moral judgment is not simply about actions but about situa- able among us are suddenly more visible: We are deeply tions and relationships. Moreover, sociologists, who have connected not only to the elderly and the medically compro- long been attuned to how situations and relationships influ- mised, but also the homeless, the incarcerated, the undocu- ence human judgment, are uniquely poised to consider these mented. Our responses must be altruistic to save as many as influences in our analyses. Thus, to complement the growing possible, but they often have not been: We have seen people incorporation of research from cognitive sciences into soci- hoard groceries and price-gouge on stockpiles of normally ology, in this article I provide an update on advances in the cheap and truly vital supplies. Four of 100 U.S. Senators former and how our own disciplinary expertise can both (Richard Burr [R-N.C.], Feinstein [D-Calif.], James Inhofe deepen and extend these insights concerning morality. [R-Okla.], and Kelly Loeffler [R-GA]), as soon as they were The article proceeds as follows. First, I review research briefed on the spread of the novel coronavirus, but before on culture in thinking about action1 with regard to moral that information was public, seized the chance to sell hun- judgment, highlighting two prominent models in the cogni- dreds of thousands of dollars in stocks before the market tive sciences: Jonathan Haidt’s social institutionist model could collapse, as they knew it would. and Joshua Greene’s digital camera model. The former has More than ever, I am convinced we need to think about received significant attention in sociology, but the latter, how situational circumstances interact with social relation- which is highly influential in moral psychology, has not. I ships to shape moral judgments. This is not a call to moral suggest that the latter is especially worth incorporating into relativism, but an urgent acknowledgement that, when it our research, as its focus on situational variation mirrors comes to individual judgment, morality is relative. What we much work in our own discipline that emphasizes how social believe to be good and bad gets a little fuzzier when we find situations contain their own meanings and expectations that ourselves in unfamiliar territory, and so we reconsider our shape people’s judgments and actions. Second, I argue that relationships,