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Lucius Caviola

Harvard University, Psychology, Post-Doc +1Harvard University, Psychology, Post-DocUniversity of Oxford, Experimental Psychology, PhD candidate

Moral Psychology +13

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. My research focuses on questions at the intersection of psychology and ethics. I investigate the moral preferences and biases that prevent us from maximizing social welfare and develop strategies that could help us improve. I currently study how people give to charity, how they value animals, and how they think about the future of humanity.
Supervisors: Joshua Greene

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281 Followers 137 Following 15 Co-authorsTotal Views

Papers

Are the Folk Utilitarian About Animals?

by Guy Kahane and Lucius Caviola

Philosophical Studies

Robert Nozick famously raised the possibility that there is a sense in which both deontology and ... more Robert Nozick famously raised the possibility that there is a sense in which both deontology and utilitarianism are true: deontology applies to humans while utilitarianism applies to animals. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in such a hybrid views of ethics. Discussions of this Nozickian Hybrid View, and similar approaches to animal ethics, often assume that such an approach reflects the commonsense view, and best captures common moral intuitions. However, recent psychological work challenges this empirical assumption. We review evidence suggesting that the folk is deontological all the way down-it is just that the moral side constraints that protect animals from harm are much weaker than those that protect humans. In fact, it appears that people even attribute some deontological protections, albeit extremely weak ones, to inanimate objects. We call this view Multi-level Weighted Deontology. While such empirical findings cannot show that the Nozickian Hybrid View is false, or that it is unjustified, they do remove its core intuitive support. That support belongs to Multi-level Weighted Deontology, a view that is also in line with the view that Nozick himself seemed to favour. To complicate things, however, we also review evidence that our intuitions about the moral status of humans are, at least in significant part, shaped by factors relating to mere species membership that seem morally irrelevant. We end by considering the potential debunking upshot of such findings about the sources of common moral intuitions about the moral status of animals.

Virtues for Real-World Utilitarians

by Stefan Schubert and Lucius Caviola

Population ethical intuitions

Cognition

The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism

by Lucius Caviola and Stefan Schubert

Trends in cognitive sciences, 2021

The most effective charities are hundreds of times more effective than typical charities, yet few... more The most effective charities are hundreds of times more effective than typical charities, yet few donors prioritize effectiveness. Why is that? How might we increase the effectiveness of charitable giving? We review the motivational and epistemic causes of (in)effective giving. Many donors view charitable giving as a matter of personal preference, which favors decisions based on emotional appeal rather than effectiveness. In addition, while many donors are motivated to give effectively, they often have misconceptions and cognitive biases that reduce effective giving. Nearly all research on charitable giving interventions focuses on increasing donation amounts. However, to increase societal benefit, donation effectiveness is likely to be more important. This underscores the need for research on strategies to encourage effective giving.

Liking but Devaluing Animals: Emotional and Deliberative Paths to Speciesism

We explore whether priming emotion versus deliberation affects speciesism—the tendency to priorit... more We explore whether priming emotion versus deliberation affects speciesism—the tendency to prioritize certain individuals over others on the basis of their species-membership (three main and two supplementary studies; four pre-registered; N = 3,288). We find that the tendency to prioritize humans over animals (anthropocentric speciesism) decreases when participants were asked to think emotionally compared to deliberately. In contrast, the tendency to prioritize dogs over other animals (pet speciesism) increases when participants were asked to think emotionally compared to deliberately. We hypothesize that, emotionally, people like animals in general, and dogs in particular; however, deliberatively, people attribute higher moral status to humans than animals, and roughly equal status to dogs, chimpanzees, elephants and pigs. In support of this explanation, participants tended to discriminate between animals based on likability when thinking emotionally and based on moral status when t...

Worth living or worth dying? The views of the general public about allowing disabled children to die

by Julian Savulescu and Lucius Caviola

Journal of Medical Ethics, 2020

Background: Decisions about withdrawal of life support for infants have given rise to legal battl... more Background: Decisions about withdrawal of life support for infants have given rise to legal battles between physicians and parents creating intense media attention. It is unclear how we should evaluate when life is no longer worth living for an infant. Public attitudes towards treatment withdrawal and the role of parents in situations of disagreement have not previously been assessed.

Methods: An online survey was conducted with a sample of the UK public to assess public views about the benefit of life in hypothetical cases similar to real cases heard by the UK courts (eg, Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans). We then evaluated these public views in comparison with existing ethical frameworks for decision-making.

Results: One hundred and thirty participants completed the survey. The majority (94%) agreed that an infant’s life may have no benefit when well-being falls below a critical level. Decisions to withdraw treatment were positively associated with the importance of use of medical resources, the infant’s ability to have emotional relationships, and mental abilities. Up to 50% of participants in each case believed it was permissible to either continue or withdraw treatment.

Conclusion: Despite the controversy, our findings indicate that in the most severe cases, most people agree that life is not worth living for a profoundly disabled infant. Our survey found wide acceptance of at least the permissibility of withdrawal of treatment across a range of cases, though also a reluctance to overrule parents’ decisions. These findings may be useful when constructing guidelines for clinical practice.

Should you save the more useful? The effect of generality on moral judgments about rescue and indirect effects Forthcoming in Cognition

by Stefan Schubert and Lucius Caviola

Cognition

Across eight experiments (N = 2,310), we studied whether people would prioritize rescuing individ... more Across eight experiments (N = 2,310), we studied whether people would prioritize rescuing individuals who may be thought to contribute more to society. We found that participants were generally dismissive of general rules that prioritize more socially beneficial individuals, such as doctors instead of unemployed people. By contrast, participants were more supportive of one-off decisions to save the life of a more socially beneficial individual, even when such cases were the same as those covered by the rule. This generality effect occurred robustly even when controlling for various factors. It occurred when the decision-maker was the same in both cases, when the pairs of people differing in the extent of their indirect social utility was varied, when the scenarios were varied, when the participant samples came from different countries, and when the general rule only covered cases that are exactly the same as the situation described in the one-off condition. The effect occurred even when the general rule was introduced via a concrete precedent case. Participants’ tendency to be more supportive of the one-off proposal than the general rule was significantly reduced when they evaluated the two proposals jointly as opposed to separately. Finally, the effect also occurred in sacrificial moral dilemmas, suggesting it is a more general phenomenon in certain moral contexts. We discuss possible explanations of the effect, including concerns about negative consequences of the rule and a deontological aversion against making difficult trade-off decisions unless they are absolutely necessary.

Utilitarianism for animals, Kantianism for people? Harming animals and humans for the greater good

by Guy Kahane and Lucius Caviola

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Most people hold that it is wrong to sacrifice some humans to save a greater number of humans. Do... more Most people hold that it is wrong to sacrifice some humans to save a greater number of humans. Do people also think that it is wrong to sacrifice some animals to save a greater number of animals, or do they answer such questions about harm to animals by engaging in a utilitarian cost-benefit calculation? Across 10 studies (N = 4,662), using hypothetical and real-life sacrificial moral dilemmas, we found that participants considered it more permissible to harm a few animals to save a greater number of animals than to harm a few humans to save a greater number of humans. This was explained by a reduced general aversion to harm animals compared to humans, which was partly driven by participants perceiving animals to suffer less and to have lower cognitive capacity than humans. However, the effect persisted even in cases where animals were described as having greater suffering capacity and greater cognitive capacity than some humans, and even when participants felt more socially connected to animals than to humans. The reduced aversion to harming animals was thus also partly due to speciesism—the tendency to ascribe lower moral value to animals due to their species-membership alone. In sum, our studies show that deontological constraints against instrumental harm are not absolute but get weaker the less people morally value the respective entity. These constraints are strongest for humans, followed by dogs, chimpanzees, pigs, and finally inanimate objects.

Children prioritize humans over animals less than adults do

by Guy Kahane, Matti Wilks, and Lucius Caviola

Psychological Science

Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two ... more Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two pre-registered studies (N = 622), 5- to 9-year-old children and adults were presented with moral dilemmas pitting varying numbers of humans against varying numbers of either dogs or pigs and were asked who should be saved. In both studies, children had a weaker tendency to prioritize humans over animals than adults. They often chose to save multiple dogs over one human, and many valued the life of a dog as much as the life of a human. While they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized ten pigs over one human. By contrast, almost all adults chose to save one human over even one hundred dogs or pigs. Our findings suggest that the common view that humans are far more morally important than animals appears late in development and is likely socially acquired.

Donors vastly underestimate differences in charities' effectiveness

by Lucius Caviola, Stefan Schubert, David Moss, and Spencer Greenberg

Judgment and Decision Making, 2020

Some charities are much more cost-effective than other charities, which means that they can save ... more Some charities are much more cost-effective than other charities, which means that they can save many more lives with the same amount of money. Yet most donations do not go to the most effective charities. Why is that? We hypothesized that part of the reason is that people underestimate how much more effective the most effective charities are compared with the average charity. Thus, they do not know how much more good they could do if they donated to the most effective charities. We studied this hypothesis using samples of the general population, students, experts, and effective altruists in five studies. We found that lay people estimated that among charities helping the global poor, the most effective charities are 1.5 times more effective than the average charity (Studies 1 and 2). Effective altruists, in contrast, estimated the difference to be factor 30 (Study 3) and experts estimated the factor to be 100 (Study 4). We found that participants donated more to the most effective charity, and less to an average charity, when informed about the large difference in cost-effectiveness (Study 5). In conclusion, misconceptions about the difference in effectiveness between charities is thus likely one reason, among many, why people donate ineffectively.

The many obstacles to effective giving

by Lucius Caviola, Stefan Schubert, and Jason Nemirow

Judgment and Decision Making, 2020

When people donate, they rarely give to the charities that do the most good per dollar. Why is th... more When people donate, they rarely give to the charities that do the most good per dollar. Why is this? One possibility is that they do not know how to give effectively. Another possibility is that they are not motivated to do so. Across six tasks (Studies 1a, 1b), we found support for both explanations. Among lay donors, we observed multiple misconceptions-regarding disaster relief, overhead costs, donation splitting, and the relative effectiveness of local and foreign charities-that reduced the effectiveness of their giving. Similarly, we found that they were unfamiliar with the most effective charities (Studies 2a, 2b). Debunking these misconceptions and informing people about effectiveness boosted effective donations; however, a portion of lay donors continued to give ineffectively to satisfy their personal preferences. By contrast, a sample of self-identified effective altruists gave effectively across all tasks. They exhibited none of the misconceptions that we observed among lay donors and overwhelmingly favored the most effective option in their choice set (Study 3). Taken together, our studies imply that donors need to be both informed and motivated to give effectively on a consistent basis.

Doing good by doing nothing? The role of social norms in explaining default effects in altruistic contexts

by Lucius Caviola and Guy Kahane

The Psychology of Existential Risk: Moral Judgments about Human Extinction

by Lucius Caviola and Stefan Schubert

Scientific Reports 9, 15100, 2019

The 21st century will likely see growing risks of human extinction, but currently, relatively sma... more The 21st century will likely see growing risks of human extinction, but currently, relatively small resources are invested in reducing such existential risks. Using three samples (UK general public, US general public, and UK students; total N = 2,507), we study how laypeople reason about human extinction. We find that people think that human extinction needs to be prevented. Strikingly, however, they do not think that an extinction catastrophe would be uniquely bad relative to near-extinction catastrophes, which allow for recovery. More people find extinction uniquely bad when (a) asked to consider the extinction of an animal species rather than humans, (b) asked to consider a case where human extinction is associated with less direct harm, and (c) they are explicitly prompted to consider long-term consequences of the catastrophes. We conclude that an important reason why people do not find extinction uniquely bad is that they focus on the immediate death and suffering that the catastrophes cause for fellow humans, rather than on the long-term consequences. Finally, we find that (d) laypeople—in line with prominent philosophical arguments—think that the quality of the future is relevant: they do find extinction uniquely bad when this means forgoing a utopian future.

Cognitive Biases Can Affect Moral Intuitions About Cognitive Enhancement

by Adriano Mannino and Lucius Caviola

Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of ... more Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement (CE) and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making.

The evaluability bias in charitable giving: Saving administration costs or saving lives?

We describe the “evaluability bias”: the tendency to weight the importance of an attribute in pro... more We describe the “evaluability bias”: the tendency to weight the importance of an attribute in proportion to its ease of evaluation. We propose that the evaluability bias influences decision making in the context of charitable giving: people tend to have a strong preference for charities with low overhead ratios (lower administrative expenses) but not for charities with high cost-effectiveness (greater number of saved lives per dollar), because the former attribute is easier to evaluate than the latter. In line with this hypothesis, we report the results of four studies showing that, when presented with a
single charity, people are willing to donate more to a charity with low overhead ratio, regardless of cost-effectiveness. However, when people are presented with two charities simultaneously—thereby enabling comparative evaluation—they base their donation behavior on cost-effectiveness (Study 1). This suggests that people primarily value cost-effectiveness but manifest the evaluability bias in cases where they find it difficult to evaluate. However, people seem also to value a low overhead ratio for its own sake (Study 2). The evaluability bias effect applies to charities of different domains (Study 3). We also show that overhead ratio is easier to evaluate when its presentation format is a ratio, suggesting an inherent reference point that allows meaningful interpretation (Study 4).

Pills or Push-Ups? Effectiveness and Public Perception of Pharmacological and Non-Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement

We review work on the effectiveness of different forms of cognitive enhancement, both pharmacolog... more We review work on the effectiveness of different forms of cognitive enhancement, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological. We consider caffeine, methylphenidate, and modafinil for pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) and computer training, physical exercise, and sleep for non-pharmacological cognitive enhancement (NPCE). We find that all of the techniques described can produce significant beneficial effects on cognitive performance. However, effect sizes are moderate, and consistently dependent on individual and situational factors as well as the cognitive domain in question. Although meta-analyses allowing a quantitative comparison of effectiveness across techniques are lacking to date, we can conclude that PCE is not more effective than NPCE. We discuss the physiological reasons for this limited effectiveness. We then propose that even though their actual effectiveness seems similar, in the general public PCE is perceived as fundamentally different from NPCE, in terms of effectiveness, but also in terms of acceptability. We illustrate the potential consequences such a misperception of PCE can have.

Attitudes toward pharmacological cognitive enhancement—a review

A primary means for the augmentation of cognitive brain functions is “pharmacological cognitive e... more A primary means for the augmentation of cognitive brain functions is “pharmacological cognitive enhancement” (PCE). The term usually refers to the off-label use of medical substances to improve mental performance in healthy individuals. With the final aim to advance the normative debate taking place on that topic, several empirical studies have been conducted to assess the attitudes toward PCE in the public, i.e., in groups outside of the academic debate. In this review, we provide an overview of the 40 empirical studies published so far, reporting both their methodology and results. Overall, we find that several concerns about the use of PCE are prevalent in the public. These concerns largely match those discussed in the normative academic debate. We present our findings structured around the three most common concerns: medical safety, coercion, and fairness. Fairness is divided into three subthemes: equality of opportunity, honesty, and authenticity. Attitudes regarding some concerns are coherent across studies (e.g., coercion), whereas for others we find mixed results (e.g., authenticity). Moreover, we find differences in how specific groups—such as users, nonusers, students, parents, and health care providers—perceive PCE: a coherent finding is that nonusers display more concerns regarding medical safety and fairness than users. We discuss potential psychological explanations for these differences.

Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement

Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of ... more Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement (CE) and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making.

Moral hypocrisy in economic games—how prosocial behavior is shaped by social expectations

Experimental research in behavioral economics has revealed a high degree of prosocial tendencies ... more Experimental research in behavioral economics has revealed a high degree of prosocial tendencies in human interactions. These results have been interpreted as suggesting a necessary shift from a model of selfish preferences toward social preferences—the assumption that people intrinsically are concerned about others' well-being (e.g., Fehr and Schmidt, 1999; Bolton and Ockenfels, 2000). In this article, we first introduce research on prosocial behavior from an economics perspective. We then review several studies that invalidate this social preferences hypothesis by demonstrating that prosocial behavior is reduced when behavior is not observable by relevant others and expectations to behave prosocially are lowered. We argue that people primarily pursue self-interest as long as they can retain the appearance of being fair to others and even themselves—an interpretation referred to as moral hypocrisy (Batson, 2011). Further, we highlight implications for research of this assumption.

How stress influences our morality

All of us are stressed every now and then. There are phenomena we usually associate with stress, ... more All of us are stressed every now and then. There are phenomena we usually associate with stress, like health risks and feelings like fear, panic, or insecurity. But stress might also have effects we normally don’t think of; recent studies suggest it can dramatically influence our decision-making in a number of—perhaps unexpected—ways. This becomes particularly relevant in the moral context: people who are put under stress behave more compassionately in some situations, yet the opposite can be true in other situations. Why is this and what does this tell us about our morality? Maybe the comedian Tim Allen was right, when he said: “You don't know what people are really like until they’re under a lot of stress.”

Are the Folk Utilitarian About Animals?

by Guy Kahane and Lucius Caviola

Philosophical Studies

Robert Nozick famously raised the possibility that there is a sense in which both deontology and ... more Robert Nozick famously raised the possibility that there is a sense in which both deontology and utilitarianism are true: deontology applies to humans while utilitarianism applies to animals. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in such a hybrid views of ethics. Discussions of this Nozickian Hybrid View, and similar approaches to animal ethics, often assume that such an approach reflects the commonsense view, and best captures common moral intuitions. However, recent psychological work challenges this empirical assumption. We review evidence suggesting that the folk is deontological all the way down-it is just that the moral side constraints that protect animals from harm are much weaker than those that protect humans. In fact, it appears that people even attribute some deontological protections, albeit extremely weak ones, to inanimate objects. We call this view Multi-level Weighted Deontology. While such empirical findings cannot show that the Nozickian Hybrid View is false, or that it is unjustified, they do remove its core intuitive support. That support belongs to Multi-level Weighted Deontology, a view that is also in line with the view that Nozick himself seemed to favour. To complicate things, however, we also review evidence that our intuitions about the moral status of humans are, at least in significant part, shaped by factors relating to mere species membership that seem morally irrelevant. We end by considering the potential debunking upshot of such findings about the sources of common moral intuitions about the moral status of animals.

Virtues for Real-World Utilitarians

by Stefan Schubert and Lucius Caviola

Population ethical intuitions

Cognition

The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism

by Lucius Caviola and Stefan Schubert

Trends in cognitive sciences, 2021

The most effective charities are hundreds of times more effective than typical charities, yet few... more The most effective charities are hundreds of times more effective than typical charities, yet few donors prioritize effectiveness. Why is that? How might we increase the effectiveness of charitable giving? We review the motivational and epistemic causes of (in)effective giving. Many donors view charitable giving as a matter of personal preference, which favors decisions based on emotional appeal rather than effectiveness. In addition, while many donors are motivated to give effectively, they often have misconceptions and cognitive biases that reduce effective giving. Nearly all research on charitable giving interventions focuses on increasing donation amounts. However, to increase societal benefit, donation effectiveness is likely to be more important. This underscores the need for research on strategies to encourage effective giving.

Liking but Devaluing Animals: Emotional and Deliberative Paths to Speciesism

We explore whether priming emotion versus deliberation affects speciesism—the tendency to priorit... more We explore whether priming emotion versus deliberation affects speciesism—the tendency to prioritize certain individuals over others on the basis of their species-membership (three main and two supplementary studies; four pre-registered; N = 3,288). We find that the tendency to prioritize humans over animals (anthropocentric speciesism) decreases when participants were asked to think emotionally compared to deliberately. In contrast, the tendency to prioritize dogs over other animals (pet speciesism) increases when participants were asked to think emotionally compared to deliberately. We hypothesize that, emotionally, people like animals in general, and dogs in particular; however, deliberatively, people attribute higher moral status to humans than animals, and roughly equal status to dogs, chimpanzees, elephants and pigs. In support of this explanation, participants tended to discriminate between animals based on likability when thinking emotionally and based on moral status when t...

Worth living or worth dying? The views of the general public about allowing disabled children to die

by Julian Savulescu and Lucius Caviola

Journal of Medical Ethics, 2020

Background: Decisions about withdrawal of life support for infants have given rise to legal battl... more Background: Decisions about withdrawal of life support for infants have given rise to legal battles between physicians and parents creating intense media attention. It is unclear how we should evaluate when life is no longer worth living for an infant. Public attitudes towards treatment withdrawal and the role of parents in situations of disagreement have not previously been assessed.

Methods: An online survey was conducted with a sample of the UK public to assess public views about the benefit of life in hypothetical cases similar to real cases heard by the UK courts (eg, Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans). We then evaluated these public views in comparison with existing ethical frameworks for decision-making.

Results: One hundred and thirty participants completed the survey. The majority (94%) agreed that an infant’s life may have no benefit when well-being falls below a critical level. Decisions to withdraw treatment were positively associated with the importance of use of medical resources, the infant’s ability to have emotional relationships, and mental abilities. Up to 50% of participants in each case believed it was permissible to either continue or withdraw treatment.

Conclusion: Despite the controversy, our findings indicate that in the most severe cases, most people agree that life is not worth living for a profoundly disabled infant. Our survey found wide acceptance of at least the permissibility of withdrawal of treatment across a range of cases, though also a reluctance to overrule parents’ decisions. These findings may be useful when constructing guidelines for clinical practice.

Should you save the more useful? The effect of generality on moral judgments about rescue and indirect effects Forthcoming in Cognition

by Stefan Schubert and Lucius Caviola

Cognition

Across eight experiments (N = 2,310), we studied whether people would prioritize rescuing individ... more Across eight experiments (N = 2,310), we studied whether people would prioritize rescuing individuals who may be thought to contribute more to society. We found that participants were generally dismissive of general rules that prioritize more socially beneficial individuals, such as doctors instead of unemployed people. By contrast, participants were more supportive of one-off decisions to save the life of a more socially beneficial individual, even when such cases were the same as those covered by the rule. This generality effect occurred robustly even when controlling for various factors. It occurred when the decision-maker was the same in both cases, when the pairs of people differing in the extent of their indirect social utility was varied, when the scenarios were varied, when the participant samples came from different countries, and when the general rule only covered cases that are exactly the same as the situation described in the one-off condition. The effect occurred even when the general rule was introduced via a concrete precedent case. Participants’ tendency to be more supportive of the one-off proposal than the general rule was significantly reduced when they evaluated the two proposals jointly as opposed to separately. Finally, the effect also occurred in sacrificial moral dilemmas, suggesting it is a more general phenomenon in certain moral contexts. We discuss possible explanations of the effect, including concerns about negative consequences of the rule and a deontological aversion against making difficult trade-off decisions unless they are absolutely necessary.

Utilitarianism for animals, Kantianism for people? Harming animals and humans for the greater good

by Guy Kahane and Lucius Caviola

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Most people hold that it is wrong to sacrifice some humans to save a greater number of humans. Do... more Most people hold that it is wrong to sacrifice some humans to save a greater number of humans. Do people also think that it is wrong to sacrifice some animals to save a greater number of animals, or do they answer such questions about harm to animals by engaging in a utilitarian cost-benefit calculation? Across 10 studies (N = 4,662), using hypothetical and real-life sacrificial moral dilemmas, we found that participants considered it more permissible to harm a few animals to save a greater number of animals than to harm a few humans to save a greater number of humans. This was explained by a reduced general aversion to harm animals compared to humans, which was partly driven by participants perceiving animals to suffer less and to have lower cognitive capacity than humans. However, the effect persisted even in cases where animals were described as having greater suffering capacity and greater cognitive capacity than some humans, and even when participants felt more socially connected to animals than to humans. The reduced aversion to harming animals was thus also partly due to speciesism—the tendency to ascribe lower moral value to animals due to their species-membership alone. In sum, our studies show that deontological constraints against instrumental harm are not absolute but get weaker the less people morally value the respective entity. These constraints are strongest for humans, followed by dogs, chimpanzees, pigs, and finally inanimate objects.

Children prioritize humans over animals less than adults do

by Guy Kahane, Matti Wilks, and Lucius Caviola

Psychological Science

Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two ... more Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two pre-registered studies (N = 622), 5- to 9-year-old children and adults were presented with moral dilemmas pitting varying numbers of humans against varying numbers of either dogs or pigs and were asked who should be saved. In both studies, children had a weaker tendency to prioritize humans over animals than adults. They often chose to save multiple dogs over one human, and many valued the life of a dog as much as the life of a human. While they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized ten pigs over one human. By contrast, almost all adults chose to save one human over even one hundred dogs or pigs. Our findings suggest that the common view that humans are far more morally important than animals appears late in development and is likely socially acquired.

Donors vastly underestimate differences in charities' effectiveness

by Lucius Caviola, Stefan Schubert, David Moss, and Spencer Greenberg

Judgment and Decision Making, 2020

Some charities are much more cost-effective than other charities, which means that they can save ... more Some charities are much more cost-effective than other charities, which means that they can save many more lives with the same amount of money. Yet most donations do not go to the most effective charities. Why is that? We hypothesized that part of the reason is that people underestimate how much more effective the most effective charities are compared with the average charity. Thus, they do not know how much more good they could do if they donated to the most effective charities. We studied this hypothesis using samples of the general population, students, experts, and effective altruists in five studies. We found that lay people estimated that among charities helping the global poor, the most effective charities are 1.5 times more effective than the average charity (Studies 1 and 2). Effective altruists, in contrast, estimated the difference to be factor 30 (Study 3) and experts estimated the factor to be 100 (Study 4). We found that participants donated more to the most effective charity, and less to an average charity, when informed about the large difference in cost-effectiveness (Study 5). In conclusion, misconceptions about the difference in effectiveness between charities is thus likely one reason, among many, why people donate ineffectively.

The many obstacles to effective giving

by Lucius Caviola, Stefan Schubert, and Jason Nemirow

Judgment and Decision Making, 2020

When people donate, they rarely give to the charities that do the most good per dollar. Why is th... more When people donate, they rarely give to the charities that do the most good per dollar. Why is this? One possibility is that they do not know how to give effectively. Another possibility is that they are not motivated to do so. Across six tasks (Studies 1a, 1b), we found support for both explanations. Among lay donors, we observed multiple misconceptions-regarding disaster relief, overhead costs, donation splitting, and the relative effectiveness of local and foreign charities-that reduced the effectiveness of their giving. Similarly, we found that they were unfamiliar with the most effective charities (Studies 2a, 2b). Debunking these misconceptions and informing people about effectiveness boosted effective donations; however, a portion of lay donors continued to give ineffectively to satisfy their personal preferences. By contrast, a sample of self-identified effective altruists gave effectively across all tasks. They exhibited none of the misconceptions that we observed among lay donors and overwhelmingly favored the most effective option in their choice set (Study 3). Taken together, our studies imply that donors need to be both informed and motivated to give effectively on a consistent basis.

Doing good by doing nothing? The role of social norms in explaining default effects in altruistic contexts

by Lucius Caviola and Guy Kahane

The Psychology of Existential Risk: Moral Judgments about Human Extinction

by Lucius Caviola and Stefan Schubert

Scientific Reports 9, 15100, 2019

The 21st century will likely see growing risks of human extinction, but currently, relatively sma... more The 21st century will likely see growing risks of human extinction, but currently, relatively small resources are invested in reducing such existential risks. Using three samples (UK general public, US general public, and UK students; total N = 2,507), we study how laypeople reason about human extinction. We find that people think that human extinction needs to be prevented. Strikingly, however, they do not think that an extinction catastrophe would be uniquely bad relative to near-extinction catastrophes, which allow for recovery. More people find extinction uniquely bad when (a) asked to consider the extinction of an animal species rather than humans, (b) asked to consider a case where human extinction is associated with less direct harm, and (c) they are explicitly prompted to consider long-term consequences of the catastrophes. We conclude that an important reason why people do not find extinction uniquely bad is that they focus on the immediate death and suffering that the catastrophes cause for fellow humans, rather than on the long-term consequences. Finally, we find that (d) laypeople—in line with prominent philosophical arguments—think that the quality of the future is relevant: they do find extinction uniquely bad when this means forgoing a utopian future.

Cognitive Biases Can Affect Moral Intuitions About Cognitive Enhancement

by Adriano Mannino and Lucius Caviola

Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of ... more Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement (CE) and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making.

The evaluability bias in charitable giving: Saving administration costs or saving lives?

We describe the “evaluability bias”: the tendency to weight the importance of an attribute in pro... more We describe the “evaluability bias”: the tendency to weight the importance of an attribute in proportion to its ease of evaluation. We propose that the evaluability bias influences decision making in the context of charitable giving: people tend to have a strong preference for charities with low overhead ratios (lower administrative expenses) but not for charities with high cost-effectiveness (greater number of saved lives per dollar), because the former attribute is easier to evaluate than the latter. In line with this hypothesis, we report the results of four studies showing that, when presented with a
single charity, people are willing to donate more to a charity with low overhead ratio, regardless of cost-effectiveness. However, when people are presented with two charities simultaneously—thereby enabling comparative evaluation—they base their donation behavior on cost-effectiveness (Study 1). This suggests that people primarily value cost-effectiveness but manifest the evaluability bias in cases where they find it difficult to evaluate. However, people seem also to value a low overhead ratio for its own sake (Study 2). The evaluability bias effect applies to charities of different domains (Study 3). We also show that overhead ratio is easier to evaluate when its presentation format is a ratio, suggesting an inherent reference point that allows meaningful interpretation (Study 4).

Pills or Push-Ups? Effectiveness and Public Perception of Pharmacological and Non-Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement

We review work on the effectiveness of different forms of cognitive enhancement, both pharmacolog... more We review work on the effectiveness of different forms of cognitive enhancement, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological. We consider caffeine, methylphenidate, and modafinil for pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) and computer training, physical exercise, and sleep for non-pharmacological cognitive enhancement (NPCE). We find that all of the techniques described can produce significant beneficial effects on cognitive performance. However, effect sizes are moderate, and consistently dependent on individual and situational factors as well as the cognitive domain in question. Although meta-analyses allowing a quantitative comparison of effectiveness across techniques are lacking to date, we can conclude that PCE is not more effective than NPCE. We discuss the physiological reasons for this limited effectiveness. We then propose that even though their actual effectiveness seems similar, in the general public PCE is perceived as fundamentally different from NPCE, in terms of effectiveness, but also in terms of acceptability. We illustrate the potential consequences such a misperception of PCE can have.

Attitudes toward pharmacological cognitive enhancement—a review

A primary means for the augmentation of cognitive brain functions is “pharmacological cognitive e... more A primary means for the augmentation of cognitive brain functions is “pharmacological cognitive enhancement” (PCE). The term usually refers to the off-label use of medical substances to improve mental performance in healthy individuals. With the final aim to advance the normative debate taking place on that topic, several empirical studies have been conducted to assess the attitudes toward PCE in the public, i.e., in groups outside of the academic debate. In this review, we provide an overview of the 40 empirical studies published so far, reporting both their methodology and results. Overall, we find that several concerns about the use of PCE are prevalent in the public. These concerns largely match those discussed in the normative academic debate. We present our findings structured around the three most common concerns: medical safety, coercion, and fairness. Fairness is divided into three subthemes: equality of opportunity, honesty, and authenticity. Attitudes regarding some concerns are coherent across studies (e.g., coercion), whereas for others we find mixed results (e.g., authenticity). Moreover, we find differences in how specific groups—such as users, nonusers, students, parents, and health care providers—perceive PCE: a coherent finding is that nonusers display more concerns regarding medical safety and fairness than users. We discuss potential psychological explanations for these differences.

Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement

Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of ... more Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement (CE) and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making.

Moral hypocrisy in economic games—how prosocial behavior is shaped by social expectations

Experimental research in behavioral economics has revealed a high degree of prosocial tendencies ... more Experimental research in behavioral economics has revealed a high degree of prosocial tendencies in human interactions. These results have been interpreted as suggesting a necessary shift from a model of selfish preferences toward social preferences—the assumption that people intrinsically are concerned about others' well-being (e.g., Fehr and Schmidt, 1999; Bolton and Ockenfels, 2000). In this article, we first introduce research on prosocial behavior from an economics perspective. We then review several studies that invalidate this social preferences hypothesis by demonstrating that prosocial behavior is reduced when behavior is not observable by relevant others and expectations to behave prosocially are lowered. We argue that people primarily pursue self-interest as long as they can retain the appearance of being fair to others and even themselves—an interpretation referred to as moral hypocrisy (Batson, 2011). Further, we highlight implications for research of this assumption.

How stress influences our morality

All of us are stressed every now and then. There are phenomena we usually associate with stress, ... more All of us are stressed every now and then. There are phenomena we usually associate with stress, like health risks and feelings like fear, panic, or insecurity. But stress might also have effects we normally don’t think of; recent studies suggest it can dramatically influence our decision-making in a number of—perhaps unexpected—ways. This becomes particularly relevant in the moral context: people who are put under stress behave more compassionately in some situations, yet the opposite can be true in other situations. Why is this and what does this tell us about our morality? Maybe the comedian Tim Allen was right, when he said: “You don't know what people are really like until they’re under a lot of stress.”

Beyond sacrificial harm: a two-dimensional model of utilitarian psychology

by Guy Kahane, Brian D. Earp, and Lucius Caviola

Psychological Review, 2018

Recent research has relied on trolley-type sacrificial moral dilemmas to study utilitarian versus... more Recent research has relied on trolley-type sacrificial moral dilemmas to study utilitarian versus nonutili- tarian modes of moral decision-making. This research has generated important insights into people’s attitudes toward instrumental harm—that is, the sacrifice of an individual to save a greater number. But this approach also has serious limitations. Most notably, it ignores the positive, altruistic core of utilitarianism, which is characterized by impartial concern for the well-being of everyone, whether near or far. Here, we develop, refine, and validate a new scale—the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale—to dissociate individual differences in the ‘negative’ (permissive attitude toward instrumental harm) and ‘positive’ (impartial concern for the greater good) dimensions of utilitarian thinking as manifested in the general population. We show that these are two independent dimensions of proto-utilitarian tendencies in the lay population, each exhibiting a distinct psychological profile. Empathic concern, identification with the whole of humanity, and concern for future generations were positively associated with impartial beneficence but negatively associated with instrumental harm; and although instrumental harm was associated with subclinical psychopathy, impartial beneficence was associated with higher religiosity. Importantly, although these two dimensions were independent in the lay population, they were closely associated in a sample of moral philosophers. Acknowledging this dissociation between the instrumental harm and impartial beneficence components of utilitarian thinking in ordinary people can clarify existing debates about the nature of moral psychology and its relation to moral philosophy as well as generate fruitful avenues for further research.

How do we get people to donate more to charity? An overview of reviews

by Peter Slattery, Michael Noetel, Joannie Lee, Thomas Houlden, Lucius Caviola, Romy Gelber, and Luke Spajic