Mere contemplation of sacred trade-offs produces opposite moral reactions for taboo versus tragic cases

Evidence

This last distinction is, however, worth examining because evidence suggests that the ‘mere-contemplation’ effect takes opposite functional forms for taboo and tragic trade-offs. In one experiment, Tetlock et al. asked people to judge a hospital administrator who had to chose either between saving the life of one boy or another boy (a tragic trade-off), or between saving the life of a boy and saving the hospital $1 million (a taboo trade-off). — Philip E. Tetlock, Thinking the unthinkable, 24

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim that tragic (sacred vs sacred) trade-offs produce the OPPOSITE functional form of the mere-contemplation effect is intriguing — would pursuit of this caveat show that only taboo-tradeoff contemplation, not tragic, drives outrage and rigid thought?
• XREF: connects to: Sacred values engage deontic rule processing, not utilitarian cost-benefit calculation — Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges, Sacred Values and Cultural Conflict, 89; Sacred values resist cost-benefit correction unlike ordinary preferences — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor: Unconditional…, 4; Masking sacred-value trade-offs in moral rhetoric sharply raises acceptance of them. — Philip E. Tetlock, Thinking the unthinkable: sacred values…, 35 (+4 more)

Related

• Merely lingering over a taboo trade-off provokes moral outrage independent of the choice made. (similarity 0.89)
• Merely contemplating trade-offs on sacred values provokes moral outrage beyond cognitive confusion (similarity 0.87)
• Witnessing an uncondemned taboo trade-off triggers compensatory moral cleansing in observers. (similarity 0.84)
• Masking sacred-value trade-offs in moral rhetoric sharply raises acceptance of them. (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Witnessing an uncondemned taboo trade-off triggers compensatory moral cleansing in observers. #expands (0.85) — Philip E. Tetlock, Thinking the unthinkable, 26
• Attachment to the in-group and glorification predict opposite reactions to one’s group’s moral violations. #expands (0.75) — Sonia Roccas and Yechiel Klar and Ido Liviatan, The Paradox of Group-Based Guilt, 2