People rationally allocate pain and pleasure by target moral sensitivity.

Evidence

In this experiment, we tested whether people would recompense the actions of a morally outstanding agent, ironically, by robbing the agent of pleasure and giving the agent pain. … It was predicted that targets would be assigned pills on the basis of their perceived sensitivity to pain and pleasure (i.e., their moral patiency). If this is the case, then patients, who are the most sensitive, should be allocated the most pleasure and the least pain. Moral agents, who are the least sensitive, should receive the most pain and the least pleasure, though bad moral agents would likely receive more pain and less pleasure than good moral agents. Neutral targets (whose agency and patiency are average or unknown) should be between agents and patients. If this hypothesis is borne out and people choose to harm an exemplary moral agent (e.g., Mother Theresa) over an average person (e.g., a bank teller), it would seem to show that virtue is its own punishment and that the suffering of those who do good is substantially discounted. Perhaps good moral agents are harmed not despite their good deeds but because of them. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 137

Categorization

• XREF: This pill-allocation paradigm maps directly onto the reader’s search for a template: recategorizing a target changes the perceived moral status that drives downstream allocation of punishment/reward. — connects to: Moral patiency rests on a target’s perceived capacity for pain and pleasure. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 14; Casting someone as a moral agent reduces perceived sensitivity to pain — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 88; A moral versus nonmoral context shifts who is seen as vulnerable to pain. — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 100 (+4 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting: Divergent…, 137

Broader Connections

• Perceived moral agency predicts expected behavioral tolerance of pain #expands (0.88) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 75
• Judgments of pain sensitivity reveal a target’s perceived moral patient status #corroborates (0.85)
• Moral typecasting overrides self-presentational reluctance to inflict pain #expands (0.80) — Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, Moral Typecasting, 144
• Modern hostility targets pain that exceeds a rational conception of the human #qualifies (0.75) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 607