Moral Decision Making: How the Normative and Empirical can Inform our Prescriptive Accounts

Abstract

If Aristotle was right in claiming that the aim of moral philosophy is to help us determine how we ought to live, then part of the aim of moral philosophy must be to help us improve our prescriptive accounts of moral decision making--our accounts of how we should make moral decisions. In my dissertation I examine implications of empirical research in cognitive science, social psychology, and decision theory for issues in moral decision making. I argue that empirical evidence suggests that principled guidance is in fact beneficial for decision making, which calls into question particularist prescriptive accounts. I also argue that contrary to the prevailing view, research suggests that taking a first-person perspective when making judgments about what we ought to do might actually help us make better moral judgments. Additionally, I argue that jurors will be more likely to make fairer and more accurate judgments by taking the perspective of the defendant than by trying to maintain a detached and 'objective' point of view.