Moral Choice When Harming Is Unavoidable

Moral Choice When Harming Is Unavoidable. Jonathan Z. Berman, Daniella Kupor. Psychological Science,  September 8, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620948821

Abstract: Past research suggests that actors often seek to minimize harm at the cost of maximizing social welfare. However, this prior research has confounded a desire to minimize the negative impact caused by one’s actions (harm aversion) with a desire to avoid causing any harm whatsoever (harm avoidance). Across six studies (N = 2,152), we demonstrate that these two motives are distinct. When decision-makers can completely avoid committing a harmful act, they strongly prefer to do so. However, harming cannot always be avoided. Often, decision-makers must choose between committing less harm for less benefit and committing more harm for more benefit. In these cases, harm aversion diminishes substantially, and decision-makers become increasingly willing to commit greater harm to obtain greater benefits. Thus, value trade-offs that decision-makers refuse to accept when it is possible to completely avoid committing harm can suddenly become desirable when some harm must be committed.

Keywords: moral choice, value trade-offs, harm aversion, harm avoidance, protected values, open data, open materials, preregistered

General Discussion

Across six studies, we demonstrated that the preference to avoid inflicting any harm not only is distinct from but also outweighs the preference to minimize its impact. Our results suggest that the manner in which individuals bracket instances of harm affects their willingness to commit harm (cf. Read, Loewenstein, Rabin, Keren, & Laibson, 1999). For instance, individuals may be more reluctant to commit a second violation a month after a first violation than they would be if the second violation occurred just moments after the first. This is because the two harmful actions may be more likely to be bracketed together in the latter case and may thus be perceived as an unavoidable-harm context.

Although we focused our examination on decisions impacting social welfare, similar outcomes may occur for decisions that are exclusively self-relevant. For instance, research suggests that individuals are particularly averse to holding debt if they do not need to be in debt but prefer to take on more debt to maintain their assets if holding debt is unavoidable (Sussman & Shafir, 2012).

Finally, in Study 4, we found that even when greater harm produced diminishing marginal benefits, individuals were still more willing to commit greater harm than when it was possible to commit no harm. However, there is likely a threshold for which committing more harm is no longer perceived as worthwhile. Future research can investigate factors that affect this threshold.

In sum, we found that decision-makers who can completely avoid committing a harmful act frequently choose to do so. However, when committing some harm is unavoidable, decision-makers become increasingly willing to trade off greater harm for greater benefits.