On the wrong track: Process and content in moral psychology

Abstract: According to Joshua Greene’s influential dual process model of moral judgment, different modes of processing are associated with distinct moral outputs: automatic processing with deontological judgment, and controlled processing with utilitarian judgment. This article aims to clarify and assess Greene’s model. I argue that the proposed tie between process and content is based on a misinterpretation of the evidence, and that the supposed evidence for controlled processing in utilitarian judgment is actually likely to reflect, not ‘utilitarian reasoning’, but a form of moral deliberation which, ironically, is actually in serious tension with a utilitarian outlook. This alternative account is further supported by the results of a neuroimaging study showing that intuitive and counterintuitive judgments have similar neural correlates whether or not their content is utilitarian or deontological. The recent psychology of morality has a familiar narrative arc. Until the turn of the century, most philosophers and psychologists had assumed that moral judgment is based in reason. But then striking new evidence from psychology and neuroscience turned this traditional picture on its head. It turns out—so the story goes—tha