No Moral Truth in the Mind: Moral Judgments Do Not Tap Cognitive Processes That Are Involved in Assessing Truth-Value

Abstract

A central debate in philosophy deals with the question whether a person who is making a moral judgment is stating a fact. Related research in moral psychology suggests that individuals often subjectively perceive some moral statements and beliefs as objective facts. Here, we ask whether moral judgments and truth judgments rely on the same cognitive processes. In six studies (total N = 4,340), we tested whether repetition of a statement, which is known to increase perceived truth of a statement, has equivalent effects on moral judgments. This would suggest similarity in cognitive processes underlying moral judgments and truth judgments. We replicated recent findings showing that repetition decreases perceived moral wrongness of moral transgressions. In line with previous research, we also found that repetition increased perceived truth of the same statements. Yet, repetition decreased moral wrongness much less than it increased truth. This observation suggests that moral judgments do not rely on the same cognitive processes as truth judgments. Contrary to some philosophical accounts and the subjective beliefs of individuals, our findings suggest that moral judgments, by their cognitive nature, are not statements about facts.