Some Challenges for Research on Emotion and Moral Judgment: The Moral Foreign-Language Effect as a Case Study

• Authors: McFarlane Steven , Cipolletti Perez Heather

Abstracts

EN

In this article, we discuss a number of challenges with the empirical study of emotion and its relation to moral judgment. We examine a case study involving the moral foreign-language effect, according to which people show an increased utilitarian response tendency in moral dilemmas when using their non-native language. One important proposed explanation for this effect is that using one’s non-native language reduces emotional arousal, and that reduced emotion is responsible for this tendency. We offer reasons to think that there is insufficient evidence for accepting this explanation at present. We argue that there are three themes that constrain our current ability to draw firm empirical conclusions: 1) the frequent use of proxies or partial measures for emotions, 2) the lack of a predictive and generalizable theory of emotion and specific emotion-types, and 3) the obscurity of a baseline level of neutrality with respect to participant emotion. These lessons apply not only to research on the moral foreign-language effect, but to empirical research in moral psychology more generally.

Keywords

EN

moral judgment; moral psychology; emotion; foreign-language effect; FLE; moral foreign-language effect; MFLE

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii - Uniwersytet Jagielloński
• Journal: Diametros
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 64
• Pages: 56-71

Dates

published

2020-05

Contributors

author

McFarlane Steven

• University of Minnesota, Morris

author

Cipolletti Perez Heather

• Broward College

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Identifiers

DOI

10.33392/diam.1476

ISSN

ISSN 1733-5566