Moral framing effects within subjects

Abstract

Several philosophers and psychologists have argued that evidence of moral framing effects shows that many of our moral judgments are unreliable. However, all previous empirical work on moral framing effects has used between-subject experimental designs. We argue that between-subject designs alone do not allow us to accurately estimate the extent of moral framing effects or to properly evaluate the case from framing effects against the reliability of our moral judgments. To do better, we report results of our new within-subject study on four types of moral framing effects, and we discuss the implications of our findings for the relia­bility of moral judgments. Overall, our results strengthen the evidence from moral framing effects against the reliability of some of our moral judgments.