The pioneering psychologists in the area of moral psychology were Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg (Monin, Beer & Pizarro 2007). Piaget conceptualized morality in terms of cognitive development and thought children progress naturally through stages of moral development. This belief led him to conclude that adults should simply step aside and allow children to develop morally. Kohlberg extended Piaget`s work and paved the road for most subsequent research. He agreed with Piaget`s stages of moral development and believed that the progression through these stages led to enhanced social knowledge. Kohlberg held that reason prevailed in moral judgments. Piaget and Kohlberg’s theories of moral development were expanded on by Immanuel Kant and David Hume. Kant’s emphasis on reason agreed with research done by Piaget and Kohlberg. However, Hume’s emphasis on emotion is more influential to modern moral reasoning theories. According to Monin, Beer, and Pizarro (2007) the philosopher Immanuel Kant was on the reason side of the debate whereas David Hume, held that reasoning was guided by emotions. Studies consistent with Hume’s view, hold that emotion guides moral judgment in the form of quick, affect laden intuitions. They concluded that it is best to examine moral dilemmas and the interaction between emotion and reason in moral decision making.Haidt (2008) examined this historical debate and formed a new perspective in moral psychology. He explained that people have evolutionary structures that allow them to experience emotional reactions to moral issues. These emotional reactions form the foundation for intuitions about right and wrong. Haidt notes that increasing interest in the emotional side of the debate has led to a multitude of research linking empathy to moral decision making. This model suggests that moral judgment is a rapid intuitive process. People reach a conscious decision but are not consciously aware of the process through which they reach that decision. Haidt explains that people reach an initial intuition and use the moral reasoning process to find support for that decision. Cushman, Young, and Hauser (2006) examined the interaction between intuition and conscious reasoning in moral decision making. Their research examined the three principles that guide moral judgment; the action principle, the intention principle, and the contact principle. The subject rated action as worse than omission, intention as worse than harm as a side effect, and contact as worse than no physical contact. They concluded that the extent to which conscious reasoning or intuition play a more dominant role is dependent on the moral principle being triggered. Empathy and Moral Reasoning Hogan (1969) (as cited by Caruso & Mayer, 1998) defined empathy as the “intellectual or imaginative apprehension of another’s condition or state of mind without actually experiencing that person’s feelings.” In more recent research empathy has been seen as a multi-dimensional construct, leading to the development of a multilevel scale to measure emotional empathy. Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, and Birch (1981) conducted research to show whether or not empathetic emotion was a source of altruistic motivation. Altruistic motivation suggests that the person is being selfless in their efforts to help, whereas egoistic motivation suggests that one has something to benefit or gain from helping another. The researchers manipulated the subjects by instructing them to observe a young woman receiving electrical shocks. The researchers found that the subjects who were intentionally manipulated to feel empathy were more likely to take the young woman’s place; this finding was consistent with the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce and Neuberg (1997) examined the empathy-altruism theory which suggests that empathetic concerns for another results in selflessness and true altruism. The goal of the study was to test their theory that oneness, the ability to perceive more of one’s self in another, is the cause for more helping behavior and that it is not because individuals may feel an empathetic concern for one another. There were six different expectations tested. One expectation was that as relationship closeness intensified so would empathetic concern, another stated that feelings of oneness would increase as the relationship closeness intensified. The third expectation was that empathetic concern would predict the level of helping, also tested was the extent that one’s feelings of oneness would predict the level of helping. Empathetic concern would remain predictive of helping after the influence of the egoistic factors of personal distress and sadness were removed. The final expectation tested was that empathetic concern would no longer be predictive of helping after the influence of oneness was extracted but that oneness would be significantly predictive when empathetic concern was taken out. In each given study, as relationship closeness increased so did empathetic concern. Empathetic concern also predicted willingness to help and remained predictive after egoistic factors were removed. Other research has shown how combinations of emotions such as sympathy, empathy, altruism and other emotions affect one’s decision making in regards to helping behaviors. Loewenstein and Small (2007) focused on a model in which they deemed the “tin man and the scarecrow.” In this model, the tin man is the deliberative side of humans and can be viewed as humans’ rational but uncaring side. The scarecrow is viewed as being caring but immature and irrational. Loewenstein and Small (2007) explain how the model works by showing that a stimulus will either provoke a tin man reaction (deliberation) or a scarecrow reaction (sympathetic) and result in a person’s decision to either provide aid or not to provide aid to another. They point out that one can work without the other and decisions to provide aid can be made without sympathy, however the two emotions work better as a system. Emotional and Cognitive Factors and Moral Reasoning

Moral judgments have recently been discovered to be mediated by two classes of brain processes that compete for a final decision in regards to a type of dilemma that requires personal moral violation to uphold a practical principle. The emotional process is thought to have developed first and consists of automatic responses based on the emotion being felt and not of ethical considerations. A second, more rational process, highlighted by abstract reasoning and control competes with emotions to provide a utilitarian outcome (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2006). Depending on the context of the dilemma, these two systems can either work together or battle against each other until one “wins.” Valdesolo and DeSteno (2006) found that heightened positive affect and longer decision times independently increased the odds of selecting the utilitarian response to a moral dilemma. Batson, Klein, Highberger, and Shaw (1995) studied this moral dilemma by looking at how empathy-induced altruism affected immoral decision making. Empathy-induced altruism is the emotional process that can either work with, or compete against rational/moral decision making. The researchers found that inducing empathy caused participants to forsake the moral principle of justice to benefit the person for whom they felt empathy. Empathetic feelings can be detrimental and interfere with life and death decisions, or it can work with moral motivation and serve to induce feelings of empathy that are needed to make the right moral decision. Dilemma content and personal cognitions are another important factor in the outcomes of moral reasoning. Waldmann and Deiterich (2007) considered different types of dilemmas to determine what makes a decision acceptable or unacceptable. Killing someone in a hospital so that more may live is considered by most to be immoral. Diverting a train that will save five by killing one, however, is seen as reasonable. In each instance, the goal is to minimize the number of casualties and both dilemmas result in at least one person dying. The only difference in the dilemmas is whether there is direct contact with the victim who will ultimately die. Results confirmed that people are more in favor of solutions that do not include direct harm; even when it comes to saving lives. The tendency for people to follow the principle of the least harm can be affected by social affiliations and feelings of in-group versus out-group relationships. Just as most people would help family over a stranger, people are more likely to help strangers who are similar to themselves rather than those who are different. Indick (2003) explored social affiliations and found that participants who were in a “friends” scenario were less likely to report the negative behaviors of the character than were the participants who were in a lower affiliation. Brain scans confirmed that groups of people stereotyped as low competent and low warmth, such as the homeless or drug addicts, elicited no response from the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), but showed increased reactions in the amygdala and insula (consistent with disgust). The results indicated that the brain reacted to this group in the same way it would have for a non-social cognition—the people seen as the lowest of the low were not even comprehend by the brain as being human. The purpose of the current study was to examine how different emotional states would affect the outcome of a moral dilemma. It was hypothesized that a strong negative emotional state would induce a non-utilitarian emotional response, especially in individuals with high levels of empathy.