However, explicit moral reasoning is also required when moral judgments must be explained to others. Stanley and colleagues examined whether subsequent reasoning would influence an individual's own moral judgments. These results suggest that moral decisions are resistant to revision because people engage in biased, motivated evaluation of the available reasons to affirm their initial affective reaction. These results held across moral dilemmas that were extreme and sacrificial (e.g., killing a crying baby to prevent detection by enemy soldiers) and commonplace (e.g., keeping incorrect extra change), and did not depend on whether the reasons presented were novel to participants or whether there was a longer delay (one day) between the initial and final decision. Overall, few participants changed their initial decision, and they rated reasons supporting their initial decision more highly than those supporting the alternative decision. Finally, they were again asked to make a decision on the same moral dilemma. Next, participants were presented with reasons affirming or opposing their original choice, or reasons for both options, and asked to rate how compelling each reason was. In their study, Stanley and colleagues (2018, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General) had participants make an initial decision in a moral dilemma. However, it remains unclear whether subsequent reasoning can lead people to change their initial decision. Moral judgments and decisions are often driven by automatic, affective responses, rather than explicit reasoning. For instance, one could argue that it is okay to kill one person if it would save five, because more people would be saved, but killing itself is immoral. Moral dilemmas are challenging because there are often good reasons for and against both choices.
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