Moral judgment often requires making difficult tradeoffs (e.g., is it appropriate to torture to save the lives of innocents at risk?). Previous research suggests that both emotional appraisals and more deliberative utilitarian appraisals influence such judgments and that these appraisals often conflict. However, it is unclear how these different types of appraisals are represented in the brain,...

Is it permissible to harm one to save many? Classic moral dilemmas are often defined by the conflict between a putatively rational response to maximize aggregate welfare (i.e., the utilitarian judgment) and an emotional aversion to harm (i.e., the non-utilitarian judgment). Here, we address two questions. First, what specific aspect of emotional responding is relevant for these judgments? Secon...

In this paper we re-examine the axiomatic basis of the key result on weighted utilitarian representation of preference orders on finite utility streams. We show that a preference order satisfying the axioms of Minimal Individual Symmetry, Invariance and Strong Pareto need not have a representation, and thus in particular a weighted utilitarian representation. The example establishing this resul...

It is generally recognized that online shopping has both utilitarian as well as hedonic components. The primary focus of this investigation is to examine task framing (either utilitarian or hedonic) and length of viewing time (unlimited or 5 s) as conditions that influence user website perceptions and viewing behavior. Whether a task is framed as either hedonic or utilitarian received limited s...

 Arguments for and against the legal prohibition of drugs are surveyed. Various kinds of argument are identified and analysed: arguments against prohibition from a moral right to personal liberty; utilitarian and contractualist arguments for a right to personal liberty; arguments for prohibition from liberty-limiting principles (the harm principle, legal paternalism, legal moralism, Kan...

Ex ante evaluations of transport policy options (including infrastructure plans) are generally based on cost-benefit analyses (CBA). Accessibility changes are included in such analyses indirectly, via a utilitarian perspective. But accessibility is broader than is assumed by this perspective and also incorporates equity and related distribution effects as well as social exclusion. This paper ai...