Questions for Fiery Cushman's Talk on "Cognitive Foundations of Contractualist Morality"

[xqrue-49]

Questions for Fiery Cushman's Talk on "Cognitive Foundations of Contractualist Morality"

Abstract
Among scientific theories that attempt to explain the function of morality, a common theme is that morality helps people with disparate interests find mutually beneficial arrangements—the kinds of agreements that they would agree to in negotiation. The same theme arises in contractualist philosophical theories of morality. If these theories are right, what cognitive mechanisms help guide our moral judgments towards mutually beneficial agreements? After all, we cannot literally sit down and bargain over every moral norm. I will present our recent research on several cognitively efficient mechanisms that approximate the outcome of actual idealized bargaining, and that inform our moral judgments.

Reading List

• Resource-rational contractualism: A triple theory of moral cognition

[dario-marino]

I am interested in how these contracts can lead to different morality coexisting, is it because they were stuck in a low trust/high trust equilibrium?

[yangshuting0525]

I like the idea of morality as a shortcut for bargaining we can’t actually do. But I’m curious, how sensitive these shortcuts are to background conditions (like trust, power, or information), and whether they can stabilize moral norms that are locally functional but not necessarily fair or globally optimal. Thank you.

[zan1029]

This is my first time reading a paper that is primarily a theoretical, unifying framework rather than a data-driven study. I’m wondering whether the mechanisms proposed here can be tested empirically？ Specifically, how could we distinguish virtual bargaining from outcome tradeoffs or rule application in data, experiments, or simulations? Are there one or two sharp predictions or a minimal manipulation that would produce observable, quantifiable differences or switching across these modes?

[Mengyang-Cao]

How sensitive are virtual bargains to changes in trust, power, or information, and when should moral norms update versus remain stable?

[Lezy01]

Thanks for sharing. My question is in cases of extreme power asymmetry or absent stakeholders, how does resource-rational contractualism distinguish legitimate agreement from unjust rationalization?

[skbyrne]

How does resource-rational contractualism handle cases where people misjudge others’ preferences or willingness to agree, and what are the implications of these biased inferences for moral norms?

[JesperChen123]

If morality works as a shortcut for ideal bargaining, what makes some moral rules change quickly when conditions change, while others stay stable even when trust, power, or information clearly shifts?

[ZW-PaulWang]

For virtual bargaining in particular, how should one operationalize the set of relevant parties and their outside options in cases where consent is unavailable or ambiguous, and how sensitive are the theory’s predictions to those modeling choices?

[psymichaelzhu]

Interesting idea, glad to see the application of resource-bounded rationality theory in moral cognition.
from a social and historical context, I'm curious whether it should be expected that in larger-scale societies people would be more inclined towards those less effortful practices—Model-free agreement & action standards.

[PENGRUISU]

I find the idea of morality as a shortcut for otherwise infeasible bargaining compelling. However, I am curious about how sensitive these shortcuts are to background conditions such as trust, power asymmetries, and information. In particular, can they stabilize moral norms that are locally functional but not necessarily fair or globally optimal?

[tingruiray]

To what extent can the proposed “cognitively efficient mechanisms” truly approximate idealized bargaining under non-ideal conditions, such as power asymmetries, incomplete information, social hierarchies, and cultural moral frameworks?

[RebeccaUir]

I’m interested in the idea that moral judgments approximate ideal bargaining via resource-rational heuristics! I’d love to hear more about when strategies like virtual bargaining or we-reasoning are empirically observed to guide judgments, rather than intuitive or affective processes.

[gabereichman]

Your model posits that we shift from cached action standards to virtual bargaining when the stakes are high enough to justify the cognitive cost. However, how does the model account for the temporal accumulation of dissonance? If an individual’s private beliefs consistently conflicts with the moral consensus over a long period, does the 'benefit' of re-evaluation accumulate, or does the cost calculation reset for every small decision, locking the individual into a heuristic they privately reject?

[bkehoechicago]

In your paper you consider people's "Moral flexibility", or circumstances under which people's morality can change over time. You claim that changes in morality are a result of renegotiation when the benefits to switching to a different system outweigh the benefits of sticking to the current one.

But how can you prove that a change in morality is due to such a renegotiation? Like, with the case in a change of "religious morality" such as the great awakening in the US, who is benefiting and how do you quantify the benefit?

[AnnieZzz01]

Thank you for sharing. You argue that our moral rules are shortcuts for finding mutually beneficial agreements—so we don’t have to negotiate everything from scratch. But sometimes, our moral instincts feel really rigid. Even when a situation seems to call for renegotiation, we hold onto rules that might not make sense anymore. Why do some moral rules seem so sticky? Are there specific psychological or social barriers that keep them from being updated—even when bargaining logic says they should be?