St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • Philosophical, Anthropological & Film Studies (School of)
  • Philosophy
  • Philosophy Theses
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • Philosophical, Anthropological & Film Studies (School of)
  • Philosophy
  • Philosophy Theses
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • Philosophical, Anthropological & Film Studies (School of)
  • Philosophy
  • Philosophy Theses
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Moral decision-making : essays from philosophy and economics

View/Open
Moral Decision-Making - Essays from Philosophy and Economics .docx (17.26Mb)
Moral Decision-Making - Essays from Philosophy and Economics .pdf (9.627Mb)
Moral Decision-Making - Essays from Philosophy and Economics [Embargoed].docx (83.11Kb)
Moral Decision-Making - Essays from Philosophy and Economics [Embargoed].pdf (301.0Kb)
Date
12/06/2023
Author
Schönegger, Philipp
Supervisor
Pummer, Theron
Costa-Gomes, Miguel
Funder
Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research
Center for Effective Altruism (CEA)
Giving What We Can (GWWC)
Keywords
Judgement and decision-making
Experimental philosophy
Experimental economics
Behavioural economics
Social and personality psychology
Charitable giving
Dark triad
Reflective equilibrium
Incentivisation
Metadata
Show full item record
Altmetrics Handle Statistics
Altmetrics DOI Statistics
Abstract
This thesis investigates moral decision-making from the two disciplinary angles of philosophy and economics. Moral decision-making includes moral judgements (e.g., judgements as to the moral (im-)permissibility of actions) and moral behaviour (e.g., charitable giving). The topic choice throughout this thesis was primarily motivated by global priorities research, ranging from population ethics to effective charitable giving. The first three chapter primarily focus on experimental philosophy. In them, I (a) investigate the relationship between the dark triad personality traits, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism and anti-natalist views, finding that those high on dark triad traits are significantly more likely to endorse anti-natalist views. I also find that this relationship is mediated by depression. Then, I (b) study reflective equilibrium behaviour in the context of population ethics, finding that in accordance with theory, concrete case judgements play a revisionary role with respect to endorsements of general moral principles. Further, I (c) argue that research in psychology and experimental philosophy has not adequately dealt with the issue of incentivisation. I then go on to conduct an empirical showcase of the Bayesian Truth Serum in this context, demonstrating impacts on response behaviour. The last three chapters focus on experimental economics. I (d) analyse charitable giving behaviour under normative uncertainty and show that randomly allocated expert advice is undervalued by donors, though can impact donation behaviour and reduce uncertainty. Then, I (e) investigate the effect of morally demanding charitable solicitations on donor behaviour, finding that while moral arguments raise donations, increases of moral demandingness do not. Lastly, I (f) analyse the predictors of donating to probabilistic and ambiguous charities as opposed to more reliable ones, failing to find an impact of risk and ambiguity uncertainty. Overall, I hope that the work presented in this thesis is able to advance global priorities research into these topics.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/238
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Rights
Embargo Date: 2027-11-25
Embargo Reason: Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Restricted until 25th November 2027
Collections
  • Philosophy Theses
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/26584

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter