> There are studies on people who function on reasoning alone, and they are, unsurprisingly not very good at moral decisions > Besides, there's a lot of eviden

> There are studies on people who function on reasoning alone, and they are, unsurprisingly not very good at moral decisions > Besides, there's a lot of evidence now that our "reasoning", especially on moral matters, is more often than not, a post hoc justification of our emotional instinct. Can you give an example of these studies? I’m interested in how they assign a qualifier of “good” or “bad” to various moral decisions. Are subjects not consistent in their moral decisions, or do their decisions disagree with the moral priors of the researchers? How do the researchers establish that their moral decisions are correct? That’s the essence of ethics itself. Unless these studies are exceptionally careful in their setup, I think it’s probable they’re begging the question implicitly. A more reserved conclusion might be that people with less empathy, in the aggregate, consistently make moral decisions which are different from those who have more empathy. But I think this conclusion might be kind of vacuous to anyone who has read a philosophy book or two on ethics.