Moral Preferences, Moral Constraints, and Self-Serving Biases

Matthew Rabin

No 95-241, Economics Working Papers from University of California at Berkeley

Abstract: Economists have formally modeled moral dispositions by directly incorporating into utility analysis concern for the well-being of others. But sometimes moral dispositions are not preferences, as connoted by utility analysis, but rather are ingrained as (internal) constraints. I present a model fleshing out this distinction: If moral dispositions are internal constraints on a person's real goal of pursuing her self-interest, she will be keen to self-servingly gather, avoid, and interpret relevant evidence, for the purpose of relaxing this constraint and pursuing her self interest. This gives rise to self-serving biases in moral reasoning. I show that this alternative model has some implications different from a standard utility model. Specifically, because a person seeks to avoid information that interferes with her self interest, the scope for social influence in moral conduct is greater than it is in the conventional model. Outside parties can improve a person's moral conduct by a) forcing her to receive certain information, b) discouraging her from (selectively) thinking about other information, or c) encouraging her to think through moral principles before she knows where her self interest lies.

Date: 1995-08-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: Moral Preferences, Moral Constraints, and Self-Serving Biases (1995)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucb:calbwp:95-241

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IBER, F502 Haas Building, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720-1922

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Papers from University of California at Berkeley University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().