The second line of psychological research comes from moral foundations theory and shares some
features with cultural cognition. Intuitive ethics includes both cognitive-dissonance avoidance and affect in its premise that ‘‘human beings come equipped with. . .an innate preparedness to feel flashes of approval or disapproval toward certain patterns of events involving other human beings’’ (Haidt & Joseph, 2004, p. 56). In short, the ethical worldviews individuals hold cause them to feel affective impulses toward moral stimuli, and they are rarely aware of these fluences on their decision
making (Haidt, 2001). This means when individuals
experience an event or person that runs counter to
(or aligns with) their moral principles, they will
automatically–—and largely unconsciously–—feel negatively (or positively) about that event or person.
While these fast mental processes are typically advantageous in a world of incalculable decisions, they
can also run amuck if followed heedlessly, because
these heuristicsleave individuals susceptible to moral blind spots (Sunstein, 2005). These moral blind
spots, inherent in the incompleteness of each worldview, can in turn have significant, detrimental impacts on risk assessment and mitigation, as will be explained.