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Abstract

There is an ongoing philosophical debate on the role that uncertainty about normative questions should play in moral decision-making. This debate has been ignited by the surge of moral uncertaintism, which describes philosophers' attempts to identify guidelines and heuristics for making better choices in the face of such uncertainty. From a psychological perspective, surprisingly little has been said about the uncertainty that people experience in complex moral cases. In this dissertation, I studied to what extent moral psychology might benefit from recent advancements in the moral uncertaintism literature. In particular, I tested the compatibility between moral uncertaintist and lay views regarding (1) the existence of moral uncertainty due to normative questions, (2) the metaethical interpretation of such normative uncertainty, and (3) normative uncertainty’s relevance for moral decision-making. Findings from the first manuscript confirmed the existence of two psychological dimensions that closely track the distinction between empirical and normative uncertainty that is upheld in the philosophical literature. In the second manuscript, discrepancies in the metaethical underpinnings of normative uncertainty between moral uncertaintist and lay concepts became apparent. Finally, the third manuscript revealed that moral ignorance, as the limiting case of normative uncertainty, was not perceived as exculpatory by lay people, which casts doubt on whether lay people think that normative uncertainty should be considered in moral decision-making. I discuss the implications of these findings for the empirical study of uncertainty in moral judgments and decisions. All in all, this work lays the foundation for a philosophically-informed psychology of moral uncertainty.