“UNCWednesday” speaker focuses on moral judgements

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A UNCW professor took a deeper look into moral judgements Wednesday night. The event was part of the “UNCWednesday” series put on by the College of Arts and Sciences.

Psychology Professor Dale Cohen gave students, staff and the public an opportunity to learn about his theory on moral judgments and how they are made.

A moral judgement is a decision that involves the principals of right or wrong.

“Well we make moral judgements all the time. So for example, choosing to eat meat or not could be a moral judgement for people,” Cohen said.

Professor Cohen has a theory for what people decide to do and why.

“And so my theory basically says that you’re going to choose to save or you’re going to make a decision that is best for yourself. And my theory makes those explicit predictions and it will be able to tell you how long it takes you to make those decisions. And the probability of a response choice,” Cohen said.

Usually people look at making a moral judgement one of two ways emotional, or logical. However, Professor Cohen argues you can decide with both and some students agree.

“You always hear that you know you have an emotional response or a more logical response. So to think that we two logical responses and either one could be in play at that time I think is giving it a different look on something we’ve heard all of our lives,” UNCW Senior, Madison Parker said.

Professor Cohen even tackled a relevant topic terrorism and one student says when Cohen did a case study he found his subjects made an interesting choice.

“He did a rabid possum over a terrorist. And we were more likely, like 80% more likely to choose the rabid possum over the terrorist. I think that just shows just kinda like personally where people put their value on things,” Parker said.

It is a theory he uses with help from a mathematical model to predict what people are going to do and when.

“Especially for parents. We make moral judgements constantly. Right. We’re trying to teach our kids right from wrong. And so we have to know ourselves. Right from wrong. Figure out how we’re going to convey that information. So they’re going to be able to do those things,” Cohen said.

Professor Cohen says the purpose of his speech was to connect with the community and hopefully give people a new perspective of moral judgements.

This event was the second part of the “UNCWednesday” series.