There is an ongoing debate among psychologists regarding the psychological factors underlying moral judgments. Rationalists argue that informational assumptions (i.e. ideological beliefs about how the world works) play a causal role in shaping moral judgments whereas intuitionists argue that informational assumptions are post hoc justifications for judgments made automatically by innate intuitions. In order to compare these two perspectives, the author conducted two studies in which informational assumptions related to ingroups and outgroups varied across conditions. In Study 1, political conservatives and liberals completed the moral relevance questionnaire while imagining they were in the US, Iran, or no specific country. Keeping in line with the predictions of the intuitionist perspective, the results showed that the judgments of conservatives and liberals did not significantly differ across conditions. Study 2 used a more in depth manipulation in which participants read a vignette about a government (US, Iran, or the fictional country of Kasbara) violating the rights of a minority group. As in Study 1, the results support the intuitionist perspective--the judgments of conservatives and liberals did not significantly differ across conditions. These findings play a small part in clarifying the role of informational assumptions in moral judgments.

Dale Jamieson defende em seu livro Ética & meio ambiente: uma introdução a possibilidade de uma relação ética com o ambiente, e discute situações do cotidiano em que a ação individual importa para alterar o status quo, sendo uma dessas questões o uso de animais para consumo. Aliado a esse contexto, a participação da pecuária no desmatamento e degradação ambiental no Brasil torna relevante estudar como pessoas recebem e processam informações sobre o consumo de carne, bem como seus juízos sobre o assunto. Com base na Teoria dos Domínios Sociais, a pesquisa alia as necessidades do cenário socioambiental atual à necessidade de estudos sobre julgamentos de situações complexas com os objetivos de: 1) investigar quais os fatores e os pressupostos informacionais envolvidos na escolha dietética dos brasileiros, e 2) investigar se os julgamentos sobre consumo de carne de vegetarianos brasileiros estão mais focados em justificativas morais quando comparados aos julgamentos sobre consumo de carne de onívoros brasileiros. O delineamento do estudo é exploratório descritivo. Os dados foram levantados por meio de um survey de divulgação online, e a análise foi feita utilizando a análise de conteúdo de Bardin, com base na Teoria dos Domínios Sociais, e utilizando técnicas de estatística descritiva. Participaram da pesquisa 657 brasileiros, com média de idade de 28,5 anos, maioria feminina e residente do estado de São Paulo / Coordinated and collective actions, ranging from national to individual levels, will be necessary to adapt to climate changes. Dale Jamieson defends in his book Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction an ethical relationship with the environment and discusses daily individual actions that matter to change the status quo, and one of these actions is the use of animals for consumption. The cattle raisings significant share in Brazils deforestation and environmental degradation in that context makes it needed to study how people receive and process information involving meat consumption, as well as their judgment about this issue. Using the Social Domain Theory, the present research joins todays pressing social and environmental needs with the absence of studies about peoples judgments in complex situations. The study is exploratory and descriptive in nature, and used an online survey as instrument, with the purpose of 1) to investigate which factors and informational assumptions are involved in Brazilians dietary choices, and 2) to investigate if Brazilian vegetarians judgments are more focused in moral justifications than Brazilian omnivores judgment about meat consumption. Data analysis used Bardins Content Analysis based on Social Domain Theory and descriptive statistics. There were 657 respondents, with mean age of 28,5 years, mostly females and residents in the state of São Paulo