Even if we know all relevant descriptive facts about an act, we can still be uncertain about its moral acceptability. Most literature on how to act under such normative uncertainty operates on moral realism, the metaethical view that there are objective moral facts. Lay people largely report anti-realist intuitions, which poses the question of how these intuitions affect their interpretation and handling of normative uncertainty. Results from two quasi-experimental studies (total N = 365) revealed that most people did not interpret (...) normative uncertainty as referring to objective moral facts but rather as uncertainty regarding one’s own view, uncertainty regarding the culturally accepted view or as the result of ambivalence. Especially the anti-realist majority of participants interpreted normative uncertainty different to how it is described in the literature on choice under normative uncertainty. Metaethical views were also associated with lay peoples’ choice of uncertainty reduction strategies and with assumptions about the intended aim of such strategies. The current findings suggest that empirical investigations of normative uncertainty might benefit from considering folk metaethical pluralism, as the lay public largely disagrees with the metaethical assumptions underlying the current discourse on choice under normative uncertainty. (shrink)

People can be uncertain in their moral judgments. Philosophers have argued that such uncertainty can either refer to the underlying empirical facts (empirical uncertainty) or to the normative evaluation of these facts itself (normative uncertainty). Psychological investigations of this distinction, however, are rare. In this paper, we combined factor-analytical and experimental approaches to show that empirical and normative uncertainty describe two related but different psychological states. In Study 1, we asked N = 265 participants to describe a case of moral (...) uncertainty and to rate different aspects of their uncertainty about this case. Across this wide range of moral scenarios, our items loaded onto three reliable factors: lack of information, unclear consequences, and normative uncertainty. In Study 2, we confirmed this factor structure using predefined stimulus material. N = 402 participants each rated eight scenarios that systematically varied in their degree of uncertainty regarding the consequences of the described actions and in the value conflict that was inherent to them. The empirical uncertainty factors were mainly affected by the introduction of uncertainty regarding consequences, and the normative uncertainty factor was mainly affected by the introduction of value conflict. Our studies provide evidence that the distinction between empirical and normative uncertainty accurately describes a psychological reality. We discuss the relevance of our findings for research on moral judgments and decision-making, and folk metaethics. (shrink)

The current study introduces the Multi-Motive Grid Mobility in an age-stratified sample that aims to disentangle six motive components – hope of success, hope of affiliation, hope of power, fear of failure, fear of rejection, and fear of power – in mobility-related and mobility-unrelated scenarios. Similar to the classical Multi-Motive Grid, we selected 14 picture scenarios representing seven mobility and seven non-mobility situations. The scenarios were combined with 12 statements from the MMG. Both the MMG-M and MMG were assessed to (...) allow comparability between psychometric criteria. The results of confirmatory factor analyses yielded a good model fit for a six-factor solution with an additional mobility factor for the MMG-M. Internal consistency of the items was similar to the MMG. Lastly, we investigated associations between the motive components and mobility-related variables. We found that risk awareness was positively related to all fear components in both mobility and non-mobility scenarios. Most importantly, physical constraint was positively associated with fear of rejection and fear of power in mobility situations underlining the importance to create support systems to reduce these concerns in people’s everyday lives. (shrink)