Ethics

Ethics is a philosophical area of study ranging from exploring the nature of morality, identifying what makes right actions right and wrong actions wrong, characterizing virtues, and weighing in on applied issues such as capital punishment and abortion. In this chapter, we present evidence that personality can predict some judgments across a range of ethical pursuits. Openness to experience predicts those who are likely to make moral objectivist judgments (i.e., that some actions are right or wrong regardless of what one thinks). Emotional stability predicts those who are likely to attribute virtues to others. Conscientiousness predicts preferences for overall less safe products (e.g., vaccines or cars) when there was no chance that the product itself would cause injuries or death. We go on to discuss the implications of empirical results for normative projects like ethics and conclude that empirical results are relevant for normative projects. This chapter represents the last extended discussion of the empirical data linking personality traits to philosophically relevant judgments.