4 The Creativity of Everyday Moral Reasoning Empathy, Disgust, and Moral Persuasion David A. Pizarro, Brian Detweiler-Bedell, and Paul Bloom At first glance, morality has nothing in common with creativity. It has long been clear to many philosophers that moral judgment (at least the right kind of moral judgment) is achieved through the careful and consistent application of moral principles. This approach is grounded in a school of thought that has long dominated the study of ethics – one that sees reason as the only proper foundation for moral judgment. In the 20th century, this tradition deeply influenced the study of moral judgment within psychol- ogy. The most influential theories of moral development in children, for instance, saw the development of moral judgment as being largely contin- gent upon the development of cognitive skills – as the quality of reasoning improves, so does the quality of moral judgment. If one holds an exclusively reason-based view of moral judgment, then creativity applies to moral judgment as much as it does to simple arith- metic – not at all. This is because creativity is not rule based, but rule breaking. Creativity is about flexibility and innovation. Creative think- ing demonstrates fluency, flexibility, and originality (Torrance, 1959). It is a type of problem solving characterized by its use of novel solutions (Newell, Simon, & Shaw, 1958). If moral reasoning entails the strict application of rules, creativity has nothing to do with it. So why then would a volume devoted to creativity and reasoning include a contribution on moral reasoning? The answer is plain – mount- ing evidence suggests that an exclusively reason-based view of moral judg- ment is wrong as a psychological theory. Not because people do not reason at all when they make moral judgments (they most likely reason a great deal; Pizarro & Bloom, 2003), but because other processes are at work as well. There is evidence that everyday moral judgment is a much less rigid, more emotional, and more flexible process than previously described (for reviews, see Haidt, 2001; Pizarro, 2000). As such, there is much more room for creativity in everyday moral judgment than most psychological theories of morality have assumed. 81 82 David A. Pizarro, Brian Detweiler-Bedell, and Paul Bloom In this revised view of moral judgment, we borrow a key insight from Haidt (2001), who argues that making moral judgments is an inherently interpersonal process. In contrast to the characterization of the moral agent as a lone individual forced to arrive at his or her own moral views through private reflection, the portrayal here is of an interdependent individual who is constantly modifying his or her views through interactions with oth- ers. Whether through private conversations, group discussions, or expo- sure to unidirectional sources of communication (e.g., listening to a sermon, reading a magazine, or watching the news), moral ideas are often spread through social communication. This insight connects our understanding of moral judgment to processes that have been extensively documented in the social psychological research on attitudes, persuasion, and group influence. It follows from this perspective that the people who are most influential in the day-to-day shaping and molding of moral judgment, the “guardians of the moral order,” might not be the judges, philosophers, and ethicists who are in the business of reasoning about morality. Rather, morality’s true guardians might be found among the ranks of the creative; individuals who are talented at making us see things in novel ways. So although ethical treatises may influence policy, and reasoned Supreme Court decisions may legalize or punish particular behaviors, it is creative communication that influences the everyday morality of individuals. the moral circle Nobody feels guilty about kicking a rock for the simple pleasure of doing so, but doing the same thing to a child is universally forbidden. What’s the difference? Somewhere between rocks and children, moral codes across all cultures draw a boundary line – there exists what the philosopher Peter Singer has characterized as “a moral circle” that distinguishes things that are worthy of moral concern from those that are not (Singer, 1981; see also Bloom, 2004; Pizarro, 2000). Such a distinction is necessary for the application of moral rules. It speci- fies, for instance, who and what counts as an “other” in the rule not to harm innocent others. Admittedly, the notion of a moral circle is an oversimpli- fication. For one thing, moral concern is a graded matter. Many people would view the wanton destruction of a fetus or bunny as an immoral act, worse than tearing up a sheet of paper, but few would see it as akin to the murder of a 4-year-old. Also, there is likely to be more than one moral circle – the circle of beings that one should not kill is different than the circle of beings that one is morally obligated to protect and provide for (which includes one’s children, but usually not strangers), and this is different from the circle of beings that are themselves viewed as moral agents (which excludes babies and most animals). Still, the notion of a