Moral flexibility without mutual benefits: From change to disagreement.

Publication date: Jun 25, 2026

Resource-rational contractualism claims that moral flexibility leads to mutually beneficial agreements through renegotiation when new situations arise. We challenge this view using COVID-19 evidence, where moral change leads to persistent disagreement rather than consensus. We demonstrate that three psychological factors – social identity, confirmation bias, and emotional responses – systematically prevent convergence, revealing limitations in the resource-rational contractualism model.

Semantics

Original Article