Moral Outrage and Opposition to Harm Reduction

Details

Author(s):
  • Robert MacCoun
Publish Date:
May 13, 2012
Publication Title:
7 Criminal Law & Philosophy 83
Format:
Journal Article
Citation(s):
  • Robert J. MacCoun, Moral Outrage and Opposition to Harm Reduction, 7 Criminal Law & Philosophy 83 (2013).

Abstract

Three public opinion studies examined public attitudes toward prevalence reduction (PR; reducing the number of people engaging in an activity) and harm reduction (HR; reducing the harm associated with an activity) across a wide variety of domains. Studies 1 and 2 were telephone surveys of California adults’ views on PR and HR strategies for a wide range of risk domains (heroin, alcoholism, tobacco, skateboarding, teen sex, illegal immigration, air pollution, and fast food). ‘‘Moral outrage’’ items (immoral, disgusting, irresponsible, dangerous) predicted preference for PR over HR, with disgust the most important predictor. In contrast, preferences were not predicted by whether the risk behavior was common, no one else’s business, or harmless. Study 3 explored whether there are domains where liberals might reject HR. A sample of liberal students preferred HR[PR for heroin, but PR[HR for ritual female circumcision; path analysis suggested that this reversal was explained by moral outrage rather than consequentialist judgments of harm to self and harm to others.