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Running head: Calculation and Moral Rules The Costs and Benefits of Calculation and Moral Rules Will M. Bennis* and Douglas L. Medin Northwestern University, Department of Psychology Daniel M. Bartels University of Chicago, Center for Decision Research Authors’ note: We thank Scott Atran, Gerd Gigerenzer, Rumen Iliev, Sonya Sachdeva, and Carmen Tanner for comments on this paper. This research was supported by NSF grant SES 0527396 and AFOSR grant FA9550-05-1-0321 (MIT) subaward 5710001864 to Northwestern University. * Corresponding author Will M. Bennis, Northwestern University, Department of Psychology 2029 Sheridan Road, Swift Hall 102, Evanston, IL 60208, USA Telephone: (847) 467-6513; Fax: (847) 491-7859; Email: wbennis@ Abstract There has been a recent upsurge of research on moral judgment and decision making. One important issue with this body of work concerns the relative advantages of calculating costs and benefits versus adhering to moral rules. The general tenor of recent research suggests that (i) adherence to moral rules is associated with systematic biases, and (ii) systematic cost-benefit analysis is a normatively superior decision strategy. The current paper queries both the merits of cost-benefit analyses and the shortcomings of moral rules. We argue that outside the very narrow domain where consequences can be unambiguously anticipated, it is not at all clear that calculation processes optimize outcomes. In addition, there are good reasons to believe that following moral rules can lead to superior consequences in certain contexts. More generally, different modes of decision making can be seen as adaptations to particular environments. The Costs and Benefits of Calculation and Moral Rules Introduction This paper focuses on two of decision science’s normative commitments. The first is that decisions should be assessed by how good or bad the expected outcome is given the decision maker’s goals. Nearly all decision science conforms to