Risky choice framing effects, doing vs. allowing harm, and fairness in uncertain prospects

In popular interpretations, risky choice framing effects are taken to reveal human irrationality. Even authors who argue that frames can sometimes highlight the reason-giving aspects of an outcome often treat the standard pattern of choices in canonical experiments, such as the Asian Disease Problem (ADP), as irrational. This paper proposes a new approach to studying risky choice framing effects, including those observed in the ADP, by interpreting them in terms of reasons: such effects occur when different frames highlight distinct reason-giving aspects of a situation and thereby shape how decision-makers represent and evaluate the available options, which in turn leads to systematic differences in choice. This reason-based approach has significant implications for debates about the apparent irrationality of choices in risky choice framing effects and about the supposed equivalence of the ADP options. It suggests that framing may influence not only how outcomes are valued, but also which considerations are taken to be relevant to the decision. Our central claim is that responsiveness to such reasons can, in some cases, be rational. To assess this proposal, we report a new experimental study examining the extent to which non-consequentialist moral reasons related to the doing/allowing distinction and fairness can explain choices in "sacrificial dilemmas" such as the ADP. Our findings suggest that participants' choices are sensitive to these considerations, supporting the view that framing effects in moral contexts cannot be fully explained by standard outcome-based models.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11229-026-05701-y.