The usefulness of uselessness

The usefulness of uselessness

Researchers recently looked at how our moral judgments affect our perceptions of COVID risk. They found that people judge how risky an activity is based on what they deem to be moral or immoral behavior. …  “The effect in our paper is small, but congruent with previous work,” said co-author Cailin O’Connor [associate professor of logic & philosophy of science]. “Possible implications for public health messaging: 1) risk messaging should track real risk, not morality, and 2) risk messaging should (maybe) focus on morally good activities like going to church or protests.” Read more about their research here.