Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The idea that morality depends on God is an intuitive and widely held lay belief. Does this belief affect peoples intuitionsabout foundational moral claims (e.g., it ismorally wrong to kill someone just for fun)? Here, we discuss data acrossmultiple studies which investigate how considering Gods omnipotence may affect peoplesintuitions about basic moralclaims. Our evidence suggests that people think it is impossible to alter foundational moral truthsthat is, it is impossiblefor moral wrongs to ever be right and for moral rights to be wrong. Yet, people also maintain thatGodcould changethetruth-values of these same propositions, regardless of their own religious views. We discuss the implications of thisinconsistency both in peoples moral beliefs and in underlying cognitive mechanisms.