Cooperation, rules, and motivations. Essays on morality in decision-making, economics, and institutional evolution.

The thesis discusses the role of morality in decision-making, economic theory, and institutional evolution. Moral motivations are interpreted as frames for social preferences and norms. Deliberation and moral discussion are described as interactive cognitive processes that ground the formation of moral motivations and the collective acknowledgement of institutions. Besides the introductory chapter, which highlights the possibility of an ex ante theory of moral motivations, the thesis is organized in three chapters. The first chapter illustrates the role of deliberation and discussion in other-regarding and pro-social decisions. The second chapter aims at complementing Searle’s social ontology with a conception of the formation of institutions, based on the hypothesis of interactive intentionality. The third chapter is an experiment on the effects of ethics deliberation and discussion on risking on others.