Moral Reasoning in Language Models

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3 papers in the last four weeks, down 50% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

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Machine Behavior in Relational Moral Dilemmas: Moral Rightness, Predicted Human Behavior, and Model Decisions
Apr 23, 2026Jiseon Kim, Jea Kwon, Luiz Felipe Vecchietti +3Moral Reasoning in Language Models Human Behavior Simulation
1KAIST · 2MPI-SP
Do Emotions Influence Moral Judgment in Large Language Models?
Apr 21, 2026Mohammad Saim, Tianyu JiangLLM Evaluation Moral Reasoning in Language Models
University of Cincinnati
Six Llamas: Comparative Religious Ethics Through LoRA-Adapted Language Models
Apr 20, 2026Chad Coleman, W. Russell Neuman, Manan Shah +5Moral Reasoning in Language Models Cultural Bias in Language Models
Do LLMs Hold Their Values? MANTA: A Multi-Turn Adversarial Benchmark for Animal Welfare Reasoning
Apr 18, 2026Isabella Luong, Joyee Chen, Arturs Kanepajs +5LLM Evaluation Moral Reasoning in Language Models
SPAR · Compassion Aligned Machine Learning · NUS +2
Jailbreaking Large Language Models with Morality Attacks
Apr 18, 2026Ying Su, Mingen Zheng, Weili Diao +1Moral Reasoning in Language Models Language Model Safety Evaluation
South China University of Technology1 · HKUST2 · Beihang University3
On the Context Sensitivity of LLM Moral Judgment
Mar 24, 2026Adrian Sauter, Mona SchirmerMoral Reasoning in Language Models Moral Reasoning
Helmholtz Munich · University of Amsterdam
How Utilitarian Are OpenAI's Models Really? Replicating and Reinterpreting Pfeffer, Krügel, and Uhl (2025)
Mar 24, 2026Johannes HimmelreichPrompt Sensitivity Moral Reasoning in Language Models
Understanding Moral Reasoning Trajectories in Large Language Models: Toward Probing-Based Explainability
Mar 16, 2026Fan Huang, Haewoon Kwak, Jisun AnMoral Reasoning in Language Models LLM Interpretability
Indiana University Bloomington / United States
CoMMET: A Psychologically Grounded Benchmark for Evaluating Theory of Mind in Multimodal LLMs
Mar 12, 2026Ruirui Chen, Weifeng Jiang, Chengwei Qin +3Moral Reasoning in Language Models Theory of Mind
Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) and 2Centre for Frontier AI Research (CFAR), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore · Nanyang Technological University, Singapore · Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), China
Framing Instability in LLM Ethical Stance: Auditing Negation Sensitivity in Moral Dilemmas
Jan 29, 2026Katherine Elkins, Jon ChunMoral Reasoning in Language Models LLM Auditing
Kenyon College Gambier, OH
Untangling Input Language from Reasoning Language: A Diagnostic Framework for Cross-Lingual Moral Alignment in LLMs
Jan 15, 2026Nan Li, Bo Kang, Tijl De BieMultilingual Language Model Evaluation LLM Alignment
IDLab, Department of Electronics and Information Systems Ghent University, Belgium
Interaction Protocol Shapes Moral Judgment in Multi-Agent Debate
Oct 11, 2025Pratik S. Sachdeva, Tom van NuenenLLM Alignment Moral Reasoning in Language Models
D-Lab, University of California, Berkeley
One Model, Many Morals: Uncovering Cross-Linguistic Misalignments in Computational Moral Reasoning
Sep 25, 2025Sualeha Farid, Jayden Lin, Zean Chen +2Multilingual Language Model Evaluation Moral Reasoning in Language Models
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

Apr 23, 2026, cs.CLJ/K move · Enter open · S save

Machine Behavior in Relational Moral Dilemmas: Moral Rightness, Predicted Human Behavior, and Model Decisions

Jiseon Kim, Jea Kwon, Luiz Felipe Vecchietti, Wenchao Dong+2

1KAIST · 2MPI-SP

Moral Reasoning in Language Models Human Behavior Simulation LLM Decision-Making Moral Reasoning

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Human moral judgment is context-dependent and modulated by interpersonal relationships. As large language models (LLMs) increasingly function as decision-support systems, determining whether they encode these social nuances is critical. We characterize machine behavior using the Whistleblower's Dilemma by varying two experimental dimensions: crime severity and relational closeness. Our study evaluates three distinct perspectives: (1) moral rightness (prescriptive norms), (2) predicted human behavior (descriptive social expectations), and (3) autonomous model decision-making. By analyzing the reasoning processes, we identify a clear cross-perspective divergence: while moral rightness remains consistently fairness-oriented, predicted human behavior shifts significantly toward loyalty as relational closeness increases. Crucially, model decisions align with moral rightness judgments rather than their own behavioral predictions. This inconsistency suggests that LLM decision-making prioritizes rigid, prescriptive rules over the social sensitivity present in their internal world-modeling, which poses a gap that may lead to significant misalignments in real-world deployments.

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