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Abstract
Many people insist that their commitments to certain values (e.g. love, honor, justice)
are absolute and inviolable - in effect, sacred. They treat the mere thought of trading
off sacred values against secular ones (such as money) as transparently outrageous
- in effect, taboo. Economists insist, however, that in a world of scarce resources,
taboo trade-offs are unavoidable. Research shows that, although people do respond
with moral outrage to taboo trade-offs, they often acquiesce when secular violations
of sacred values are rhetorically reframed as routine or tragic trade-offs. The results
reveal the peculiar character of moral boundaries on what is thinkable, alternately
punitively rigid and forgivingly flexible.