Can the theory of conceptual spaces developed by Peter Gärdenfors (2000, 2014) and others be applied to moral issues? Martin Peterson (2017) argues that several moral principles can be construed as regions in a shared similarity space, but Kristin Shrader-Frechette (2017) and Gert-Jan Lokhorst (2018) question Peterson’s claim. They argue that the moral similarity judgments used to construct the space are underspecified and subjective. In this paper, we present new data indicating that moral principles can indeed be construed as regions in a multidimensional conceptual space on the basis of moral similarity judgments. Four hundred and seventy-five students taking a course in engineering ethics completed a survey in which they were presented with ten cases (moral choice situations) featuring ethical issues related to technology and engineering. Participants were asked to judge the moral similarity of each pair of cases (45 comparisons) and to select which moral principle (from a list of five alternatives plus a sixth option: “none of the principle listed here”) they believed should be applied for resolving the case. We used interval multidimensional scaling (MDS) as well as individual differences scaling (INDSCAL) for analyzing the moral similarity judgments. Despite noteworthy individual variations in the judgments, the five moral principles included in the study were discernable in the aggregate multidimensional spaces, even for participants with no previous exposure to the principles. Participants tended to apply the same moral principles to cases rated as morally similar. Our overall conclusion is that moral similarity judgments, and their representation in multidimensional spaces, can help us identify moral principles that are relevant for assessing difficult moral choice situations.

彼得·加登佛斯（PeterGärdenfors，2000，2014）等人提出的概念空间理论是否可以应用于道德问题？马丁·彼得森（Martin Peterson，2017）认为，可以将若干道德原则解释为共享相似空间中的区域，但克里斯汀·施拉德·弗雷切特（Kristin Shrader-Frechette，2017）和格特·简·洛赫斯特（Gert-Jan Lokhorst，2018）对彼得森的主张提出了质疑。他们认为，用于构造该空间的道德相似性判断是不够明确和主观的。在本文中，我们提出了新的数据，表明道德原则的确可以根据道德相似性判断被解释为多维概念空间中的区域。475名修读工程伦理学课程的学生完成了一项调查，向他们展示了10个案例（道德选择情况），这些案例的特点是与技术和工程有关的道德问题。他们认为不应将此处列出的任何原则都用于解决此案。）我们使用区间多维标度（MDS）以及个体差异标度（INDSCAL）来分析道德相似性判断。尽管判断中存在明显的个体差异，但即使对于以前没有接触过这些原则的参与者，研究中包含的五项道德原则在总体多维空间中也是可辨别的。参与者倾向于将相同的道德原则应用于被评定为道德相似的案件。我们的总体结论是，道德相似性判断及其在多维空间中的表示形式可以帮助我们确定与评估困难的道德选择情况相关的道德原则。