ABSTRACT

In moral dilemmas, decision-making can be based on more utilitarian or deontological reasoning. In two experimental studies, we manipulated the number of people to be sacrificed (1 to save 5 vs. 3 to save 5) and whether personalizing information about them was presented. Results provide the first evidence of how the effects of kill-save ratios and identifiability of the potential victims are contingent on one another. Specifically, this research shows that when individuating information about the potential victims is present in a trolley dilemma, participants are more reluctant to sacrifice three persons to save five than to sacrifice one person to save five. When such individuating information is not present, the acceptability of sacrificing the victims does not depend on their number.

摘要

在道德困境中，决策可以基于功利主义或道义论的推理。在两项实验研究中，我们操纵了要牺牲的人数（1可以节省5个人，而3可以节省5个人）以及是否提供有关他们的个性化信息。结果提供了第一个证据，说明杀伤率和潜在受害者的可识别性是如何相互依赖的。具体而言，这项研究表明，当手推车困境中存在有关潜在受害者的个别信息时，与牺牲一个人保存五个人相比，参与者更不愿意牺牲三个人保存五个人。当不存在此类个别信息时，牺牲受害者的可接受性并不取决于受害者的人数。