Department of Psychology, University of Trieste, Italy.
Dev Sci. 2010 Mar;13(2):265-70. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00851.x.
In three experiments involving 207 preschoolers and 28 adults, we investigated the extent to which young children base moral judgments of actions aimed to protect others on utilitarian principles. When asked to judge the rightness of intervening to hurt one person in order to save five others, the large majority of children aged 3 to 5 years advocated intervention in contrast to another situation with the reverse cost/benefit ratio. This course of action was seen as acceptable by most children only when it did not require the agent to have physical contact with the victim and the victim's harm was intended to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. Overall, the children's responses were remarkably similar to those reported in adult studies. These findings document the extent to which some constraints on moral judgment are present in early human development.
在三个涉及 207 名学龄前儿童和 28 名成年人的实验中，我们研究了幼儿在多大程度上基于功利原则对旨在保护他人的行为进行道德判断。当被要求判断为了拯救五个人而伤害一个人是否正确时，大多数 3 至 5 岁的儿童支持干预，而不是另一种成本/收益比相反的情况。大多数儿童只在代理人不需要与受害者有身体接触并且受害者的伤害旨在为大多数人带来最大利益时，才认为这种行动是可以接受的。总的来说，孩子们的反应与成人研究报告的反应非常相似。这些发现证明了一些道德判断的限制在人类早期发展中是存在的。
