Department of Psychology, Harvard University Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Cogn Sci. 2011 Aug;35(6):1052-75. doi: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01167.x. Epub 2011 Jan 31.
Ordinary people often make moral judgments that are consistent with philosophical principles and legal distinctions. For example, they judge killing as worse than letting die, and harm caused as a necessary means to a greater good as worse than harm caused as a side-effect (Cushman, Young, & Hauser, 2006). Are these patterns of judgment produced by mechanisms specific to the moral domain, or do they derive from other psychological domains? We show that the action/omission and means/side-effect distinctions affect nonmoral representations and provide evidence that their role in moral judgment is mediated by these nonmoral psychological representations. Specifically, the action/omission distinction affects moral judgment primarily via causal attribution, while the means/side-effect distinction affects moral judgment via intentional attribution. We suggest that many of the specific patterns evident in our moral judgments in fact derive from nonmoral psychological mechanisms, and especially from the processes of causal and intentional attribution.
普通人经常做出与哲学原则和法律区别一致的道德判断。例如，他们认为杀人比放任死亡更糟糕，将造成更大利益所必需的伤害比作为副作用造成的伤害更糟糕（Cushman、Young 和 Hauser，2006）。这些判断模式是由特定于道德领域的机制产生的，还是源自其他心理领域？我们表明，行为/不作为和手段/副作用的区别会影响非道德的表现，并提供证据表明，它们在道德判断中的作用是通过这些非道德的心理表现来调节的。具体来说，行为/不作为的区别主要通过因果归因来影响道德判断，而手段/副作用的区别则通过意向归因来影响道德判断。我们认为，我们道德判断中明显的许多具体模式实际上源自非道德的心理机制，特别是源自因果和意向归因的过程。
