Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario, Canada.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2013 Feb;104(2):216-35. doi: 10.1037/a0031021. Epub 2012 Dec 31.
Dual-process theories of moral judgment suggest that responses to moral dilemmas are guided by two moral principles: the principle of deontology states that the morality of an action depends on the intrinsic nature of the action (e.g., harming others is wrong regardless of its consequences); the principle of utilitarianism implies that the morality of an action is determined by its consequences (e.g., harming others is acceptable if it increases the well-being of a greater number of people). Despite the proposed independence of the moral inclinations reflecting these principles, previous work has relied on operationalizations in which stronger inclinations of one kind imply weaker inclinations of the other kind. The current research applied Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure to independently quantify the strength of deontological and utilitarian inclinations within individuals. Study 1 confirmed the usefulness of process dissociation for capturing individual differences in deontological and utilitarian inclinations, revealing positive correlations of both inclinations to moral identity. Moreover, deontological inclinations were uniquely related to empathic concern, perspective-taking, and religiosity, whereas utilitarian inclinations were uniquely related to need for cognition. Study 2 demonstrated that cognitive load selectively reduced utilitarian inclinations, with deontological inclinations being unaffected. In Study 3, a manipulation designed to enhance empathy increased deontological inclinations, with utilitarian inclinations being unaffected. These findings provide evidence for the independent contributions of deontological and utilitarian inclinations to moral judgments, resolving many theoretical ambiguities implied by previous research.
双过程理论认为，道德判断是由两个道德原则指导的：道义论原则指出，一个行为的道德取决于行为的内在本质（例如，伤害他人是错误的，无论其后果如何）；功利主义原则意味着一个行为的道德取决于其后果（例如，如果伤害他人能增加更多人的幸福，那么这种行为就是可以接受的）。尽管这些原则所反映的道德倾向被认为是独立的，但之前的研究依赖于一种操作化方法，即一种倾向越强，另一种倾向就越弱。本研究应用 Jacoby（1991）的过程分离程序来独立地量化个体内部的道义论和功利主义倾向的强度。研究 1 证实了过程分离在捕捉个体在道义论和功利主义倾向上的差异方面的有效性，揭示了这两种倾向都与道德认同呈正相关。此外，道义论倾向与同理心、换位思考和宗教信仰有独特的关系，而功利主义倾向与认知需求有独特的关系。研究 2 表明，认知负荷选择性地降低了功利主义倾向，而对道义论倾向没有影响。在研究 3 中，一项旨在增强同理心的操作增加了道义论倾向，而功利主义倾向则没有受到影响。这些发现为道义论和功利主义倾向对道德判断的独立贡献提供了证据，解决了之前研究中隐含的许多理论上的模糊性。
