Department of Law, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, United States.
Cognition. 2018 Jan;170:95-101. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.09.013. Epub 2017 Sep 28.
A central tenet of contemporary moral psychology is that people typically reject active forms of utilitarian sacrifice. Yet, evidence for secularization and declining empathic concern in recent decades suggests the possibility of systematic change in this attitude. In the present study, we employ hypothetical dilemmas to investigate whether judgments of utilitarian sacrifice are becoming more permissive over time. In a cross-sectional design, age negatively predicted utilitarian moral judgment (Study 1). To examine whether this pattern reflected processes of maturation, we asked a panel to re-evaluate several moral dilemmas after an eight-year interval but observed no overall change (Study 2). In contrast, a more recent age-matched sample revealed greater endorsement of utilitarian sacrifice in a time-lag design (Study 3). Taken together, these results suggest that today's younger cohorts increasingly endorse a utilitarian resolution of sacrificial moral dilemmas.
当代道德心理学的一个核心原则是，人们通常拒绝积极的功利主义牺牲形式。然而，近几十年来世俗化和同理心关注下降的证据表明，这种态度可能会发生系统的变化。在本研究中，我们采用假设性两难情境来调查功利主义牺牲的判断是否随着时间的推移变得更加宽容。在横断面设计中，年龄与功利主义道德判断呈负相关（研究 1）。为了检验这种模式是否反映了成熟过程，我们要求一个小组在八年的间隔后重新评估几个道德困境，但没有观察到总体变化（研究 2）。相比之下，在时间滞后设计中，一个更近期的年龄匹配样本显示出对功利主义牺牲的更大支持（研究 3）。总之，这些结果表明，当今的年轻一代越来越支持功利主义解决牺牲性道德困境。
