Everett Jim A C, Faber Nadira S, Savulescu Julian, Crockett Molly J
Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, UK.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK.
J Exp Soc Psychol. 2018 Nov;79:200-216. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2018.07.004.
Previous work has demonstrated that people are more likely to trust "deontological" agents who reject harming one person to save many others than "consequentialist" agents who endorse such instrumental harms, which could explain the higher prevalence of non-consequentialist moral intuitions. Yet consequentialism involves endorsing not just instrumental harm, but also impartial beneficence, treating the well-being of every individual as equally important. In four studies (total = 2086), we investigated preferences for consequentialist vs. non-consequentialist social partners endorsing instrumental harm or impartial beneficence and examined how such preferences varied across different types of social relationships. Our results demonstrate robust preferences for non-consequentialist over consequentialist agents in the domain of instrumental harm, and weaker - but still evident - preferences in the domain of impartial beneficence. In the domain of instrumental harm, non-consequentialist agents were consistently viewed as more moral and trustworthy, preferred for a range of social roles, and entrusted with more money in economic exchanges. In the domain of impartial beneficence, preferences for non-consequentialist agents were observed for close interpersonal relationships requiring direct interaction (friend, spouse) but not for more distant roles with little-to-no personal interaction (political leader). Collectively our findings demonstrate that preferences for non-consequentialist agents are sensitive to the different dimensions of consequentialist thinking and the relational context.
先前的研究表明，比起赞同这种功利性伤害的“结果主义”主体，人们更倾向于信任拒绝伤害一人以拯救多人的“道义论”主体，这或许可以解释非结果主义道德直觉的更高普遍性。然而，结果主义不仅涉及赞同功利性伤害，还包括公正的慈善行为，即将每个人的福祉视为同等重要。在四项研究（总计2086人）中，我们调查了人们对赞同功利性伤害或公正慈善行为的结果主义与非结果主义社会伙伴的偏好，并研究了这些偏好在不同类型社会关系中的变化情况。我们的研究结果表明，在功利性伤害领域，人们对非结果主义主体的偏好明显强于结果主义主体；在公正慈善行为领域，偏好虽较弱，但仍很明显。在功利性伤害领域，非结果主义主体始终被视为更具道德和值得信赖，在一系列社会角色中更受青睐，并且在经济交换中被托付更多金钱。在公正慈善行为领域，对于需要直接互动的亲密人际关系（朋友、配偶），人们观察到对非结果主义主体的偏好，但对于几乎没有个人互动的更疏远角色（政治领袖）则没有这种偏好。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，对非结果主义主体的偏好对结果主义思维的不同维度和关系背景很敏感。
