Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
J Pers. 2024 Jun;92(3):715-734. doi: 10.1111/jopy.12867. Epub 2023 Aug 8.
What do people see as distinguishing the morally exceptional from others? To handle the problem that people may disagree about who qualifies as morally exceptional, we asked subjects to select and rate their own examples of morally exceptional, morally average, and immoral people.
Subjects rated each selected exemplar on several enablers of moral action and several directions of moral action. By applying the logic underlying stimulus sampling in experimental design, we evaluated perceivers' level of agreement about the characteristics of the morally exceptional, even though perceivers rated different targets.
Across three studies, there was strong subjective consensus on who is morally exceptional: those who are empathetic and prone to guilt, those who reflect on moral issues and identify with morality, those who have self-control and actually enact moral behaviors, and those who care about harm, compassion, fairness, and honesty. Deep controversies also existed about the moral directions pursued by those seen as morally exceptional: People evaluated those who pursued similar values and made similar decisions more favorably.
Strong consensus suggests characteristics that may push a person to go beyond normal expectations, that the study of moral exceptionality is not overly hindered by disagreement over who is morally exceptional, and that there is some common ground between disagreeing camps.
人们认为是什么将道德上的杰出人士与其他人区分开来？为了解决人们可能不同意谁有资格成为道德杰出人士的问题，我们要求受试者选择并评价他们自己的道德杰出、道德普通和不道德的人的例子。
受试者根据几个道德行为的促进因素和几个道德行为的方向对每个选定的范例进行评价。通过应用实验设计中刺激抽样背后的逻辑，我们评估了感知者对道德杰出人士特征的一致程度，即使感知者评价了不同的目标。
在三项研究中，人们对谁是道德杰出人士有强烈的主观共识：那些富有同情心和容易内疚的人，那些反思道德问题并认同道德的人，那些有自我控制能力并实际实施道德行为的人，以及那些关心伤害、同情、公平和诚实的人。关于那些被视为道德杰出人士所追求的道德方向也存在深刻的争议：人们更倾向于评价那些追求相似价值观和做出相似决策的人。
强烈的共识表明，可能有一些特征会促使一个人超越正常的期望，对道德杰出性的研究不会因为对谁是道德杰出人士的分歧而受到过度阻碍，并且在意见分歧的阵营之间存在一些共同点。
