Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment
Is it permissible to harm one to save many? Classic moral dilemmas are often defined by the conflict between a putatively rational response to maximize aggregate welfare (i.e., the utilitarian judgment) and an emotional aversion to harm (i.e., the non-utilitarian judgment). Here, we address two ques...
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| Format: | Online |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2013
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617220/ |
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pubmed-3617220 |
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pubmed-36172202013-04-16 Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel Young, Liane Research Article Is it permissible to harm one to save many? Classic moral dilemmas are often defined by the conflict between a putatively rational response to maximize aggregate welfare (i.e., the utilitarian judgment) and an emotional aversion to harm (i.e., the non-utilitarian judgment). Here, we address two questions. First, what specific aspect of emotional responding is relevant for these judgments? Second, is this aspect of emotional responding selectively reduced in utilitarians or enhanced in non-utilitarians? The results reveal a key relationship between moral judgment and empathic concern in particular (i.e., feelings of warmth and compassion in response to someone in distress). Utilitarian participants showed significantly reduced empathic concern on an independent empathy measure. These findings therefore reveal diminished empathic concern in utilitarian moral judges. Public Library of Science 2013-04-04 /pmc/articles/PMC3617220/ /pubmed/23593213 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0060418 Text en © 2013 Gleichgerrcht, Young http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel Young, Liane |
| spellingShingle |
Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel Young, Liane Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment |
| author_facet |
Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel Young, Liane |
| author_sort |
Gleichgerrcht, Ezequiel |
| title |
Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment |
| title_short |
Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment |
| title_full |
Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment |
| title_fullStr |
Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment |
| title_sort |
low levels of empathic concern predict utilitarian moral judgment |
| description |
Is it permissible to harm one to save many? Classic moral dilemmas are often defined by the conflict between a putatively rational response to maximize aggregate welfare (i.e., the utilitarian judgment) and an emotional aversion to harm (i.e., the non-utilitarian judgment). Here, we address two questions. First, what specific aspect of emotional responding is relevant for these judgments? Second, is this aspect of emotional responding selectively reduced in utilitarians or enhanced in non-utilitarians? The results reveal a key relationship between moral judgment and empathic concern in particular (i.e., feelings of warmth and compassion in response to someone in distress). Utilitarian participants showed significantly reduced empathic concern on an independent empathy measure. These findings therefore reveal diminished empathic concern in utilitarian moral judges. |
| publisher |
Public Library of Science |
| publishDate |
2013 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617220/ |
| _version_ |
1611967822414479360 |