Types Of Moral Dilemmas Research Articles

Adding fuel to the fire: The impact of stress on decision-making in dilemmas among emergency service personnel

IntroductionCertain professions are particularly exposed to stress and must make decisions with far-reaching consequences. Recent research indicates that stress alters subsequent decision-making. The two current studies examine the predictive effect of perceived stress and leadership responsibility on moral decision-making among emergency service personnel. ObjectiveWe hypothesized that under high levels of perceived stress, fewer utilitarian and fewer altruistic decisions are made. Utilitarian decisions involve saving the lives of more people while sacrificing a smaller number of people. Altruistic decisions lead to outcomes that benefit others rather than oneself. Furthermore, we hypothesized that leaders under high levels of perceived stress make more utilitarian and altruistic decisions than non-leaders. MethodTwo different samples (N1=368; N2=562) were exposed to two different types of moral dilemmas (Sample 1: sacrificial dilemmas, Sample 2: everyday dilemmas). Stress levels were assessed using the Perceived Stress Scale. The hypotheses were tested with hierarchical regression analysis. ResultsAs hypothesized, in sacrificial dilemmas, high perceived stress levels predicted a decrease in utilitarian decisions. Moreover, highly stressed leaders made more utilitarian decisions compared to non-leaders. In everyday dilemmas, high-perceived stress levels predicted fewer altruistic decisions. No moderating effect of leadership responsibility was observed. ConclusionOur results indicate that perceived stress predicts moral decision-making among emergency service personnel.

The effects of explicit reasoning on moral judgements.

We report four experiments that investigate explicit reasoning and moral judgements. In each experiment, some subjects responded to the "footbridge" version of the trolley problem (which elicits stronger moral intuitions), whereas others responded to the "switch" version (which elicits weaker moral intuitions). Experiments 1-2 crossed the type of trolley problem with four reasoning conditions: control, counter-attitudinal, pro-attitudinal, and mixed reasoning (both types of reasoning). Experiments 3-4 examine whether moral judgements vary based on (a) when reasoners engage in counter-attitudinal reasoning, (b) when they make the moral judgement, and (c) by the type of moral dilemma. These two experiments comprised five conditions: control (judgement only), delay-only (2-minute wait then judgement), reasoning-only (reasoning then judgement), reasoning-delay (reasoning, then 2-minute delay, then judgement), and delayed-reasoning (2-minute delay, then reasoning, then judgement). These conditions were crossed with the type of trolley problem. We find that engaging in some form of counter-attitudinal reasoning led to less typical judgements (regardless of when it occurs), but this effect was mostly restricted to the switch version of the dilemma (and was strongest in the reasoning-delay conditions). Furthermore, neither pro-attitudinal reasoning nor delayed judgements on their own impacted subjects' judgements. Reasoners therefore seem open to modifying their moral judgements when they consider opposing perspectives but might be less likely to do so for dilemmas that elicit relatively strong moral intuitions.

Moral Judgments of Human vs. AI Agents in Moral Dilemmas

Artificial intelligence has quickly integrated into human society and its moral decision-making has also begun to slowly seep into our lives. The significance of moral judgment research on artificial intelligence behavior is becoming increasingly prominent. The present research aims at examining how people make moral judgments about the behavior of artificial intelligence agents in a trolley dilemma where people are usually driven by controlled cognitive processes, and in a footbridge dilemma where people are usually driven by automatic emotional responses. Through three experiments (n = 626), we found that in the trolley dilemma (Experiment 1), the agent type rather than the actual action influenced people's moral judgments. Specifically, participants rated AI agents' behavior as more immoral and deserving of more blame than humans' behavior. Conversely, in the footbridge dilemma (Experiment 2), the actual action rather than the agent type influenced people's moral judgments. Specifically, participants rated action (a utilitarian act) as less moral and permissible and more morally wrong and blameworthy than inaction (a deontological act). A mixed-design experiment provided a pattern of results consistent with Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 (Experiment 3). This suggests that in different types of moral dilemmas, people adapt different modes of moral judgment to artificial intelligence, this may be explained by that when people make moral judgments in different types of moral dilemmas, they are engaging different processing systems.

Decision flexibilities in autism spectrum disorder: an fMRI study of moral dilemmas.

People make flexible decisions across a wide range of contexts to resolve social or moral conflicts. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently report difficulties in such behaviors, which hinders the flexibility in changing strategies during daily activities or adjustment of perspective during communication. However, the underlying mechanisms of this issue are insufficiently understood. This study aimed to investigate decision flexibility in ASD using a functional magnetic resonance imaging task that involved recognizing and resolving two types of moral dilemmas: cost–benefit analysis (CBA) and mitigating inevitable misconducts (MIM). The CBA session assessed the participants’ pitting of result-oriented outcomes against distressful harmful actions, whereas the MIM session assessed their pitting of the extenuation of a criminal sentence against a sympathetic situation of defendants suffering from violence or disease. The behavioral outcome in CBA-related flexibility was significantly lower in the ASD group compared to that of the typical development group. In the corresponding CBA contrast, activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus was lower in the ASD group. Meanwhile, in the MIM-related flexibility, there were no significant group differences in behavioral outcome or brain activity. Our findings add to our understanding of flexible decision-making in ASD.

The impact of the Extraversion-Introversion personality traits and emotions in a moral decision-making task

Behavioural studies have previously examined the fundamental psychological processes behind two moral dilemma types (e.g., impersonal vs. personal dilemmas) across conditions (e.g., emotion or cognition, etc.). However, it is unknown how individual personality traits influence moral decisions by inducing emotions. The goal of the present study was to examine whether different personality traits interact with different types of moral dilemmas by inducing emotions in moral decisions. 100 participants performed a moral decision-making task and data were analyzed using mixed-model ANOVA. The result revealed that when faced with personal moral dilemmas, introverted individuals will make more utilitarian decisions when experiencing induced negative emotion, supporting the hypothesis that moral types, emotional valence, and personality traits can play an essential role in moral decision-making.

Selective changes in moral judgment by noninvasive brain stimulation of the medial prefrontal cortex.

Multiple cortical networks intervene in moral judgment, among which the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the medial prefrontal structures (medial PFC) emerged as two major territories, which have been traditionally attributed, respectively, to cognitive control and affective reactions. However, some recent theoretical and empirical accounts disputed this dualistic approach to moral evaluation. In the present study, to further assess the functional contribution of the medial PFC in moral judgment, we modulated its cortical excitability by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and tracked the change in response to different types of moral dilemmas, including switch-like and footbridge-like moral dilemmas, with and without personal involvement. One hundred participants (50 males) completed a questionnaire to assess the baseline levels of deontology. Next, participants were randomly assigned to receive anodal, sham, or cathodal tDCS over the medial prefrontal structures and then were asked to address a series of dilemmas. The results showed that participants who received anodal stimulation over the medial PFC provided more utilitarian responses to switch-like (but not footbridge-like) dilemmas than those who received cathodal tDCS. We also found that neurostimulation modulated the influence that deontology has on moral choices. Specifically, in the anodal tDCS group, participants' decisions were less likely to be influenced by their baseline levels of deontology compared with the sham or cathodal groups. Overall, our results seem to refute a functional role of the medial prefrontal structures purely restricted to affective reactions for moral dilemmas, providing new insights on the functional contribution of the medial PFC in moral judgment.

Moral rigidity in obsessive-compulsive disorder: Do abnormalities in inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and disgust play a role?

Background and objectivesAbnormalities in cognitive control and disgust responding are well-documented in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and also interfere with flexible, outcome-driven utilitarian moral reasoning. The current study examined whether individuals with OCD differ from healthy and anxious individuals in their use of utilitarian moral reasoning, and whether abnormalities in inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and disgust contribute to moral rigidity. MethodsIndividuals with OCD (n = 23), non-OCD anxiety (n = 21) and healthy participants (n = 24) gave forced-choice responses to three types of moral dilemmas: benign, impersonal, personal. Scores on measures of cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control and trait disgust were also examined. ResultsIndividuals with OCD gave fewer utilitarian responses to impersonal moral dilemmas compared to healthy, but not anxious, individuals. Poorer cognitive flexibility was associated with fewer utilitarian responses to impersonal dilemmas in the OCD group. Furthermore, greater trait disgust was associated with increased utilitarian responding to personal dilemmas in the OCD group, but decreased utilitarian responding to impersonal dilemmas in the anxious group. LimitationsAlthough we did not find an association between inhibitory control and moral reasoning, smaller associations may be evident in a larger sample. ConclusionThese data indicate that individuals with OCD use more rigid moral reasoning in response to impersonal moral dilemmas compared to healthy individuals, and that this may be associated with reduced cognitive flexibility. Furthermore, these data suggest that trait disgust may exert opposing effects on moral reasoning in individuals with OCD compared to those with other forms of anxiety.

The Effects of 53 Hours of Sleep Deprivation on Moral Judgment

Functional neuroimaging studies suggest a prominent role for the medial prefrontal cortex in the formation of moral judgments. Activity in this region has also been shown to decline significantly during sleep loss. We therefore examined the effects of 2 nights of sleep deprivation on several aspects of moral judgment. Participants made judgments about the "appropriateness" of various courses of action in response to 3 types of moral dilemmas at rested baseline and again following 53 hours of continuous wakefulness. In-residence sleep laboratory at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Twenty-six healthy adults (21 men, 5 women). N/A. Compared to baseline, sleep deprivation resulted in significantly longer response latencies (suggesting greater difficulty deciding upon a course of action) only for Moral Personal (i.e., emotionally evocative) dilemmas, whereas response times to Moral Impersonal (less emotionally evocative) and Non Moral dilemmas did not change significantly with sleep loss. The effect of sleep deprivation on the willingness to agree with solutions that violate personally held moral beliefs was moderated by the level of emotional intelligence, as measured by the Bar-On EQ-i. Persons high in emotional intelligence were less susceptible to changes in moral judgments as a function of sleep loss. These findings suggest that sleep deprivation impairs the ability to integrate emotion and cognition to guide moral judgments, although susceptibility to the effects of sleep loss on this ability is moderated by the level of emotional intelligence.

Moral Dilemmas and Offence

In 1963 Roderick Chisholm proposed a category of acts called “offences” to capture what he called acts of “permissive ill-doing.” Chisholm’s proposal has proven to be controversial. Here I propose that some progress can be made in validating acts of offence by focusing upon moral dilemmas. Given the problems which have been alleged to beset moral dilemmas, this may initially seem like a puzzling strategy. However, I will call attention to a type of moral dilemma unlike what is standardly discussed in the literature and attempt to show that those who acknowledge that such dilemmas are possible are likewise obliged to acknowledge that acts of offence are possible. My suggestion, then, is that, since the former are plausible to acknowledge, so are the latter.

The individualist lottery: how people count, but not their numbers

1. Consider a familiar type of moral dilemma. A number of people urgently need your help but it is impossible to help them all. You are, for instance, in charge of a ship that can save either a large number of people on one island or a single person on another. There is no morally relevant difference between the islanders. They are complete strangers to you, there are no personal ties or obligations, no prior agreements. None of the islanders is to blame for his or her predicament. Should you save the greater number? Many of us undoubtedly would. John Taurek, however, argues that decisions involving the lives of individuals cannot be decided in the light of the value of the respective states of affairs they produce. If the survival of six equal objects were at stake we would be justified in saving the greater number because a group of five of these objects matters five times as much to us as any single object. Yet no one can claim that it is any worse for him to die than it is for others. The claims of individual islanders do not constitute a combined claim to save the greater number. Five individuals each losing their life does not add up to anyone's experiencing a loss five times greater than the loss suffered by any one of the five (1977: 307). Everyone should then be given an equal chance of survival. We should toss a coin to decide whether to save the one or the five. The result is not unlikely to be the loss of the greater number of lives; but for Taurek, the decisive consideration is the fairness of the decision process, not its result. One does not have to be a consequentialist to disagree with Taurek's conclusion. However, he gives voice to some profound moral convictions: The sheer presence of other islanders does not as such strengthen any individual's claim to being saved. It is indeed mysterious how a stronger claim of the many is supposed to arise. Moreover, it seems unfair simply to leave the minority without any chance to be saved. Counting the numbers does not decide the moral question.

Gender and dilemma differences in real-life moral judgment.

The authors investigated the effects of gender, gender role, and type of moral dilemma on moral maturity and moral orientation. Fifty-five female and 55 male university students were given the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (J. T. Spence & R. L. Helmreich, 1978), L. Kohlberg's test of moral judgm

Two types of moral dilemmas

In recent years the question of whether moral dilemmas are conceptually possible has received a fair amount of attention. In arguing for or against the conceptual possibility of moral dilemmas authors have been almost exclusively concerned with obligation dilemmas, i.e., situations in which more than one action is obligatory. Almost no one has been concerned with prohibition dilemmas, i.e., situations in which no feasible actions is permissible. I argue that the two types of dilemmas are distinct, and that a much stronger case can be made against the conceptual possibility of obligation dilemmas than against the conceptual possibility of prohibition dilemmas.