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Universals and variations in moral decisions made in 42 countries by 70,000 participants
Open accessAbstract
When do people find it acceptable to sacrifice one life to save many? Cross-cultural studies suggested a complex pattern of universals and variations in the way people approach this question, but data were often based on small samples from a small number of countries outside of the Western world. Here we analyze responses to three sacrificial dilemmas by 70,000 participants in 10 languages and 42 countries. In every country, the three dilemmas displayed the same qualitative ordering of sacrifice acceptability, suggesting that this ordering is best explained by basic cognitive processes rather than cultural norms. The quantitative acceptability of each sacrifice, however, showed substantial country-level variations. We show that low relational mobility (where people are more cautious about not alienating their current social partners) is strongly associated with the rejection of sacrifices for the greater good (especially for Eastern countries), which may be explained by the signaling value of this rejection. We make our dataset fully available as a public resource for researchers studying universals and variations in human morality.
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“Ethics should ensure the design of AI technologies for human flourishing around the world [192,193], but this is a very complex matter given that, as the work of Awad et al. [194,195] clearly demonstrates, universally valid and accepted ethical principles do not exist.”
From The sustainability of artificial intelligence: an urbanistic viewpoint from the lens of smart and sustainable cities (2020) · cites this paper as [195]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Awad, E., Dsouza, S., Shariff, A., Rahwan, I., & Bonnefon, J.-F.
- Affiliations
- University of Exeter (GB)
- MIT Media Lab (US)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Max Planck Institute for Human Development (DE)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Awad, Edmond
- Shariff, Azim
- Rahwan, Iyad
- Bonnefon, Jean-François
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2020-01-21
- Volume
- 117
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 2332-2337
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC7007553
- OpenAlex
- W3000950628
- Cited by
- 261
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 44 · 2023: 60 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 17
- FWCI
- 20.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Toulouse 1 Capitole Publications (Université Toulouse I Capitole) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-17-EURE-0010, ANR-19-P3IA-0004)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- ethical decision-making, sacrificial dilemmas, trolley problem, moral intuitions, cross-cultural variation, relational mobility, signaling, East-West differences
- MeSH terms
- Cognition, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Decision Making, Humans, Morals, Surveys and Questionnaires, Social Mobility, Ethical Theory
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