The DOI matches its Crossref record; 20 of the 20 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment
Open accessAbstract
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.
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Cites
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Cited by
Beyond sacrificial harm: a two-dimensional model of utilitarian psychology
Kahane, G., Everett, J. A. C., Earp, B. D., Caviola, L., Faber, N. S., Crockett, M. J., & Savulescu, J. (2018) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/rev0000093 · Cited by 434
Bloom, P. (2017) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2016.11.004 · Cited by 420
Friends or Foes: Is Empathy Necessary for Moral Behavior?
Decety, J., & Cowell, J. M. (2014) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691614545130 · Cited by 314
The role of shared neural activations, mirror neurons, and morality in empathy – A critical comment
Lamm, C., & Majdandžić, J. (2015) · Neuroscience Research · doi:10.1016/j.neures.2014.10.008 · Cited by 252
Reasoning supports utilitarian resolutions to moral dilemmas across diverse measures.
Patil, I., Zucchelli, M. M., Kool, W., Campbell, S., Fornasier, F., Calò, M., Silani, G., Cikara, M., & Cushman, F. (2021) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspp0000281 · Cited by 133
Metadata
- Authors
- Gleichgerrcht, E., & Young, L.
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2013-04-04
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e60418
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1998396053
- Cited by
- 266
- References
- 20
- FWCI
- 9.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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