Autonomous vehicles require socio-political acceptance—an empirical and philosophical perspective on the problem of moral decision making
Open accessAbstract
Autonomous vehicles, though having enormous potential, face a number of challenges. As a computer system interacting with society on a large scale and human beings in particular, they will encounter situations, which require moral assessment. What will count as right behavior in such situations depends on which factors are considered to be both morally justified and socially acceptable. In an empirical study we investigated what factors people recognize as relevant in driving situations. The study put subjects in several "dilemma" situations, which were designed to isolate different and potentially relevant factors. Subjects showed a surprisingly high willingness to sacrifice themselves to save others, took the age of potential victims in a crash into consideration and were willing to swerve onto a sidewalk if this saved more lives. The empirical insights are intended to provide a starting point for a discussion, ultimately yielding societal agreement whereby the empirical insights should be balanced with philosophical considerations.
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In AV dilemma scenarios, most participants showed a moral inclination toward utilitarianism, even when it entailed self-sacrifice.
“In dilemma scenario of AVs, scholars also observed that most participants showed a moral inclination toward utilitarianism, even when it entailed self-sacrifice (Bonnefon et al., 2016; Gawronski et al., 2017; Bergmann et al., 2018; Faulhaber et al., 2019).”
From Exploring moral algorithm preferences in autonomous vehicle dilemmas: an empirical study (2023) · cites this paper as Bergmann et al., 2018
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- Authors
- Bergmann, L. T., Schlicht, L., Meixner, C., König, P., Pipa, G., Boshammer, S., & Stephan, A.
- Affiliations
- Osnabrück University (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Bergmann, Lasse T.
- Venue
- Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2018-02-28
- Volume
- 12
- Pages
- 31-31
- ISSN
- 1662-5153 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5835928
- OpenAlex
- W2793326128
- Cited by
- 96
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 8
- FWCI
- 5.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- osnaDocs (Osnabrück University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Institute on Drug Abuse
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Human-Automation Interaction and Safety
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety
- Keywords
- autonomous vehicles, ethical decision-making, trolley problem, ethical dilemmas, self-sacrifice, victim age, swerving, social acceptance, AI ethics
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