Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 125(2) of Psychological Review (see record 2018-15704-001). The copyright attribution was incorrectly listed, and the Creative Commons CC-BY license disclaimer was incorrectly omitted from the author note. The correct copyright is "© 2017 The Author(s)" and the omitted disclaimer is found in the erratum. All versions of this article have been corrected.] Recent research has relied on trolley-type sacrificial moral dilemmas to study utilitarian versus nonutilitarian modes of moral decision-making. This research has generated important insights into people's attitudes toward instrumental harm-that is, the sacrifice of an individual to save a greater number. But this approach also has serious limitations. Most notably, it ignores the positive, altruistic core of utilitarianism, which is characterized by impartial concern for the well-being of everyone, whether near or far. Here, we develop, refine, and validate a new scale-the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale-to dissociate individual differences in the 'negative' (permissive attitude toward instrumental harm) and 'positive' (impartial concern for the greater good) dimensions of utilitarian thinking as manifested in the general population. We show that these are two independent dimensions of proto-utilitarian tendencies in the lay population, each exhibiting a distinct psychological profile. Empathic concern, identification with the whole of humanity, and concern for future generations were positively associated with impartial beneficence but negatively associated with instrumental harm; and although instrumental harm was associated with subclinical psychopathy, impartial beneficence was associated with higher religiosity. Importantly, although these two dimensions were independent in the lay population, they were closely associated in a sample of moral philosophers. Acknowledging this dissociation between the instrumental harm and impartial beneficence components of utilitarian thinking in ordinary people can clarify existing debates about the nature of moral psychology and its relation to moral philosophy as well as generate fruitful avenues for further research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Original publication

DOI

10.1037/rev0000093

Type

Journal article

Journal

Psychol Rev

Publication Date

03/2018

Volume

125

Pages

131 - 164