Do Meditation, Mindfulness, and Self-Compassion Impact Utilitarian Moral Judgment?

Objectives: Meditation practices, mindfulness, and self-compassion have been found to impact our bodies and souls in many ways. However, can they also influence our morality, for example, what we think about right and wrong? We aimed to answer this question by focusing on utilitarian moral judgments. Methods: In Study 1, we measured participants’ frequency of meditation, their level of mindfulness, self-compassion, and their utilitarian moral judgment via two traditional moral dilemmas (switch and bridge) and using the two-dimensional model of moral psychology (the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale with negative, i.e., instrumental harm, and positive, i.e., impartial beneficence dimensions). In Study 2, we conducted a psychological eight-week mindfulness course and measured the same variables as in Study 1 before and after the course. Results: In Study 1 (N = 316), we observed that participants who meditated more often had lower levels of instrumental harm. In Study 2 (N = 41), we found that participants had a lower level of impartial beneficence after the eight-week mindfulness course. Conclusions: Practices such as meditation may be related to moral judgment, specifically to lower acceptance of harming others (instrumental harm), but also they may lower the need to care about as many people as possible (impartial beneficence). We need more studies to understand better if and how moral judgments may change when people meditate and work on their mindfulness and self-compassion.