Sacrificial Moral Dilemmas: Interactions of Personal Force and Emotion with Trait Instrumental Harm, Absorption, Disgust, and Sadness

Sacrificial moral dilemmas require decisions about sacrificing one person to save the lives of many. Participants (N = 212 undergraduates) read 16 sacrificial moral dilemmas asking them to either personally (i.e., using the personal force of their muscles) or impersonally (e.g., pulling a lever) kill one person to save five others. The dilemmas highlighted either the emotion of the disgusting gore of the sacrifice or the sadness resulting from interpersonal bonds' rupture. Participants’ traits including utilitarianism tendencies of impartial beneficence and instrumental harm, absorption in sensory and imaginal experiences, disgust related to gore and viscera, and sadness rumination were measured. After each dilemma, participants rated how morally right or wrong or how morally permissible the sacrifice was along with the degree to which they intended (behavioral intent) to sacrifice one person to save five people. Overall, personally framed scenarios were associated with lower ratings of moral rightness, moral permissibility, and behavioral intent than impersonally framed decisions. Trait utilitarian instrumental harm (but not impartial beneficence) correlated positively with rating such sacrifices as more morally justifiable, whereas absorption and animal reminder disgust correlated negatively with such ratings. Animal reminder disgust was particularly associated with reduced morality ratings in disgust-framed scenarios. Sadness rumination was not associated with moral decision ratings.