Why moral judgments change across variations of trolley-like problems

TY - JOUR

T1 - Why moral judgments change across variations of trolley-like problems

AU - Cohen, Dale J

AU - Quinlan, Philip Thomas

N1 - © 2025 The British Psychological Society. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the University’s Research Publications and Open Access policy.

PY - 2025/2/18

Y1 - 2025/2/18

N2 - In the standard “trolley problem,” respondents must decide whether to save a condemned group of individuals by sacrificing a safe bystander. Although respondents often are willing to sacrifice the bystander in some circumstances (e.g., by pulling a lever), they are loath to sacrifice the bystander in others (e.g., by pushing the bystander off a footbridge). This difference in responding has been explained via a Dual Process theory of moral judgements (DPT). DPT, however, is a classic boxes-and-arrows model that only makes directional predictions. Meehl (1967, Phil. Sci, 34, 103-115) cautioned against theories that only make directional predictions, explaining that they are notoriously difficult to falsify. Meehl (1967) argued that researchers should follow the lead of Physics and develop computational models that make functional and point predictions. Here, we use a value-based, computational cognitive model of decision-making (Psychological Value Theory) to predict precisely both the speed and kind of response in trolley-like problems in three experiments. We show that this model accounts for the changes in choices across variations of the trolley problem with a response bias parameter.

AB - In the standard “trolley problem,” respondents must decide whether to save a condemned group of individuals by sacrificing a safe bystander. Although respondents often are willing to sacrifice the bystander in some circumstances (e.g., by pulling a lever), they are loath to sacrifice the bystander in others (e.g., by pushing the bystander off a footbridge). This difference in responding has been explained via a Dual Process theory of moral judgements (DPT). DPT, however, is a classic boxes-and-arrows model that only makes directional predictions. Meehl (1967, Phil. Sci, 34, 103-115) cautioned against theories that only make directional predictions, explaining that they are notoriously difficult to falsify. Meehl (1967) argued that researchers should follow the lead of Physics and develop computational models that make functional and point predictions. Here, we use a value-based, computational cognitive model of decision-making (Psychological Value Theory) to predict precisely both the speed and kind of response in trolley-like problems in three experiments. We show that this model accounts for the changes in choices across variations of the trolley problem with a response bias parameter.

KW - trolley problems

KW - sacrificial moral dilemmas;

KW - Computational modelling

KW - Psychological Values Theory

KW - Dual Process Theory

U2 - 10.1111/bjop.12782

DO - 10.1111/bjop.12782

M3 - Article

SN - 0007-1269

JO - British journal of psychology

JF - British journal of psychology

ER -