Gubbins, E. 1, 2 & Byrne, R. 1, 2
1 School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland
2 Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Ireland
We report the results of two experiments that examine cognitive processes in moral reasoning using different versions of the well-known ‘trolley’ problem. Participants were asked to imagine they were at the wheel of a runaway train approaching a fork in the tracks. They were asked to judge if they would allow the train to continue to the left, killing five railway workmen on that track; or hit a switch turning the train to the right, killing a single workman. In the first experiment, participants judged that they would push the switch for this standard version of the dilemma, more so than for a version with just a single workman on each track; but they judged they would look for an alternative solution in a version in which the train would reach the fork in thirty minutes. In the second experiment, participants judged they would push the switch in a version that described good qualities of the single workman, but not in a version that described the single workman as a close relative. We discuss implications of the results for alternative theories of moral reasoning.