title: Correlations of trait and state emotions with utilitarian moral judgements.
abstract: In four experiments, we asked subjects for judgements about scenarios that pit utilitarian outcomes against deontological moral rules, for example, saving more lives vs. a rule against active killing. We measured trait emotions of anger, disgust, sympathy and empathy (the last two in both specific and general forms, the latter referring to large groups of people), asked about the same emotions after each scenario (state emotions). We found that utilitarian responding to the scenarios, and higher scores on a utilitarianism scale, were correlated negatively with disgust, positively (but weakly and inconsistently) with anger, positively with specific sympathy and state sympathy, and less so with general sympathy or empathy. In a fifth experiment, we asked about anger and sympathy for specific outcomes, and we found that these are consistently predictive of utilitarian responding.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Pennsylvania , Pennsylvania , PA , USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Baron
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Pennsylvania , Pennsylvania , PA , USA.
authors.forename: Burcu
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gürçay
authors.affiliation: b The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University , Durham , NC , USA.
authors.forename: Mary Frances
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Luce
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004644:Emotions; D028663:Ethical Theory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009014:Morals; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Moral judgement; anger; deontology; disgust; emotion; empathy; sympathy; utilitarianism