Moral Judgement Influenced By What Language You Speak
Should you kill one man to save five? Whatever your answer, it should not depend on whether you were asked the question in your native language or a foreign tongue so long as you understood the problem.
"To understand the influence that different languages have upon a person's moral judgment, researchers posed this dilemma to people either in their native tongue or in a learned, foreign language.
"one might expect that a subject's moral judgement would be consistent regardless of the language used to present the dilemma. However it was found that within all the studied groups, subjects were more likely to choose the utilitarian option of killing one person to save five if the problem was presented in a foreign language."
"Part of these differences in moral judgment can be interpreted as a reflection of different cultural values."
"The increase in utilitarian decision-making may also be related to the increased emotional distance that one experience while speaking a foreign language. Thus, it falls to reason that in this experiment participants were more likely to kill one person to save a group because their emotional aversion to killing another human being was reduced."
"As such, responsible policy-makers must be cognizant not only of the content of a moral dilemma, but also the way in which the problem is presented as factors that may influence the decision-making process."
References
Takushi, Sarah (2014, April 27). Moral Judgement Influenced By What Language You Speak. Guardian Liberty Voice.
Retrieved from: https://guardianlv.com/2014/04/moral-judgment-influenced-by-what-language-you-speak/
Comments
Post a Comment