Your morals depend on language.
Should you sacrifice 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. And yet here we report evidence that people using a foreign language make substantially more...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2014-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094842&type=printable |
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| _version_ | 1850191269117034496 |
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| author | Albert Costa Alice Foucart Sayuri Hayakawa Melina Aparici Jose Apesteguia Joy Heafner Boaz Keysar |
| author_facet | Albert Costa Alice Foucart Sayuri Hayakawa Melina Aparici Jose Apesteguia Joy Heafner Boaz Keysar |
| author_sort | Albert Costa |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Should you sacrifice 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. And yet here we report evidence that people using a foreign language make substantially more utilitarian decisions when faced with such moral dilemmas. We argue that this stems from the reduced emotional response elicited by the foreign language, consequently reducing the impact of intuitive emotional concerns. In general, we suggest that the increased psychological distance of using a foreign language induces utilitarianism. This shows that moral judgments can be heavily affected by an orthogonal property to moral principles, and importantly, one that is relevant to hundreds of millions of individuals on a daily basis. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ada89e2af42d425cb50cf26f8fff145b |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2014-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-ada89e2af42d425cb50cf26f8fff145b2025-08-20T02:14:57ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032014-01-0194e9484210.1371/journal.pone.0094842Your morals depend on language.Albert CostaAlice FoucartSayuri HayakawaMelina ApariciJose ApesteguiaJoy HeafnerBoaz KeysarShould you sacrifice 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. And yet here we report evidence that people using a foreign language make substantially more utilitarian decisions when faced with such moral dilemmas. We argue that this stems from the reduced emotional response elicited by the foreign language, consequently reducing the impact of intuitive emotional concerns. In general, we suggest that the increased psychological distance of using a foreign language induces utilitarianism. This shows that moral judgments can be heavily affected by an orthogonal property to moral principles, and importantly, one that is relevant to hundreds of millions of individuals on a daily basis.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094842&type=printable |
| spellingShingle | Albert Costa Alice Foucart Sayuri Hayakawa Melina Aparici Jose Apesteguia Joy Heafner Boaz Keysar Your morals depend on language. PLoS ONE |
| title | Your morals depend on language. |
| title_full | Your morals depend on language. |
| title_fullStr | Your morals depend on language. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Your morals depend on language. |
| title_short | Your morals depend on language. |
| title_sort | your morals depend on language |
| url | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094842&type=printable |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT albertcosta yourmoralsdependonlanguage AT alicefoucart yourmoralsdependonlanguage AT sayurihayakawa yourmoralsdependonlanguage AT melinaaparici yourmoralsdependonlanguage AT joseapesteguia yourmoralsdependonlanguage AT joyheafner yourmoralsdependonlanguage AT boazkeysar yourmoralsdependonlanguage |