Certain universal moral precepts may be biologically dictated as well. One such rule is at play in an ethical puzzle known as “the trolley problem.” Researchers pose the dilemma to subjects this way: A trolley barreling down a hill is headed straight for five people who have been tied to the tracks, but you can pull a switch to move the trolley onto a path where only a lone bystander will die. In cross-cultural studies, people from around the world seem to have little trouble arguing that pulling the switch is the right thing to do. But posing the dilemma another way—you must actively push a person into the path of the train in order to slow it enough to allow the other five to escape—provokes much greater anxiety. Everyone feels that this is worse, even though the end result is the same. This may point to a universal rule governing the moral systems of all cultures: It is preferable for a negative outcome to be the side effect of a just cause rather than its means. Cultures operating under the reverse principal do not seem to exist.
Sources: Nature, The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2009)
Note(s): Original Source: “The Possibility of Impossible Cultures” | Nature, July 9, 2009.
Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Sociology | Anthropology
