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i09′s Sam McDougle reports on some new research that should give us hope that people actually are peacefully evolving.
A runaway trolley is about to run over and kill five people, but a bystander who is standing on a footbridge can shove a man in front of the train, saving the five people but killing the man. Is it permissible to shove the man?
Across cultures, genders, ages, and races, the result is essentially the same and has been replicated countless times: over 90% of respondents consider this act impermissible. People just don’t want to have to do the pushing themselves. When a “lever” is added to the problem, and the person questioned can now drop the bystander onto the tracks without physically touching him, the result is flipped and 95% of people find it permissible.
It makes sense that this is how basic human morality evolved. Our species didn’t evolve with any long range weapons or fancy bystander-killing levers. Decisions about violence were always made face to face. And because our species thrived from cooperation, it’s no wonder that we’re programmed to avoid directly harming others. We’re less “red in tooth and claw,” and more “soft in hands and face.” Of course, humans commit violence all of the time and it is a central part of society. But the fact that we take it so seriously shows how much of a psychological transgression we find it to be. Violence is, and always will be, extreme.
To leave you on a dark, disturbing note, Cushman et al. wisely mention the connection between modern warfare (where our weapons don’t demand face to face contact) and the quaint physical moral sense described above:
The action aversion model also suggests a darker side: When banal or novel actions lack motoric and perceptual properties associated with harm, they may fail to trigger an aversive response. Signing one’s name to a torture order or pressing the button that releases a bomb each have real, known consequences for other people, but as actions they lack salient properties reliably associated with victim distress. A notable parallel is evident in moral judgment: People consider it morally worse to cause harm through direct physical engagement than at a distance.
