The Psychology of Morality

What does it mean to do something good or bad? How do we know what's good or bad? How do we even know that this is a reasonable question to ask? Psychologists have been studying morality for a long time, examining how our sense of morality develops over time, and the ways that we arrive at certain decisions based on our conception of morality. This is a pretty hefty topic, but let's dig into it now. And yes, we will cover the Trolley Problem!

Script by Caitlyn Finton

Check out "Is This Wi-Fi Organic?", my book on disarming pseudoscience!

[OrdinaryEXP]

Whenever the trolley dilemma is brought up, I always thought about the video of a father demonstrating the dilemma to his 2-yo son with a toy train set, which his son responded with putting all "people" onto the same track then running them over with the toy train lol
Sounds like a fun topic to explain the psychology behind.

[jackdaniels]

Intent is a major part of reasoning and morality too. There are vastly different punishments in different judicial systems for murder and manslaughter. Even types of murder and manslaughter are punished differently. In all these situations someone dies the only thing that changes is intent, but an individual is punished very differently under the law. This seems to show that there is a pretty large consensus that outcome is less important than behavior.

[ARF_average]

9:37 the way you worded the trolley problem, "a single person standing" makes throwing the switch more moral because it has a chance of resulting in zero loss, if the person standing is smart enough and fast enough to jump off the track. they arent restrained.

[javierburgos]

Break the Trolly, it's the Kobayashi Maru of moral arguments used to reinforce binary solutions to non binary situations.

[drbenhgn]

My problem with the trolley situation is, by pulling the lever or pushing the large person you have now have a personal hand in killing a person. You might be able to justify the thought that you just watched 5 people die and convince yourself you couldn't help them, but can you deal with the thought that you just murdered someone.
Now, until you actually are in this situation you will never know how morality comes into play.
If it's a much older person you might look at the whole situation differently than if it is a young person. Or visa versa. You don't know until that split second in time actually happens.

[harrenhoare]

Having a substantial lack of empathy, on a brink of AS, I have always responded to the trolley dilemma as 'let the 5 people die'.
The justification I took is that 'not preventing death' and 'killing' are by definition two different acts - one morally situational, another absolutely immoral. Disqualifying one option this way, I am left only with the other one, no matter how inconvenient it might appear.

[ryansergas]

Hey Dave, what are your thoughts on preconventional morality in relation to religion? It seems like religious organizations put a huge emphasis on teaching people what is right and wrong based on direct consequences (promise of heaven or threat of hell) in a very black and white way, much like Kohlberg described with children and their parents. Would children in highly religious families never get a chance to evolve beyond a conventional sense of morality or truly internalize universal values?

[CXLVII]

This is the first non-debunking video of yours that YouTube has suggested me!

[elesdee]

I think the option of shoving one man on to the tracks also involves doubt that the trolley would even stop as a result of the decision, causing hesitation to choose that as a better action.

[anakinsghost]

The first example sounds a lot like American healthcare...

[Sunsper]

Regarding The Trolley Problem, I once heard a version of this dilemma, where 6 people on both sides of the tracks are not tied down to the tracks, but instead it's told, that the first 5 people are playing on the tracks, while they may or may not be aware that this is a dangerous activity, while the man on the other side of the tracks is crossing them, knowing that the trolley won't cross there any time soon.
In my eyes this modification of the dilemma completely changes how people might react to it, myself included.

[DeconvertedMan]

Switch the switch in a way to derail the trolly!

[colinofay]

Hard to make decisions based on morality cause I don't know what actually is moral or even right for everyone

[fourk_]

Hi Dave, nice video but at 4:49, when you say "in stage 3", the graphic for stage 2 still appears on screen. No big deal, I just had slight trouble following because of this

[ItsDaNewGuy]

I don't even watch this man for school. I watch this guy because he makes learning this stuff fun. No idea why, man just does better than everyone else

[alucarderipmavtube]

I believe that by intervening in the event makes you accountable. So, even if it's 5 v 1, it's not my business to intervene if it makes me accountable for the one death anyway. My priority is my own well-being. If I can produce an optimal solution by saving everyone, then I would. If I cannot produce such a solution, then I would be saving the 5 people, if killing the other person isn't going to bite me in the butt in the future. If I don't pull, it was never in my hands.

[ndess]

I think mainly that the psychology of these kinds of moral problems like the trolley problem also stems from personal affliction. You're less likely to push a man off a bridge to save 5 people because you are physically closer, therefore more connected with that man, even if you never spoken to them before. Another issue is when the victims of the trolley problem have a desire for either self-harm or suicide, you're much more likely to sacrifice the person with suicidal intentions first to save others, but that's a moral problem in and of itself. Overall, a very interesting video Dave! I wanted to major in psychology, but videos like yours satisfy my curiosity.

[dainbramage]

Pull the switch after the front wheels start to go one way and then the rear wheels will go the other way, trolleys don't move fast so it will likely tip over slowly only resulting in a few injuries and no deaths

[exmuslimusa]

📍I have created a more stronger moral dillema way harder and complicated then the trolly problem,
You have two options to choose from:
1. You die peacefully, and rest of human beings suffers forever
2. You suffer forever, and all human beings dies peacefully

What would you choose?
Note: if you don't choose, human beings will choose you to suffer forever instead of them.

What are your thoughts dave, and would love to see you mention this new example in a new video, i asked religious people, and many of them choosed to die peacefully, and let humanity suffers including their holy prophets

[davehawkins]

Regarding the trolley problem. Pulling the lever is an act of murder. Just the same as pushing the man from the bridge to derail the trolley. If either one of these scenarios actually took place the police would be obligated to lay criminal charges.