Psychology
Daniel Bartels of Columbia University found that individual reactions to trolley problems is context sensitive and that around 90% would refuse the act of deliberately killing one individual to save five lives. Further study by Daniel Bartels and David Pizarro focused on those 10% who made utilitarian choice. The study asked participants to series of value statement. The experiment found that those who had stronger utilitarian leaning had stronger tendency to psychopathy, Machiavellianism or tended to view life as meaningless. The Economist magazine who reported this finding stated that "utilitarians, ... may add to the sum of human happiness, but they are not very happy people themselves."
Read more about this topic: Trolley Problem
Famous quotes containing the word psychology:
“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
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—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)