It’s easier to kill a baby to save oneself than a fat man to save other people: the effect of moral dilemma and age on Russian-English bilinguals’ moral reasoning

ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown that bilinguals respond differently to moral dilemmas posed in each of their languages, tending to make deontologically-based decisions (based on right or wrong) in their first language and utilitarian decisions (bringing about the most good) in their second language. In the present study, we tested several predictors of bilinguals’ moral reasoning: language (L1 Russian or L2 English), gender, proficiency, age, and dilemma. We included two different personal moral dilemmas: one involving saving the lives of others (by killing a fat man) and one involving saving one’s own life (by killing a baby). Russian-English bilinguals responded to one of these dilemmas in Russian and the other in English. The results showed only two significant predictors of responses: dilemma and age. The bilinguals made more deontological decisions for the dilemma about saving others and more utilitarian decisions for the dilemma involving saving their own lives. The participants who gave deontological responses were slightly older than those who gave utilitarian responses. We argue that factors other than language may be more important in bilinguals’ moral reasoning.

KEYWORDS:

• Foreign language effect
• moral reasoning
• bilingualism
• moral dilemma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Armon and Dawson (1997) report shifts between Kohlberg’s stages of conventional morality in the 20s to post-conventional morality in the 30s. Other researchers have argued that conventional morality bears a lot of resemblance to utilitarian reasoning and postconventional morality to deontological reasoning (see discussion in Casali 2011; Reynolds 2006).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [grant number 2018-04978].