As the number of pedestrians increased in autonomous vehicle (AV) dilemmas, the willingness to save the pedestrians increased in British and Chinese cultures.
Imagine there is a passenger in a self-driving car travelling down a main road on a bridge. Five pedestrians suddenly appeared ahead in the direct road of the car. It will kill the pedestrian but save the passenger if the car stays on the path. If the car swerves to the side of the road and plunges into the river, the pedestrian will be saved but the passenger in the car will be killed. If you are a programmer of the self-driving car system, what is the likelihood of you programming the car to swerve off the current path, thereby resulting in the death of the passenger but the survival of the pedestrians?
This dilemma is modified from the classic trolley problem. It addresses two moralities. The utilitarian ethics emphasise on the consequences of the outcome. Despite sacrificing one passenger, five pedestrians could be spared, which would be the best outcome to reduce harm. On the other hand, the deontological ethics follow strict rules and emphasise on the morality of an action rather than the consequences. Both outcomes of the dilemma could generate fatal consequences, but harmful action (or killing one to save five) is morally worse than harmful inaction (or letting five be killed), because the former directly causes one death, whereas the latter generates five deaths as a side effect of inaction.
Individualist Cultures Are More Utilitarian Than Collectivist Cultures
Individualist cultures such as the UK emphasise on independence and consequences. They tend to make judgement based on more economic and less ethical values, including sacrificing one to save many. Whereas collectivist cultures such as China emphasise on interdependence and fatalism. They prefer to let an event take its own course naturally without any interference. Consequently, in sacrificial dilemmas, individualist cultures are more willing to kill one to save five (utilitarian) compared to collectivist cultures.
The Passenger-to-pedestrian Ratio Affects Moral Judgement Differently Across Cultures
The cultural variations in moral judgement are also demonstrated with different passenger-to-pedestrian ratios. With increasing passenger-to-pedestrian ratios, individualist cultures display increasingly greater preferences of sparing the pedestrians, compared to collectivist cultures remaining indifferent to the number of saved pedestrians. As positive consequences are greater than harmful consequences, the costs of sacrificing one are much smaller, yielding higher likelihood in utilitarian thinking for individualist cultures. Yet collectivist cultures are not influenced by the benefits generated from utilitarian decisions, rather by the belief of letting everything be done.
This however conflicts with evidence suggesting that the larger the kill-save ratio, the greater motivation to display a tendency towards utilitarianism in the Chinese population. One possible explanation for this controversy in collectivist cultures may be a different range of passenger-to-pedestrian ratios used in both studies.
To solve this issue, it is important to reassess the relationship between a wider range of passenger-to-pedestrian ratio and moral judgement in the two cultures. We expect that with a rising passenger-to-pedestrian ratio, individualist cultures (UK) exhibit a great inclination towards sacrificing the passenger to spare pedestrians. Whereas collectivist cultures (China) generate judgement equally regardless of the ratio.
The study recruited 187 British and 190 Chinese adults, aged 18-77 years, and provided them with four AV scenarios in their native language, comprising a range of passenger-to-pedestrian ratio (1:1 vs. 1:2 vs. 1:5 vs. 1:10) in a random order. The scenario context was the same as the AV dilemma shown at the beginning of the post, but with a different number of pedestrians. Individuals had to make a choice on a likelihood scale (0% -100%) of how likely they would sacrifice the passenger to spare the pedestrians. The higher the rating, the greater utilitarian thinking.
Utilitarianism and Passenger-to-pedestrian Ratio
Overall British participants were significantly more willing to sacrifice the passenger and save the pedestrians (utilitarian) than Chinese participants, validating the previous findings in trolley dilemmas. However, with an increasing number of pedestrians to be saved, not only British participants but also Chinese participants exhibited stronger intentions to make utilitarian decisions. This was at odds with the study indicating that collectivist cultures produced similar ratings regardless of the passenger-to-pedestrian ratio.
What our study implied:
- The study extended the trolley problem to a realistic sacrificial dilemma, where an unavoidable AV dilemma might occur in an actual lived environment.
- Both individualist and collectivist cultures took the cost-benefit ratio of the outcome into account of moral decisions.
- Facilitating the formation of AV algorithms and legislations imposed on the ethics of AVs, by which with a significantly greater number of pedestrians, AVs should be programmed to protect their lives.
- The unexpected pattern of the passenger-to-pedestrian ratio effect on moral judgement in Chinese participants could be explained by a social transition from absolute collectivism to a mix of collectivism and individualism in China.
- Owing to the rapid economic growth and well-developed education systems in China, the younger generation (post 80s) has embraced freedom and independence that has facilitated an increased tendency towards individualism. This might encourage economic thinking and an adoption of utilitarian strategy that emphasises on maximising survival probability.
- Sheding new light to the perception of moral beliefs in Chinese culture that they do not always weigh fatalism more heavily than consequentialism depending on the contexts.
- Owing to the rapid economic growth and well-developed education systems in China, the younger generation (post 80s) has embraced freedom and independence that has facilitated an increased tendency towards individualism. This might encourage economic thinking and an adoption of utilitarian strategy that emphasises on maximising survival probability.
- Nevertheless, it is worth noting that overall only 58% chance of British participants and 46% chance of Chinese participants chose to sacrifice the passenger to spare the pedestrians. We could assume that 42% and 54% of chance of both groups might adopt the deontological strategy of letting the car crush the pedestrians.
- A social shift in China seemed to be a plausible explanation of the comparable weighing between deontological and utilitarian reasoning. However, it was unclear why the utilitarian principle outweighed the deontological principle by only a small extent in a typical individualist culture. Future investigations should be carried out to examine potential factors preventing people from individualist cultures from generating more utilitarian judgement.
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