An examination of the endorsement utilitarian decisions: victim group derogation as a defensive response

Although in life-or-death moral dilemmas, sacrificing some lives to save more lives ensures the greater good by maximising positive outcomes and minimise negative consequences, they are still not completely satisfactory because the act of killing at least one person at the same time violates moral rules against harming. This could lead to the search for defence mechanisms to make the decision satisfactory. This thesis hypothesised that victim derogation measured by dehumanisation and devaluation might be defence mechanisms to justify acceptance of sacrificial harm. Five experiments were conducted to test those hypotheses. Experiment 1 in a within-subjects design, identified imaginary alien species as target groups, and investigated how accepting sacrificial harm to save more lives influences victim derogation. The experimental design was reinforced in Experiment 2 by contrasting the sacrificial harm with an accidental harm situation in which the decision results in the same outcome. Experiment 3 conceptually replicated the second experiment in a between-subjects design. Experiment 4 conceptually replicated the Experiment 2 by identifying the target groups as imaginary human nations. And Experiment 5 conceptually replicated Experiment 4 in a between-subjects design. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the sacrificed group (in comparison to the saved group) was devalued. And the sacrificed group was also dehumanised by less attribution of body-relevant mental capacities and less likening to humans. Experiment 2 showed that the sacrificed group (vs. saved group) was devalued only when the group was intentionally sacrificed for the greater good. However, the dehumanisation - with some variation on dehumanisation types - of the sacrificed group occurred regardless of whether the group was intentionally sacrificed to save more lives or accidentally harmed. The results regarding devaluation were consistent with the previous experiments in Experiment 3. It was found that the sacrificed group (vs. the saved group) was devalued only when the group was sacrificed to saved more lives. But dehumanisation of the sacrificed group did not occur under any conditions. Experiment 4 found that devaluation of the sacrificed group did not occur under any conditions. But the sacrificed group (vs. the saved group) was infrahumanised by attribution of secondary emotions, which are unique to human beings, less than primary emotions, which are common to humans and animals, regardless of whether the group was sacrificed to save more lives or accidentally harmed. And Experiment 5 revealed that neither devaluation nor dehumanisation occur in sacrificial harm to save more lives and accidental harm conditions. When the initial three experiments with imaginary alien nations were considered together, while the direct comparison between the saved and sacrificed groups was salient (in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2), the sacrificed group (vs. saved group) was dehumanized both when the group was intentionally sacrificed to save more lives and when they were accidentally harmed, with some variation in measures of dehumanisation and the group was devalued only when the sacrificial harm was carried to save more lives. However, when evaluators were unable to make direct comparison between the saved and sacrificed groups (Experiment 3), the sacrificed group was devalued only in the presence of sacrificial harm for the greater good. As a result, only devaluation of the sacrificed group was a defensive response to endorse sacrificial harm to save more lives. The final two experiments with imaginary human nations revealed that neither devaluation nor dehumanisation was a defensive response to justify sacrificial harm to save more lives. It was concluded that people have more restricted standards when judging sacrificial harm to save more lived if the target groups are humans and devaluation is a defensive response to endorse sacrificial harm to save more lives only when the target groups are nonhuman beings, whereas dehumanisation is a response triggered by witnessing other sufferings.