2001年9月14日，美国《科学》杂志刊登了一篇关于情感介入道德判断的论文，题目是“An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment”，即《道德判断的功能磁共振成像研究》。作者有5位：JoshuaD.Greene，R.BrianSommerville，LeighE.Nystrom，JohnM.Darley，和JonathanD.Cohen，他们是普林斯顿大学和匹兹堡大学等高校或科研机构的科学家。
Greene等人：The present study was inspired by a family of ethical dilemmas familiar to contemporary moral philosophers. One such dilemma is the trolley dilem-ma：A runaway trolley is headed for five people who will be killed if it proceeds on it spresent course. The only way to save them is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it will kill one person instead of five. Ought you to turn the trolley in order to save five people at the expense of one ？Most people say yes .
Greene等人：Now consider a similar problem，the footbridge dilemma. As before，a trolley threatens to kill five people. You are standing next to a largest ranger on a footbridge that spans the tracks，in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. In this scenario，the only way to save the five people is to push this stranger off the bridge，onto the tracks below. He will die if you do this，but his
body will stop the trolley from reaching the others. Ought you to save the five others by pushing this stranger to his death ？Most people say no.
Greene等人：Taken together，these two dilemmas create a puzzle for moral philosophers：What makes it morally acceptable to sacrifice one life to save five in the trolley dilemma but not in the footbridge dilemma ？Many answers have been proposed . For example ，one might suggest，in a Kantian vein ，that the difference between these two cases lies in the fact that in the footbridge dilemma one literally uses a fellow human being as a means to some independent end，whereas in the trolley dilemma the unfortunate person just happens to be in the way.
Greene等人：This answer，however，runs into trouble with avariant of the trolley dilemma in which the track leading to the one person loops around toconnect with the track leading to the five people . Here we will suppose that without a body on the alternate track ，the trolley would ，if turned that way，make its way to the other track and kill the five people as well .In this variant，as in the footbridge
dilemma ，you would use some one 's body to stop the trolley from killing the five . Most agree ，nevertheless，that it is still appropriate to turn the trolley in this case inspite of the fact that here，too，we have a case of " using."
Greene等人：We maintain that，from a psychological point of view ，the crucial difference between the trolley dilemma and the footbridge dilemma lies in the latter 's tendency to engage people's emotions in a way that the former does not .The thought of pushing some one to his death is ，we propose ，more emotionally salient than the thought of hitting a switch that will cause a trolley to produce similar consequences ，and it is this emotional response that accounts for people'stendency to treat these cases differently .
Greene等人：The long-standing ration a list tradition in moral psychology emphasizes the role of reason in moral judgment . A more recent trend places increased emphasis on emotion .
Greene等人：The present results raise but do not answer a more general question concerning the relation between the aforementioned philosophical and psychological puzzles ：How will a better under standing of the mechanisms that give rise to our moral judgments alter our attitudes toward the moral judgments we make ？
续
2012-02-24 00:36:42
