SOCIAL ROLES AND THE MORAL JUDGMENT OF ACTS AND OMISSIONS

Three experiments investigated how moral judgements of harmful acts an d omissions are affected by information about social roles. Subjects w ere given vignettes in which the relationship between an actor and vic tim was varied along the dimensions of solidarity (e.g. friends versus strangers) and hierachy (e.g. superior versus equal; the terms are fr om Hamilton & Sanders, 1981). Subjects were asked to judge the moralit y of the actor in each case, both for a harmful omission (e.g. intenti onally withholding the truth) and for an equivalent act (e.g. actively lying). Subjects judged the bahaviour worse in the act than the omiss ion. Judgements were also affected by role relationships. The act-omis sion difference was also greater in the low-responsibility roles. Resp onses to the high-responsibility roles seem to reflect in a consequent ialist perspective, focusing on outcomes rather than prohibitions.