Effects of personal perspective on an individuals’ moral intuition

Abstract: Can we manipulate how morally permissible or unjustifiable someone finds a certain action by framing a dilemma in either a first- or third-person perspective? This online study aims to investigate this question through a between-group study. 42 participants, recruited through social media, on campus, and through snowballing, were divided into two groups and asked to rank nine different moral actions from fully morally permissible to fully morally unjustifiable, the only difference between the groups being the personal perspective framing. Although the analysis showed a small difference, where the first-person perspective group is on average slightly more restrictive in deeming an action morally permissible, the result is insignificant. We speculate that this is due to this study's shortcoming in isolating the intuitive part of the participants’ moral judgment.