A closer look at moral dilemmas: Latent dimensions of morality and the difference between trolley and footbridge dilemmas

Although a distinction between moral-personal and moral-impersonal dilemmas (Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001) has been widely accepted as an explanation for a difference between the trolley and footbridge dilemmas (Thomson, 1985), its psychometric properties remain a mystery. In this study 219 participants completed 62 moral dilemma tasks used in Greene etal. (2001), and the correlation structure among the dilemmas was analysed through factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings suggest that, first, moral-personal dilemmas are composed of one factor, indicating that the assumption in Greene etal. (2001) was supported. Second, moral-impersonal dilemmas are explained by two factors that reflect procedural and consequential aspects of decision making. Third, the trolley and footbridge dilemmas fall under the same factor category; therefore the difference between the two dilemmas cannot be attributed to emotional involvement. Additionally, the results of the structural equation modelling suggest that they differ in the engagement of rational processing.