Children prioritize humans over animals less than adults do
Psychological Science 1 (32):27-38 (2021)
Abstract
Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two pre-registered studies (N = 622), 5- to 9-year-old children and adults were presented with moral dilemmas pitting varying numbers of humans against varying numbers of either dogs or pigs and were asked who should be saved. In both studies, children had a weaker tendency to prioritize humans over animals than adults. They often chose to save multiple dogs over one human, and many valued the life of a dog as much as the life of a human. While they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized ten pigs over one human. By contrast, almost all adults chose to save one human over even one hundred dogs or pigs. Our findings suggest that the common view that humans are far more morally important than animals appears late in development and is likely socially acquired.Author Profiles
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Citations of this work
Are the Folk Utilitarian About Animals?Guy Kahane & Lucius Caviola - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies:1-23.
Humans first: Why people value animals less than humans.Lucius Caviola, Stefan Schubert, Guy Kahane & Nadira S. Faber - 2022 - Cognition 225 (C):105139.
Nonhuman Value: A Survey of the Intrinsic Valuation of Natural and Artificial Nonhuman Entities.Andrea Owe, Seth D. Baum & Mark Coeckelbergh - 2022 - Science and Engineering Ethics 28 (5):1-29.
The Early Expression of Blatant Dehumanization in Children and Its Association with Outgroup Negativity.Wen Zhou & Brian Hare - 2022 - Human Nature 33 (2):196-214.