FRAMING SELF-SACRIFICE IN THE MORAL DILEMMA OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

In the investigation of moral judgments towards Autonomous Vehicles (AV), the paradigm of sacrificial dilemma has represented a &exible and widely used experimental tool. Its reliability has been tested in several applications (e.g., virtual reality), but the textual version is still the most employed. In this context, the sacrifice of the AV’s passenger typically lies on the ‘proactive’ utilitarian option, which di#ers from traditional sacrificial dilemmas where the life of the moral agent is usually jeopardized in the non-utilitarian counterpart. "e present study wants to deepen the role of sacri$cial framing in moral scenarios, comparing moral acceptability and moral emotions in autonomous and traditional human driving dilemmas. As expected, a higher endorsement of utilitarian behavior was observed when it allows for self-protection. Interestingly, the utilitarian option was considered less immoral in the case of concurrent self-sacrifice. Finally, framing sacri$ce allowed to observe a discrepancy in the activation of self/other referred moral emotions if decision-maker’s life is at stake. "is study collects significant information on the moral perception of autonomous transportation, bringing new evidence on an important methodological aspect of the sacri$cial dilemma