Delegating moral dilemmas in autonomous vehicles evidence from an online experiment in China

Yuhong Gao, Thierry Blayac and Marc Willinger

Transport Policy, 2025, vol. 171, issue C, 721-752

Abstract: We conducted a study to assess the impact of a delegation option on moral decision-making using an online questionnaire based on the Moral Machine paradigm. Interestingly, the inclusion of a delegation option did not significantly alter individuals' moral tradeoffs. Nevertheless, when presented with the option, most participants opted for delegation as a means to avoid the moral burden of challenging decisions, regardless of the delegate's profile. Factors influencing this choice included gender (favoring females), occupation (doctors), education level (lower), a strong sense of altruism, less frequent driving, and greater risk aversion. Additionally, participants displayed a preference for saving more lives, with particular emphasis on babies, pregnant women, doctors, and law-abiding victims, indicating a general aversion to death.

Keywords: Moral machine paradigm; moral dilemma; delegation; Freedom of choice; Behavioral economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 C83 C93 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X25001593
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:trapol:v:171:y:2025:i:c:p:721-752

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2025.04.017

Access Statistics for this article

Transport Policy is currently edited by Y. Hayashi

More articles in Transport Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().