Deliberate inaction judged as immoral as wrong action

DOING nothing to stop a crime can be seen by others to be as bad as committing the crime directly.

So says Peter DeScioli at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, who presented students with a number of scenarios that led to a fatality. An actor whose hesitancy to act led to the death was seen as less immoral than an actor whose direct actions led to the death. But the students judged deliberate inaction that led to the fatality as equally immoral as direct action that caused the death (Evolution and Human Behavior, DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.01.003).

DeScioli thinks the results show we see inaction as less immoral only because we typically lack proof that it was deliberate.

Courtesy New Scientist