Attributions of moral standing across six diverse cultures

Abstract

Whose well-being and interests matter from a moral perspective? This question is at the center of many polarizing debates, for example, on the ethicality of abortion or meat consumption. People’s attributions of moral standing are guided by which mental capacities an entity is perceived to have. Specifically, perceived sentience (e.g., the capacity to feel pleasure and pain) is thought to be the primary determinant, rather than perceived agency (e.g., the capacity for intelligence) or other capacities. This has been described as a fundamental feature of human moral cognition, but evidence in favor of it is mixed and prior studies overwhelmingly relied on North American and European samples. Here, we examined the link between perceived mind and moral standing across six culturally diverse countries: Brazil, Nigeria, Italy, Saudi Arabia, India, and the Philippines (N = 1,255). In every country, entities’ moral standing was most strongly related to their perceived sentience.