Do Moral Judgments in Moral Dilemmas Make One More Inclined to Choose a Medical Degree?

Abstract

The role of moral intuitions and moral judgments has become increasingly prominent in educational and academic choices. The present research aims to examine if the moral judgments elicited in sacrificial trolley dilemmas have a distinct pattern for the decisions made by junior medical students, in comparison to those of senior high school students. We work with this sample because it represents the population out of which medical students are recruited in the case of Bucharest, Romania. Our findings show that moral judgments are indeed a significant predictor for a respondent’s status as medical students. This result, albeit with limitations, bears multiple practical implications, from developing empirically informed medical ethics courses in medical schools to evidence-based policy designs which consider factors such as morality alongside financial outcomes and incentives.