Promoting actions that lead to the most good for the most people seems like a good strategy. But those who are likely to endorse this utilitarian approach to ethics, in fact, are more likely to possess psychopathic or Machiavellian (cunning and duplicitous) personality traits and view life as less meaningful, reports a Cornell study.

In the new study, which is published in the October edition of Cognition, David Pizarro, assistant professor of psychology, and Daniel Bartels of Columbia University administered three personality tests and 14 moral dilemma scenarios to 208 undergraduates. A typical scenario: A runaway trolley is about to run over and kill five people, but if you push a stranger onto the tracks, killing him, you would save the five people.

Would you push the man?

While previous studies have demonstrated that most people (90 percent) given scenarios of this type report that they believe it would be wrong to kill one to save many, Pizarro and Bartels were interested in the group of individuals who were willing to endorse the utilitarian option. They found that these individuals tended to score higher on psychopathy and Machiavellianism, and were more likely to find life less meaningful than others.

The authors note that these findings are not evidence that utilitarianism as a moral theory is flawed, or that all those who endorse utilitarianism are antisocial or psychopathic. Nonetheless, they write that making such difficult decisions for the sake of the greater good may come easier to individuals who possess certain traits (such as low empathy) that are characteristic of psychopathic personalities.