Human moral reasoning types in autonomous vehicle moral dilemma: A cross-cultural comparison of Korea and Canada

Abstract The widespread of Autonomous Vehicle (AV) promises a transportation system revolution. Despite its potential benefits, there has been an unsolved discussion of how AV should behave during unavoidable crash situations, which is known as the Moral Dilemma of AV. The goal of this study is to investigate how AV Morality can be designed to align with human values by observing human moral reasoning process, which could be applicable for AV Moral Dilemma scenarios. To do that, we used an exploratory sequential mixed research methodology to compare human moral reasoning types from two cultures: Korea, a highly collectivist culture, and Canada, a typical individualist culture. First, unavoidable crash scenarios that reflect the complex real-world crash contexts were developed. Second, a moral thought experiment in the form of in-depth interviews was conducted for both cultures (N = 70, Koreans = 33, Canadians = 37). Finally, K-means clustering analysis was conducted. As a result, three human moral reasoning types (Moral Altruist, Moral Non-determinist, and Moral-Deontologist) were defined. The study results reduce abstractness of AV morality by defining distinct moral decision-making patterns which are described by moral value. The findings provide guidelines for designing culture-specific moral behaviors, provide guidelines for AV practitioners, and increase AV morality transparency for the public.