Bad news for everyone that’s rolled out the “sorry, I had a bit much last night” as excuses for your bad behaviour – it turns out that you’re the same person morally when you’re drunk as when you’re sober.
So if you’re a good person and woke up blearily wondering what you said and did last night, good news! You were most likely your usual pleasant self, if more unsteady.
But if you’re constantly holding horrible opinions or furtive desires in check then… well, in vino veritas.
This helpful piece of new information comes from a study which got participants to face a moral quandary sober, and slug down some vodka before doing it again.
And the researchers found that alcohol absolutely did impair empathy, in that participants found it harder to recognise and respond appropriately to, for example, a happy or sad expression. So drunk you is definitely inappropriate, that’s fair.
But they found that the moral compass of those in the study remained consistent, in that they responded to moral quandaries like the Trolley Problem the same way when sober and when smashed.
Yes, the Trolley Problem. Like in The Good Place.
For those not across it, the Trolley Problem has a runaway carriage racing toward a group of people on the track who will definitely be killed. You have the power to flip a switch and send it on another track, where it will also definitely kill one person. What do you do?
Is it better to save several lives at the sacrifice of one, or does it make a difference that you make the active decision to kill that one person, even to save five people that would have died had you not intervened?
It’s a thorny question with no easy answer, which is why it’s a great way to discuss moral actions. Especially when tanked.
And the result? According to researcher Kathryn Francis, “If people refused to sacrifice the person’s life in the same situation because they believed that killing was wrong regardless of the consequences, they also did the same when drunk.”
So there you go, team. Drunk or sober, we have no excuses anymore. We’ll need to come up with a better excuse for being a jerk after a few.