Target dependent ethics: discrepancies between ethical decisions toward specific and general targets

• We demonstrate a gap between decisions toward concrete vs. toward abstract entities.
• This gap appears in both private and public decisions in various disciplines.
• Concrete cases encourage decisions that are more in favor of the individual.
• We discuss possible mechanisms underlying this phenomenon and ways to diminish it.

Research suggests that systematic discrepancies exist between ethical decisions that are being considered from an abstract, global perspective and decisions that are made toward a specific individual. In the current paper we present evidence for such discrepancies in private as well as public decisions, in various domains (e.g., decisions regarding donations, medicine, law, criminology and education). We discuss possible mechanisms underlying this phenomenon as well as ways to diminish it.