They tended to guard their rights more, and they were skeptical of emotion as a grounds for decision making. The fact that the choice of resolution principles showed no correlation to the choice of values may be vitally important. Moral philosophies cannot, apparently, be ranked in an enduring system according to their fundamental goodness. In fact, each of the three resolution principles provides a valid moral platform. Single individuals may engage a variety of resolution principles as they move from dilemma to dilemma.
Individuals shift principles freely from dilemma to dilemma.
The Golden Rule is far more widely used than the categorical imperative. Yet the Golden Rule was selected more than three times as frequently as the categorical imperative. In general, respondents were unwilling to erect barriers to moral inclusiveness. They showed overwhelming support for the idea that people with values other than their own could still make ethical decisions and were worthy of inclusion within their perimeter of moral concern. The commonality of responses here adds weight to the argument that there is a fairly universal global ethic, within which individuals select various philosophical principles.