mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Ethical Reasoning and Moral Value Alignment of LLMs Depend on the Language we Prompt them in

arXiv 2404.18460 ↗First posted 29 Apr 2024cs.CL cs.AIcited by 46

On the map: LLM reasoning → Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation

Abstract (arXiv)

Ethical reasoning is a crucial skill for Large Language Models (LLMs). However, moral values are not universal, but rather influenced by language and culture. This paper explores how three prominent LLMs -- GPT-4, ChatGPT, and Llama2-70B-Chat -- perform ethical reasoning in different languages and if their moral judgement depend on the language in which they are prompted. We extend the study of ethical reasoning of LLMs by Rao et al. (2023) to a multilingual setup following their framework of probing LLMs with ethical dilemmas and policies from three branches of normative ethics: deontology, virtue, and consequentialism. We experiment with six languages: English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Hindi, and Swahili. We find that GPT-4 is the most consistent and unbiased ethical reasoner across languages, while ChatGPT and Llama2-70B-Chat show significant moral value bias when we move to languages other than English. Interestingly, the nature of this bias significantly vary across languages for all LLMs, including GPT-4.

Key facts. Cited by 46 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 16 of its 50 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Apr 2024.

Builds on

16 of 50 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Rethinking Machine Ethics -- Can LLMs Perform Moral Reasoning through the Lens of Moral Theories?29 Aug
  2. 2023Not All Languages Are Created Equal in LLMs: Improving Multilingual Capability by Cross-Lingual-Thought Prompting11 May

Other references · 14

  1. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,419
  2. 2023Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Modelscited by 13,028
  3. 2022PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathwayscited by 5,326
  4. 2022OPT: Open Pre-trained Transformer Language Modelscited by 3,512
  5. 2020Aligning AI With Shared Human Valuescited by 723
  6. 2023How Good Are GPT Models at Machine Translation? A Comprehensive Evaluationcited by 348
  7. 2023MEGA: Multilingual Evaluation of Generative AIcited by 293
  8. 2023Is ChatGPT A Good Translator? Yes With GPT-4 As The Enginecited by 176
  9. 2021Re-imagining Algorithmic Fairness in India and Beyondcited by 104
  10. 2023SeaEval for Multilingual Foundation Models: From Cross-Lingual Alignment to Cultural Reasoningcited by 94
  11. 2023Ethical Reasoning over Moral Alignment: A Case and Framework for In-Context Ethical Policies in LLMscited by 64
  12. 2022Re-contextualizing Fairness in NLP: The Case of Indiacited by 55
2 more
  1. 2023Large Language Models as Superpositions of Cultural Perspectivescited by 49
  2. 2023Democratizing LLMs for Low-Resource Languages by Leveraging their English Dominant Abilities with Linguistically-Diverse Promptscited by 45

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 5; 2025: 23; 2026: 18.

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  1. 2026Large Language Model Reasoning Failurescited by 21
  2. 2024The Potential and Challenges of Evaluating Attitudes, Opinions, and Values in Large Language Modelscited by 19
  3. 2025Large language models for artificial general intelligence (AGI): A survey of foundational principles and approachescited by 18
  4. 2025Charting the Landscape of African NLP: Mapping Progress and Shaping the Road Aheadcited by 16
  5. 2024Algorithmic Fidelity of Large Language Models in Generating Synthetic German Public Opinions: A Case Studycited by 14
  6. 2025MAKIEval: A Multilingual Automatic WiKidata-based Framework for Cultural Awareness Evaluation for LLMscited by 13
  7. 2026From RAG to Agentic RAG for Faithful Islamic Question Answeringcited by 9
  8. 2024Are Large Language Models Chameleons? An Attempt to Simulate Social Surveyscited by 8
  9. 2025Meta-Cultural Competence: Climbing the Right Hill of Cultural Awarenesscited by 8
  10. 2025Analyzing Political Bias in LLMs via Target-Oriented Sentiment Classificationcited by 7
  11. 2024SPICA: Retrieving Scenarios for Pluralistic In-Context Alignmentcited by 6
  12. 2025Made-in China, Thinking in America:U.S. Values Persist in Chinese LLMscited by 5
34 more
  1. 2025Histoires Morales: A French Dataset for Assessing Moral Alignmentcited by 4
  2. 2025Uncovering Cultural Representation Disparities in Vision-Language Modelscited by 4
  3. 2025Evaluation of Cultural Competence of Vision-Language Modelscited by 3
  4. 2025EtiCor++: Towards Understanding Etiquettical Bias in LLMscited by 3
  5. 2025Exploring Cultural Variations in Moral Judgments with Large Language Modelscited by 3
  6. 2026IndicSafe: A Benchmark for Evaluating Multilingual LLM Safety in South Asiacited by 3
  7. 2025How Toxic Can You Get? Search-based Toxicity Testing for Large Language Modelscited by 2
  8. 2025Do Large Language Models Know Folktales? A Case Study of Yokai in Japanese Folktalescited by 2
  9. 2025A Game-Theoretic Negotiation Framework for Cross-Cultural Consensus in LLMscited by 2
  10. 2025"Amazing, They All Lean Left" -- Analyzing the Political Temperaments of Current LLMscited by 2
  11. 2025Pluralistic Alignment for Healthcare: A Role-Driven Frameworkcited by 2
  12. 2025Diverse Human Value Alignment for Large Language Models via Ethical Reasoningcited by 2
  13. 2026Structuring the Space of Sociotechnical Alignmentcited by 2
  14. 2024AI Ethics by Design: Implementing Customizable Guardrails for Responsible AI Developmentcited by 1
  15. 2025Beyond English: Evaluating Automated Measurement of Moral Foundations in Non-English Discourse with a Chinese Case Studycited by 1
  16. 2025Hedging and Non-Affirmation: Quantifying LLM Alignment on Questions of Human Rightscited by 1
  17. 2025What if I ask in textitalia lingua? Measuring Functional Similarity Across Languagescited by 1
  18. 2026JUBAKU: An Adversarial Benchmark for Exposing Culturally Grounded Stereotypes in Japanese LLMscited by 1
  19. 2026Challenges and Recommendations for LLM-as-a-Judge in Multilingual Settings and for Low-Resource Languagescited by 1
  20. 2026STONIC: A Layered Measurement Contract for LLM Value Profilingcited by 1
  21. 2025OpenEthics: A Comprehensive Ethical Evaluation of Open-Source Generative Large Language Modelscited by 0
  22. 2025Black Box Deployed -- Functional Criteria for Artificial Moral Agents in the LLM Eracited by 0
  23. 2025Cross-cultural value alignment frameworks for responsible AI governance: Evidence from China-West comparative analysiscited by 0
  24. 2026The Language of Bargaining: Linguistic Effects in LLM Negotiationscited by 0
  25. 2026Moral Lenses, Political Coordinates: Towards Ideological Positioning of Morally Conditioned LLMscited by 0
  26. 2026The Third Ambition: Artificial Intelligence and the Science of Human Behaviorcited by 0
  27. 2026No Universal Courtesy: A Cross-Linguistic, Multi-Model Study of Politeness Effects on LLMs Using the PLUM Corpuscited by 0
  28. 2026Do Large Language Models Encode Institutional Experience? Evidence from Cross-Linguistic Moral Reasoning Under Ambiguitycited by 0
  29. 2026Are LLMs Bad at Moral Reasoning?cited by 0
  30. 2026MET: Theory-Grounded and Culture-Aware Multilingual Moral Reasoningcited by 0
  31. 2026Geometry of Values: Task Vector Composition for Ethical Preference Alignment in Language Modelscited by 0
  32. 2026CultureMINE: Datasets and Methods for Improving the Cultural Capabilities of NLP Systemscited by 0
  33. 2026Policy-as-Skill: Governed LLM Decision Support with Evidence, Deterministic Control, and Auditcited by 0
  34. 2026NepPlural: A Human-Anchored Benchmark for Persona Annotation in Nepali Migration Discoursecited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025One Model, Many Morals: Uncovering Cross-Linguistic Misalignments in Computational Moral Reasoning
  2. 2024Whose Morality Do They Speak? Unraveling Cultural Bias in Multilingual Language Models
  3. 2024Do Moral Judgment and Reasoning Capability of LLMs Change with Language? A Study using the Multilingual Defining Issues Test
  4. 2024Decoding Multilingual Moral Preferences: Unveiling LLM's Biases Through the Moral Machine Experiment
  5. 2026Untangling Input Language from Reasoning Language: A Diagnostic Framework for Cross-Lingual Moral Alignment in LLMs
  6. 2024MoralBench: Moral Evaluation of LLMs
  7. 2025Beyond Ethical Alignment: Evaluating LLMs as Artificial Moral Assistants
  8. 2025Structured Moral Reasoning in Language Models: A Value-Grounded Evaluation Framework