This article starts out with a flaw with the careless usage of "morality" in the title and "ethical" in the subtitle. Perhaps this is just the fault of the author of the article rather than something from any actual study. But this switch of vocabulary relates to something that the article seems to reveal about at least one of the studies.

Morality is inherent and arises from or through the essence of one's being, which is very deep seated. Ethics, however, is a superficial construct that arises in the mind. The inspiration for, and the basis of ethics actually arise from inherent inner morality, but manifest through the ego-mind of personality which is acquired in life and evolves through life.

The the author asks "What defines who we are?" and speculates correctly that this definition must be at the core, the essential part of who one is, yet wrongly concludes that it must be one's moral center. The moral center, however, arises from who one really is, from one's essential being. Morals are not a mind game, they are representative of heart quality. However, as the Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan taught, "the mind is the surface of the heart and the heart is the depth of the mind," meaning that they are actually two aspects of the same thing.

The thoughts and feelings of the mind are primarily based upon what one learns in life through connections with things, other beings, and events, as well as reactions to and interactions with each of these aspects of life. People become identified with their developing ego-mind, and with their physical and emotional and intellectual self, and they live a life mostly out of touch with the inner essence of who and what they are, and thus out of touch with their heart's true wishes and desires, as well as remaining mostly ignorant of their true moral character. Yes, this gets into the spiritual aspect of who and what we are, which is sometimes stated as "we are spiritual beings having a material experience." But the standard scientific method is limited to studying only the mechanics of this material realm we live in and is forbidden from drifting off into the spiritual realm. So, as interested as psychologists might be in studying moral judgments, if they want to remain scientists, they will be prevented from studying the essence of morality.

Language is something we learn, along with the culture within which we live early on. This means that our native or primary language and culture are part of the more superficial aspects of who we are. All of this, though, is very deeply seated, very close to the heart, and much of it can be significantly influenced by the deep essence of being shared among one's fellow people. If one's initial development is bilingual and bi-cultural, then both languages and cultures would be of similar depth. Any other secondary language and cultural influences will, however, be learned somewhat later and therefore be less deeply seated, perhaps even quite shallow. This relative shallowness results in such later developments being further from the heart and more of the mind.

The deeper more heart-based aspects of one's life learning will be more fully embodied than later life learning will be. One will have deeper default modes of thinking, feeling and acting as well as of communicating, including language, as well as somewhat shallower modes that are more likely to be consciously chosen, if a situation allows for that, rather than defaulted to in one's general life. Because of this, the chosen modes, including language, will be less deep and more of a mind-based behavior than the deeply ingrained default modes that will be more holistic in nature.One difference that this hierarchical structure of learned behavior results in is that the closer one's learning and practice is to the heart, the more real it will feel and the more authentic it will manifest, whereas the closer one's learning and practice is to the mind, the more hypothetically it will manifest, because it will manifest more from the mind than from the heart. Whatever arises from the feeling heart will be based on one's morals, whereas ethics will determine what will manifest from the thinking mind. If one's ethics are very closely aligned with one's morals, there will be very little difference in what arises from either source. More likely, though, there will be significant differences between the two.

This most definitely comes into play in considering the moral dilemma known as the "trolley problem, which is entirely hypothetical, and therefore entirely a mind game to sort out rather than a real life situation one is facing. This does not encourage or even allow one to deeply consider at heart level how one would respond. If one were to actually become involved in such a situation, there would be no real time for thinking, because thinking takes too much time and one simply needs to act. Such actual action would come from within, automatically inspired and guided by one's deepest and most practiced values, meaning from closest to one's heart, which is entirely different from what is likely to come from one's mind if one has the luxury of time to think about what is happening. Likewise, reading descriptions and making choices is really no different, in that this is still entirely hypothetical and one has the luxury of time to think about what is involved, meaning this is limited to being a mind game rather than serving as a real life need to more automatically make a holistically derived choice according to whatever naturally arises based upon what is happening. Whether pondering the "trolley problem" or responding to descriptions of various scenario, the language (and corresponding culture) involved might have some influence only because one has the luxury of some time to think.

In automatically making such deep-level choices – quick, gut-level choices – a second language consideration is highly unlikely to come into play. No psychological test game, no hypothetical mind game, is meaningfully relevant to what a person would do in real life when faced with making real-time choices about taking action or about what sort of action to take. Any real life choice would primarily be made based on their deepest sense of their interconnectedness with other people in general, and also with the specific people actually involved. This choice would be made without involving much thinking in any ordinary language, it would be made from heart-based knowing and understanding, and it would be made very fast – much faster than a mind can think.