Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T21:31:20.530Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Questioning the influence of moral judgment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2010

Steve Guglielmo
Steve Guglielmo
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912. steve_guglielmo@brown.eduhttp://research.clps.brown.edu/mbq/guglielmo/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Moral judgment – even the type discussed by Knobe – necessarily relies on substantial information about an agent's mental states, especially regarding beliefs and attitudes. Moreover, the effects described by Knobe can be attributed to norm violations in general, rather than moral concerns in particular. Consequently, Knobe's account overstates the influence of moral judgment on assessments of mental states and causality.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , August 2010 , pp. 338 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cushman, F. (2008) Crime and punishment: Distinguishing the roles of causal and intentional analyses in moral judgment. Cognition 108:353–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cushman, F. & Mele, A. (2008) Intentional action: Two-and-a-half folk concepts? In: Experimental philosophy, ed. Knobe, J. & Nichols, S., pp. 171–88. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Darley, J. M. & Shultz, T. R. (1990) Moral rules: Their content and acquisition. Annual Review of Psychology 41:525–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene, J. D. (2008) The secret joke of Kant's soul. In: Moral psychology, vol. 3: The neuroscience of morality: Emotion, disease, and development, ed. Sinnott-Armstrong, W., pp. 35–79. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Guglielmo, S. & Malle, B. F. (in press) Can unintended side-effects be intentional? Resolving a controversy over intentionality and morality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.Google Scholar
Guglielmo, S., Monroe, A. E. & Malle, B. F. (2009) At the heart of morality lies folk psychology. Inquiry 52:449–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haidt, J. (2001) The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review 108:814–34.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, C. & Knobe, J. (2009) Cause and norm. Journal of Philosophy 106(11):587–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machery, E. (2008) The folk concept of intentional action: Philosophical and experimental issues. Mind and Language 23(2):165–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadelhoffer, T. (2006b) Desire, foresight, intentions, and intentional actions: Probing folk intuitions. Journal of Cognition and Culture 6:133–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pellizzoni, S., Girotto, V. & Surian, L. (2010) Beliefs and moral valence affect intentionality attributions: The case of side effects. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 1:201–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phelan, M. & Sarkissian, H. (2008) The folk strike back; or, why you didn't do it intentionally, though it was bad and you knew it. Philosophical Studies 138(2):291–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pizarro, D., Uhlmann, E. & Salovey, P. (2003) Asymmetry in judgments of moral blame and praise: The role of perceived metadesires. Psychological Science 14:267–72.Google Scholar
Reeder, G. D. & Brewer, M. B. (1979) A schematic model of dispositional attribution in interpersonal perception. Psychological Review 86:61–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaver, K. G. (1985) The attribution of blame: Causality, responsibility, and blameworthiness. Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skowronski, J. J. & Carlston, D. E. (1989) Negativity and extremity biases in impression formation: A review of explanations. Psychological Bulletin 105:131–42.Google Scholar
Uttich, K. & Lombrozo, T. (2010) Norms inform mental state ascriptions: A rational explanation for the side-effect effect. Cognition 116:87–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Young, L. & Saxe, R. (2009) Innocent intentions: A correlation between forgiveness for accidental harm and neural activity. Neuropsychologia 47:2065–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed