The Role of Causal and Intentional Judgments in Moral Reasoning in Individuals with High Functioning Autism

Buon, Marine; Dupoux, Emmanuel; Jacob, Pierre; Chaste, Pauline; Leboyer, Marion; Zalla, Tiziana

doi:10.1007/s10803-012-1588-7

Cited by 71 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Although autistics do not seem to be impaired in evaluating intentional third-party harm-doings, they exhibit enduring deficits on more complex intent-based moral judgment tasks that require integration of information about mental states of the agents with the information about outcomes of these acts. In particular, they judge accidental harms more harshly, arguably due to their inability to form a robust representation of agent's benign intentions due to ToM deficits 13 that can be weighted up against a strong negative emotional response stemming from the victim suffering [14][15][16][17][18] (but see Baez et al 19 ). Thus, this work is consistent with the profile of ASD 20 featuring preserved psychophysiological/emotional response to others' affective states (affective empathy) but reduced cognitive understanding about others' internal states (ToM).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent roles of autistic and alexithymic traits in utilitarian moral judgments in adults with autism

Patil¹,

Melsbach²,

Hennig-Fast³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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This study investigated hypothetical moral choices in adults with high-functioning autism and the role of empathy and alexithymia in such choices. We used a highly emotionally salient moral dilemma task to investigate autistics' hypothetical moral evaluations about personally carrying out harmful utilitarian behaviours aimed at maximizing welfare. Results showed that they exhibited a normal pattern of moral judgments despite the deficits in social cognition and emotional processing. Further analyses revealed that this was due to mutually conflicting biases associated with autistic and alexithymic traits after accounting for shared variance: (a) autistic traits were associated with reduced utilitarian bias due to elevated personal distress of demanding social situations, while (b) alexithymic traits were associated with increased utilitarian bias on account of reduced empathic concern for the victim. Additionally, autistics relied on their non-verbal reasoning skills to rigidly abide by harm-norms. Thus, utilitarian moral judgments in autism were spared due to opposite influences of autistic and alexithymic traits and compensatory intellectual strategies. These findings demonstrate the importance of empathy and alexithymia in autistic moral cognition and have methodological implications for studying moral judgments in several other clinical populations.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent roles of autistic and alexithymic traits in utilitarian moral judgments in adults with autism

Patil¹,

Melsbach²,

Hennig-Fast³

et al. 2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Data show that, compared to controls, autists tend to take less account of an agent's intentions when assigning blame to actions that cause harm. [28] Buon, et al recognize two explanations for this. [28] One explanation cites ToM difficulties that impair autists' ability to take into account what the agent is thinking and the interpersonal norms being violated by the agent.…”

Section: Autism and Executive Functionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[28] Buon, et al recognize two explanations for this. [28] One explanation cites ToM difficulties that impair autists' ability to take into account what the agent is thinking and the interpersonal norms being violated by the agent. The other explanation is that autists are less likely to inhibit the automatic, emotion-based response to the unintended harmful consequences of an action in favor of a judgement that reflects consideration of the agent's neutral intentions.…”

Section: Autism and Executive Functionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autism and Moral Responsibility: Executive Function, Reasons Responsiveness, and Reasons Blockage

Richman

2017

Neuroethics

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As a neurodevelopmental condition that affects cognitive functioning, autism has been used as a test case for theories of moral responsibility. Most of the relevant literature focuses on autism's impact on theory of mind and empathy. Here I examine aspects of autism related to executive function. I apply an account of how we might fail to be reasons responsive to argue that autism can increase the frequency of excuses for transgressive behavior, but will rarely make anyone completely exempt from moral responsibility in general. On this account, although excuses may apply more often to autists than to others, the excuses that apply to autists are just the same excuses that can apply to anyone.

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“…Past research identifies the brain networks responsible for mental state analysis in moral judgment [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] , characteristic deficits in clinical populations 13,14 , and so forth 15 . Indeed, the synthesis of behavioral and neural research on mental state analysis in moral judgment stands out as a remarkable case study of integrative social cognitive neuroscience.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The behavioral and neural basis of empathic blame

Patil¹,

Calo²,

fFornasier³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Mature moral judgments rely both on a perpetrator's intent to cause harm, and also on the actual harm caused-even when unintended. Much prior research asks how intent information is represented neurally, but little asks how even unintended harms influence judgment. We interrogate the psychological and neural basis of this process, focusing especially on the role of empathy for the victim of a harmful act. Using fMRI, we found that the 'empathy for pain' network was involved in encoding harmful outcomes and integrating harmfulness information for different types of moral judgments, and individual differences in the extent to which this network was active during encoding and integration of harmfulness information determined severity of moral judgments. Additionally, activity in the network was down-regulated for acceptability, but not blame, judgments for accidental harm condition, suggesting that these two types of moral evaluations are neurobiologically dissociable. These results support a model of "empathic blame", whereby the perceived suffering of a victim colors moral judgment of an accidental harmdoer.

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The Role of Causal and Intentional Judgments in Moral Reasoning in Individuals with High Functioning Autism

Cited by 71 publications

References 53 publications

Divergent roles of autistic and alexithymic traits in utilitarian moral judgments in adults with autism

Divergent roles of autistic and alexithymic traits in utilitarian moral judgments in adults with autism

Autism and Moral Responsibility: Executive Function, Reasons Responsiveness, and Reasons Blockage

The behavioral and neural basis of empathic blame

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