Using Experiments in Ethics – Ethical Conservatism and the Psychology of Moral Luck

Nichols, Shaun; Timmons, Mark; Lopez, Theresa

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-01369-5_9

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Williams, 1981, Nagel, 1979, Nelkin, 2004, 2021, Hartman, 2017, Kamtekar & Nichols, 2019; for empirical work on moral luck, see e.g. Spranca et al 1998, Cushman, 2008, Young et al 2010, Nichols et al 2014, Kneer & Machery, 2019: We must square the consequentialist Difference Intuition with the Kantian Control Principle, but the two are fundamentally inconsistent. Importantly, however, Folk Morality disagrees: When presented with Frank and Su's cases side by side, the vast majority of participants evaluate the two agents identically.…”

Section: Outcome Effects On Culpabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Outcome Effects, Moral Luck and the Hindsight Bias

Kneer¹,

Skoczeń²

2021

Preprint

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In a series of ten preregistered experiments (N=2043), we investigate the effect of outcome valence on judgments of probability, negligence, and culpability – a phenomenon sometimes labelled moral (and legal) luck. We found that harmful outcomes, when contrasted with neutral outcomes, lead to increased perceived probability of harm ex post, and consequently to increased attribution of negligence and culpability. Rather than simply postulating a hindsight bias (as is common), we employ a variety of empirical means to demonstrate that the outcome-driven asymmetry across perceived probabilities constitutes a systematic cognitive distortion. We then explore three distinct strategies to alleviate the hindsight bias and its downstream effects on mens rea and culpability ascriptions. Not all are successful, but at least some prove promising. They should, we argue, be taken into consideration in criminal jurisprudence, where distortions due to the hindsight bias are likely considerable and deeply disconcerting.

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Section: Outcome Effects On Culpabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Outcome Effects, Moral Luck and the Hindsight Bias

Kneer¹,

Skoczeń²

2021

Preprint

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“…A more complex account assumes that different types of outcome trigger different inferences regarding the agent's epistemic states (e.g., knowledge and belief), which mediate the effect of outcome on moral judgment. Severe outcomes might lead the judging subject to infer that the agent must have known his action would produce harmful consequence (Royzman & Kumar, 2004;Young et al, 2011; for discussion see Kamtekar & Nichols, 2019;Nichols et al, 2014). The impact of outcome on moral judgment would thus be mediated by epistemic state ascriptions.…”

Section: Explanations Of the Outcome Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Outcome Severity on Moral Judgment and Interpersonal Goals of Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders

Frisch¹,

Kneer²,

Krueger³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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When two actors have exactly the same mental states but one happens to harm another person (unlucky actor) and the other one does not (lucky actor), the latter elicits milder moral judgment among bystanders. We hypothesized that the social role from which transgressions are perceived would moderate this outcome effect. In three preregistered experiments (N = 950), we randomly assigned participants to imagine and respond to moral scenarios as actor (i.e., perpetrator), victim, or bystander. Results revealed highly similar outcome effects on moral judgment across social roles. However, as predicted, the social role moderated the strength of the outcome effect on interpersonal goals pertaining to agency and communion. Although in agreement about the blameworthiness of lucky and unlucky actors, victims’ agency and communion were more sensitive to the outcome severity than perpetrators’ agency and communion, with bystanders’ outcome sensitivity falling in between. Outcome severity affected agency and communion directly instead of being mediated by moral judgment. We discuss the possibility that outcome severity raises normative expectations regarding interaction in a transgression’s aftermath that are unrelated to moral considerations.

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“…The answer proposed by Nichols et al. is that it is “rooted in human emotion” (: 161). But while Hume would have probably stopped there, noting that “our examination of causes must stop somewhere,” after Darwin this is no longer an option.…”

Section: Nichols Et Al On the Entrenchment Of Moral Luck Judgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, in order to establish the legitimacy of the commitment to moral luck, this worry needs to be removed. Here is how they suggest we do it: In the authors’ view, “one strategy of exposing bias is to see whether people withdraw their judgment under full information” (: 173). If they do, this is evidence that the judgment was premature; that it was a result of some kind of bias.…”

Section: Nichols Et Al On the Entrenchment Of Moral Luck Judgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When, however, the unfortunate outcomes were a result of non‐negligence—of good reasons—subjects assigned much less weight to the outcomes in their blame judgments. This shows that judgments of outcome‐based blame are sensitive to whether or not the agent was negligent, which means that the moral luck responses cannot be dismissed “as the product of a distorting general emotional bias” (: 174).…”

Section: Nichols Et Al On the Entrenchment Of Moral Luck Judgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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