Different moral values produce different judgments of intentional action

Recent work in social psychology and experimental philosophy has suggested that moral considerations (praise vs. blame) can influence judgments about the intentional status of an act, contradicting both lay and legal assumptions about the relationship between theory of mind and morality. A corollary of this account suggests that different assessments of intentional action should emerge whenever people hold different moral values. Five studies validated this implication. Participants were more likely to report an action as intentionally caused if it lead to a negative side-effect that had strong moral significance to the participant. This pattern was found when looking at differences in participants’ protected values (Exepriments 1 & 2), political orientation (Experiments 3 & 4), and gender (Experiment 5). These findings support the claim that moral values can strongly influence lay concepts of intentional action, providing an explanation of how people may arrive at different judgments of intentionality while nevertheless agreeing on the actors state of mind. Comic-book heroes (as well as villains) are often endowed with the superpower of telepathy—the ability to “listen in” on the private thoughts and beliefs of others. Telepathy is a compelling superpower because the ability to accurately perceive the thoughts and intentions of any complex agent allows for one to explain, understand, and preempt that agents behavior. The better we can mind-read, it seems, the more likely we are to be successful in navigating through a complex and unpredictable world1 (Dennett, 1987). If superheroes have the power to read minds, what is there for the rest of us? Ordinary humans of course also make inferences about the mental states of others, and almost always do so with limited information. A long and rich tradition in social psychology (Heider, 1958; Jones & Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1972; Malle, Knobe, O’Laughlin, Pearce, & Nelson, This is not to say that complete knowledge of others’ mental states is always beneficial. In bargaining situations—where elements of both conflict and mutualism can be found—a lack of knowledge about the others motives can actually increase ones bargaining power, as long as the opponent is knowledgeable of this deficiency (Schelling, 1963).