Zachary C. Irving, Samuel Murray, Aaron Glasser, Kristina Krasich
{"title":"The Catch-22 of Forgetfulness: Responsibility for Mental Mistakes","authors":"Zachary C. Irving, Samuel Murray, Aaron Glasser, Kristina Krasich","doi":"10.1080/00048402.2022.2157031","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Attribution theorists assume that character information informs judgments of blame. But there is disagreement over why. One camp holds that character information is a fundamental determinant of blame. Another camp holds that character information merely provides evidence about the mental states and processes that determine responsibility. We argue for a two-channel view, where character simultaneously has fundamental and evidential effects on blame. In two large factorial studies (n = 495), participants rate whether someone is blameworthy when he makes a mistake (burns a cake or misses a bus stop). Although mental state inferences predict blame judgments, character information does not. Using mediation analyses, we find that character information influences responsibility via two channels (Studies 3–4; n = 447), which are sensitive to different kinds of information (Study 5; n = 149). On the one hand, forgetfulness increases judgments of responsibility, because mental lapses manifest an objectionable character flaw. On the other hand, forgetfulness decreases judgments of state control, which in turn decreases responsibility judgments. These two channels cancel out, which is why we find no aggregate effect of forgetfulness on responsibility. Our results challenge several fundamental assumptions about the role of character information in moral judgment, including that good character typically mitigates blame.","PeriodicalId":51459,"journal":{"name":"AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2022.2157031","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Attribution theorists assume that character information informs judgments of blame. But there is disagreement over why. One camp holds that character information is a fundamental determinant of blame. Another camp holds that character information merely provides evidence about the mental states and processes that determine responsibility. We argue for a two-channel view, where character simultaneously has fundamental and evidential effects on blame. In two large factorial studies (n = 495), participants rate whether someone is blameworthy when he makes a mistake (burns a cake or misses a bus stop). Although mental state inferences predict blame judgments, character information does not. Using mediation analyses, we find that character information influences responsibility via two channels (Studies 3–4; n = 447), which are sensitive to different kinds of information (Study 5; n = 149). On the one hand, forgetfulness increases judgments of responsibility, because mental lapses manifest an objectionable character flaw. On the other hand, forgetfulness decreases judgments of state control, which in turn decreases responsibility judgments. These two channels cancel out, which is why we find no aggregate effect of forgetfulness on responsibility. Our results challenge several fundamental assumptions about the role of character information in moral judgment, including that good character typically mitigates blame.
期刊介绍:
The Australasian Journal of Philosophy (AJP) is one of the world''s leading philosophy journals. Founded in 1923, it has been continuously published ever since. It is recognized as one of the best in the analytic tradition, but is not narrow in what it regards as worthy of acceptance. Heavily cited in the general philosophical literature, it is covered by all the major abstracting and indexing services, including the Arts and Humanities Citation Index® which provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information and cited references found in the world''s leading arts and humanities journals. In addition to Articles and Discussion Notes, the journal publishes Book Reviews and Book Notes as well as occasional commissioned Critical Notices. The journal is read world-wide and has recently published contributions from North and South American, European and Asian as well as Australasian authors.