{"title":"Lay Theories of Moral Progress","authors":"Casey Lewry, Sana Asifriyaz, Tania Lombrozo","doi":"10.1111/cogs.70018","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many consider the world to be morally better today than it was in the past and expect moral improvement to continue. How do people explain what drives this change? In this paper, we identify two ways people might think about how moral progress occurs: that it is driven by human action (i.e., if people did not actively work to make the world better, moral progress would not occur) or that it is driven by an unspecified mechanism (i.e., that our world is destined to morally improve, but without specifying a role for human action). In Study 1 (<i>N</i> = 147), we find that those who more strongly believe that the mechanism of moral progress is human action are more likely to believe their own intervention is warranted to correct a moral setback. In Study 2 (<i>N</i> = 145), we find that this translates to intended action: those who more strongly believe moral progress is driven by human action report that they would donate more money to correct a moral setback. In Study 3 (<i>N</i> = 297), participants generate their own explanations for why moral progress occurs. We find that participants’ donation intentions are predicted by whether their explanations state that human action drives moral progress. Together, these studies suggest that beliefs about the mechanisms of moral progress have important implications for engaging in social action.</p>","PeriodicalId":48349,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Science","volume":"48 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cogs.70018","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cognitive Science","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.70018","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Many consider the world to be morally better today than it was in the past and expect moral improvement to continue. How do people explain what drives this change? In this paper, we identify two ways people might think about how moral progress occurs: that it is driven by human action (i.e., if people did not actively work to make the world better, moral progress would not occur) or that it is driven by an unspecified mechanism (i.e., that our world is destined to morally improve, but without specifying a role for human action). In Study 1 (N = 147), we find that those who more strongly believe that the mechanism of moral progress is human action are more likely to believe their own intervention is warranted to correct a moral setback. In Study 2 (N = 145), we find that this translates to intended action: those who more strongly believe moral progress is driven by human action report that they would donate more money to correct a moral setback. In Study 3 (N = 297), participants generate their own explanations for why moral progress occurs. We find that participants’ donation intentions are predicted by whether their explanations state that human action drives moral progress. Together, these studies suggest that beliefs about the mechanisms of moral progress have important implications for engaging in social action.
期刊介绍:
Cognitive Science publishes articles in all areas of cognitive science, covering such topics as knowledge representation, inference, memory processes, learning, problem solving, planning, perception, natural language understanding, connectionism, brain theory, motor control, intentional systems, and other areas of interdisciplinary concern. Highest priority is given to research reports that are specifically written for a multidisciplinary audience. The audience is primarily researchers in cognitive science and its associated fields, including anthropologists, education researchers, psychologists, philosophers, linguists, computer scientists, neuroscientists, and roboticists.