There are more examples in a paper authored by Joshua Knobe on moral cognition and blameworthiness but I’m too lazy to get the reference. (Why don’t you give ma slight impetus in that direction?)
This sounds like a cool paper and I’d love to read it—can you track down the citation, please? ;)
Basically it seems that people are more likely to call harmful side-effects intentional, compared to beneficial ones.
I’m not sure this really is a bias; the harmful/beneficial cases are not exact counterparts: in the harmful case one could assume that the actor needs to mentally do something—namely, ‘overcoming the moral problem’ or ‘silence his/her conscience’, which makes the harmful case indeed a bit more ‘intentional’.
How many spurious accounts are you going to register to upvote me?
Usually, I do things like this for 3 karma points but since you look nice, I’ll give it to you for free.
It wasn’t actually Knobe but John Doris, who also works in the so-called experimental philosophy paradigm. The exact reference is:
“From My Lai to Abu Ghraib: The Moral Psychology of Atrocity.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy XXXI: 25-55
Here is the relevant quotation:
“(i) Passersby who had just found a dime were twenty-two times more likely to
help a woman who had dropped some papers than passersby who did not
find a dime (88% vs. 4%).27
(ii) Passersby not in a hurry were six times more likely to help an unfortunate
who appeared to be in significant distress than were passersby in a hurry
(63% vs. 10%).28
(iii) Passersby were five times more likely to help an apparently injured man
who had dropped some books when ambient noise was at normal levels
than they were when a power lawnmower was running nearby (80% vs.
15%).29
(iv) In Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment,” subjects role-playing in a
simulated prison rapidly descended to Lord of the Flies barbarism.30
(v) In Milgram’s “obedience experiments,” subjects participating in a study
purported to test the effects of punishment on learning would repeatedly
punish a screaming “learner” with realistic (but simulated) electric shocks
at the polite request of an experimenter.”
(I can’t use stylistic stuff like linking and quoting… Is there a guide to show how you quote?)
There’s a lot of x-phi stuff by Knobe and friends available online—mostly about all the same sorts of topics at the moment. There’s also a book called “Experimental Philosophy” edited by Knobe and Nichols… not quite a textbook, more a collection of papers with insufficient attention to detail on methodology… nonetheless, it’s a pretty good book for those interested in the field.
Doris doesn’t seem to host his stuff online, but here is a good starting place for interest in the field (hosted by Knobe).
This sounds like a cool paper and I’d love to read it—can you track down the citation, please? ;)
It looks like this might be the one: Knobe, Joshua. 2003. “Intentional action and side effects in ordinary language”, Analysis 63: 190-194. [PDF]
Thanks.
Basically it seems that people are more likely to call harmful side-effects intentional, compared to beneficial ones.
I’m not sure this really is a bias; the harmful/beneficial cases are not exact counterparts: in the harmful case one could assume that the actor needs to mentally do something—namely, ‘overcoming the moral problem’ or ‘silence his/her conscience’, which makes the harmful case indeed a bit more ‘intentional’.
How many spurious accounts are you going to register to upvote me?
Usually, I do things like this for 3 karma points but since you look nice, I’ll give it to you for free.
It wasn’t actually Knobe but John Doris, who also works in the so-called experimental philosophy paradigm. The exact reference is:
“From My Lai to Abu Ghraib: The Moral Psychology of Atrocity.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy XXXI: 25-55
Here is the relevant quotation:
“(i) Passersby who had just found a dime were twenty-two times more likely to help a woman who had dropped some papers than passersby who did not find a dime (88% vs. 4%).27 (ii) Passersby not in a hurry were six times more likely to help an unfortunate who appeared to be in significant distress than were passersby in a hurry (63% vs. 10%).28 (iii) Passersby were five times more likely to help an apparently injured man who had dropped some books when ambient noise was at normal levels than they were when a power lawnmower was running nearby (80% vs. 15%).29 (iv) In Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment,” subjects role-playing in a simulated prison rapidly descended to Lord of the Flies barbarism.30 (v) In Milgram’s “obedience experiments,” subjects participating in a study purported to test the effects of punishment on learning would repeatedly punish a screaming “learner” with realistic (but simulated) electric shocks at the polite request of an experimenter.”
(I can’t use stylistic stuff like linking and quoting… Is there a guide to show how you quote?)
Click “help”, to the bottom right of the reply box.
There’s a lot of x-phi stuff by Knobe and friends available online—mostly about all the same sorts of topics at the moment. There’s also a book called “Experimental Philosophy” edited by Knobe and Nichols… not quite a textbook, more a collection of papers with insufficient attention to detail on methodology… nonetheless, it’s a pretty good book for those interested in the field.
Doris doesn’t seem to host his stuff online, but here is a good starting place for interest in the field (hosted by Knobe).