gwern comments on Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant

[gwern]

The utilitarian/​autism-spectrum correlation may be true in the general population, but there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between self-reported AQ and consequentialism endorsement in the LW population (perhaps because the LW population is already self-selected for either being a consequentialist or coming up with good justifications for non-consequentialism):

R> lw <- read.csv("2012.csv")
R> lwa <- subset(lw, !is.na(AutismScore))
R> levels(lwa$MoralViews)
[1] " "                                     "Accept / lean toward consequentialism"
[3] "Accept / lean toward deontology"       "Accept / lean toward virtue ethics"
[5] "Other / no answer"
R> lwa <- subset(lwa, as.character(MoralViews) != " " & as.character(MoralViews) != "Other / no answer")
R> cor.test(lwa$AutismScore, as.integer(lwa$MoralViews))

    Pearson’s product-moment correlation

data:  lwa$AutismScore and as.integer(lwa$MoralViews)
t = 0.1663, df = 289, p-value = 0.868
alternative hypothesis: true correlation is not equal to 0
95 percent confidence interval:
 −0.1053  0.1246
sample estimates:
     cor
0.009783

(A positive correlation suggests that higher autism scorers were a tad more likely to endorse a higher category, that is, deontology or virtue ethics.)

[NancyLebovitz]

Thank you for checking.