Moral Responsibility Ain't Just in the Head

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHELLE CIURRIA
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Intentional States

Abstract:In this paper, I dispute what I call psychological internalism about moral responsibility, which comprises most classic accounts as well as newer neurobiological ones, and I defend psychological externalism about moral responsibility instead. According to psychological internalism, an agent's moral responsibility is determined solely or primarily by her intentional states. I argue that psychological internalism is empirically challenged by recent findings in social psychology and cognitive science. In light of the empirical evidence, I contend that moral responsibility depends on historical and environmental factors to a much greater degree than previously appreciated. Thus, moral responsibility is not just in the head: indeed, it is much less in the head than typically assumed.

Social Psychology as a Cognitive Science

1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (9) ◽  
pp. 839-840
Author(s):  
James S. Uleman
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science

In the Middle of Life

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Winter's Tale ◽  
Winter's Tale ◽  
Moral Repair ◽  
Moral Frameworks ◽  
Moral Time

This chapter explores the specific challenges that cognitive science and social psychology pose to those literary concepts and modes that are grounded in traditional moral understandings of selfhood and action, including integrity of character and notions such as tragic realization and moral repair. Focusing on the concept of moral time, the chapter explores two literary texts in which profound middle-of-life dramas take place: Henry James’s “The Beast in the Jungle” and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. A form of slow psychic time entirely lost to view in recent cognitive science is shown to take place in James’s tale, while The Winter’s Tale insists on the forms of moral and emotional experience that are beyond reflection and explanation. The readings presented are set in relation to key critical debates on the works, to challenge a persistent evasion of moral frameworks in contemporary anti-normative approaches.

Moral Responsibility, Socially Embedded

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
The Face ◽  
Moral Theorizing ◽  
The Impact

This chapter asks whether we can hold on to the picture of the morally responsible subject as we knew it in the face of evidence from social psychology about the impact of contexts on human behaviour. Some theorists have taken this to present a major challenge to moral theorizing. However, the chapter argues that, while we should acknowledge the malleability of human behaviour, we should not give up the notion of responsible agency. Rather, we need to broaden our theoretical horizon in order to include individuals’ co-responsibility for the contexts in which they act. This argument is a general one, but it is of particular relevance for organizations: it is our shared responsibility to turn them into contexts in which moral agency is supported rather than undermined.

Effect of Power on Moral Judgment

1978 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 387-394
Author(s):  
Russell Hamby
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Low Power ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Factorial Design ◽  
High Power ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Need For Power ◽  
Experimenter Effects

Ambiguous effects of power on attributions of moral responsibility for an accident are interpreted to result from the intervening effects of need for power, which is aroused by the anticipation of exercising power over another. 160 subjects from introductory social psychology classes participated in a questionnaire-type experiment comparing effects of high/low carelessness, severe/minor consequences, and high/low power of the attributor in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design. In a follow-up experiment 30 subjects were assigned to conditions of high or low power, and their needs for power and moral attributions were measured. High power seemed to arouse need for power, which was curvilinearly related to moral judgments. Those high and low in need for power attributed more moral responsibility to the perpetrator of an accident than those with moderate levels of need for power. The results suggest complicated models of both moral judgments and experimenter effects related to the level or arousal of motivations.

Autism, Metacognition, and the Deep Self

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-464
Author(s):  
NATHAN STOUT
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Cognitive States ◽  
Satisfactory Account ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Metacognitive Abilities

ABSTRACT:Many ‘deep self’ theories of moral responsibility characterize the deep self as necessarily requiring that an agent be able to reflect on her own cognitive states in various ways. In this paper, I argue that these metacognitive abilities are not actually a necessary feature of the deep self. In order to show this, I appeal to empirical evidence from research on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that suggests that individuals with ASD have striking impairments in metacognitive abilities. I then argue that metacognitive conceptions of the deep self are implausible insofar as they fail to give a satisfactory account of the responsibility of persons with autism.

No Character or Personality

2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Harman
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Character Traits ◽  
Personality Theory

Abstract:Solomon argues that, although recent research in social psychology has important implications for business ethics, it does not undermine an approach that stresses virtue ethics. However, he underestimates the empirical threat to virtue ethics, and his a priori claim that empirical research cannot overturn our ordinary moral psychology is overstated. His appeal to seemingly obvious differences in character traits between people simply illustrates the fundamental attribution error. His suggestion that the Milgram and Darley and Batson experiments have to do with such character traits as obedience and punctuality cannot help to explain the relevant differences in the way people behave in different situations. His appeal to personality theory fails, because, as an intellectual academic discipline, personality theory is in shambles, mainly because it has been concerned with conceptions of personality rather than with what is true about personality. Solomon’s rejection of Doris’s claims about the fragmentation of character is at odds with the received view in social psychology. Finally, he is mistaken to think that rejecting virtue ethics implies rejecting free will and moral responsibility.

Umwelt Microbiana

Public ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (59) ◽  
pp. 179-189
Author(s):  
Joel Ong ◽  
Mick Lorusso
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Microbial World ◽  
Scientific Laboratory ◽  
Artistic Research

This essay discusses a series of collaborative artworks by Joel Ong and Mick Lorusso envisioning a "Microbial Witness," a quiet but powerful protagonist founded in the interstitial spaces of science, art, and mythology. The artists systematically catalog its umwelt--the environmental factors that affect it-- through the "Microbial Atlas." Ong and Lorusso propose that, through exposure to this artistic research process, their audience may also adopt an ecological/moral responsibility through a shared empathy with, and respect for, the microbial world. This work continues their joint artistic querying of the role and position of the artist as “witness" in the spaces and artefacts of the scientific laboratory.

scholarly journals How Far we Can Go Without Looking Under the Skin: The Bounds of Cognitive Science

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-109
Author(s):  
Łukasz Afeltowicz ◽  
Witold Wachowski
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Cognitive System ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
External Representations

Abstract The aim of this paper is to discuss the concept of distributed cognition (DCog) in the context of classic questions posed by mainstream cognitive science. We support our remarks by appealing to empirical evidence from the fields of cognitive science and ethnography. Particular attention is paid to the structure and functioning of a cognitive system, as well as its external representations. We analyze the problem of how far we can push the study of human cognition without taking into account what is underneath an individual’s skin. In light of our discussion, a distinction between DCog and the extended mind becomes important.

Features for Identification of Uppercase and Lowercase Letters

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 1161-1168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Fiset ◽  
Caroline Blais ◽  
Catherine Éthier-Majcher ◽  
Martin Arguin ◽  
Daniel Bub ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Visual Features ◽  
Letter Identification

The determination of the visual features mediating letter identification has a long-standing history in cognitive science. Researchers have proposed many sets of letter features as important for letter identification, but no such sets have yet been derived directly from empirical data. In the study reported here, we applied the Bubbles technique to reveal directly which areas at five different spatial scales are efficient for the identification of lowercase and uppercase Arial letters. We provide the first empirical evidence that line terminations are the most important features for letter identification. We propose that these small features, represented at several spatial scales, help readers to discriminate among visually similar letters.

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