HOW TO CANCEL THE KNOBE EFFECT

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
Lindauer ◽  
Southwood
Keyword(s):  
Knobe Effect

scholarly journals Interview on Experimental Philosophy with Joshua Knobe

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-28
Author(s):  
Pendaran S. Roberts ◽  
Joshua Knobe ◽  
Pendaran Roberts ◽  
Joshua Knobe
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Knobe Effect ◽  
Experimental Philosopher ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaborations ◽  
Conversation Piece

This conversation piece contains an interview with Joshua Knobe. It provides a useful introduction to what experimental philosophy is and the interdisciplinary collaborations it encourages. Pendaran Roberts and Joshua Knobe collaboratively developed this conversation piece via email. Joshua Knobe is a renowned experimental philosopher, who works on a range of philosophical issues, including philosophy of mind, action and ethics. He is a professor in the Program in Cognitive Science and the Department of Philosophy at Yale University. He is most known for what is now called the ‘Knobe effect’.

scholarly journals The Problem of ESEE Knowledge

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Side Effect ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Good Thing ◽  
Knobe Effect ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Specific Instance ◽  
Theoretical Significance ◽  
Performance Error ◽  
A New Technique ◽  
Moral Valence

Traditionally it has been thought that the moral valence of a proposition is, strictly speaking, irrelevant to whether someone knows that the proposition is true, and thus irrelevant to the truth-value of a knowledge ascription. On this view, it’s no easier to know, for example, that a bad thing will happen than that a good thing will happen (other things being equal). But a series of very surprising recent experiments suggest that this is actually not how we view knowledge. On the contrary, people are much more willing to ascribe knowledge of a bad outcome. This is known as the epistemic side-effect effect (ESEE), and is a specific instance of a widely documented phenomenon, the side-effect effect (a.k.a. “the Knobe effect”), which is the most famous finding in experimental philosophy. In this paper, I report a new series of five experiments on ESEE, and in the process accomplish three things. First, I confirm earlier findings on the effect. Second, I show that the effect is virtually unlimited. Third, I introduce a new technique for detecting the effect, which potentially enhances its theoretical significance. In particular, my findings make it more likely that the effect genuinely reflects the way we think about and ascribe knowledge, rather than being the result of a performance error.

scholarly journals Normativity in Action: How to Explain the Knobe Effect and its Relatives

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANK HINDRIKS
Keyword(s):  
Knobe Effect

scholarly journals THE KNOBE EFFECT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THOMISTIC ETHICS: THE PROBLEM OF NORMATIVE ORDERS AND COMPETENCES

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (S2) ◽  
pp. 173-196
Author(s):  
Andrzej Waleszczyński
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
Knobe Effect ◽  
The Asymmetry

This article discusses how to interpret the so-called Knobe effect, which refers to the asymmetry in judgments about the intentionality of the side effects caused by one’s actions. The observed tendency is explained through the “moral undertone” of the actions judged. So far, discussions have mostly been held among philosophers in the analytical tradition, who see the theory of morality largely as an ethics of rules. The analysis developed in this article advances the research carried out so far to include teleological ethics, most notably the tradition of Thomistic ethics. Philosophical discussions address the problem of normative orders, focusing in particular on two types of cognition concerned, respectively, with moral judgments and facts. Investigating this issue proves to be helpful not only to explain the Knobe effect, but also to better understand the very notion of an intentional action as employed in the philosophy of action. As a result of this analysis, the Author explains the existing asymmetry in the attribution of intentionality to actions with the respondents’ confusion between cognitive orders. This problem brings us to the issue of normative competences. In analyzing the Knobe effect, normative competences would be responsible for the classification of the data collected and separation of the “purely informative” order from the order of moral judgments, referring to norms or values.

scholarly journals The Knobe Effect From the Perspective of Normative Orders

Studia Humana ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-15
Author(s):  
Andrzej Waleszczyński ◽  
Michał Obidziński ◽  
Julia Rejewska
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Stable Model ◽  
Mutual Relationship ◽  
Knobe Effect ◽  
Moral Normativity ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Theoretical Analyses

Abstract The characteristic asymmetry in the attribution of intentionality in causing side effects, known as the Knobe effect, is considered to be a stable model of human cognition. This article looks at whether the way of thinking and analysing one scenario may affect the other and whether the mutual relationship between the ways in which both scenarios are analysed may affect the stability of the Knobe effect. The theoretical analyses and empirical studies performed are based on a distinction between moral and non-moral normativity possibly affecting the judgments passed in both scenarios. Therefore, an essential role in judgments about the intentionality of causing a side effect could be played by normative competences responsible for distinguishing between normative orders.

scholarly journals Knowledge of consequences: an explanation of the epistemic side-effect effect

Synthese ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 197 (12) ◽  
pp. 5457-5490
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Paprzycka-Hausman
Keyword(s):  
Side Effect ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Knowledge Claim ◽  
Effect Analysis ◽  
Knobe Effect

AbstractThe Knobe effect (Analysis 63(3):190–194, 2003a) consists in our tendency to attribute intentionality to bringing about a side effect when it is morally bad but not when it is morally good. Beebe and Buckwalter (Mind Lang 25:474–498, 2010) have demonstrated that there is an epistemic side-effect effect (ESEE): people are more inclined to attribute knowledge when the side effect is bad in Knobe-type cases. ESEE is quite robust. In this paper, I present a new explanation of ESEE. I argue that when people attribute knowledge in morally negative cases, they express a consequence-knowledge claim (knowledge that a possible consequence of an action is that harm will occur) rather than a predictive claim (knowledge that harm will actually occur). I use the omissions account (Paprzycka in Mind Lang 30(5):550–571, 2015) to explain why the consequence-knowledge claim is particularly salient in morally negative cases. Unlike the doxastic heuristic account (Alfano et al. in Monist 95(2):264–289, 2012), the omissions account can explain the persistence of ESEE in the so-called slight-chance of harm conditions. I present the results of empirical studies that test the predictions of the account. I show that ESEE occurs in Butler-type scenarios. Some of the studies involve close replications of Nadelhoffer’s (Analysis 64(3):277–284, 2004) study.

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