Folk Blaming and Punishment: New Connections

BYSTROŇOVÁ, Monika. Folk Blaming and Punishment: New Connections. In Experimental philosophy: Methods and new directions. 2016.

Basic information

• Original name: Folk Blaming and Punishment: New Connections
• Authors: BYSTROŇOVÁ, Monika.
• Edition: Experimental philosophy: Methods and new directions, 2016.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 60300 6.3 Philosophy, Ethics and Religion
• Country of publisher: Germany
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords in English: experimental philosophy; folk morality; blame; praise; punishment
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

The main aim of my talk is an attempt to understand on what basis lay people blame and punish moral agents. In order to do that, I will put into context several branches of research in the area of morality in which we can detect some type of asymmetry (either in ascribing concepts to moral agents, blaming or determining punishment). I believe that in doing so, I will be able to show the bigger picture and present some interesting new connections that can lead to better understanding of folk moral mind. I will focus on three branches of research that have, in my opinion, a lot in common. First, I will focus on asymmetry in ascribing intentionality (and praise/blame) known as the Knobe effect – asymmetry caused by different moral valence of a side-effect (Knobe, 2003). Second asymmetry I am interested in, arises from interaction of two different factors in our moral judgments when we are confronted with cases of moral luck (Cushman, 2008) – (1) “Who is responsible for this harm?” (assessment of causal responsibility for harm) and (2) “Did agent intended to do this harm?” (assessment of intent to harm). In cases of moral luck, I will also analyze cases where the phenomenon called blame blocking occurred. And finally, I will focus on asymmetry that occurs when one agent and some other externality/two agents are present at some harm-doing activity – Who will be perceived as more causally responsible (Alicke, 1992, 2000)? The reason why I will be focusing on these studies is because the authors use the same package of components that can be identified in each scenario that is presented to participants. I have identified six components – five of them are actually conditions for the folk concept of intentional action proposed by Malle and Knobe (1997): desire, belief, intention, awareness, skill and the sixth is another important component already mentioned above, causal responsibility. Using these six components will allow me to compare used scenarios and to find out which factors make people to judge moral agents more leniently or harshly. Also, I think that results of these experiments complete each other and that some possible explanations can stem from the bigger picture. So, in terms of dichotomy suggested by Prinz (2008), my talk should be viewed as an example of empirical philosophy, rather than its experimental counterpart. Nonetheless, it should demonstrate the usefulness of broader theoretical synthesis of the results obtained in particular experimental studies.