Reuter, K., Kirfel, L., Van Riel, R. et al. (1 more author) (2014) The good, the bad, and the timely: How temporal order and moral judgment influence causal selection. Frontiers in Psychology (5). 1336. ISSN 1664-1078
Abstract
Causal selection is the cognitive process through which one or more elements in a complex causal structure are singled out as actual causes of a certain effect. In this paper, we report on an experiment in which we investigated the role of moral and temporal factors in causal selection. Our results are as follows. First, when presented with a temporal chain in which two human agents perform the same action one after the other, subjects tend to judge the later agent to be the actual cause. Second, this effect of temporal location on causal selection is almost canceled if the later agent did not violate a norm while the former did. We argue that this is due to the impact that judgments of norm violation have on causal selection—even if the violated norm has nothing to do with the obtaining effect. Third, moral judgments about the effect influence causal selection even in the case in which agents could not have foreseen the effect and did not intend to bring it about. We discuss our findings in connection to recent theories of the role of moral judgment in causal reasoning, on the one hand, and to probabilistic models of temporal location, on the other.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 Reuter, Kirfel, van Riel and Barlassina. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Philosophy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 20 Nov 2014 10:13 |
Last Modified: | 20 Nov 2014 10:13 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01336 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Frontiers |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01336 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:81770 |