The pervasive impact of ignorance

Kirfel, Lara; Phillips, Jonathan

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105316

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…CI = confidence interval; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit. judgments are also influenced by the agent's mental state (Almagro et al, 2022;Kirfel & Phillips, 2023). Offenses that are carried out intentionally elicit stronger disapproval than those same offenses brought about accidentally (Young et al, 2010)-a distinction that is reflected in the law's definition of mens rea as a formal element of serious crime (Gardner, 1993).…”

Section: Study 5: Knowledge Versus Foreseeabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our first four studies examined the effects of moralization arising from a consideration of outcome value: the manipulation of purpose violation contrasted cases in which either a bad or a neutral outcome ensues (e.g., when the floors get dirty vs. stay clean in the context of a “no shoes in the house” rule). It is known, however, that moral judgments are also influenced by the agent’s mental state (Almagro et al, 2022; Kirfel & Phillips, 2023). Offenses that are carried out intentionally elicit stronger disapproval than those same offenses brought about accidentally (Young et al, 2010)—a distinction that is reflected in the law’s definition of mens rea as a formal element of serious crime (Gardner, 1993).…”

Section: Study 5: Knowledge Versus Foreseeabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

Flanagan¹,

Almeida²,

Struchiner³

et al. 2023

Law and Human Behavior

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Objectives: We sought to understand how basic competencies in moral reasoning influence the application of private, institutional, and legal rules. Hypotheses: We predicted that moral appraisals, implicating both outcome-based and mental state reasoning, would shape participants’ interpretation of rules and statutes—and asked whether these effects arise differentially under intuitive and reflective reasoning conditions. Method: In six vignette-based experiments (total N = 2,473; 293 university law students [67% women; age bracket mode: 18–22 years] and 2,180 online workers [60% women; mean age = 31.9 years]), participants considered a wide range of written rules and laws and determined whether a protagonist had violated the rule in question. We manipulated morally relevant aspects of each incident—including the valence of the rule’s purpose (Study 1) and of the outcomes that ensued (Studies 2 and 3), as well as the protagonist’s accompanying mental state (Studies 5 and 6). In two studies, we simultaneously varied whether participants decided under time pressure or following a forced delay (Studies 4 and 6). Results: Moral appraisals of the rule’s purpose, the agent’s extraneous blameworthiness, and the agent’s epistemic state impacted legal determinations and helped to explain participants’ departure from rules’ literal interpretation. Counter-literal verdicts were stronger under time pressure and were weakened by the opportunity to reflect. Conclusions: Under intuitive reasoning conditions, legal determinations draw on core competencies in moral cognition, such as outcome-based and mental state reasoning. In turn, cognitive reflection dampens these effects on statutory interpretation, allowing text to play a more influential role.

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Section: Study 5: Knowledge Versus Foreseeabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Study 5: Knowledge Versus Foreseeabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

Flanagan¹,

Almeida²,

Struchiner³

et al. 2023

Law and Human Behavior

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“…the "guilty mind") broadly conceived, under which the reasonable person standard falls as well. Recent work has focused on intentionality and epistemic states (Frisch et al, 2021;Kneer andBourgeois-Gironde, 2017, 2018;Kobick and Knobe, 2009;Macleod, 2015;Mott and Heiphetz, 2023;Nadelhoffer, 2006;Tobia, 2020), recklessness and negligence (Kneer and Machery, 2019;Margoni and Brown, 2023;Murray et al, 2023;Nobes and Martin, 2022), willful ignorance (Kirfel and Hannikainen, 2023;Kirfel and Phillips, 2023), the interaction between the attribution of mental states such as foresight and causation (Güver and Kneer, 2023;Knobe and Shapiro, 2021;Lagnado and Channon, 2008;Sytsma, 2019) and-as mentioned in the introduction-the notion of reasonableness, which is of key relevance for the less inculpating types of mens rea.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The meaning of ‘reasonable’: Evidence from a corpus-linguistic study

Baumgartner,

Kneer

2023

Preprint

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The reasonable person standard is key to both Criminal Law and Torts. What does and does not count as reasonable behavior and decision-making is frequently deter- mined by lay jurors. Hence, laypeople’s understanding of the term must be considered, especially whether they use it predominately in an evaluative fashion. In this corpus study based on supervised machine learning models, we investigate whether laypeople use the expression ‘reasonable’ mainly as a descriptive, an evaluative, or merely a value-associated term. We find that ‘reasonable’ is predicted to be an evaluative term in the majority of cases. This supports prescriptive accounts, and challenges descriptive and hybrid accounts of the term—at least given the way we operationalize the latter. Interestingly, other expressions often used interchangeably in jury instructions (e.g. ‘careful,’ ‘ordinary,’ ‘prudent,’ etc), however, are predicted to be descriptive. This indicates a discrepancy between the intended use of the term ‘reasonable’ and the understanding lay jurors might bring into the court room.

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“…People conceive counterfactuals not only when developing causal explanations 5,6 , but also when ascribing blame 7,8 and responsibility [9][10][11] . However, previous work that examined the role of counterfactual thinking in moral judgments focused mostly on agents' actions [10][11][12][13] and agents' epistemic states [14][15][16] . Less research emphasize on the role of counterfactual reasoning about agents' intentions 16,17 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, previous work that examined the role of counterfactual thinking in moral judgments focused mostly on agents' actions [10][11][12][13] and agents' epistemic states [14][15][16] . Less research emphasize on the role of counterfactual reasoning about agents' intentions 16,17 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

You should have checked! The importance of epistemic intentions in ascription of responsibility

Kovacevic¹,

Bonalumi²,

Heintz³

2023

Preprint

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People routinely ascribe responsibility for a given outcome. What factors do they take into account during this process? We argue that people ascribe responsibility when they find a counterfactual in which some minimally benevolent intention could have caused a better outcome. We test whether this account accurately predicts how people consider the epistemic states of potentially responsible agents when ascribing responsibility. With two vignette studies, we show that people take into account epistemic factors when ascribing responsibility for a bad outcome. We find that people ascribe responsibility to agents for a bad outcome when the agents knew that the outcome could have been avoided but nonetheless pursued their course of action. However, when an agent did not know, people ascribed responsibility depending on the reasons behind this lack of knowledge. Agents were judged responsible for the bad outcome when they could have easily known about the consequences of their actions on others, but did not perform the necessary epistemic action; on the other hand, when this information was hard to acquire, people were less willing to ascribe responsibility.

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The pervasive impact of ignorance

Cited by 6 publications

References 102 publications

Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

The meaning of ‘reasonable’: Evidence from a corpus-linguistic study

You should have checked! The importance of epistemic intentions in ascription of responsibility

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