Deconstructing intent to reconstruct morality

By Fiery Cushman. 2015

112 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Mental state representations are a crucial input to human moral judgment. This fact is often summarized by saying that we restrict moral condemnation to ‘intentional’ harms. This simple description is the beginning of a theory, however, not the end of one. There is rich internal structure to the folk concept of intentional action, which comprises a series of causal relations between mental states, actions and states of affairs in the world. Moral judgment shows nuanced patterns of sensitivity to all three of these elements: mental states (like beliefs and desires), the actions that a person performs, and the consequences of those actions. Deconstructing intentional action into its elemental fragments will enable future theories to reconstruct our understanding of moral judgment.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Information Systems and Management, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bee0f2ef3843ca545ee12657782945bb48d7e99d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

1. Natalie M. Daumeyer
2. Xanni Brown
3. J. Richeson
4. I. Onyeador

In Information Systems and Management

1. Natalie M. Daumeyer
2. Xanni Brown
3. J. Richeson
4. I. Onyeador

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Natalie M. Daumeyer
2. Xanni Brown
3. J. Richeson
4. I. Onyeador
5. M. Verkuyten
6. J. N. Shelton

Citations in the corpus

• Consequences of attributing discrimination to implicit vs. explicit bias (2019, background): “In other words, the mental state of the actor is essential to an assessment of culpability (Cameron et al., 2010; Cushman, 2015).”