Forget the Folk: Moral Responsibility Preservation Motives and Other Conditions for Compatibilism

Frontiers in Psychology
Cory J ClarkRoy F Baumeister

Abstract

For years, experimental philosophers have attempted to discern whether laypeople find free will compatible with a scientifically deterministic understanding of the universe, yet no consensus has emerged. The present work provides one potential explanation for these discrepant findings: People are strongly motivated to preserve free will and moral responsibility, and thus do not have stable, logically rigorous notions of free will. Seven studies support this hypothesis by demonstrating that a variety of logically irrelevant (but motivationally relevant) features influence compatibilist judgments. In Study 1, participants who were asked to consider the possibility that our universe is deterministic were more compatibilist than those not asked to consider this possibility, suggesting that determinism poses a threat to moral responsibility, which increases compatibilist responding (thus reducing the threat). In Study 2, participants who considered concrete instances of moral behavior found compatibilist free will more sufficient for moral responsibility than participants who were asked about moral responsibility more generally. In Study 3a, the order in which participants read free will and determinism descriptions influenced their...Continue Reading

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Citations

Nov 5, 2020·Cognitive Science·Thomas NadelhofferShaun Nichols
May 9, 2021·Addictive Behaviors·Rachel McKenzieJohn R Monterosso

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