Frontiers in Psychology (Nov 2019)
For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures
- Ivar R. Hannikainen,
- Edouard Machery,
- David Rose,
- Stephen Stich,
- Christopher Y. Olivola,
- Paulo Sousa,
- Florian Cova,
- Emma E. Buchtel,
- Mario Alai,
- Adriano Angelucci,
- Renatas Berniûnas,
- Amita Chatterjee,
- Hyundeuk Cheon,
- In-Rae Cho,
- Daniel Cohnitz,
- Vilius Dranseika,
- Ángeles Eraña Lagos,
- Laleh Ghadakpour,
- Maurice Grinberg,
- Takaaki Hashimoto,
- Amir Horowitz,
- Evgeniya Hristova,
- Yasmina Jraissati,
- Veselina Kadreva,
- Kaori Karasawa,
- Hackjin Kim,
- Yeonjeong Kim,
- Minwoo Lee,
- Carlos Mauro,
- Masaharu Mizumoto,
- Sebastiano Moruzzi,
- Jorge Ornelas,
- Barbara Osimani,
- Carlos Romero,
- Alejandro Rosas López,
- Massimo Sangoi,
- Andrea Sereni,
- Sarah Songhorian,
- Noel Struchiner,
- Vera Tripodi,
- Naoki Usui,
- Alejandro Vázquez del Mercado,
- Hrag A. Vosgerichian,
- Xueyi Zhang,
- Jing Zhu
Affiliations
- Ivar R. Hannikainen
- Department of Law, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Edouard Machery
- Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
- David Rose
- Department of Philosophy, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, United States
- Stephen Stich
- Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, United States
- Christopher Y. Olivola
- Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
- Paulo Sousa
- Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen’s University, Belfast, United Kingdom
- Florian Cova
- Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Emma E. Buchtel
- Department of Psychology, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong
- Mario Alai
- Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy
- Adriano Angelucci
- Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy
- Renatas Berniûnas
- 0Institute of Psychology, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
- Amita Chatterjee
- 1School of Cognitive Science, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
- Hyundeuk Cheon
- 2Department of Philosophy, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea
- In-Rae Cho
- 2Department of Philosophy, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea
- Daniel Cohnitz
- 3Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
- Vilius Dranseika
- 4Institute of Philosophy, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
- Ángeles Eraña Lagos
- 5Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas-UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico
- Laleh Ghadakpour
- 6Independent Researcher, Tehran, Iran
- Maurice Grinberg
- 7Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology, New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria
- Takaaki Hashimoto
- 8Department of Social Psychology, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Amir Horowitz
- 9Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, Open University of Israel, Ra’anana, Israel
- Evgeniya Hristova
- 7Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology, New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria
- Yasmina Jraissati
- 0Department of Philosophy, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
- Veselina Kadreva
- 7Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology, New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria
- Kaori Karasawa
- 8Department of Social Psychology, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Hackjin Kim
- 1Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
- Yeonjeong Kim
- 2Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States
- Minwoo Lee
- 1Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
- Carlos Mauro
- 3CLOO Behavioral Insights Unit, Porto, Portugal
- Masaharu Mizumoto
- 4School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa, Japan
- Sebastiano Moruzzi
- 5Department of Philosophy and Communication Studies, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- Jorge Ornelas
- 6Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
- Barbara Osimani
- 7Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich, Germany
- Carlos Romero
- 5Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas-UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico
- Alejandro Rosas López
- 8Department of Philosophy, National University of Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
- Massimo Sangoi
- Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy
- Andrea Sereni
- 9Faculty of Philosophy, Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS, Pavia, Italy
- Sarah Songhorian
- 0Faculty of Philosophy, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
- Noel Struchiner
- Department of Law, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Vera Tripodi
- 1Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
- Naoki Usui
- 2Department of Humanities, Mie University, Tsu, Japan
- Alejandro Vázquez del Mercado
- 5Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas-UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico
- Hrag A. Vosgerichian
- 9Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, Open University of Israel, Ra’anana, Israel
- Xueyi Zhang
- 3School of Humanities, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Jing Zhu
- 4School of Information Management, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02428
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 10
Abstract
Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one’s actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one’s actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions.
Keywords
