For Whom Does Determinism Undermine Moral Responsibility? Surveying the Conditions for Free Will Across Cultures

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Ivar R. Hannikainen¹  Adriano Angelucci²  Renatas Berniûnas³  Amita Chatterjee⁴  Hyundeuk Cheon⁵  In-Rae Cho⁵  Daniel Cohnitz⁶  Vilius Dranseika⁷  Ángeles Eraña Lagos⁸  Laleh Ghadakpour⁹  Maurice Grinberg^1,10  Edouard Machery^1,11  Takaaki Hashimoto^1,12  Amir Horowitz^1,13  Evgeniya Hristova^1,10  Yasmina Jraissati^1,14  Veselina Kadreva^1,10  Kaori Karasawa^1,12  Hackjin Kim^1,15  Yeonjeong Kim^1,16  Minwoo Lee^1,15  Carlos Mauro^1,17  David Rose^1,18  Masaharu Mizumoto^1,19  Sebastiano Moruzzi^2,20  Jorge Ornelas^2,21  Barbara Osimani^2,22  Carlos Romero⁸  Alejandro Rosas López^2,23  Massimo Sangoi²  Andrea Sereni^2,24  Sarah Songhorian^2,25  Noel Struchiner¹  Stephen Stich^2,26  Vera Tripodi^2,27  Naoki Usui^2,28  Alejandro Vázquez del Mercado⁸  Hrag A. Vosgerichian^1,13  Xueyi Zhang^2,29  Jing Zhu^3,30  Christopher Y. Olivola^3,31  Paulo Sousa^3,32  Florian Cova^3,33  Emma E. Buchtel^3,34  Mario Alai² 

[1] Department of Law, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro;Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Urbino Carlo Bo;Institute of Psychology, Vilnius University;School of Cognitive Science, Jadavpur University;Department of Philosophy, Seoul National University;Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University;Institute of Philosophy, Vilnius University;Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas-UNAM;Independent Researcher;Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology, New Bulgarian University;Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, United States;Department of Social Psychology, University of Tokyo;Department of History, Open University of Israel;Department of Philosophy, American University of Beirut;Department of Psychology, Korea University;Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States;CLOO Behavioral Insights Unit;Department of Philosophy, Florida State University, United States;School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology;Department of Philosophy and Communication Studies, University of Bologna;Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí;Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilians Universität;Department of Philosophy, National University of Colombia;Faculty of Philosophy, Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS;Faculty of Philosophy, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University;Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, United States;Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin;Department of Humanities, Mie University;School of Humanities, Southeast University;School of Information Management, Sun Yat-sen University;Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, United States;Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen’s University, United Kingdom;Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva;Department of Psychology, The Education University of Hong Kong

关键词: free will;    compatibilism;    cognitive style;    situationism;    dispositionism;    sourcehood;    alternate possibilities;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02428

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

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.

【 授权许可】

CC BY