Suppose that a vice-president goes to the chairman of the board and says OK, we've got this new policy. It's going to make huge amounts of money for our company but it's also going to harm the environment. And the chairman says, look, I know this policy is going to harm the environment but I don't care at all about that, I only care about making as much money as we possibly can. So in fact they initiate the new policy and the environment is indeed harmed. Now the question is, did the chairman of the board harm the environment intentionally? So what would you say in that instance? |
Like 85% of people, I say he is to blame.
| The second vignette is very similar to the first one. What differs is just the moral status of what the person is doing. So suppose we keep everything exactly the same but we just change the word 'harm' to 'help'. So now suppose the vice president goes to the chairman of the board and says, OK, we've got this new policy, it's going to make huge amounts of money for our company and it's also going to help the environment. And the chairman of the board says, look, I know it's going to help the environment but I don't care at all about that, all I care about is just making as much money as we possibly can. So let's implement the new policy. And sure enough it helps the environment. In this case did the chairman of the board help the environment intentionally? |
This is From Joshua Knobe (2009). The philosophy of good intentions (podcast on ABC Radio National) but see also Joshua Knobe, Adam Cohen & Alan Leslie (2006). Acting Intentionally and the Side-Effect Effect: 'Theory of Mind' and Moral Judgment. Psychological Science 17:421-427.
Frank Hindriks seeks to explain this asymmetry by saying that praise depends on being appropriately motivated, whereas blame does not. Seems to me that just generalises the phenomenon rather than explaining it. (Frank Hindriks (2008). Intentional Action and the Praise-Blame Asymmetry. Philosophical Quarterly 58, 233: 630-41.)
5 comments:
I remember listening to that podcast last year some time - at least I remember the thought experiment - and thinking about it for all of about 5 minutes. I haven't read the other reference. So it may be that below I am just stating the obvious.
My gut reaction is that this is an issue of framing. I think that if you were to say that praise depends on being appropriately motivated and that blame depends on not being appropriately motivated, then there is no asymmetry.
In other words if you imagine that in regard to moral issues there is a moral neutral ground in relation to which intentions are naturally considered, then there is an asymmetry; whereas if intentions are naturally considered in relation to a moral good there is no asymmetry.
If anything perhaps the thought experiment shows that our innate tendency is to regard intentions - at least those of others - not in relation to a moral neutral but a moral good.
>I think that if you were to say that praise depends on being
>appropriately motivated and that blame depends on not being
>appropriately motivated, then there is no asymmetry.
I don't think that captures Hindriks' view. My understanding is that he is saying we *do* think that the person's intentions are important when we assign praise, but that their intentions *do not* affect our assignment of blame.
Adding my spin to that view ...
We tend to assign praise only if two conditions are met, namely, that the outcome is beneficial (however that may be judged!) *and* the intention is good (however that may be judged!). On the other hand, we tend to assign blame if *either* condition is reversed. That is, we blame someone if the outcome is bad (regarldess of the motivation) and we also blame someone if the motivation was bad (regardless of the outcome).
That still doesn't explain why we make judgements that way, nor does it justify those tendencies.
--Matt.
I hadn't read Hindrik when I wrote above so I wasn't really trying to comment on what he was saying. Now that I have read him I think I agree with most of what he has to say, and I still hold to what I wrote above.
> I don't think that captures Hindriks' view. ... our assignment of blame.
Only if we view intention in terms of 'motivating reasons' and pay no attention to 'normative reasons' - ie. the asymmetry is a consequence of not properly considering normative reasons in the way that most people - even three year olds it seems - usually intuitively do.
"So, when the behavior is good, we attend to the considerations the agent actually takes into account, while when the behavior is bad we focus on what he should consider, irrespective of whether he does. The overall conclusion to be drawn from the two asymmetries, then, is that the notion of intentional action should not only be analyzed in terms of motivating reasons, but also in terms of normative reasons." (Hindrik, p13)
It would be interesting to design a thought experiment where motivating reasons apply and normative reasons to do not - and then see if there is still an asymmetry. Any ideas? It is late and I'm too lazy to have thought about it further at the moment.
> We tend to assign praise only if two conditions are met, ... (regardless of the outcome).
This is probably often true (and I think it is something Tony Abbott and co are counting on at the moment - ie do everything possible to subvert the intended outcomes of government policy in the hope that blame accrues to the government - and it does seem to be working!) but I think it has more to do with stages of moral development (Lawrence Kohlberg et al.) and applies more in the concrete than the abstract - or at least more when the outcome impacts the person regarding the intention.
Interestingly my wife - who is definitely one of the more gracious generous souls in the universe - though she has the courage to have once held a bull off from a herd of young heifers armed only with a small pocket knife and sheer determination - and she married me which is evidence of both of the above-mentioned qualities - assigned praise in both sides of the thought experiment.
I must have been tired. I should have said she assigned blame and praise in that order - ie. no asymmetry.
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