The study specifically asked people how they would evaluate a harmful act in light of a range of potentially extenuating circumstances, such as different moral beliefs, a mistake of fact, or self-defense. While there was significant variation in people’s moral judgments across cultures, there was nevertheless unanimous agreement that committing a harmful act based on different moral beliefs was not an extenuating circumstance. Indeed, on average across cultures, committing a harmful act based on different moral beliefs was considered worse than was committing the harmful act intentionally (see Barrett et al., 2016, fig. 5).
It’s worth noting that the specific different moral belief used in the study was that the “perpetrator holds the belief that striking a weak person to toughen him up is praiseworthy”, which seems quite different from e.g. a utilitarianism/deontology divide. Like, that view may just seem completely implausible to most people, and therefore not at all extenuating. Other moral views may be more plausible and so you’d be judged less harshly for acting according to them. I’m speculating here, of course.
Yes, this strikes me as an important point. It’s a bit like how ideologically-motivated hate crimes are (I think correctly) regarded as worse than comparable “intentional” (but non-ideologically-motivated) violence, perhaps in part because it raises the risks of systematic harms.
Many moral differences are innocuous, but some really aren’t. For an extreme example: the “true believer” Nazi is in some ways worse than the cowardly citizen who goes along with the regime out of fear and self-interest. But that’s very different from everyday “value disagreements” which tend to involve values that we recognize as (at least to some extent) worthy of respect, even if we judge them ultimately mistaken.
I agree that this is relevant and I probably should have included it in the post (I’ve now made an edit). It was part of the reason that I wrote “it is unclear whether this pattern in moral judgment necessarily applies to all or even most kinds of acts inspired by different moral beliefs”. But I still find it somewhat striking that such actions seemed to be considered as bad as, or even slightly worse than, intentional harm. But I guess subjects could also understand “intentional harm” in a variety of ways. In any case, I think it’s important to reiterate that this study is in itself just suggestive evidence that value differences may be psychologically fraught.
Nice post, I mostly agree.
It’s worth noting that the specific different moral belief used in the study was that the “perpetrator holds the belief that striking a weak person to toughen him up is praiseworthy”, which seems quite different from e.g. a utilitarianism/deontology divide. Like, that view may just seem completely implausible to most people, and therefore not at all extenuating. Other moral views may be more plausible and so you’d be judged less harshly for acting according to them. I’m speculating here, of course.
Yes, this strikes me as an important point. It’s a bit like how ideologically-motivated hate crimes are (I think correctly) regarded as worse than comparable “intentional” (but non-ideologically-motivated) violence, perhaps in part because it raises the risks of systematic harms.
Many moral differences are innocuous, but some really aren’t. For an extreme example: the “true believer” Nazi is in some ways worse than the cowardly citizen who goes along with the regime out of fear and self-interest. But that’s very different from everyday “value disagreements” which tend to involve values that we recognize as (at least to some extent) worthy of respect, even if we judge them ultimately mistaken.
Thanks for highlighting that. :)
I agree that this is relevant and I probably should have included it in the post (I’ve now made an edit). It was part of the reason that I wrote “it is unclear whether this pattern in moral judgment necessarily applies to all or even most kinds of acts inspired by different moral beliefs”. But I still find it somewhat striking that such actions seemed to be considered as bad as, or even slightly worse than, intentional harm. But I guess subjects could also understand “intentional harm” in a variety of ways. In any case, I think it’s important to reiterate that this study is in itself just suggestive evidence that value differences may be psychologically fraught.