Attitude Ascription in the Knobe Effect Cover Image

Przypisywanie postaw w efekcie Knobe’a
Attitude Ascription in the Knobe Effect

Author(s): Wiktor Piotrowski
Subject(s): Philosophy, Special Branches of Philosophy
Published by: Uniwersytet Warszawski - Wydział Filozofii i Socjologii, Instytut Filozofii
Keywords: attitude; approval; disapproval; experimental philosophy; Knobe Effect; moral hypothesis

Summary/Abstract: Joshua Knobe (2003a) showed that people are much more inclined to attribute intentionality to an agent when a side effect of her action is harmful than when it is beneficial. This asymmetry came to be known as the Knobe Effect. A number of theories tried to explain this phenomenon, including the so-called “moral hypothesis”. This article presents a survey, based on the metaethical concept of attitude, that aims to make the hypothesis more precise. It is designed to test attitude ascription in the original Knobe’s scenarios and compare it with the asymmetry in intentionality attribution. After presenting the survey and its results, I concentrate on various interpretations of the data and sketch a possible direction for further examination of the moral hypothesis.

  • Issue Year: 24/2016
  • Issue No: 3 (95)
  • Page Range: 103-116
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Polish
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