TY - JOUR

T1 - Cruel nature

T2 - harmfulness as an important, overlooked dimension in judgments of moral standing

AU - Piazza, Jared

AU - Landy, Justin

AU - Goodwin, Geoffrey

PY - 2014/4

Y1 - 2014/4

N2 - Entities that possess moral standing can be wronged and deserve our moral consideration. Past perspectives on the folk psychology of moral standing have focused exclusively on the role of “patiency” (the capacity to experience pain or pleasure) and “agency” (usually defined and operationalized in terms of intelligence or cognitive ability). We contend that harmfulness (i.e., having a harmful vs. benevolent disposition) is an equally if not more important determinant of moral standing. We provide support for this hypothesis across four studies using non-human animals as targets. We show that the effect of harmfulness on attributions of moral standing is independent from patiency and intelligence (Studies 1–2), that this effect pertains specifically to an animal’s harmful disposition rather than its capacity to act upon this disposition (Study 3), and that it primarily reflects a parochial concern for human welfare in particular (Study 4). Our findings highlight an important, overlooked dimension in the psychology of moral standing that has implications for real-world decisions that affect non-human animals. Our findings also help clarify the conditions under which people perceive patiency and agency as related versus truly independent dimensions.

AB - Entities that possess moral standing can be wronged and deserve our moral consideration. Past perspectives on the folk psychology of moral standing have focused exclusively on the role of “patiency” (the capacity to experience pain or pleasure) and “agency” (usually defined and operationalized in terms of intelligence or cognitive ability). We contend that harmfulness (i.e., having a harmful vs. benevolent disposition) is an equally if not more important determinant of moral standing. We provide support for this hypothesis across four studies using non-human animals as targets. We show that the effect of harmfulness on attributions of moral standing is independent from patiency and intelligence (Studies 1–2), that this effect pertains specifically to an animal’s harmful disposition rather than its capacity to act upon this disposition (Study 3), and that it primarily reflects a parochial concern for human welfare in particular (Study 4). Our findings highlight an important, overlooked dimension in the psychology of moral standing that has implications for real-world decisions that affect non-human animals. Our findings also help clarify the conditions under which people perceive patiency and agency as related versus truly independent dimensions.

KW - Moral standing

KW - Harmfulness

KW - Patiency

KW - Agency

KW - Intelligence

KW - Animals

U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.12.013

DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.12.013

M3 - Journal article

VL - 131

SP - 108

EP - 124

JO - Cognition

JF - Cognition

SN - 0010-0277

IS - 1

ER -