TY - JOUR
T1 - Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment
AU - Barrett, H. Clark
AU - Bolyanatz, Alexander
AU - Crittenden, Alyssa N.
AU - Fessler, Daniel M.T.
AU - Fitzpatrick, Simon
AU - Gurven, Michael
AU - Henrich, Joseph
AU - Kanovsky, Martin
AU - Kushnick, Geoff
AU - Pisor, Anne
AU - Scelza, Brooke A.
AU - Stich, Stephen
AU - Von Rueden, Chris
AU - Zhao, Wanying
AU - Laurence, Stephen
PY - 2016/4/26
Y1 - 2016/4/26
N2 - Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment.
AB - Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment.
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1522070113
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1522070113
M3 - Article
C2 - 27035959
AN - SCOPUS:84964721030
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 113
SP - 4688
EP - 4693
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 17
ER -