Cognitive Science 38 (7):1456-1467 (2014)
Abstract |
Moral hypocrisy is typically viewed as an ethical accusation: Someone is applying different moral standards to essentially identical cases, dishonestly claiming that one action is acceptable while otherwise equivalent actions are not. We suggest that in some instances the apparent logical inconsistency stems from different evaluations of a weak argument, rather than dishonesty per se. Extending Corner, Hahn, and Oaksford's (2006) analysis of slippery slope arguments, we develop a Bayesian framework in which accusations of hypocrisy depend on inferences of shared category membership between proposed actions and previous standards, based on prior probabilities that inform the strength of competing hypotheses. Across three experiments, we demonstrate that inferences of hypocrisy increase as perceptions of the likelihood of shared category membership between precedent cases and current cases increase, that these inferences follow established principles of category induction, and that the presence of self-serving motives increases inferences of hypocrisy independent of changes in the actions themselves. Taken together, these results demonstrate that Bayesian analyses of weak arguments may have implications for assessing moral reasoning
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Keywords | Bayesian inference Argumentation Moral reasoning Hypocrisy |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1111/cogs.12120 |
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References found in this work BETA
Moral Psychology is Relationship Regulation: Moral Motives for Unity, Hierarchy, Equality, and Proportionality.Tage Shakti Rai & Alan Page Fiske - 2011 - Psychological Review 118 (1):57-75.
The Rationality of Informal Argumentation: A Bayesian Approach to Reasoning Fallacies.Ulrike Hahn & Mike Oaksford - 2007 - Psychological Review 114 (3):704-732.
Patterns of Moral Judgment Derive From Nonmoral Psychological Representations.Fiery Cushman & Liane Young - 2011 - Cognitive Science 35 (6):1052-1075.
Moral Judgment.Michael R. Waldmann, Jonas Nagel & Alex Wiegmann - 2012 - The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning.
Moral Principles or Consumer Preferences? Alternative Framings of the Trolley Problem.Tage S. Rai & Keith J. Holyoak - 2010 - Cognitive Science 34 (2):311-321.
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Citations of this work BETA
A Bayesian Framework for Knowledge Attribution: Evidence From Semantic Integration.Derek Powell, Zachary Horne, Ángel Pinillos & Keith Holyoak - 2015 - Cognition 139:92-104.
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