Moral empiricism and the bias for act-based rules

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Rule Learning
• Decision Making

Background:

• Prior research indicates a bias towards 'act-based' rules (prohibiting intentional actions) over 'consequence-based' rules (prohibiting allowing outcomes).
• A single violation example can lead individuals to infer a rule is act-based.
• One explanation suggests an innate bias for act-based rules, but an empiricist account proposes acquired overhypotheses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether people form overhypotheses about rule types based on learned examples.
• To determine if exposure to different types of rules (act-based vs. consequence-based) shapes expectations for new rule learning.
• To test the empiricist account that rule biases are acquired through experience.

Main Methods:

• Three studies were conducted involving rule learning tasks.
• Participants learned sets of either act-based or consequence-based rules.
• Subsequent learning tasks assessed participants' inferences about novel rules based on prior exposure.

Main Results:

• Participants exposed to multiple consequence-based rules were more likely to infer new rules were consequence-based.
• Learning act-based rules also influenced subsequent expectations, suggesting a transferable overhypothesis.
• Exposure to accident-based (strict liability) laws similarly shaped expectations for novel rule interpretation.

Conclusions:

• The findings support an empiricist account, suggesting that biases in rule learning are acquired through experience.
• Learning multiple rules of a specific type generates an overhypothesis, influencing the interpretation of new rules.
• This acquired bias, rather than an innate predisposition, likely explains the observed preference for act-based rules.