Commonsense morality and the bearable automaticity of being

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Philosophy of Mind

Background:

• Recent research indicates unconscious environmental factors can significantly influence moral behavior.
• Philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists debate whether these findings challenge fundamental concepts of agency and responsibility.
• Commonsense notions of agency typically emphasize conscious deliberation and practical reasoning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how individuals perceive the metaphysical and moral implications of scientific findings on automaticity and situational influences.
• To assess whether awareness of unconscious influences alters judgments of freedom and responsibility.

Main Methods:

• Four vignette-based studies were conducted with 1,437 participants.
• Participants were presented with fictionalized narratives describing research on unconscious influences.
• Judgments of freedom and responsibility were compared between experimental and control groups.

Main Results:

• Participants exposed to narratives about unconscious influences did not show significant changes in their judgments of freedom and responsibility compared to control groups.
• Awareness of susceptibility to automaticity and situational factors did not lead to skeptical attitudes about agency.

Conclusions:

• Laypeople appear resistant to revising their beliefs about agency and responsibility based on scientific evidence of unconscious influences.
• Common intuitions about free will and conscious control may be robust even when confronted with findings on automaticity.