Journal
COGNITION
Volume 120, Issue 2, Pages 202-214Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.04.005
Keywords
Morality; Intent; Disgust; Purity; Incest; Accident
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A key factor in legal and moral judgments is intent. Intent differentiates, for instance, murder from manslaughter. Is this true for all moral judgments? People deliver moral judgments of many kinds of actions, including harmful actions (e.g., assault) and purity violations (e.g., incest, consuming taboo substances). We show that intent is a key factor for moral judgments of harm, but less of a factor for purity violations. Based on the agent's innocent intent, participants judged accidental harms less morally wrong than accidental incest; based on the agent's guilty intent, participants judged failed attempts to harm more morally wrong than failed attempts to commit incest. These patterns were specific to moral judgments versus judgments of the agent's control, knowledge, or intent, the action's overall emotional salience, or participants' ratings of disgust. The current results therefore reveal distinct cognitive signatures of distinct moral domains, and may inform the distinct functional roles of moral norms. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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