Journal
COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Volume 29, Issue 5, Pages 681-718Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1207/s15516709cog0000_35
Keywords
deontic reasoning; evolution; central cognitive processes; decision theory
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Three experiments investigated the contrasting predictions of the evolutionary and decision-theoretic approaches to deontic reasoning. Two experiments embedded a hazard management (HM) rule in a social contract scenario that should lead to competition between innate modules. A 3rd experiment used a pure HM task. Threatening material was also introduced into the antecedent, p, of a deoritic rule, if p then must q. According to the evolutionary approach, more HM responses (Cosmides & Tooby, 2000) are predicted when p is threatening, whereas decision theory predicts fewer. All 3 experiments were consistent with decision theory. Other theories are discussed, and it is concluded that they cannot account for the behavior observed in these experiments.
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