| dc.contributor.advisor | Waldmann, Michael R. Prof. Dr. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Engelmann, Neele | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-09-05T12:16:12Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-09-12T00:50:13Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-09-05 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?ediss-11858/14231 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-9433 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | de |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject.ddc | 150 | de |
| dc.title | The role of causal representations in moral judgment | de |
| dc.type | cumulativeThesis | de |
| dc.contributor.referee | Waldmann, Michael R. Prof. Dr. | |
| dc.date.examination | 2022-08-29 | de |
| dc.description.abstracteng | Morality and causation are deeply intertwined. For instance, the value of anticipated
consequences is a crucial input for an action’s moral permissibility, and assigning blame
or responsibility for outcomes generally requires that a causal link connect the outcome
with a potentially blameworthy agent’s action. Psychological theories of moral judgment
acknowledge this, but an explicit connection to theories of causal reasoning, and to theories of reasoning about outcomes, is missing. In this thesis, I present the results of two
research projects that investigated, respectively, how (a) features of the causal relations
connecting actions and outcomes, and (b) observers’ subjective value of consequences
affect moral judgments. In the first project, we found that chain structures connecting
actions and harmful outcomes, compared to direct causal relations, can lead to a lower
perceived strength of the relation, and thereby to attributions of diminished outcome
foreseeability to agents. This explains why moral judgments about actions and agents
can be more lenient in chains compared to direct relations. In the second project, we
proposed and evaluated a computational model of reasoning about outcome trade-offs
in moral scenarios. The model predicts permissibility judgments about actions from
observers’ subjective utilities of the action’s consequences, and it accounted well for
participants’ judgments in two experiments. I argue that an improved understanding
of how features of causal relations and the value of outcomes affect moral judgments
would advance any contemporary theory of moral reasoning. The findings presented in
this thesis aim to contribute to such an improved understanding. I conclude by discussing how features of causal relations and utilities might be formally integrated in
causal representations, and lay out directions for future research. | de |
| dc.contributor.coReferee | Rakoczy, Hannes Prof. Dr. | |
| dc.subject.eng | Moral psychology | de |
| dc.subject.eng | Causal reasoning | de |
| dc.identifier.urn | urn:nbn:de:gbv:7-ediss-14231-0 | |
| dc.affiliation.institute | Biologische Fakultät für Biologie und Psychologie | de |
| dc.subject.gokfull | Psychologie (PPN619868627) | de |
| dc.description.embargoed | 2022-09-12 | de |
| dc.identifier.ppn | 1815935472 | |
| dc.identifier.orcid | 0000-0002-0000-9940 | de |
| dc.notes.confirmationsent | Confirmation sent 2022-09-05T12:45:01 | de |