Moral Responsibility - Experimental Research

Experimental Research

Mauro suggests that a sense of personal responsibility does not operate or evolve universally among humankind. He argues that it was absent in the successful civilization of the Iroquois.

In recent years, research in experimental philosophy has explored whether people's untutored intuitions about determinism and moral responsibility are compatibilist or incompatibilist. Some experimental work has included cross-cultural studies. However, the debate about whether people naturally have compatibilist or incompatibilist intuitions has not come out overwhelmingly in favor of one view or the other, finding evidence for both views. For instance, when people are presented with abstract cases that ask if a person could be morally responsible for an immoral act when they could not have done otherwise, people tend to say no, or give incompatibilist answers. When presented with a specific immoral act that a specific person committed, people tend to say that that person is morally responsible for their actions, even if they were determined (that is, people also give compatibilist answers).

The neuroscience of free will investigates various experiments that might shed light on free will.