Moral reasoning in AS

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I'm doing a paper on moral development in kids, and found this study. Basic summary of the findings - researchers asked AS adults and NT adults to rate the moral permissibility of actions that varied on intent and outcome (successful murder, attempted murder that caused no actual harm, unintentionally killing someone or intentionally causing no harm). NT adults judged by intent in all scenarios. In contrast, while AS adults judged attempted murder as being just as bad as successful murder, they also judged accidentally killing someone as equivalent to deliberate murder.

What do you think would explain those results?

Well I tend to judge more by intent, I don't see how accidently killing someone is the same thing as murdering someone....I mean in both cases someone dies but someone is not a murderer if they accidently contribute to someones death. Were did you find this study anyways? I doubt all people with AS would have the same opinion.

Yeah I'm with you Sweetleaf.

You got me. I'm baffled, because they aren't the same at all. Intent isn't everything either. Not to me.

If I "intend" to kill someone, but fail, I could decide not to try again. (Let's assume there's no injury either.) The result in reality is no harm done. Should the punishment be the same as if I'd succeeded? I don't think so. People think and even try stupid things. It happens all the time. Forgiveness when no harm comes of it makes more sense to me, as long as there's no evidence to lead me to believe the person will try it again. If there is evidence they might, or probably will, that's a different story.

Something tells me upbringing has more to do with this than Autism.

Do you have any links to the study itself? I'd be interested to see exactly how it was conducted.

Those results sounds completely illogical. I'd judge by both intent and outcome. If you INTEND to kill someone, attempt to do so and you don't succeed, you're just as bad as a murderer. And an accident is an accident, unplanned and unintentional.

See, that doesn't make sense to me. In one case, a death actually occurs. In the other, no one dies. How is that the same?

Among my first thoughts to wrap my mind around that perspective was that a person being killed successfully can be regarded no more or less moral permissibility than a person being murdered successfully. The outcome for the people dying is pretty much the same which could affect moral reasoning.

Causing injury by accident or causing injury by intent can also be summarised by the single statement of that one person injured another. Injuring another person is considered "bad" on the most basic level. The result (that of an injury) would also be the same.

This may be similar to a reaction I observed in children with developmental delays including autistic children and some with ADHD actually.

While aware on some level of that there is a difference in accidentally being brushed and falling and intentionally being pushed to the floor by their classmates, they greatly struggled to understand the concept of intent when it happened to them and others. They were stuck at what happened and struggled to acknowledge the importance of a "why" to what had happened.

Edit: no idea about failed murder though. Besides perhaps that all things including "murder" and "killing" are "bad" - which occurs me as a perspective like that of a young child.

http://www.pitt.edu/~machery/papers/Int ... achery.pdf

i didn't wade through it yet, but this might be it (it apparently explains the commemorative cup / dollar scenario too)

the conclusions were based on asking aspies/HFA a few questions including this one:


The Murder Case

Jake desperately wants to have more money. He knows that he will inherit a lot of money when his aunt dies. One day, he sees his aunt walking by the window. He raises his rifle, gets her in the sights, and presses the trigger. But Jake isn’t very good at using his rifle. His hand slips on the barrel of the gun, and the shot goes wild… Nonetheless, the bullet hits her directly in the heart. She dies instantly.

Did Jake shoot his aunt intentionally? (Yes, No)
Was Jake’s behavior of shooting his aunt blameworthy, praiseworthy, or neutral?


The Bull’s-Eye Case

Jake desperately wants to win the rifle contest. He knows that he will only win the contest if he hits the bulls-eye. He raises the rifle, gets the bull’s-eye in the sights, and presses the trigger. But Jake isn’t very good at using his rifle. His hand slips on the barrel of the gun, and the shot goes wild. Nonetheless, the bullet lands directly on the bull’s-eye. Jake wins the contest.

Did Jake shoot hit the bull’s-eye intentionally? (Yes, No)
Was Jake’s behavior of hitting the bull’s-eye blameworthy, praiseworthy, or neutral?

Would NTs judge Jake's shooting of his aunt to be an accident without intent?

The Murder Case states directly, "He raises his rifle, gets her in the sights, and presses the trigger."

After this occurrence, does it really matter how eggsacly the bullet ends up in her heart to kill her?

This is really interesting because I've always been irritated by the notion of "good intentions", albeit in a different context. I think in most situations the outcome of a situation matters more than intentions. Good intentions are not an excuse. But I am thinking of situations like interfering in another person's life for the sake of helping them. Or the way parents bring up their children. Most parents probably do mean well and do what they think is right, but often that just means repeating the same mistakes their own parents made.

If a situation has a different outcome than intended, it often means someone didn't think things through clearly enough. There was an error in logic or understanding that led to the outcome.

Another tough one. He was intending to get the bulls eye but his hand slipped and he got it anyway so it became an accident. It still be something to be happy about because he got it.

The theory espoused by this article is that due to the aspie's difficulties with complex mindreading, he is more likely to assume that morally repugnant acts are intentional. Specifically, if someone is shot by accident, and the aspie can't tell, the aspie assumes it was intentional, making the act morally the same as if it was intentional.

Makes sense to me.

Edited to add: However, someone really should take that gun away from Jake.

What if the question had been stated this way?

To the rephrased Murder Case, I don't know if there would have been a difference between the answers of autistic people and neurotypical people. I think that the observed difference was caused entirely by the literal interpretation of and hyperfocused response to "He raises his rifle, gets her in the sights, and presses the trigger."

sounds like a bogus study

That wasn't the study I was referring to. I linked to it in my original post. They had a person putting a substance in someone else's coffee, which was either sugar or deadly poison, and which they either thought was sugar (and wanted to make the coffee taste better) or thought was poison (and wanted to kill the person).

Incidentally, NT kindergarteners typically judge more by the outcome of an action than the intent, a bit like the autistic adults in this study (except they'd think the attempted murder was fine).