The Knobe Effect, Indifference, and Constitutional Law
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Abstract
Some constitutional accounts, in particular in the U.S., emphasize government attitudes to harming rights. Up till now, such accounts have primarily concentrated on intention to harm rights and on government acts of illicit intentions. However, such accounts have neglected a large scope of government attitudes that indicate indifference to harming rights rather than intention. In our article we use insights from experimental philosophy to develop an account of the role of indifference in constitutional law. We propose that the results of the Knobe Effect experiment show that the correlation between intent and indifference can be explained by the idea that indifference shows a lack of respect for the value or for the person harmed. Indifference, therefore, manifests a similar wrongness in terms of moral attitude as intent. The implications in terms of constitutional law are substantial. In principle, government actions manifesting indifference toward harming rights should be reviewed on the same lines as government actions based on intention to harm rights.
©2015 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality: Why Cognitive (Neuro)Science Matters for Ethics
- On the Irrelevance of Neuroscience to Moral Theory
- Crime as Prime
- Commonsense Morality and the Ethics of Killing in War: An Experimental Survey of the Israeli Population
- The Knobe Effect, Indifference, and Constitutional Law
- Nudging Global Poverty Alleviation?
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality: Why Cognitive (Neuro)Science Matters for Ethics
- On the Irrelevance of Neuroscience to Moral Theory
- Crime as Prime
- Commonsense Morality and the Ethics of Killing in War: An Experimental Survey of the Israeli Population
- The Knobe Effect, Indifference, and Constitutional Law
- Nudging Global Poverty Alleviation?
