Resituating the Relevance of Alternatives for Causal Attributions

Abstract

Abstract Phillips et al. (2015) provide what looks like compelling evidence for explaining the impact of broadly moral evaluations on causal attributions in terms of the relevance of alternative possibilities. As part of a series of manipulation studies, they found that asking participants to describe what an agent could have done differently in a neutral case showed a similar effect to varying the morality of the agent’s action. Phillips and colleagues take this to show that broadly moral evaluations impact the alternative possibilities people see as relevant, which in turn impact their attributions. This leaves open the possibility that the manipulation impacts people’s broadly moral evaluations which in turn impact their attributions, however, rather than directly impacting attributions. But this alternative model conflicts with Phillips et al.’s account, while being compatible with competing explanations. These two models are tested using the same manipulation method and the results support the alternative model.