Can unintended side effects be intentional? Resolving a controversy over intentionality and morality.
Can an event's blameworthiness distort whether people see it as intentional? In controversial recent studies, people judged a behavior's negative side effect intentional even though the agent allegedly had no desire for it to occur. Such a judgment contradicts the standard assumption that desire is a necessary condition of intentionality, and it raises concerns about assessments of intentionality in legal settings. Six studies examined whether blameworthy events distort intentionality judgments. Studies 1 through 4 show that, counter to recent claims, intentionality judgments are systematically guided by variations in the agent's desire, for moral and nonmoral actions alike. Studies 5 and 6 show that a behavior's negative side effects are rarely seen as intentional once people are allowed to choose from multiple descriptions of the behavior. Specifically, people distinguish between "knowingly" and "intentionally" bringing about a side effect, even for immoral actions. These studies suggest that intentionality judgments are unaffected by a behavior's blameworthiness.
Brown University, Providence, RI, USA. steve_guglielmo@brown.edu
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D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D009042:Motivation; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012919:Social Behavior; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult