title: Deontic introduction: A theory of inference from is to ought.
abstract: Humans have a unique ability to generate novel norms. Faced with the knowledge that there are hungry children in Somalia, we easily and naturally infer that we ought to donate to famine relief charities. Although a contentious and lively issue in metaethics, such inference from "is" to "ought" has not been systematically studied in the psychology of reasoning. We propose that deontic introduction is the result of a rich chain of pragmatic inference, most of it implicit; specifically, when an action is causally linked to a valenced goal, valence transfers to the action and bridges into a deontic conclusion. Participants in 5 experiments were presented with utility conditionals in which an action results in a benefit, a cost, or neutral outcome (e.g., "If Lisa buys the booklet, she will pass the exam") and asked to evaluate how strongly deontic conclusions (e.g., "Lisa should buy the booklet") follow from the premises. Findings show that the direction of the conclusions was determined by outcome valence (Experiments 1a and 1b), whereas their strength was determined by the strength of the causal link between action and outcome (Experiments 1, 2a, and 2b). We also found that deontic introduction is defeasible and can be suppressed by additional premises that interfere with any of the links in the implicit chain of inference (Experiments 2a, 2b, and 3). We propose that deontic introduction is a species-specific generative capacity whose function is to regulate future behavior.
authors: School of Applied Social Sciences, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University.
authors: Shira
authors: S
authors: Elqayam
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan.
authors: Valerie A
authors: VA
authors: Thompson
authors: School of Applied Social Sciences, Division of Psychology, De Montfort University.
authors: Meredith R
authors: MR
authors: Wilkinson
authors: School of Psychology, University of Plymouth.
authors: Jonathan St B T
authors: JS
authors: Evans
authors: Department of Psychology, Durham University.
authors: David E
authors: DE
authors: Over
mesh_terms: D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making; D028663:Ethical Theory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D018187:Personal Construct Theory; D012938:Social Perception; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities