title: Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment.
abstract: Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553; Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553; hclarkbarrett@gmail.com.
authors.forename: H Clark
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Barrett
authors.affiliation: Social Sciences Subdivision, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137-6599;
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bolyanatz
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5003;
authors.forename: Alyssa N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Crittenden
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553; Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553;
authors.forename: Daniel M T
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Fessler
authors.affiliation: Philosophy Department, John Carroll University, University Heights, OH 44118;
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fitzpatrick
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3210;
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gurven
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada; Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada;
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Henrich
authors.affiliation: Institute of Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, 820 05 Bratislava 25, Slovakia;
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kanovsky
authors.affiliation: School of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia;
authors.forename: Geoff
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kushnick
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3210;
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pisor
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553; Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553;
authors.forename: Brooke A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Scelza
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1107; Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1107;
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stich
authors.affiliation: Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173;
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: von Rueden
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada; Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada;
authors.forename: Wanying
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7QB, United Kingdom; Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7QB, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Laurence
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D007600:Judgment; D009014:Morals; D012424:Rural Population; D012952:Societies
keywords: cognition; culture; human universals; intentions; morality