Whose Mind Matters More: The moral agent or the artist? The role of intent in ethics and aesthetics

The current study directly investigates the similarities and differences in theory of mind for moral judgment versus aesthetic evaluation. We target the role of intent, the mind of the moral agent or the artist, i.e. whether the moral act or work of art was intentional or accidental, for objective judgments (e.g., quality) versus subjective judgments (e.g., preference). We show that (1) intent matters more for objective versus subjective judgments, in ethics and aesthetics, and (2) overall, intent matters more for moral judgments than aesthetic evaluations. These findings suggest that an objective-subjective dimension may similarly describe judgments in both ethics and aesthetics, and that in general we may be more influenced by the mind of the moral agent than by the mind of the artist when evaluating their impact on the world

Whose Mind Matters More—The Agent or the Artist? An Investigation of Ethical and Aesthetic Evaluations

<div><p>Theory of mind, the capacity for reasoning about mental states such as beliefs and intentions, represents a critical input to ethical and aesthetic evaluations. Did the agent cause harm <i>on purpose</i>? Were those brushstrokes <i>intentional</i>? The current study investigates theory of mind for moral and artistic judgments within the same paradigm. In particular, we target the role of intent for two kinds of judgments: “objective” judgments of quality and “subjective” judgments of preference or liking. First, we show that intent matters more for objective versus subjective judgments in the case of ethics and aesthetics. Second, we show that, overall, intent matters more for ethical versus aesthetic evaluations. These findings suggest that an “objective-subjective” dimension describes judgments across both domains, and that observers assign more weight to the mind of the moral agent than the mind of the artist when making the relevant evaluations.</p></div

Sample Moral Scenarios.

<p>Positive moral stories on left, negative moral stories on right. Figure 2 consists of samples of the moral scenarios used. It is arranged by intentionality (intentional vs. accidental). The positive moral stories are located on the left, and the negative ones on the right.</p

The role of intent in subjective and objective aesthetic and moral judgments.

<p><i>Y-axis</i>: IA Difference scores (judgment of intentional act/art minus judgment of accidental act/art) for subjective versus objective judgments, for art and morality. Intent had a greater impact on morality than on art, and on objective than subjective judgments. Figure 3 is a graph of the role of intent in subjective and objective aesthetic and moral judgments. The graph shows the difference scores for subjective vs. objective judgments for art and morality. The graph shows that intent had a greater impact on morality than on art, and on objective than subjective judgments.</p

Sample “Good” Art Image, with narratives.

<p>Figure 1 consists of a sample of the stimuli used. The sample is an artwork belonging to the category of “good” art. The image is accompanied by the intentional and accidental narratives.</p