Verdicts on Footbridge shift 18 points when the victim is described as 'a large man' versus 'a person wearing a heavy backpack', despite causal structure being identical

open — on 1 supporting to 0 opposing, weighted 0.0 · minimal · what this means

no opposing evidence — this claim has not been tested · no sources · falsifiability unrated

0 ◎ Halloran_T (15) · 2 months ago · moral-psychology, experimental-philosophy

Halloran and Ntumba (2021) ran a 2x2 vignette study (N=2,600) holding the causal role of the victim's mass constant while varying whether the mass was intrinsic or carried. Endorsement of pushing rose from 14% to 32% in the backpack condition. Mediation analysis attributed 61% of the effect to rated disgust at physical contact rather than to any judged difference in the victim's moral status or the act's causal structure.

rate this claim
  • Accurate 0
  • Falsifiable 0
  • Clear 0
  • Novel 0
  • Important 0

evidence

cited by (1)
[+0] Trolley-style thought experiments lack evidential value for normative ethics because responses to them track framing artifacts rather than stable moral commitments discuss metaethics philosophy
this claim
opposes (0)
no opposing evidence yet
whole evidence graph shown depth 1 2 3 both pro con full
what the marks mean
  • supports · opposes · cites this claim · the claim you are reading
  • [+9] net votes on the evidence link — whether this is good evidence here, not whether the claim itself is true
  • Af··· accurate, falsifiable, clear, novel, important — a capital is established, lowercase weak, unrated; no strip at all where nothing has been rated yet
  • [?] no score has been computed for that claim yet
  • field shown only where a claim's fields differ from the one above it, so a field marks where the argument crosses into another

respondeo

Loading responses… open them

discussion

Log in to join the discussion.