Direct and indirect freedom in addiction: Folk free will and blame judgments are sensitive to the choice history of drug users
Section snippets
Lay thinking about addiction and free will
Lay people associate addiction with diminished free will (Racine et al., 2017, Rise and Halkjelsvik, 2019, Vonasch et al., 2017, Vonasch et al., 2018)—an ability to exercise choice or control over behaviors or actions (Feldman et al., 2014, Monroe and Malle, 2010, Shepard and Reuter, 2012). People think addiction diminishes that kind of control. Because perceptions of moral responsibility correspond with perceptions of free will (e.g., Clark et al, 2014; Stillman, Baumeister, & Mele, 2011),
Present research
Despite the overwhelming philosophical interest in tracing moral responsibility and accounts of indirect freedom, there have not been significant systematic investigations into whether these concepts are active in ordinary thinking about agency. To investigate whether ordinary people distinguish between direct and indirect freedom (and responsibility) in addictive behaviors, we conducted two experiments. Study 1 was a replication and extension of Vonasch et al. (2017). Participants read a
Study 1
We tested whether laypeople’s perceptions of an actor’s free will and blameworthiness depend on the actor’s addiction history—addicted by choice, addicted by force, or not addicted. We preregistered this study (https://aspredicted.org/32ip6.pdf).
Study 2
Study 2 was a conceptual replication of Study 1 that addressed limitations of that study and also explored a novel aspect of the addicted person’s act. First, we used a new set of vignettes to ensure generalizability of results. Second, we chose a substance more widely believed to be strongly addictive, i.e., heroin, to avoid ambiguities with respect to whether addiction played a role in the causal chain leading to the agent’s bad act. Third, to reduce blame motivation and avoid ceiling effects
General discussion
Essential to a well-functioning society is the universal tendency to hold others morally responsible for their bad acts (Tomasello & Vaish, 2013), and this inclination depends on and also feeds into attributions of free will of bad actors (Clark et al., 2014). Addiction is one case where such a strong inclination to perceive free will and dole out blame is dampened. Indeed, prior work demonstrates that people view addiction as precluding an addicted person’s free will and moral responsibility
Limitations and future directions
Although sufficient power, preregistration, and replication increase our confidence in results reported here, there are a few limitations worth noting. First, our samples were drawn from American and largely WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) populations, which limits the generalizability of our results (Henrich et al., 2010).
Second, in Study 2, we manipulated whether the bad act was performed in pursuing the addictive drug or some other goal (i.e., buying
Conclusion
Folk conceptions of free will and moral responsibility are not exhausted by narrow considerations of choice and control during the moment of action. If people are provided with historical details relevant to explaining why an agent lacks control in the moment, people shift focus away from direct control—especially when the agent in question has freely put themselves in their present addicted condition. People blame others for bad actions, even when their addiction reduces their control in the
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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