Kirfel, Lara;
(2021)
Mind, Matter, Morals - The Epistemic Condition in Causal Judgment.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
In this thesis, we explore the role of theory of mind, broadly construed, in peo- ple’s causal reasoning and inferences from causal explanations. While research in causal cognition has acknowledged the influence of agents’ knowledge states on how causal they are judged, the theoretical implications of these findings remain unclear. This thesis aims to provide an empirical and theoretical account of the essential function of epistemic states in causal thinking and inference. In chapter 2, we demonstrate how epistemic states mediate a prominent find- ing in causal cognition research — people’s preference for deviant causal agents. Various studies in causal cognition research find that people have the tendency to attribute increased causality to atypical actions. In a series of experiments, we find that this abnormal causal preference is driven by the epistemic states of the causal agents. In chapter 3, we show more generally what role causal agents’ epistemic states and epistemic actions play for people’s causal judgments. We develop and test an account that integrates epistemic states into counterfactual theories of causation: agents’ epistemic states influence the target of intervention in people’s counterfac- tual reasoning. In chapter 4, we investigate whether other people’s epistemic states not only influence causal judgments, but also play a role for the inferences we draw from their causal explanations. In sum, this thesis shows how people take into account the mental states of an agent in both causal judgment and inference. We situate these findings in the broader context of causal and counterfactual theories.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Mind, Matter, Morals - The Epistemic Condition in Causal Judgment |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2021. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10137073 |
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