Abstract
The present study explored the connection between conceptualizations of addiction and lay people’s inferences about moral responsibility. In Study 1, we investigated how natural variations in people’s views of addiction were related to judgments of responsibility in a nationwide sample of Norwegian adults. In Study 2, respondents recruited from Mechanical Turk were asked to consider different conceptualizations of addiction and report on how these would affect their judgments of moral responsibility. In Study 3, we tested whether manipulating conceptualizations through textual information and through the framing of addiction in terms of states versus behavior could influence participants’ judgments of moral responsibility. We found that attributions of moral responsibility were lower when addiction was connected to diseases and disorders, such as dysfunctional processes in the brain, and greater when addiction was associated with agency and addictive behaviors. In conclusion, different conceptualizations of addiction imply different moral judgments, and conceptualizations are malleable.
Highlights
Reviewed by: Andrew Vonasch, University of Canterbury, New Zealand Marta Miquel, University of Jaume I, Spain
We found that attributions of moral responsibility were lower when addiction was connected to diseases and disorders, such as dysfunctional processes in the brain, and greater when addiction was associated with agency and addictive behaviors
The moral responsibility rating of addiction as an irresistible desire was in the middle, which resulted in a pattern very similar to the ordering from diseases, via motivations, to reduced capacities in Study 1
Summary
Reviewed by: Andrew Vonasch, University of Canterbury, New Zealand Marta Miquel, University of Jaume I, Spain. The brain disease model holds that neural processes and chemical reactions following repeated intake of drugs cause lasting brain changes so that the reward system is hijacked and governs the motivations behind addictive behaviors. This model has recently been challenged from a number of perspectives (see Heyman, 2009; Henden et al, 2013; Lewis, 2015; Heather et al, 2017; Pickard, 2017a). This middle ground involves excusing conditions for addictive behaviors, meaning that there are strong forces at play that are difficult, but not impossible, to resist (see Morse, 2004; Levy, 2011; Pickard and Pierce, 2013)
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