The essence of soul concepts: how soul concepts influence ethical reasoning across religious affiliation

Abstract

Current research on how humans conceptualize other humans has focused on the hypothesis that we have a dualistic conception of others, differentiating the functions of the body from the functions of the mind (Bloom, 2004). Recent criticisms of this approach have suggested that this characterization of cognition is insufficient to account for the common presence of a third intuition humans have about other humans, namely that other people have souls or spirits (Hodge, 2008; Richert & Harris, 2008). We report on a study examining the nature of similarities and differences in the soul concept based on religious affiliation, and the implications of the soul concept for reasoning about beginning-of-life and end-of-life ethical dilemmas. Four hundred and nineteen undergraduate students completed a survey examining concepts of the soul, the mind, and reasoning about ethical dilemmas. The results suggest that adult soul concepts but not mind concepts are considered independent of the life cycle and are related to reasoning about ethical dilemmas independent of religious affiliation. These data lend empirical support to the hypothesis that the human tendency toward psychological essentialism provides a foundation for adults’ concepts of the soul.