James Andow and Eugen Fischer have announced the first talks for this season’s “XPHI UK Work in Progress Workshop Series.” Talks will be held on Microsoft Teams. Anyone interested in joining can email james.andow@manchester.ac.uk.
November 26, 16:00–18:00 (UTC±0)
Qianyi Qin (CUNY Graduate Centre): “Imaginative Tendencies and Virtuality Tolerance – Re-Examining the Experience Machine”
Jumbly Grindrod (University of Reading): “Word Meanings in Transformer Language Models”
December 10, 16:00–18:00 (UTC±0)
Juan-Pablo Bermúdez (University of Southampton) and Gino Carmona (Universidad Externado de Colombia): “Goals and Plans in the Wild – The Effects of Poverty on Planning Agency”
Miklós Kürthy (University of Graz): “Care for Consistency”
January 14, 16:00–18:00 (UTC±0)
Monika Jovanović and Andrija Šoć (University of Belgrade): “A Matter of Taste? Toward Deliberative Experimental Aesthetics”
On Thursday, October 30, the first talk in the Experimental Philosophy Journal Series will take place on Zoom.
Celso de Oliveira Vieira, Alex Wiegmann, and Rodrigo Díaz write:
We are pleased to invite you to the first talk in the Experimental Philosophy Journal Series, the new journal dedicated to X-Phi.
In this session, Eric Schwitzgebel (California) and Kirstan Brodie (Cornell) will present their paper, “Philosophical arguments can boost charitable giving,” co-authored with Nemirow and Cushman. The preprint, in which the authors identify the elements of a range of philosophical arguments that boost charitable giving, is available here. The presentation will be followed by a commentary from Rodrigo Díaz (CSIC). He wrote “Do Moral Beliefs Motivate Action?,” accessible here. After that, the floor will be open for discussion. The authors will speak first, but the audience will be able to participate as well.
The Valence Asymmetries project, led by Isidora Stojanovic at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, is looking for expressions of interest from people who would like to join. The call reads:
We are interested in including new team members in our project. Before opening a new position, we are inviting those interested in joining us to express their interest.
The new team member(s) should have research interests that align directly with the objectives of the project, broadly understood. They will already have a very solid publication track, will cherish interdisciplinary research, and will want to combine theoretical and empirical methodology.
We are particularly interested in the following research profiles:
Decision theory, philosophy of rationality & framing effects
Formal value theory & formal semantics
Philosophy of emotions & social and/or moral psychology
Moral cognition & philosophy of well-being
Additionally, any other research profile that offers a novel perspective on the project’s objectives is potentially welcome.
The duration of the contract will depend on the range of project tasks that the new team member will be hired to work on, and in any case cannot exceed the duration of the project (i.e. July 2029).
In addition to prospective candidates who would like to join us for a longer duration, we are also inviting tenured faculty who have a demonstrably heavy teaching load to consider joining us for a one year period (assuming that they can get a leave of absence from their home institution) that they can devote to research.
The expected gross salary is approx. 31.000 gross per year (negotiable for senior and/or already tenured faculty).
NB: The project’s team members must live in Barcelona (region), they regularly meet in person, attend seminars and conduct in-person research. The position is incompatible with living and/or spending considerable periods of time elsewhere.
If you are interested in joining the project, please send an email to Isidora Stojanovic (PI), explaining your motivation and interests, together with a complete CV.
Impartial observers make gradual assessments of the fairness of distributions.
These assessments depend on how well an individual is supplied with a relevant good.
If information on a need threshold is given, these assessments are made relative to this reference point. (Bauer et al. 2023a [later published as Bauer et al. 2025])
Impartial decision-makers consider need, productivity, and accountability when making hypothetical distribution decisions.
If an individual’s productivity is not sufficient to cover their needs, these higher needs are partially compensated for (at the expense of other individuals who are not so badly off)
Willingness to compensate decreases if an individual is accountable for having produced less or for needing more. (Bauer et al. 2022)
Both impartial observers and impartial decision-makers attribute different levels of importance to different kinds of needs.
This reveals a hierarchy of needs in the following order: Survival, Decency, Belonging, Autonomy. (Bauer et al. 2023b)
Literature
Bauer, Alexander Max, Frauke Meyer, Jan Romann, Mark Siebel, and Stefan Traub (2022): “Need, Equity, and Accountability. Evidence on Third-Party Distribution Decisions from a Vignette Study,” Social Choice and Welfare 59, 769–814. (Link)
Bauer, Alexander Max, Adele Diederich, Stefan Traub, and Arne Robert Weiss (2023a): “When the Poorest Are Neglected. A Vignette Experiment on Need-Based Distributive Justice,” SSRN Working Paper 4503209. (Link)
Bauer, Alexander Max, Jan Romann, Mark Siebel, and Stefan Traub (2023b): “Winter is Coming. How Laypeople Think About Different Kinds of Needs,” PLoS ONE 18 (11), e0294572. (Link)
Bauer, Alexander Max (2024): Empirische Studien zu Fragen der Bedarfsgerechtigkeit, Oldenburg: University of Oldenburg Press. (Link)
Bauer, Alexander Max (2025): Empirical Studies on Questions of Need-Based Distributive Justice, Paderborn: mentis. (Link)
Bauer, Alexander Max, Adele Diederich, Stefan Traub, and Arne Robert Weiss (2025): “Thinking About Need. A Vignette Experiment on Need-Based Distributive Justice,” The Journal of Economic Inequality 23 (3), 667–693. (Link)
Antonio Gaitán Torres and Hugo Viciana organize a workshop on “Moral Epistemology and Social Progress – Experimental and Philosophical Perspectives,” which will take place at the Universidad de Sevilla from November 4 to 5.
Abstracts for presentations can be submitted until September 17. The call reads:
This focused workshop explores the intersection of empirical research on moral cognition and philosophical theories of social and moral progress. We bring together experimental philosophers and moral epistemologists to examine how empirical findings about moral intuitions, attitude change, and intellectual virtues inform our understanding of moral improvement at both individual and societal levels. The workshop features invited speakers alongside selected contributions from an open call for abstracts, fostering intimate discussion among researchers working at the forefront of experimental and theoretical approaches to moral progress. Submissions addressing experimental studies of moral judgment, philosophical accounts of moral progress, or the epistemology of moral improvement are particularly welcome.
We welcome submissions for 3–4 additional presentations at this workshop. Interested researchers should submit an abstract of 350–750 words addressing topics at the intersection of moral epistemology, experimental philosophy, and social progress. Abstracts might explore empirical studies of moral cognition, philosophical theories of moral improvement, experimental metaethics, intellectual virtues, the psychology of moral change, or related themes in moral epistemology. Please send your abstract to both hviciana@us.es and agaitan@hum.uc3m.es with the subject line “November Workshop.” The deadline for submissions is 17 September 2025. Selected presenters will have approximately 30 minutes for their presentation followed by discussion.
Alex Davies and Nikolai Shurakov organize a conference on “Law’s Many Users – Legal Interpretation Within and Beyond Legal Institutions,” which will take place at the University of Tartu from November 12 to 14.
Abstracts for presentations can be submitted until August 12. The call reads:
Law is interpreted and implemented by many hands. Some of them belong to judges, legislators, or lawyers – but many belong to nurses, teachers, municipal officials, or department heads: professionals who encounter law not in courtrooms or casebooks, but in institutional documents, contracts, checklists, and internal protocols. These actors do not interpret law as legal theorists or as abstract “laypeople,” but as role-bound individuals embedded in specific organizational contexts. Their understanding of legal norms is shaped by institutional incentives, bureaucratic hierarchies, resource constraints, inherited routines, and pressures to defer to internal authorities. They are interpreters, but also implementers – conduits through which law acquires practical meaning.
While experimental jurisprudence has deepened our understanding of how legal concepts like causation, intention, or rights are grasped by legal experts and ordinary citizens, it has rarely focused on this middle terrain: how individuals interpret legal rules as part of their job, within the constraints and affordances of organizational life.
This conference is an occasion for exploring that terrain.
Call for Abstracts (submission deadline: August 12, 2025)
We invite submissions from scholars across disciplines interested in how laws and regulations are interpreted, implemented, and transformed in real-world institutional settings.
Legal meaning is shaped not only in courts or legislatures, but in offices, classrooms, clinics, and council chambers – by actors whose interpretations are framed by professional roles, organizational logics, and institutional incentives. This conference invites reflection on the interpretive practices that emerge in such contexts, and how these practices affect what law becomes in use.
We welcome work from experimental jurisprudence, philosophy of language, linguistics, law & economics, public administration, and related fields. Contributions may be theoretical, empirical, or methodological.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
Studies of how non-lawyers interpret and apply legal or regulatory texts
Experimental investigations of interpretation in institutional settings
Pragmatic and semantic analysis of policy and legal communication
Incentive structures and role-based reasoning in interpretation
Legal meaning as mediated through contracts, guidelines, or protocols
Interpretive drift and discretion in organizational environments
Extensions or critiques of experimental jurisprudence beyond traditional contexts
Interdisciplinary methods for studying law “in the wild”
Abstracts are applications for either 30-minute slots (20 minute talk + 10 minute discussion) OR 1-hour slots (30–40 minute talk + 30–20 minute Q&A). Abstracts (max. 600 words – excluding a list of references) should: (a) make clear the line of argument for the conclusion defended; (b) make clear the relevance of the envisioned talk to the conference theme; (c) make clear whether your applying for a 30-minute or 60-minute slot; and (d) be prepared for anonymous review.
Submitting Abstracts: Abstracts should be submitted with a separate coversheet (author, email, institution) to laws.many.users@gmail.com.
The 2025 “Basel-Oxford-NUS BioXPhi Summit,” organized by Tenzin Wangmo, Brian D. Earp, Carme Isern, Christian Rodriguez Perez, Emilian Mihailov, Ivar Rodriguez Hannikainen, and Kathryn Francis, will take place from June 26 to 27 at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
The program consists of 15 talks and seven posters, framed by two keynotes.
June 26, 8:30–17:30 (UTC+2)
Matti Wilks (University of Edinburgh): “Who Has an Expansive Moral Circle? Understanding Variability in Ascriptions of Moral Concern”
Eliana Hadjiandreou (University of Texas at Austin): “The Stringent Moral Circle – Self-Other Discrepancies in the Perceived Expansion of Moral Concern”
Daniel Martín (University of Granada): “Mapping the Moral Circle with Choice and Reaction Time Data”
Neele Engelmann (Max Planck Institute for Human Development): “Understanding and Preventing Unethical Behavior in Delegation to AI”
Yuxin Liu (University of Edinburgh): “An Alternative Path to Moral Bioenhancement? AI Moral Enhancement Gains Approval but Undermines Moral Responsibility”
Faisal Feroz (National University of Singapore): “Outsourcing Authorship – How LLM-Assisted Writing Shapes Perceived Credit”
Jonathan Lewis (National University of Singapore): “How Should We Refer to Brain Organoids and Human Embryo Models? A Study of the Effects of Terminology on Moral Permissibility Judgments”
Sabine Salloch (Hannover Medical School): “Digital Bioethics – Theory, Methods and Research Practice”
Markus Kneer (University of Graz): “Partial Aggregation in Complex Moral Trade-Offs”
June 27, 8:30–16:30 (UTC+2)
Federico Burdman (Alberto Hurtado University) and Maria Fernanda Rangel (University of California, Riverside): “Not in Control but Still Responsible – Lay Views on Control and Moral Responsibility in the Context of Addiction”
Vilius Dranseika (Jagiellonian University): “Gender and Research Topic Choice in Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine”
Jodie Russell (University of Birmingham): “Sartre and Psychosis – Doing Intersectional, Phenomenological Interviews with People with Experience of Mental Disorder”
Aníbal M. Astobiza (University of Granada): “Spanish Healthcare Professionals’ Trust in AI – A BioXPhi Study”
Nick Byrd (Geisinger College of Health Science): “Reducing Existential Risk by Reducing the Allure of Unwarranted Antibiotics – Two Low-Cost Interventions”
Rana Qarooni (University of Edinburgh; University of York): “Prevalence of Omnicidal Tendencies”
On Monday, March 10, from 14:30–16:00 (UTC+1), the “Slurring Terms Across Languages” (STAL) network will present Claire Horisk’s talk “Derogatory Speech – Conversations, Hearers, and Listeners” as part of the STAL seminar series. The abstract reads:
In discussions of how to mitigate political and cultural polarization, we are often told that we should listen to our opponents. But should we listen regardless of what they say – even to derogatory speech? From the standpoint of philosophy, the prescription to listen lacks subtlety, and we cannot reach greater subtlety without a philosophical account of listening itself. In my recent work, I distinguish between listening and hearing and argue that listening to derogatory speech in the context of a conversation is sometimes morally wrong. In this talk, I expand my account, particularly with respect to how power dynamics affect who counts as a conversational participant.
The talk can be joined using Zoom. Please write an email to stalnetwork@gmail.com for the invitation link.
In a previous post, I wrote about a course (which I taught together with Stephan Kornmesser in the summer term of 2024) for master’s students who had no previous contact with X-Phi at all. After learning some methodological and statistical basics and conducting their own small replication of Knobe (2003), they had the opportunity to develop their own questions and conduct their very own studies in small groups. Below, Johannes Bavendiek, Marvin Jonas Laesecke, and Aileen Wiechmann present some results from their study on the perception of civil disobedience.
The Perception of Civil Disobedience
Johannes Bavendiek, Marvin Jonas Laesecke, and Aileen Wiechmann
Civil disobedience is a highly topical issue in light of current political events and protests. For example, groups of protesters like the “Letzte Generation” in Germany currently use this form of protest, fighting current climate change legislation. However, the legitimation of civil disobedience in their case was questioned by wider parts of society. Further, the definition of non-violence as an essential condition for civil disobedience turned out vague and unclear. In which cases is a protest violent in people’s eyes, and which kind of civil disobedience is considered legitimate? Does it make a difference who’s affected by the consequences of civil disobedience or does only the manner of the protest matter? These questions will be explored in this survey.
As a part of political philosophy, different philosophers over time have defined the term “civil disobedience” and discussed its potential influence on society, (in)justice, and democracy. Philosophers like Henry David Thoreau, John Rawls, Hannah Arendt, or Jürgen Habermas are some of them (see, e.g., Thoreau 1849, Rawls 1999, Arendt 2000, Habermas 1983). In the following, we focus on Jürgen Habermas’ definition. His work is one of the most recent ones focusing on civil disobedience as a part of modern democracy, and he refers to Rawls’ definition of the term. Focusing on Habermas seems fitting because the context of a modern democracy makes the definition most applicable to a survey addressed to people in Germany nowadays.
According to Jürgen Habermas (with reference to John Rawls), civil disobedience is a form of protest often aiming for a change in government policy and/or laws, and a protest has to meet four conditions to be classified as civil disobedience (cf. Habermas 1983, 34ff.). The protest has to be
determined by conscience,
a deliberate infringement,
a public act, and
non-violent.
We chose to approach this with an online questionnaire and created a number of vignettes in which a company intended to clear woodland and resettle a village in favor of coal mining. A protest group used (a) different variants of civil disobedience against (b) either police officers or civilians. All of the above-named conditions were always fulfilled except for the last one. Only the manner of protest as well as the group of affected people were varied.
Regarding the manner of civil disobedience (a), we created three different levels of (non)violence, ranging from nonviolent (peacefully not clearing the forest) to a more violent manner (blocking people on the street) to the most violent manner (throwing rocks at people). Changing the manners of protest allowed us to compare the perception of different levels of (non)violence and to evaluate which manners of protests were perceived as more or less violent and as more or less legitimate. Additionally, the variation of people affected by the protests (b) allowed us to investigate whether who’s affected by the consequences makes a difference in the judgement of (non)violence and (il)legitimacy. This leaves us with the five between-subjects variations displayed in Table 1.
Affected Group / Manner of Protest
Peaceful
Blocking
Throwing
Civilians
1
2
3
Police
1
4
5
Table 1: Between-subjects variations
Here is a translation of the vignette for variation 1:
A company plans to clear an old forest for coal mining and relocate a village in the process. The company complies with all legal standards, legally purchases the mining rights, and compensates the village’s inhabitants. However, a group of people filed a lawsuit against this deforestation, as they do not see coal mining as sustainable in terms of climate protection but rather as a threat to the future. The courts do not uphold this complaint. Even after long demonstrations, no change can be brought about at the company. The clearing of the forest comes closer, and the group decides to occupy the forest illegally by chaining themselves to the trees. They do this because it is not in their conscience for the forest to be cleared for coal mining or for the village to be relocated. The group also invites the press to draw public attention to their concerns. The group does not voluntarily comply with the eviction order but allows the police to remove them peacefully.
In variation 2, the last part is changed to the following:
The group does not voluntarily comply with the eviction order. When the eviction is announced, they also block the access roads to the forest to avoid the eviction. Civilians are blocked in their everyday lives.
In variation 3, it reads:
The group does not voluntarily comply with the eviction order. When the eviction is announced, they also block the access roads to the forest to avoid the eviction. Civilians are blocked in their everyday lives. When the civilians try to break up the blockade by carrying all kinds of objects and the now chained demonstrators to the side, the demonstrators take stones and throw them at the civilians.
In variations 4 and 5, “civilians” is simply replaced with “policemen.”
A total of 265 participants took part in our survey. Our findings are summarized in Figure 1, below, reporting the results of χ² tests between two variations for the yes-or-no questions “Is this kind of protest justified in a democracy?” (Justification) and “Would you classify this type of protest as violent?” (Violence).
Figure 1: Results of χ² tests between two variations for Justification and Violence
Comparing the manners of protest, we did not find a significant difference between peaceful protest and blocking civilians or policemen (neither regarding Justification nor Violence). However, the evaluation for throwing rocks significantly differs from peaceful protest and blocking people (regarding both Justification and Violence). This means that it didn’t matter to our participants whether the group protested peacefully or if they blocked someone; both of these manners were perceived as significantly less violent and more legitimate than throwing rocks.
Surprisingly, it didn’t make a difference (neither regarding Justification nor Violence) to our participants whether civilians or policemen were affected (“Blocking Civilians” vs. “Blocking Policemen” as well as “Throwing Rocks at Civilians” vs. “Throwing Rocks at Policemen” are not evaluated significantly different). Another surprising result is that about one-third of our participants didn’t consider throwing rocks violent in case civilians were affected. Also, one-third considered the peaceful protest to be illegitimate. About 38% even considered it to be violent.
Arendt, Hannah (2000): In der Gegenwart. Übungen zum politischen Denken II, Munich: Piper.
Habermas, Jürgen (1983): “Ziviler Ungehorsam – Testfall für den demokratischen Rechtsstaat. Wider den autoritären Legalismus in der Bundesrepublik,” in Peter Glotz (ed.): Ziviler Ungehorsam im Rechtsstaat, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 29–53.
Knobe, Joshua (2003): “Intentional Action and Side Effects in Ordinary Language,” Analysis 63 (3), 190–194.
Rawls, John (1999): A Theory of Justice, revised edition, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Thoreau, Henry David (1849): “Resistance to Civil Government,” in Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (ed.): Æsthetic Papers, Boston and New York: E. Peabody and G. P. Putnam, 189–211.
In a previous post, I wrote about a course (which I taught together with Stephan Kornmesser in the summer term of 2024) for master’s students who had no previous contact with X-Phi at all. After learning some methodological and statistical basics and conducting their own small replication of Knobe (2003), they had the opportunity to develop their own questions and conduct their very own studies in small groups. Below, Bastian Göbbels and Marina Hinkel present some results from their study on the perception of the moral obligation to help others.
The Perception of the Moral Obligation to Help Others
Bastian Göbbels and Marina Hinkel
The United Nations calculated a donation amount for development aid in the 1970s that wealthy countries could contribute to prevent the global consequences of absolute poverty – 70 cents per 100 earned dollars. In 2013, only Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden reached this donation target. At that time, Germany was at 0.38–0.43 cents (cf. Singer 2013, 344). The bottom line is that we could contain extreme global poverty and its consequences relatively easily, but the reality is different.
Peter Singer raises the question of whether we have an obligation to help those in need and to whom we have moral obligations (by “we,” Singer means individuals in wealthy industrialized countries – including himself). Singer argues that we should, for example, prevent a certain level of absolute poverty because absolute poverty is bad, because we could prevent a level of absolute poverty without having to make comparable sacrifices, and if we can prevent something bad without having to make a comparable sacrifice, we should do so (cf. Singer 2013, 356f.). Singer reinforces the last premise by pointing out that it only requires us to prevent bad things and not to promote good things (this corresponds to the consequentialism of utilitarianism; cf. Singer 2017, 36).
Singer illustrates the principle of the obligation to help with a thought experiment about a child in a pond that is in danger of drowning. Here is how Singer himself describes the “drowning child”:
To challenge my students to think about the ethics of what we owe to people in need, I ask them to imagine that their route to the university takes them past a shallow pond. One morning, I say to them, you notice a child has fallen in and appears to be drowning. To wade in and pull the child out would be easy but it will mean that you get your clothes wet and muddy, and by the time you go home and change you will have missed your first class.
I then ask the students: do you have any obligation to rescue the child? Unanimously, the students say they do. The importance of saving a child so far outweighs the cost of getting one’s clothes muddy and missing a class, that they refuse to consider it any kind of excuse for not saving the child. Does it make a difference, I ask, that there are other people walking past the pond who would equally be able to rescue the child but are not doing so? No, the students reply, the fact that others are not doing what they ought to do is no reason why I should not do what I ought to do. (Singer 1997, par. 1f.)
The principle should be applied equally to all cases, regardless of whether I am the only person potentially helping, e.g., by saving the child in the pond, or one of many, e.g., by donating (cf. Singer 2017, 37). Although Singer does not regard failure to help as intentional killing but as a moral challenge (cf. Singer 2013, 354), he emphasizes elsewhere that absolute poverty means a death sentence and that the diseases responsible for this are preventable (cf. Singer 2013, 341f.).
Under the premises of universalization, impartiality, and equality, the spatial aspect – distance or proximity to the person in need – should be obsolete, according to Singer. In light of globalization, with today’s improved communication and transport conditions, distance can no longer be an excuse for lack of assistance (cf. Singer 2017, 37f.). Singer concedes: “The fact that a person is physically close to us […] may increase the likelihood that we will help them, but this does not prove that we should help them rather than any other person who happens to be at a greater distance” (Singer 2017, 37).
Singer argues that there is a certain level of extreme poverty that we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance in figures. On the one hand, he uses the amount calculated by the United Nations, which would be sufficient for basic development aid: 70 cents per 100 dollars earned. According to the World Bank in 2008, this would correspond to 1.25 dollars per day for a person’s basic needs (note currency-dependent purchasing power; cf. Singer 2013, 341). In 2008, the wealthy industrialized countries donated 19–43 cents for every 100 dollars earned (cf. Singer 2013, 344).
Based on Singer’s above-outlined thoughts, we wanted to investigate how spatial and social distance or proximity, as well as personal cost, influence the perception of moral obligation. To do this, we developed a vignette in which a child needs help from our subject. Between subjects, we varied (a) whether the child needs a new kidney directly from the subject or money for the same medical purpose, (b) whether our subject is said to know the child or not, and (c) whether the child is from the same neighbourhood, the same federal state, or a far-away country from the Global South. This resulted in a total of twelve different scenarios.
As an example, here is a translation of the vignette where a child from the neighbourhood, which the subject is said to know, needs money:
Imagine the following situation: You are informed that a child you know has life-threatening problems with his only kidney and, therefore, needs a donor organ. The child lives in your neighbourhood. You could donate one-third of your monthly income for the next two years without being at risk of losing your livelihood. With your help, the child would be saved.
After reading the vignette, subjects were asked to answer two yes-or-no questions: “Would you donate your money [kidney]?” and “Regardless of whether you would donate your money [kidney] yourself, do you think that someone in such a situation should donate their money [kidney]?” In the following, we will only look at the former question.
The online survey was programmed with LimeSurvey, and 630 subjects from Bilendi successfully participated (i.e., they did not fail an attention check and completed the survey).
A surprising finding is that more participants said they would donate a kidney than money (χ² ≈ 5.620, p < 0.05); see Figure 1. This increased willingness could be due to the fact that donating a kidney is perceived as more immediate and life-saving, while donating money is often perceived as less urgent.
Figure 1: Kidney vs. money
At the same time, we found that the willingness to donate does not change between the neighbourhood and the federal state (χ² ≈ 0.030, p > 0.1) but between the federal state and the far-away country (χ² ≈ 7.608, p < 0.01); see Figure 2.
Figure 2: Neighborhood vs. federal state and federal state vs. far-away country
Lastly, we didn’t find a significant difference when it comes to knowing the child or not (χ² ≈ 3.414, p > 0.05); see Figure 3.
Figure 3: Known vs. unknown
Our results are partly consistent with Peter Singer’s assumptions. Nevertheless, they show that people’s willingness to help – at least in our hypothetical scenarios – seems to decrease with distance. Also, the type of aid (kidney vs. money) seems to play a role, while social proximity does not. Of course, these results need to be taken with a grain of salt, and further, more elaborate research is necessary. Interestingly enough, there is a discrepancy between given answers and actual behavior, as illustrated by the low numbers of organ donations in reality. While respondents signal a high willingness to help in hypothetical scenarios, practical implementation falls short of these expectations.
Knobe, Joshua (2003): “Intentional Action and Side Effects in Ordinary Language,” Analysis 63 (3), 190–194. (Link)
Singer, Peter (1997): “The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle,” New Internationalist 289. (Link)
Singer, Peter (2013): Praktische Ethik, translated by Oscar Bischoff, Jean-Claude Wolf, Dietrich Klose, and Susanne Lenz, 3rd edition, Stuttgart: Reclam. (Link)
Singer, Peter (2017): Hunger, Wohlstand und Moral, translated by Elsbeth Ranke, Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe. (Link)
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
