Moral Absolutism as a Theory of Mind Deficit

Moral Absolutism as a Theory of Mind Deficit


Introduction


Moral absolutism is an attitude toward morality in which actions are not evaluated as right or wrong based on how they affect others and the reasons behind the action, but rather certain actions are deemed as intrinsically right or wrong, regardless of whether it causes harm, and regardless of the reasons behind the action. Typically, the basis behind what actions are considered wrong by individuals with moral absolutist attitudes is in normative rules that have been taught or observed by the person, religious & political belief systems, and disgust/social norm violation. In this post I argue and provide evidence for the hypothesis that moral absolutism is partially caused by deficits in theory of mind, and cognitive empathy.


Theoretical Basis


Cognitive empathy is a component of empathy that is characterised by the ability to accurately detect others mental states, intentions, thoughts, and emotions, understand the causes of others behaviour, intuitively imagine and simulate another person’s mind, understand how minds vary and different perspectives, understand communication based on intentions rather than common meanings or ‘rules’ (and ambiguous communication), and reflect on the intentions, thoughts, emotions, and behaviours of oneself and others, and understand their causes (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright 2004)(Gori et al. 2021)(Cloudfindings 2021a)(Conway et al. 2020). Understanding the reason behind a person's actions and how other minds vary is important for an accurate moral judgement: for example, if someone unintentionally says something which is considered inappropriate or seems similar to an offensive meaning different from the intended meaning, someone who lacks cognitive empathy would not be able to detect the intended meaning, nor potential differences in knowledge, experience, values, reasoning, personality, and culture that would change the meaning and nature of an action, but instead would perceive the action and person as “bad” in place of an explanation, make false assumptions about the person, and attribute blame to the person. If cognitive empathy is not used for moral reasoning, moral judgement instead would be based on what others seem to think of as being good or bad, and the values, meanings & belief systems of those around a person or their culture, and would be followed rigidly, and literally.


Moral Judgement in Autism


Autism at its core involves deficits in cognitive empathy, theory of mind, and imagination (Crespi et al. 2016). Therefore, studies investigating morality and autism can provide insight into how these traits affect morality. Autistic individuals, in contrast to the general population have been found to place more emphasis on conventional & normative rules when making moral judgements, and are often unable to provide appropriate justification for why an action was wrong without appealing to normative rules (McGeer 2008)(Vignemont & Frith 2008)(Shulman et al. 2012)(Fadda et al. 2016). Inflexible following of rules set out by authority/culture is also found (Takeda et al. 2007)(Tei et al. 2022), as well as an increased tendency to rely on existing belief systems to form worldviews (Andersen 2021). Finally, autistic individuals are more likely to rate disgusting or socially deviant actions as morally wrong than non-autistic individuals (Zalla et al. 2011), and are more likely to judge unintentional moral transgressions as intentional and apply harsher judgement to them (Koster-Hale et al. 2013)(Moran et al. 2011)(Roge & Mullet 2011). 


Dogmatism & Cognitive Empathy


Dogmatism is a trait and attitude related to moral absolutism, and is characterised by a reduced willingness to consider different points of view, more rigid standards for right and wrong, reduced awareness of alternative interpretations, and reduced willingness to update beliefs and account for new information. Dogmatism has been shown to have a medium-strong, negative association with cognitive empathy (Shearman & Levine 2006)(Vonk & Pitzen 2017)(Tackett 2018). Aspects and correlates of dogmatism such as reduced sense of humour and reduced awareness of alternative interpretations (Shearman & Levine 2006), show negative correlations with social intelligence and positive correlations with autistic traits (Cloudfindings 2021a). Dogmatism also inversely correlates with openness to experience (Samuel et al. 2012), which has been found to predict cognitive empathy most consistently out of the big 5 personality traits, along with agreeableness (e.g., De Corte et al. 2007). 


Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum


The obsessive compulsive spectrum includes obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), and is included within the autism spectrum (Cloudfindings 2021b, 2022)(Hummelen et al. 2008). Like autism, OCD & OCPD are associated with moral rigidity, and the tendency to base moral judgements on whether an action violates a normative rule or is disgusting, rather than whether an action causes harm or the intentions behind the action (Hosseinzadeh et al. 2020)(Whitton et al. 2014)(Samuel et al. 2012). OCD shows a weak negative association with cognitive empathy, and OCPD shows a moderate-strong negative association with cognitive empathy (Cloudfindings 2022)(Cain et al. 2016), consistent with the hypothesised relationship between moral absolutism and cognitive empathy, as dogmatism & moral rigidity are considered to be diagnostic of OCPD, but not OCD.


Morality & Hyper-Theory-of-Mind


While autism is characterised by reduced theory of mind (ToM) it is theorised and supported by a large body of evidence that the processes underlying ToM are increased to the point of dysfunction in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (Abu-Akel 1999)(Crespi & Badcock 2008)(Ciaramidaro et al. 2014)(Crespi et al. 2016)(Andersen 2021). If low ToM leads to moral absolutism, does excessive ToM lead to the opposite? Moral absolutists place greater emphasis on normative rules and authority in moral judgements, in contrast with schizophrenia, which is characterised by opposition and scepticism toward normative rules, values, and ways of thinking (Stanghellini & Ballerini 2007), and with schizotypy which shows inverse correlations with values of conformity and tradition (Hanel et al. 2019)(Hanel & Wolfradt 2016). Nozer et al. (2015) found that eccentricity and psychoticism showed a negative relationship with moral foundations of authority, ingroup loyalty, and purity (i.e., disgust-based) over other personality disorder traits, which contrasts with autism and the obsessive-compulsive spectrum. High schizotypy relative to autistic traits also shows a negative association with OCPD (Cloudfindings 2022a). Schizotypy is positively associated with openness to experience (Camisa et al. 2005)(DeYoung et al. 2012), which is inversely related with dogmatism. Finally, high schizotypy is associated with idiosyncratic worldviews, which may include unconventional values and morality (Andersen 2021). More research is needed to clarify how schizotypy affects morality.


Conclusion


While some research has investigated the psychological origins of moral/political attitudes & beliefs, most of this research has focused on culture and identity (e.g., comparing self identified liberals and conservatives), which is not likely to be underpinned by psychological traits nor predict everyday attitudes and moral judgments (for example, a self identified liberal and  conservative may have similar personalities and make every day moral judgments in an identical fashion, but attach heavily to their cultural affiliation and identity, and thus have opposing opinions on conventional issues consistent with conventional "liberalism" and "conservatism"). This may explain why left-wing authoritarianism exists despite authoritarianism traditionally being associated with right-wing political beliefs - a right wing personality with a left wing cultural affiliation. van Prooijen & Kuijper (2020) found that political extremists with opposing cultural affiliations/identity shared similar worldviews, further supporting this hypothesis. The tendency to self identify with a culture or existing belief system, and rigidly follow the rules associated with them is likely underpinned by reduced theory of mind, the latter discussed in this post, the former found in Cloudfindings (2022b). Most studies focus on traits considered "normal" but not traits associated with mental disorders at their extremes (e.g., theory of mind), or pathological traits, which limits insight into the psychological underpinnings of moral and political attitudes. This post supports the hypothesis that moral absolutism is underpinned by a reduced theory of mind, and future research should further explore the relations between morality, identity, social cognition, and political orientations.


  1. Zalla et al. (2011) Moral judgment in adults with autism spectrum disorders

  2. McGeer (2008) Varieties of moral agency: lessons from autism (and psychopathy)

  3. Grant et al. (2005) Moral understanding in children with autism

  4. Crespi et al. (2016) Imagination in human social cognition, autism, and psychotic-affective conditions

  5. Takeda et al. (2007) Moral judgment in high-functioning pervasive developmental disorders

  6. Vignemont & Frith (2008) Autism, morality, and empathy

  7. Tei et al. (2022) Decision flexibilities in autism spectrum disorder: an fMRI study of moral dilemmas

  8. Koster-Hale et al. (2013) Decoding moral judgments from neural representations of intentions

  9. Moran et al. (2011) Impaired theory of mind for moral judgment in high-functioning autism

  10. Roge & Mullet (2011) Blame and forgiveness judgements among children, adolescents and adults with autism

  11. Andersen (2021) Autistic-like Traits and Positive Schizotypy as Diametric Specializations of the Predictive Mind

  12. Shulman et al. (2012) Moral and social reasoning in autism spectrum disorders

  13. Fadda et al. (2016) Exploring the Role of Theory of Mind in Moral Judgment: The Case of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

  14. Shearman & Levine (2006) Dogmatism Updated: A Scale Revision and Validation

  15. Cloudfindings (2021a) Literal Language Scale: Development & Association With Social Intelligence

  16. Vonk & Pitzen (2017) Believing in other minds: Accurate mentalizing does not predict religiosity

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  20. Cloudfindings (2021b) The Shared Etiology of Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior and Autistic Repetitive Behavior

  21. Cloudfindings (2022a) Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder as an Autism Spectrum Disorder

  22. Whitton et al. (2014) Moral rigidity in obsessive-compulsive disorder: Do abnormalities in inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and disgust play a role?

  23. Hosseinzadeh et al. (2020) Moral judgements in obsessive-compulsive disorder: a narrative mini-review

  24. Abu-Akel (1999) Impaired theory of mind in schizophrenia

  25. Ciaramidaro et al. (2014) Schizophrenia and Autism as Contrasting Minds: Neural Evidence for the Hypo-Hyper-Intentionality Hypothesis 

  26. Crespi & Badcock (2008) Psychosis and autism as diametrical disorders of the social brain

  27. Stanghellini & Ballerini (2007) Values in Persons With Schizophrenia

  28. Hanel et al. (2019) Centrality of Religiosity, Schizotypy, and Human Values: The Impact of Religious Affiliation

  29. Hanel & Wolfradt (2016) The ‘dark side’ of personal values: Relations to clinical constructs and their implications

  30. Nozer et al. (2015) Dark and immoral: The links between pathological personality features and moral values

  31. Camisa et al. (2005) Personality traits in schizophrenia and related personality disorders

  32. DeYoung et al. (2012) From madness to genius: The Openness/Intellect trait domain as a paradoxical simplex

  33. Cloudfindings (2022b) Identity in Autism 

  34. Tackett (2018) The Composition of Worldviews: The Relationships between Conservatism, Religiosity, Empathy, Dogmatism, and Psychological Flexibility

  35. van Prooijen & Kuijper (2020) A comparison of extreme religious and political ideologies: Similar worldviews but different grievances

  36. Cain et al. (2016) Interpersonal Functioning in Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

  37. Hummelen et al. (2008) The Quality of the DSM-IV Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder Construct as a Prototype Category

  38. Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright (2004) The empathy quotient: an investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences

  39. Gori et al. (2021) Development of a New Measure for Assessing Mentalizing: The Multidimensional Mentalizing Questionnaire (MMQ)

  40. Conway et al. (2020) Understanding how minds vary relates to skill in inferring mental states, personality, and intelligence

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