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Erkenn (2015) 80:445466
DOI 10.1007/s10670-014-9653-6
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
James R. Beebe Ryan J. Undercoffer
Received: 21 January 2014 / Accepted: 22 June 2014 / Published online: 9 July 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract Despite the swirling tide of controversy surrounding the work of Machery et al. (Cognition 92:B1B12, 2004), the cross-cultural differences they observed in semantic intuitions about the reference of proper names have proven to be robust. In the present article, we report cross-cultural and individual differences in semantic intuitions obtained using new experimental materials. In light of the pervasiveness of the Knobe effect (Analysis 63:190193, 2003, Philos Psychol 16:309324, 2003, Behav Brain Sci 33:315329, 2010; Pettit and Knobe in Mind Lang 24:586604, 2009) and the fact that Machery et al.s original materials incorporated elements of wrongdoing but did not control for their inuence, we also examined the question of whether the moral valence of actions described in experimental materials might affect participants responses. Our results suggest that uncontrolled moral valence did not distort participants judgments in previous research. Our ndings provide further conrmation of the robustness of cross-cultural and intra-cultural differences in semantic intuitions and strengthen the philosophical challenge that they pose.
Keywords Semantics Philosophy of language Cross-cultural Experimental
philosophy Knobe effect Moral valence
J. R. Beebe (&)
Department of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, 135 Park Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA e-mail: [email protected]
R. J. Undercoffer
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Moral Valence and Semantic Intuitions
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446 J. R. Beebe, R. J. Undercoffer
1 Introduction
In one of the most widely discussed papers in experimental philosophy, Machery et al. (2004) reported that East Asian and Western participants had different intuitions about the semantic reference of proper names that appear in the following vignettes:
Gdel1. Suppose that John has learned in college that Gdel is the man who proved an important mathematical theorem, called the incompleteness of arithmetic. John is quite good at mathematics and he can give an accurate statement of the incompleteness theorem, which he attributes to Gdel as the discoverer. But this is the only thing that he has heard about Gdel. Now suppose that Gdel was not the author of this theorem. A man called Schmidt, whose body was found in Vienna under mysterious circumstances...