Mind-Reading, Morality, and the Case of the Missing Chocolate

How do you explain to little Abby why she shouldn't hit her sister, Zoey? Here's a tried-and-true approach: Ask Abby how she would like it if Zoey hit her.

Why does this approach generally work? First, we presume that Abby would not like being hit, and that she doesn't like being hit is a reason for Zoey not to hit her. Second, we presume that Abby can project herself into Zoey's shoes and imagine what it's like for Zoey to be hit. But this presumption entails a more basic presumption, namely, that Abby sees Zoey as "minded"--as the kind of thing that can (among other things) feel pain and desire to be free of it.

This final presumption, however, is false for all of us some of the time and for some of us all of the time. And this can have dramatic moral implications.

Before the age of four, most of us are "mindblind." We know this largely on the basis of the False-Belief Test, first introduced in an illuminating set of experiments by Heinz Wimmer and Joesph Perner (1983). Young children meet Maxi the Puppet. Children watch as Maxi puts a piece of chocolate in a hatbox and then leaves. While Maxi is away, Maxi's mother enters and moves the chocolate from the hatbox to the cupboard. When Maxi returns, the children are asked: Where will Maxi look for the chocolate? Children younger than four almost always point to the cupboard. For these children, there is only one perspective: their own. Others' actions do not correspond to any separate mental realm.

But by the time children reach the age of four or five, they tend to point to the hatbox. These children, it is suggested, attribute to Maxi a kind of mental representation of the world (call it a belief) that's independent of their own and, moreover, false. Perhaps not surprisingly, mindblindness persists in autistic children. In one study, eighty percent of autistic children failed the false-belief test.

What are the moral implications of all this? Some are easy to discern. For example, a key component of empathy is the ability to represent to oneself what another is feeling. (Abby has to recognize that hitting Zoey will cause Zoey to feel pain.) Therefore, lacking a theory of mind (as it is sometimes called) critically undermines empathic responses. And lacking empathic responses generally imperils one's conduct. (Psychopaths are notorious for their lack of empathy.)

More surprising implications come from the work of Liane Young and her colleagues at Harvard (2007). Young children are presented with two scenarios. In the first, Jones is approached by a stranger seeking directions to a restaurant. Jones intends to convey the correct directions to the stranger, but accidentally sends the stranger in the wrong direction. In the second scenario, Smith, too, is approached by a stranger seeking directions to a restaurant. But Smith intends to mislead the stranger by sending her in the wrong direction, but accidentally sends her in the correct direction. Who's naughtier, Jones or Smith? Children under the age of four regard Jones as naughtier than Smith. Five- and six-year-olds regard Smith as naughtier than Jones. Evidently, children begin to appreciate that what matters, morally speaking, is not so much what happens as what we intend to happen. And this--to complete the circle--requires the ability to see others as minded.

Alas, this quick sketch of our moral psychology is tidier than the truth allows. For one, psychopaths can pass the false-belief test. Hence, while a theory of mind might be a necessary condition for appropriate moral conduct, it's not sufficient. Psychopaths recognize that their victims suffer. They just don't care. So even if little Abby knows that hitting Zoey will cause Zoey pain, Zoey's pain has to matter to Abby.

And here the story becomes murky. Our best hope probably lies at the neurobiological level, for there are neuro-anatomical differences between psychopaths and the rest of us (largely in the paralimbic region). Autistic individuals do not share these anatomical and functional differences with psychopaths.

Where will we look for the chocolate now?