How do theory of mind and moral cognition interact?

Abstract

“Theory of Mind” (ToM) means the ability to attribute representational mental states to others, such as beliefs and desires, and to explain/predict behaviors taking into account how these mental states commonly interact. “Moral Cognition” (CM), in a broad sense, refers to the way people make moral judgments, evaluating behaviors in the light of a system of norms. ToM and CM, skills that are part of human social cognition, although being distinct in computational terms (i.e. about their functional roles—domain of input processed and types of outputs produced) and neural embodiment, are processes that interact in various forms, with cognitive tasks that require them jointly. It is intended in this paper to analyze types of cognitive tasks in which ToM and CM interact (ToM taking as input an output of CM and CM taking as input an output of ToM), and in which ToM and CM are recruited separately. Due to the existence of clinical groups (e.g. individuals in the autism spectrum) having anomalous performance in certain cognitive tasks that recruit ToM and CM together (e.g. judging the behavior of an agent who, wanting to accomplish something good, caused an accidental injury to another person), it is necessary to investigate the exact role of each process in the production of these complex outputs to clarify the origin of the errors. Without taking into account experimental results that recruit ToM and CM alone it is not possible to determine whether the poor performance on a task that depends on the collective use of the two processes is the result of an impairment in ToM, CM or both.