Is Belief in Free Will a Cultural Universal?

Mind and Language 25 (3):346-358 (2010)
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Abstract

Recent experimental research has revealed surprising patterns in people's intuitions about free will and moral responsibility. One limitation of this research, however, is that it has been conducted exclusively on people from Western cultures. The present paper extends previous research by presenting a cross-cultural study examining intuitions about free will and moral responsibility in subjects from the United States, Hong Kong, India and Colombia. The results revealed a striking degree of cross-cultural convergence. In all four cultural groups, the majority of participants said that (a) our universe is indeterministic and (b) moral responsibility is not compatible with determinism

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Author Profiles

Hagop Sarkissian
CUNY Graduate Center
Felipe De Brigard
Duke University
Amita Chatterjee
Jadavpur University
3 more