對失憶違規者的道德判斷之認知基礎

While moral cognition research has traditionally focused on the agent’s mental state before or during a moral violation (e.g., intent), much less is known about memory loss of the wrongdoing (i.e., post-offense mental state) in moral judgment. Despite commonly recognized in legal practice, the significance of agent’s memory in moral psychology remains underexplored. Across six experiments, this project investigated whether amnesia following a moral violation influences judgments of forgiveness, blame, and punishment. Participants read vignettes in which moral agents either retained memory of their offense (No Memory Loss) or lost it afterward (Memory Loss). Overall, memory loss consistently increased forgiveness, both when the violations were extremely severe (i.e., lethal harm, Experiments 1–2) to wide range of moral offenses (Experiments 3–4), while it was also found to reduce blame in less stable manner (Experiment 4 only), and lowered the punishment rating (Experiment 3-4). These findings suggest that although memory loss does not necessarily reduce agent’s perceived culpability, it enhances the forgivability and lessens the need for punishment. This may reflect a public intuition that memory plays a key role in moral reform, aligning with a rehabilitative (rather than retributive desert) view of justice. Supporting this, preventionists (i.e., those who view punishment as a means to prevent future wrongdoing) were more sensitive to memory loss effects than sanctionists (i.e., who emphasize punishment as a deserved consequence, Experiments 2 and 3b). Importantly, the effect appears to be specific to memory loss rather than general misfortune. In Experiment 4a and 4b, karmic control conditions tested this distinction: agents suffered memory loss and physical harm unrelated to their offense. While only standard Memory Loss increased forgiveness and reduced blame, both standard Memory Loss and karmic Memory Loss led to reduced punishment. This suggests that memory loss may be seen as a form of symbolic or karmic retribution, altering the perceived balance of justice. Together, these findings introduce memory loss as a psychologically meaningful factor in folk’s moral judgment—one that shifts how people weigh forgiveness and punishment, and blame in certain extent.