Misreading others' minds: Moral Dyads

The robot and the baby

Daniel Wegner and Kurt Gray’s The Mind Club describes research into how we view the minds of other humans. It turns out that we think of other minds as having two clusters of capabilities. One cluster gives a human the ability to plan and act. Call this agency. The other cluster gives a human the ability to feel, especially to feel pain. Call this feeling.

Some entities seem to have the ability to plan and act, but without feelings. A robot is one example. A telephone voice-response system is another.

Would you accept an apology from a computer? It seems odd to do so, given that a computer has no capacity to feel remorse.

Some entities seem to have feelings without an ability to plan and act. A baby is an example.

The moral dyad is a phenomenon where we attribute agency only to one side and feeling only to another side. This is the villain-victim mindset.

In graffiti, George Floyd is often depicted as a big baby. But he had agency. He could have not taken drugs. He could have cooperated with police.

Palestinian sympathizers treat Israelis as having no feelings and Palestinians as having no agency. But many Israelis are sad not have achieved peace with dignity for the Palestinians. And Palestinians have made choices that have not served the goal of achieving peace with dignity.

In most interactions, both sides have feelings, and both sides have agency. We seem to prefer not to see conflicts that way. Instead, we gravitate toward the moral dyad.

This essay is part of a series on human interdependence.